May 6, 2013
Hello World!
This week was pretty boring but it went by super fast, which
was nice.
(Twice a year we have what we call General Conference, there
are 5 sessions, they are broadcast on cable tv and over the internet. Where that isn’t possible, when it becomes
available on dvd then it can be sent to those areas. It is also available to read. Each session
different church leaders give talks on a
variety of different gospel topics). Yesterday at church we watched the Sunday morning
session of General Conference, at least I think it was Sunday morning, but
since the speakers talk "serious,"
meaning american english, I’m sure a lot of the people that were there
couldn’t understand a lot of it. For me,
I enjoyed it. It wasn’t till I came on mission that I loved conference, and I
will admit, I wish I would have been awake for it in the years past, I mean I
wish I wasn’t listening with my eyes
closed... :) It’s always good to hear
from the prophet. Time to be more
obedient!
During the week I find myself asking more and more questions
that make me think "did I really just say that?" More and more often I can feel the Holy Ghost
taking over and speaking through
me. I am becoming more bold with asking
questions and teaching. I hope that I
won’t become too bold and offend some people later on. But when I ask these questions I always seem
to get harder and harder questions, sometimes in the same lesson and sometimes
not. This man, John, grew up Muslim, 5
years ago changed to become a Christian man, as he put it, and today, you would
couldn’t even tell that he grew up Muslim. We were teaching him about the Book of
Mormon and we were reading the last paragraph of the introduction. He read that it is "preparatory to the
second coming of the Messiah" he then asked, "what is the purpose of
having the Second Coming?" For me,
I didn’t know how to answer, but thankfully my companion did. It’s to fulfill the prophecy of ancient
prophets. They have taught us that
Christ will come again and reign on the earth.
We can also call this the Millennium.
Reading/learning from the Book of Mormon is another way we can prepare
for Christ's coming. I never really thought about it that way
before.
We also sat down with another man named Gardea, (means new
man in basa, his tribes language). This
man was/is a pastor/preacher/minister of another church, still Christian though.
He heard about the Book of Mormon in
the 90's when it first came to Liberia.
He said he asked a lot of questions that the members couldn’t answer, they were just members and not
missionaries. Since we passed by him he
called us over and asked who we were. He
said to come back the next day. So we
did. He asked us a lot of questions
about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the about the church in general. At the end of us talking he said he wanted to
become a member of our church. Talking
with him, I could see that he is prepared to hear our message and that he will
become a great member, it’s going to take some work on our part, but he'll get
there. This lesson went completely
different than I thought it was going to go.
I thought that he was going to try and Bible bash, but it turned out
exactly how I wanted it to. This man is
going to be a good, faithful member someday.
To answer some questions: my apartment is really small and we have 4
missionaries total, two Africans and two Americans. My companion, Elder Marondera from Zimbabwe,
is great, he doesn’t talk too much, but
enough. He was baptized in 2006 and is
a couple years older than I am. He may
have years on me but I got height on him!!
He's been out for about 9 months I think, he reported late in July. We have running water most of the time but
there is a well about 50 feet outside the door. So we always have water. In Liberia there is a water shortage but for
some reason none of the missionaries are having a problem with it. The only times that I have had a problem with
water is when we call the water man too late, thus far, I've never had a
problem. We have a generator that we
start at about 7:30pm and let it run till it turns off on its own which is at
about 1 am or around there, we never fill the tank though. Where we live is close to the beach so we
get a really nice ocean breeze at night, so it’s still pretty nice to
sleep. The area I am in now is about a
50 minute drive away from the last area I was in. I’m on the opposite side of the city from where
I was. To travel there would cost a lot
of money for me. It’s alright, I’m sure
I will be able to get back to Bushrod Island before my mission ends.
My interview with President Roggia (the mission president) was
good but very short. I didn’t have any
questions for him and he didn’t have any for me. He asked me about my area and my companion
and that was pretty much it. He's good
though. I like him a lot.
Anyway, I love you all and miss you all,
Elder Park
The White African
T.I.A.
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