February 17, 2014

I don’t have much time.   We went to town today to buy a few things. It took us forever to get into town and then it was just one of those days that EVERYONE wanted to talk to us.  But it’s okay, This is a letter that I sent to President Kirkham today:

This week was a challenging week.  First off, we had the zone conference (with Elder Curtis, the Africa West Area President came) which made it a little hard to go out and see a lot of people, but we did manage to see one less active afterwards which was good.  I really enjoyed the conference.  I learned a lot of new ways to help others learn how to recognize the spirit.  Even for me, I did that personal study on page 95 of PMG.  I did it before the conference and then again after.  I learned that a lot of my prayers are very vague and not too specific.

Church was a little rough for Upper Caldwell branch, I counted how many people were in the chapel during the sacramental hymn.  I counted only 20 minus a couple of the small primary children, and 4 of those were the Elders.  After church I talked with the branch president.  President Smith is very open to the opinions we give to him.  Even this week we are going to the Branch Council meeting on Sunday to talk about some things, mainly just about how people need to visit other members.  We will ask for help to find the less-actives.  Since the church is building the new chapel, we want to fill it.  Instead of increasing the membership, we are going to strengthen it.  Pres. Smith is totally on board with it.  I'm excited to see how this branch will grow in the next couple weeks.

On Thursday we had a service project at a part member home.  We cleared some land at the back of the house for the children to play football.  We probably are going to go play with them next P-day. They were very happy that we helped (that was so much fun!! it was super hot too, so the sun beat us bad way.   We got covered in dirt, but we are little kids at heart even though we wear the name Jesus Christ on our chest.)  (end of the letter to President Kirkham)

On Valentine’s day I wore a red tie, not much to show your holiday spirit as a missionary. dark trousers, white shirt, but I get to change the tie!!!  Around our compound there are a lot of small children, we play with them on the daily!!! It’s great.  One is named Henya (sp?) he looks so funny!  He's learning how to talk, so listening to him is hilarious.  Most of the time he just points at us and just says "You!" we do it back to him and he laughs.  It’s fun to play with the kids.

Random thought: most people, when they try to say my name, say Elda Paul.  So this is how I get them to say it correctly.  "Elder Park, like you are parking the car," it makes them laugh every time!!! Sister Helena always asks me if I've parked my car.  Upper Caldwell is a tough area for missionary work, but the people are great.  

I love my mission!!!

This isn’t the best letter but time is super small.  I promise next week will be better. I love you all!!!

Elder Park
The White African
T.I.A.

I asked him about singing because I heard through the grapevine – his companion’s mom – that Collin liked to sing and sang a lot!   That made us all laugh!  He wrote:
The singing, there are times where I remember a song back at home so I just sing part of it while walking, it’s usually only a line or two.   Also, I sing at the beginning of companion study and at the close.   I sing all the time, mostly because I have to.  But yeah, I guess I sing. 

From an extra email I asked him why they call him Uncle Elder Park:  The Uncle Elder Park,  that was just one small girl that called me that.  But most of the time it’s just uncle.  It just shows respect to someone older than you.   Every woman I see, I call them ma.

Here is part of Elder Orton’s email this week, he also serves in the Liberia Mission:

"I wanted to share the numbers of the mission last week but I didn't have them with me but I do this week.  Worldwide last year, the church had 4.5 baptisms per missionary per year.  If you take out the U.S. numbers the average goes up to 5.7 per missionary per year. Within Africa it goes up to 10.5 per year. Then within West Africa it goes up to 12.7 per missionary per year. Within Liberia it goes up to 18.1 per year.  With these numbers the average missionary in Liberia would experience about 36.2 in one year and about 72.4 baptisms in the average mission.  Last year in Liberia we had 1201 baptisms and if you remember we didn’t really have that many missionaries here last year.  The mission wasn’t official until July.   It will be interesting to see how the numbers change. 

As of Christmas when I asked Collin, he was right on track with the Liberia number. 

Here is a picture he sent: 

Collin is top row, second from left

 

I got actual mail from Collin and it came with pictures!  Nothing makes this Mom happier than to see her son smiling in pictures taken on the other side of the world.  The letter was dated January 13, 2014.  I'll add the pictures at the end.

He mentioned in the letter that he was teaching a district lesson on Chapter 1 from Preach My Gospel.  He said he ended up using one of his Dad's coaching things from years ago, the ABC's, he wasn't planning on using it, but he realized they make sense for being a successful missionary as well as a good ball player.  Attitude, Battle, Confidence, Desire, Effort, and Family, Fun, and Fundamentals. 

"This mission is so cool.  Once or Twice a week we'll be walking or doing something that makes me pause and just have this thought:  'Holy Cow!  I'm in Africa!'    It's crazy to think I have lived here for a year and still have another year to go!   This place is so cool.  The people here are so cool.   I've said it before, everyone is just family.  Everyone is 'Ma' or 'Papa!'  Most of the time the small children, once they learn my name, call me 'Uncle Elder Park.'  That's just the culture.  It's sweet."

"Every Sunday we sing a cappella because no one knows how to play the piano, so none of the branches have a piano, only the district centers.  I miss having the piano or organ playing.  How we do it here is the conductor sings the first line or how ever much she wants to, counts to 3 and everyone joins in.  It's kinda cool.  Also, none of the songs are on key because no one has ever heard them on key.  It makes me laugh at the hymns during church sometimes since it sometimes is so off!   No one can sing here."

"So you may notice that in most of my pictures that my shoes are  really dirty.   Ya, I don't really polish.  There has been a few times that I have someone on the street do it and I give them money, yes, that is the job they do.  The reason why I don't is because most Liberians complain about not having shoes to wear to church and can't believe it's okay to wear slippers (flip flops).  So, I show them my shoes and say "Look at my shoes.  They are dirty.  It's ok to wear slippers."  Plus, everyday I walk on dirt roads or on trash.  To me it makes no sense to polish if I'm just going to do that the next day.   So there's that. 

 

"Elder Park
The White African
T.I.A."

and here are the pictures: 

 

This is Africa!

 

Don't know why I did my hands the same in both pictures"

 

Mom, here's your Santa picture!   This is Elder Lamont with a pillow!

We have taken pictures of the kids with Santa forever, and so I asked him if he could get one with Santa on mission, I told him he could be creative if he needed to.   This is what I got!  

What a smart alec.

This is Mama G, it's her yard name (nickname).  She is 6 or 7 and went around "bluffing" for Christmas with her new clothes.  Dated December 25, 2013

 

December 27, 2013.  We had a service project for the sumo family.  They are less active and we were hoping that this would help them come to church.

 

Sunrise in Gardnersville

 

February 10, 2014

By far one the best week I've of 2014!!!!

This week was fantastic!  Working alongside Elder Witehira is great.  He loves to work hard and so do I, so it’s perfect.   Even though we didn’t hit our weekly goals, we saw a lot of people. 

Our first lesson on Tuesday was with a very stubborn woman who 'has her church.'   We focused on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration.   Honestly I think she has her answer but just isn’t willing to admit it yet.  I think I ended up asking her one of my favorite questions to ask people who 'have their church,' "if Jesus Christ comes down right now and says my Son/Daughter ____, my church is the one over here, but you are going to the one over there.   What would you do?"   As missionaries, we are representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ.   We are telling people that Christ has his church. but since we aren’t Christ, we invite everyone to pray and ask for themselves.   It breaks my heart when people get their answer after praying and still refuse to accept it.  I pray that Sister Hawa doesn’t do that.

We had some younger girls call of over and wanted us to start teaching (or as they call it- preach to them).   we had a small lesson just kind of introducing ourselves and purpose to them.   It was really hard because they just wouldn’t listen.   During the lesson we saw that their pa walked by and after the lesson we went up to him as he was walking towards us.   Before we said a word, he starts talking to the girls about how we are men of God, and how they need not to waste our time.  It was really interesting to see the change in their faces, and nice to see that someone does recognize that we are here for a purpose and that we are representatives of Jesus Christ.    We said hello to the pa after he got done being vex with them.  Hopefully we will find a time that we can talk to the whole family and have a family investigator.

On Saturday we went to baptisms even though we didn’t have a candidate there.   At home I remember people saying that 'mormons' have a certain glow about us.  S aturday  I truly noticed it.   There was a sister who gave a talk and when she stood up to start talking, you could just tell that she had something about her.  It was even really cool to see the people who got baptized, to see the difference in their eyes from before they were baptized and after.   My whole life I never really noticed it.   This whole week, I've been noticing a lot more of just the small little things.   My conclusion, MY MISSION IS THE BEST!!!!!

The Upper Caldwell Branch needs help.  There are a lot of less active members.  I was shocked that when the sacrament was being passed, there were only about 15 people in the chapel.   The four Elders in my district/branch have a lot of work ahead of us. 

Our apartment is, well, not as bad as I thought it was going to be.   We have city water pumped to us so it’s nice.  But, we haven’t had a generator for the past 2 nights, we've lived in darkness.   We have no money to buy more gas so we go without power for a couple days.  (I asked him about this in an extra email, and he said:  I will go to the bank on Wednesday and get it.  District/apartment money is what pays for the gas, we get 100 USD for gas for a month.  It’s 350 LD so it’s almost 5 USD a gallon.   We have torches or flash lights,  i got myself a lantern looking thing.)    This mission is humbling.

I hope that you have a great week and I love you all and pray for you all.

Elder Park

The White African
T.I.A.

February 3, 2014

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
My email to him let him know that the Seahawks, who played the Broncos in the Superbowl the day before, had WON!!!!)

Wow this week was crazy!  So much happened! But at the same time, some days were boring.  It was interesting.

First off, I was thinking to myself the other day at how much I have changed on mission.  I eat boiled eggs almost every day, and I eat  fish every day.   At home, I would have never touched those things, now I eat them on a regular basis.  Mission changes people!

Wednesday I went on exchange with Elder Larsey (Ghana).  It was really good.   We focused a lot of the Book of Mormon, which was great.  A lot of people that we saw had questions about it.   We even helped a husband and wife learn what it is and what it talks about.  The guy is a Methodist, so he had a harder time understanding it.   It was a really good day.

Friday we had a service project in the morning.  It was so much fun.   We cut down these tree looking things that only grow in the swamp.    We then carried them a couple hundred feet to an investigators house for her to use them.   It was a lot of fun because we were walking around in a foot of water the whole time.  I took pictures.  I will try and print them out. 

After that we had to rush back to the apartment.  President Kirkham wanted to see Elder Myaka, myself, Elder Orton, Elder Baldwin and Elder Poulson.  It was a little scary going into town and seeing him.  There was a false report that was sent about us Americans and then President wanted to talk to me about my companion.  Everything was just a misunderstanding.  But, luckily, we weren’t the only ones in the office.   There was an outbreak of apostasy happening in the mission.  Just people being stupid.

Okay now for some news.  We got a call from the Assistants on Saturday.  TRANSFER NEWS!!!!!!!  I was totally expecting to stay in Gardnersville, but I was moved to Upper Caldwell to be a District Leader.  My companion is Elder Witehira, from Utah.   My companion is great, the AP's love this guy because he works.  He was born in New Zealand but moved to Utah about 10 years ago.   The guy seems like a stud.  I’m really excited to work with him!!!!   Elder Witehira has been in this area for 5 month or so, it's his first area.  My old area got white washed (they changed out all the missionaries there), it was probably the best thing for it to be completely honest.   I will miss it, but I’m needed somewhere different.

Once again!  GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

Elder Park

The White Africa

T.I.A.

January 27, 2014

This week wasn’t the best for us... we had a lot of bounces and lot of people that we've had to stop seeing because they don’t keep commitments.

Wednesday we went to an area that I don’t know very well.  We saw a less active man named Mustapha.  His family hasn’t been in church for a long time so we work hard to get them back.  We had a great lesson with him and we talked about the role of families, and focused on the role of a father.  We talked to him about setting a good example for his children.  He has a couple of daughters that are at the age where they will start to look for a husband.  I told him that daughters tend to marry someone like their father, ( I don’t know what happened with Katie though.... :) )  (fyi, Katie is Collin’s sister, and her husband Adam could not be more different that Collin’s Dad!).  That was a real eye opener for him. I believe that he will start to come back to church even though he didn’t come on Sunday.

Thursday we did a service project for the Zeahn's.  This family feeds us every time we go there.  They always have food waiting for us.  We a cut their grass with 'whippers'.  It was a lot of fun till the rain came... it’s supposed to be dry season but it’s rained once a week for the whole month...  We did a lot though but the rain ended the project for us.

Saturday I went with Elder Kamara into his area on exchange. I met this man one year ago!!!   We went on exchange to celebrate our one year!  It was a fantastic day.  We got bounced a couple times but we still managed to have a lot of great lessons.  We even taught a lesson to Margret who I taught a couple lessons to in Tinker Village, before she moved.  I was so happy to see that the missionaries were still seeing her.  I was so happy!  I had another great experience that lasted the whole day.

Ever since I got to Gardnersville, it’s seemed like I have struggled to teach people, struggled to teach well with my companion too.   I won’t lie, we don’t have great unity in our companionship.  Saturday I realized why, it was because the Spirit wasn’t with us.  In Tinker Village I felt like I could handle every concern and teach to really help the people, and then here I struggled.  I guess I just got so comfortable and so relaxed and so dependent on the Spirit that I forgot it was there with me.  Saturday, it was back and it was great. 

Future missionaries that read this, have good studies with your companion, it truly effects your entire day after.   It’s what brings the Spirit with you. 
 
I hope you all had and will have a great week.

Elder Park
The White African
T.I.A.

January 20, 2014

The week was really a good and busy one, but sadly not a whole lot to talk about.

I went on exchange with my friend from the MTC and from Sierra Leone.  Elder Kamara is the DL for our district and I took him into my area on Tuesday.  It was really good, he is a great teacher and teaches simply.  We didn’t get to see that many people, but the few lessons we had were good.   We were teaching Grace, who was taught by missionaries a few years ago, we were talking about the Book of Mormon and solving her concerns.  At the end of the lesson we extended a baptismal date and it was hilarious how she answered, "Well of course!"   For this mission everyone accepts a baptismal date, but to have someone answer that way was just funny.

Wednesday we had to travel to Paynesville for interviews with President Kirkham.   It was really good.  It was a good thing we were early because he was early.   We mainly just talked about the Elders in my zone, so it wasn’t too interesting.  I even got to see some members of my old district.  Man I miss hem!!!

Thursday the Assistants came and went on splits with us.  I was with one of the legends of the mission. Elder Pentreath, who is from England, is by far one of the best missionaries I have ever gone with.  I'll miss him since he has only 3 months left.  It was a great day.  we were with Jerry who is a little confused on who exactly we are, yes we remind him every week, buts it’s because he's an old papi!!!  Instead of teaching just him, we saw his wife there and we were able to turn one investigator into a husband and wife.  We also found a woman who wants us to come teach her.  She was also taught by missionaries a while ago.   It was really sweet!!

Most people who fall away from the church here because of the lack of testimony they have when they are baptized.   It doesn’t matter who teaches the person, if they don’t have a testimony, they will fall

away.  Mary hasn’t been to church in about a year.  The Elders who taught her were great, those two are also legends.  It’s sad though, great teachers, no testimony.  It’s because she never prayed about the Book of Mormon or about Joseph Smith.  If you are a non member and are reading this, I beg you, pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, then act accordingly to your answer. 

Friday and Saturday consisted of us walking all day looking for an apartment.   We found one at the end of the day Saturday, great spot too.  Shows me how much prayer really works.  I was really tired and we stopped for cold water.  I said a small prayer asking for help so we can find an apartment.  Just a few hours later, and countless drops of sweat, we found one!  The couples will come today or tomorrow to look at it. 

 This week was good, I hope yours was better!

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

Elder Park

January 13, 2014

This week seemed to fly!!!!

The beginning of the week wasn’t too eventful, nothing too special.  Just normal teaching every day all day long.   We did have a zone meeting though.   It was good I guess, it was just relaying the message President Kirkham instructed us on during our Mission Council.

Friday is when things started to pick up and get fun.  Friday we were supposed to go on splits with the AP's but they had something unexpected come up and had to reschedule.  But for us, we still went on splits.  I went with Brother Wah who served in Kenya and has been home for about 6 years.  Crazy thing is, he had a baby born just a week earlier.  The baby boy is good and healthy!!   No name yet, I think they are waiting for when they bless the baby at church.  Elder Myaka went with a man who is preparing to go on a mission.  The day was really good.  We even got to see a man that we planned on seeing but since he is always working, we were doubting if it was going to happen.  Soloman Toe is really cool, he's heard a lot of things about the church, but wanted to learn for himself.   Those people are fun to teach!

Saturday we had a meeting with the District Presidency.   This meeting is just so the District Presidency can see how us missionaries view the branches and what things we think they can improve on.  The two branches in my Zone are great.  They just got new leadership and are firing on all cylinders.   We really didn’t have much to talk about in our Zone.   One goal that the District has set for 2014 is to have more families come to church.  They will ask the branches to give us family referrals.  Families are what grows the branches and makes them strong!   They also want all the young men eligible for mission to serve a mission, which means more people will come with us when we teach.   Here, if you don’t go with the missionaries often, you don’t get papers to fill out.  Different culture, but totally cool!!  They have a lot more but those are the big ones that really involve us missionaries.

Getting home from that was a nightmare, but before that we walked around town and did some things, (family, you'll enjoy!!!)   Getting taxi (or the liberian way 'getting car') is always a fight, and I mean almost a legit fight. So what we do so we don’t have to fight, we give someone about 15LD and they get a car for us!  Hahah   We still stood there for about 45 minutes to an hour....  and we didn’t actually get a car, we got a motorbike that has been modified to have 4 people sit in the back,  kinda like something you'd see taking people around in the city, like the ones where the guy rides the bike with a seat in the back.   There was room for 4 but this is LIB, we got 6 in there!!!   It was the worst ride I've ever been on... oh well I got back safely.

This week was an historical week for the Monrovia Liberia Mission, and I think it’s an historical mark for any mission in the world.   We had more Member Presents lessons than Other lessons.  That means we had more members come teach with us in a single week than ever before.  (Other lessons are when there is no one there, just missionaries and the investigator).  The Total MPL was 395, the OL was 311.  That was just for one week!  Miracles are happening here in LIB.

I hope that everyone had a great week.
I love you all!

Elder Park
The White African
T.I.A.

I asked him why he was writing so much earlier, I used to get his emails around 8 am my time, but now they are coming in around 4 am, so I don’t get to send and receive any back and forth emails with him.  After he read the letter I sent to him he sent another one with answers to some of my questions.  My comp (who is South African, doesn’t have anyone to email)  likes to play football when I want to email,  so I give in and
have to email earlier.

I asked about the youth program in his branch.  The youth in my branch is small, only about 15 total.  They have one class that they all are a part off.  They sometimes use the new curriculum, but one thing people struggle with here is preparing lessons.   So often times the lessons aren’t the best.  Sometimes they do a lesson on an article from the Liahona though.  But still, not prepared.   The YW do the theme and whatever else they are supposed to, but none of them have it memorized.   Many members, all ages, are really good at being a Sunday Mormon.

No package yet, but I got one from Jennifer about 2 or 3 weeks ago, tell her thanks for me.  I got a letter from you on Friday,  thanks!!!   I also got one from the RS pres from Seattle Hill, tell her thank you.   Letters are never opened.   I think I've said that before.

Finding out they (Katie and Adam) moved was cool.  I hope that Adam will find the job he wants.   love you!