Good Food, Being Grateful & Ether 12:27

Bowa!

Cohuyena? This week went by fast indeed. Sounds like you guys had a pretty successful week. I'm glad to hear that Devin ate some Alligator. It's good for the health. Speaking of eating exotic foods, I ate a hamburger today. It was so stinking nice. There's so much good food on this side of Freetown. Man, there is nothingggggggggg at all on the other side. It's pretty crazy how much of a difference there is. I almost hardly believe it's the same city. Which stories did you use? I'm curious. It's true though, being here makes you so grateful for everything I've ever had ever. Like it's hard just to comprehend how much you really have until you go out and sit down with people who have pretty much nothing. But I guess that's why the important thing isn't how much you have but about where you put your heart. If you set your heart upon the things of the world, you'll have a hard time ever being satisfied with your life. But if you focus on things that can be eternal (like family!), you'll wonder why you ever worried about what kind of car you had or how nice your shoes are.

Unfortunately we haven't had any more experiences with the pizza guy. When we went he was crazy busy and we just haven't seen him since. We ourselves have been pretty busy too. After some urging and taking time to go see a few of the auxiliary presidents, we got our branch to start having branch council and PEC! So that was a pretty big step. We also started getting Home Teaching set up. I never really realized how important that stuff is until I came here. Well really there were a lot of things I didn't realize how important they were until I came here. I've learned quite a bit about how the church runs. It's pretty interesting. It's also pretty true.

So just last night we went and saw this one guy we haven't been able to see in about 2 months or so. When we saw him he said he had been reading some of the pamphlets we left with him and he said there were a lot of things he wanted to change in his life. He told us about some of the concerns he had and he had a sincere desire to change and to come closer to Christ. One of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon is Ether 12:27, how if we come unto the Lord he can make weak things become strong. We shared that scripture with him and told him he needed to make the necessary sacrifices to overcome the world and come closer to God. That's how the Lord will be able to make those problems become the strongest attributes of his character. Even if it means he has to turn down a job opportunity in order for him to keep the commandments, he should do it. The cool thing about missionary work is that a lot of it is just testifying and telling people what you know to be true. It was a pretty sweet lesson and I hope that he will come to church this Sunday! Anyway, everything is going great as always. I will talk to you all next week!

Love,
Elder Stewart

 Elder (now brother) Jenkins before he went home

 Boku pizza!

Happy Birthday Elder Donaldson! Cake is insanely expensive. And I don't know how to make it. Haha.

Rain, Forever Families & Lots of Pics!

Helloooooo

 

Well, luckily for us the sun is just beginning to cool down! The hottest months here are like March - May. The rain has begun to come small and so the temperature comes down with it. So I'm always pretty happy when it rains. It'll be fun hiking up and down the mountains in the pouring rain. Luckily that doesn't really happen until like August. So hopefully by that time I'll be finding myself on flatter ground. I finally got access to my pictures, it still might be good to get a new card though. I was thinking I would copy all my pictures onto the flash drive and you guys would just save it to a computer when I get home and I'll just keep reusing the same card deleting pictures as I go, but that just makes me nervous. So if you wanted to send me a couple of 8GB cards or so, I wouldn't complain. Speaking of things I want (so needy), I wouldn't mind getting some more slap ya mama and any other kind of cajun seasoning. Everyone here loves that stuff. I finally finished that can today when we were cooking a massive breakfast. So some more would be pretty sweet. Anything else I would want... I mean Oreos are always acceptable. And any other food would be nice. My companion and I make the same like tomato stew every single day, some how we haven't gotten sick of eating every night yet. I should probably take a picture of it. It's had a pretty significant role in my missionary service. Anyway, I'm attempting to send about 16 pictures home, so I'll tell a quick story and then explain all the pictures! Oh, and I'm assuming you never got that flashdrive. The Elder, or I guess Brother's, name is Nick Wood. And he just got engaged. So find him on Facebook and ask him about it. Haha.

 

Okay, well one of the pictures is of two big things of pizza, which I'm pretty sure I already told you about. Anyway, there's a French guy that owns this nice little hut and he cooks the pizzas inside it. We've been there a couple of times to eat and every time we would go he would kind of come out and talk with us a little bit before going back in. He also seems pretty excited at the idea of a bunch of Americans buying lots of his pizza, so I think that might be part of the reason he's so friendly to us. Anyway, a couple of days ago we went to his shack to place a big order of pizzas to celebrate the end of Elder Jenkins mission and Elder Donaldson's birthday. When we came up this time he invited us inside and we sat down and told him the order (you'll see a picture of all the pizzas next week I'm sure). After we told him he started just talking with us a little bit. We were talking to him about why he's living here making pizzas in a little shack in the middle of West Africa (I feel it's a fair question), and he ended up just opening up to us a little bit and was talking about how he never sees his family, he was married before and it didn't work out so now he's living here with his new Sierra Leonian girlfriend, and how he's just kind of planning on not doing much but building up his little pizza shack. After he said all of that stuff he kind of seemed surprised with himself, closed back up, and told us the pizzas would be ready when we came to pick them up. As we were walking away I was just thinking about how unhappy and miserable this guy seemed. He had told us before he was previously in the mining business here and so I'm sure that he has made tons of money doing that, so that's why he's able to just do his little pizza business. But once again it goes to show you that money can't buy happiness. I was thinking about this guy and how in his mind the rest of his life is pretty much going to be him living alone with a woman he doesn't have any plans on marrying and just building a shack to sell pizzas. Man, if there is anyone who needs the gospel it's this guy! We weren't able to talk to him because he seemed to kind of want us to leave, but we'll see if something happens today when we go pick everything up. It really drove home the point that the things that make you happy in life is knowing you have a wonderful family. It makes sense why the gospel is so focused on how families can be together forever. It brings you the greatest joy! I love knowing that even after I die I can still be with all of you and with my own little family. Pretty sweet knowing the gospel is true! Anyway, Hopefully we will be able to talk with the guy sometime. He needs joy like nothing.

 

Okay well, lots of pictures this week, I know you've all been depressed like nothing because it's been a couple of weeks. I'll talk to you all next week!

 

Love,

Elder Stewart

 

 

 

 One of our investigators frying something called cheese straws. Basically it's like fried dough with some cream cheese like stuff mixed into it.

 PIZZA!!!!!

 Some guys packing filtered water into little sachets. This is how most people get filtered drinking water. They buy these small little sachet waters.

 Some adorable little children.

 One of our investigators made us some nice ground nut soup. So this is us enjoying like crazy. As you can see I've been eating very well in this apartment. Haha.

 My companion and I helping our investigator make cheese straws!

 Elder Ngerem posing near our tiny baptismal font. No cool river baptisms here. It's okay though.

 Baptism from a couple weeks ago! Elder Symons first one.

 The ice cream and cookies. And the super classy decorations in the background.

 Elder Ngerem's birthday. We had ICE CREAM AND CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. It was pretty stinking delicious.

 Elder Jenkins who gets on a plane to go home tomorrow! His branch gave him the shirt and the pants. He's a pretty sweet guy.

 This place is called Regent. It's pretty stinking sweet. We were waiting for our investigator to show up.

 A crazy huge beetle that found it's way into our apartment

 This is 28 eggs, a million potatoes and sausage and onions to make the giant breakfast. It was amazing.

 Elder Symons and Elder Donaldson cooking the breakfast. Don't worry I helped cooked. Yes Mom, I'm really learning how to cook things. It's magical. 

The giant breakfast we prepared this morning. Lots of nutritious fruits

 

 

A Mother's Day Call & A Weird Accent

Haha, i still can't believe you guys think I have a weird accent. I've been trying to get my camera SD fixed this whole time but it's giving me problems. I have lots of cool pictures to send, for example- my companion and I making something called meat pies. And pictures from the baptism yesterday! Sounds pretty crazy that the Nelson's got to go see Blue Man Group, my own Chicago trip sounds so lame now. There's no Primary program here. Or Mother's Day actually. It's kind of sad. Anyway, not much has happened here either. We played football this morning and then after we taught a lesson to this one woman who is ready to be baptized but is struggling to come to church. We talked about the Plan Of Salvation. Pretty sweet stuff right there. She said she'll come this Sunday.. we'll see how that really goes. Anyway, we need to go buy somethings in the marketplace and bargain down all the prices to what they're supposed to be. I love you all very much. Talk to you again next week!

Love,
Elder Stewart

Hi

Hi family,

Bad news, the computers are about to be shut off. So i'm alive. Love you all. I'll call around 12 or so on Sunday. Enjoy the week!

Love,

Elder Stewart