Pineapples, Mangoes and Running

Hello my mother and my dear friends and family. Oh, mother, you never
know! Elder Barth received a box in November with the title on the
front (CHRISTMAS BOX)...from the previous Christmas 11 months before
haha, so never lose hope :) But, I am glad that you enjoyed the
picture. I am not sure which one it is, but Sister Roggia knows and
loves you mother so she always tries to get pictures of me when I'm
there just to get you a smile. she is so sweet :)

As for my personal study mother, I usually gym until 7:10 and then hit
the shower and get dressed by 7:40, so I like to begin my studies
early and study Jesus The Christ until about 8:10...then, I dive into
the 12 week fundamentals and Preach my Gospel until about 8:30 or
8:40, then use the remaining time to read the Book of Mormon. I am
about to finish it for my 2nd time on mission, so that is sweet :) I
am also about 400 pages into Jesus The Christ, which is the last of
the 4 books I have yet to read, so I am learning SO much from that.

At night when we go on the roof, you can see TONS of stars. More than
I have ever seen really. but, depends on the night and the time. If
the people are out and about, the generators are on and lights are on,
its just like America...not plenty stars, but some nights there are so
many...but, honestly my absolute favorite is secluded sections of the
beach in Corolla...that is the most beautiful I have seen in my life.

Ah, so jealous to hear about your fun trip down to the beach. I'm going
to be honest, often times when I think of home I think about either
our house, or the beach. Which is funny since I spend very little time
at the beach during the year. But, I never really think of BYU as
home...just our nice cozy home and some nice random beach
cottages...I'll buy one one day ;) if I'm uber lucky!

I have been ENJOYING pineapple every other night of the week. We
bought a ton and just stored them so every other night me and Elder
Flament cut up a big pineapple and split it. GOSH, do our mouths hurt
when we are finished. they are so sore and our teeth hurt and our lips
are in so much pain we can't open our mouths but it's just so delicious
that we can't resist haha. and its MANGO SEASON IN BO, yes that is
right, the mangoes are ripe in Bo, and now I'm back to eating 2-3 a day,
which just makes everything amazing. Got a good rain this week as
well.

But this week...., Well, on Tuesday we came to our area and I had
bought ginger, limes, and sugar and filled up 4 bottles of purified
water, 6 liters, and took them to an awesome woman named Grace, who
made all the ginger beer for us :) it was so awesome and so delicious,
but unfortunately I was forced to drink them QUICKLY before they
spoiled/fermented hahaha. no power at the apartment so you can't
freeze it so had to drink it that night and the next one before it
starts getting stinky...oh dry season...

Had another sweet lesson at the stadium with M  this
week. We were teaching him and a bunch of other young guys about the
word of wisdom and I asked if he had any problems with any of these or
anything and he said no, and immediately like a tish load of guys
burst out of their little shack rooms and came into the mess hall and
just stood around him shouting at him saying things along the line of
"You go lie to de white man dem? Dey no de com for hear you lie, dey
dey come for help you. Stop for lie! Stop for lie!" ah it was great
haha so he confessed and told us that it didn't matter if he did
before...because now hearing it was bad he was never going to do it
again, to which I whole heartedly agreed with him and assured him we're
not here to judge, we're here to help, and the past is not whats
important, it's the change :)

Took another journey into the bush this week to check out our backup
location for the baptism on Saturday....wasn't wholly confident in the
water truck coming, so decided to go out with the branch president to
go check the river and we found a nice clean spot...much to our
fortune considering my expectations were correct, and water was not
delivered on Saturday morning. I was very upset also to get a phone
call Thursday night that our beloved baptismal candidate Jane
would not be able to attend because she had to leave for an emergency to
Freetown...but, it's okay, She will be baptized this coming Saturday :)
and Sallay  was still able to be baptized, which was an awesome
experience. She is the
most genuine girl in the world. She doesn't understand things well,
But I believe she understands her relationship with God better then
anyone I have met here. It took forever to teach her and get her to
pray, but ever since she has prayed the most beautiful heartfelt
prayers that I have heard my entire mission. Prayers that matter,
prayers that show her faith, prayers that are simply beautiful and
personal. She doesn't use big words or elegant speech, but she prays
as if she was sitting and talking with God about her life...and that is
perfect to me :)

So, teaching one great guy Friday and he wanted the message to be
shared to all his friends...who speak only mendeh, so we had a super
long lesson with him, in which we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ,
while he translated everything we said to his Muslim mendeh friends,
who smiled and nodded their heads and looked to really be enjoying the
lesson, so we will see what comes of that blessing :)

Randomly on Saturday we were walking through a new part of our area
taking a shortcut, and a bunch of kids were standing afar at a house
and were yelling at me "come" "Pumwee, come" and I was like "I no dey
come, una come" and this went back and forth for a minute until they
started approaching us, and for some reason Elder Flament and I both
turned and started running as fast as we could through the village
away from them haha, so you see two funny looking white men running
through the village with 10+ kids screaming running after them yelling
untranslatable mendeh phrases hahaha eventually we outran them, but I
decided to go back and greet all of them :) great bunch of little guys
and girls. Maybe I'll see them again one day haha

Yesterday was complete craziness at the church. We had a combined
service between Messima branch and New barracks branch in which the
district presidency and also President and Sister Roggia were present
for the splitting and sustaining of the new branch boundaries. The
previous boundaries were not convenient to the people and often had
people living close to the chapel walking miles to the other chapel
because of their defined areas, but this meeting was designed to fix
that, so...its back to 2 missionaries in Messima, and now 4
missionaries are in New Barracks...I am remaining in the Messima branch
:) Presient Roggia gave  an amazing testimony towards revelation and
also making the church a safe heaven for the "sheep of the fold" and
keeping out the "ravenous wolves" who prey upon the sheep. It was
super inspiring and I hope everyone could feel the sweet spirit that
comes from that man and his love. We then ushered everyone into the
courtyard after sacrament and tried to organize everyone into their
branch so we could take new branch pictures, but people were stubborn
and wanted to stay in their old branches or with their friends and
what not...so small small we will get it sorted...but, due to the new
boundaries...I lost Sonaldo, our branch mission leader, and also the
Gweyne family, who I have FHE with quite often, so I'm rather sad about
that :(

But, had a great interview with President Roggia after all that, and
he motivated and inspired me like always...


well computers have turned off twice and I keep losing all my
information, but yeah its pretty sweet. played football today, that
was sweet and I had written a lot of other stuff...but i can't
remember... so i guess its not too important!

but, I love you all :) hope you have a great week! farewell!
Elder Jesse Sumrak