A Year Has Passed

I love sharing my mission
with you ...it makes it almost seem unreal and like an adventure
to me, which keeps me sane and keeps a humorous light on my realistic
living conditions, which might kill me if forever I realized that this
life I'm living right now is real...and not some other dream. deep
right? lets keep it that way :)
I did celebrate my year mark haha, I tried to get some MTCs to join me
but they were too far away at the time, so we had a baptism on
Saturday morning which was quite stressful
then had an amazing baptism :) so all in all that went nice. Then, I
took my companion down into town to go and eat at a restaurant I used
to eat at with the assistants, quick take! and we got nice eggburgers
and then ice cream and just enjoyed and had a little fun. Then I had to
go district shopping and dive into the back alleys and streets of
hassling for boots and pans and all that tish and it was very
stressful...but the day ended okay, with a nice big pineapple and some
chicken...so all in all I enjoyed my 1 year mark :) but, I have one
more year to enjoy so I'm trying haha :)
oh, and yes that is my companion Elder Dancan in the picture with me.
thats my BOY! love this kid haha.
and  love shopping with you momma and can't wait to go food shopping
with you when I get home because now I love to cook, so we can cook
some fun things together and I'll prepare tons of African dishes and
what not for you guys, because maybe by then I won't be exhausted
all the time haha ;) how much is a pineapple back home? here they are
less then one dollar haha, so i eat one a day!
So jealous about this big family reunion but glad that I will
photo shopped into the picture haha, tankey tankey! take lots of
pictures of our big beautiful family and have a safe trip to Utah my
dear momma. you fly safe okay? :)
My missionary friend is in Charlottesville and she loves it so much :)
she says that VA is the most beautiful place in the world...sorry
Utah, i second that!
So my diet this week: Oatmeal for breakfast, with a bowl of cornflour
as a snack before I leave. 2 boiled eggs for lunch. and a piece of
chicken with half a pineapple and some cornflour for dinner...
ENJOYMENT! I sure do love cornflour :)
Also, just remembered, don't know why it took me this long to realize
it but Elder Liufau reminded me. Call of Duty 2, that map by the name
Freetown, heck yes that is Sierra Leone, and now that I'm here, they
are really similar haha, go check it out! that's my proselyting area
right now!:) WHAT :)
So, had a batch of like 8 elders show up this week to be sent out to
various proselyting areas, but had nothing to do for the day since
they showed up early, so the assistants called our district and we
went to go take em. Elder Muthoni, from Kenya, joined us for the day
and we had a great time with him, haha the 2 Kenyans got along great,
and it was funny seeing his impression of Sierra Leone just
coming...and mine after being in this area for a year...oh boy haha,
good times.
Had a very uh bouncy week...had my first day on mission where we
didn't see a SINGLE person we planned for..but still taught 4 lessons
so I wasn't bummed out to tears, but pretty close since I had made
follow up calls that morning (which I never did in BO because nobody
had phone) and had confirmed all appointments. Kalo Kalo picking dem,
dey go sabe me just now, you go see.
So, was up at 5:00 a.m. on Friday to go outside and hook up the hose
to the water tap and fill out water barrels haha, the tap gets busy by
the other tenants by like 6 so we got to get up early to take care of
it...so that was fun and left me bitterly exhausted for the rest of
the day...fortunately my area is at the top of the mountain, sweet!
yes much sarcasm, I know. but thats me.
During sacrament yesterday, Cynthia Kargo, a convert I baptized in Bo
walked in and I was so happy I jumped up from my seat in the
intermediate hymn and went and sang with her haha, went and found her
house after church and got 3 referrals from her haha :) gosh it was so
good to see her! then, during investigators class I was busy running
around the church getting signatures and filling records and helping
the clerk and I saw so many of my recent converts that I was almost
like Ammon, so overjoyed that I fell over haha. had one little 8 year
old, Sally, come running at me, and the other 5 kids from ages 9-11,
and ah, it was awesome :) seeing all my little ones I baptized at
church haha....suffer the little children. AMEN!:) I want to see them
all on mission one day, gosh that would be AMAZING!
Spiritual contemplation for the week, The tree of life = the love of
god = John 3:16 = Christ = atonement. The tree of life is that God
loves us so much so he sent his only begotten son to come and die for
us through the atonement. We partake of the atonement (tree) through
the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost,
enduring to the end). I know that my redeemer lives and what sweet
comfort and peace this sentences gives, he lives who once was dead, he
lives...I know that. I know God loves us and misses us so much,
because i miss my family so much and God's love and feelings are even
more then mine, so I know that He must miss us incredibly, even if I
am "a wretched man" but, awake my soul, and be a man! I am trying :)

Well, another exciting week done...life is great. Freetown is..great-
but I just try to smile and be optimistic haha i miss
BO so much, but just pretend I'm a perfect missionary and I'll continue
and say I love my area, its so amazing, and all my investigators are
amazing and life is stupendous ;) try to figure out which ones are
real haha. love you all always and forever.

Love,
Elder Sumrak