Last Email and Wonderful Testimony

Well, Mama deary, I do not know who will be filling my shoes quite yet, but I laughed when I read what you wrote about filling shoes and then thought about my own shoes...Oh, BOY they are so wo wo, they are completely falling apart, but I don't know what's in store for the future of the mission, poor President Ostler is going to have to make SO many changes this transfer, losing lots of people in the mission this transfer, and the next transfer, and pretty much all the leadership will be gone, but the Lord is in control and will help others to fill those roles and move this great work forward :)

It IS weird that this is my last time emailing as a missionary...but, it is quite exciting as well. My past week has been another extremely busy one, and we are exhausted, but my awesome companion is keeping me going and we are still hustling and going strong until the very end. Up every morning working out and going on runs and starting the day right. Tuesday, we went over to Kissy and joined them for their zone conference and it was wonderful! I was given the opportunity to give an instruction on how to begin teaching and I enjoyed it so much and had such a great time instructing! The conference was sweet, though it was strange to see Elder McDonald and Nwosu give their farewell testimonies... and then the Ostlers took us on back, where we rushed out to our area to go teach our wonderful investigators. 

Wednesday, we had another zone conference in Lumley, and it was another powerful one. Much smaller but a lot of spirit and I got to give the same instruction again, which went better that time :) There was no departing missionary from that zone, so they requested that I prematurely bare mine, even though mine won't be until next week, but it really was great to bare my testimony to my wonderful missionaries and friends. I love bearing my testimony so much and never want to pass up the experience like I did so very often before I came on mission!

Thursday, teaching!

Friday, we went and taught a little bit, then we had to rush over to Kissy to go and join the Thunderhill district for an area blitz...but, President Ernest Bai Koroma had different plans for us. As we approached the new roads, lots of traffic. Mr. President decided a publicity stunt to walk the 5 mile road and greet all the poor people who had built little zinc houses and pan bodies on the side of the road and smile and hug them and give them small money and tell them, sorry we are coming to tear your house down...so, thank you Mr. President, because I fell asleep in a hot coma in the back of the taxi for over an HOUR! So, its easy to stay focused when you are busy. Not so easy when you sit in the back of a hot taxi with a rather large man who is obviously confused about the difference between "President" and "God" and calling all the people sinners for building houses there hahaha...well, that went on for 3 hours, we were very late for the blitz, so decided to go finding our own and found some sweet people to at least turn in at the evaluation...then back in transport to get home close to 9 at night haha...oh good times. 

Saturday...had a sweet baptism that we attended, then we went to go and see Mr. Sheriff...and we had a really emotional/spiritual lesson about the sabbath day. I don't really know how to explain it, but nevertheless, my faith was tried, I saw a grown man, ex solider, almost in tears, and I felt a lot of uncertainty and doubt for the rest of the day. I studied my scriptures and preach my gospel and even called President Ostler and searched the words of modern day prophets and I am so grateful for revelation...I can't show my gratitude enough for that blessing I have received on mission. I will be honest, before my mission, I didn't really recognize answer to my prayers. I knew that coming on mission was the right thing to do, because I had ENOUGH faith to believe the prophets, but never received a spiritual witness for myself until I came...but, that's not completely true, because God was answering me all along, I just didn't recognize how the spirit spoke to me...but, I am grateful beyond words for the knowledge and testimony and ability to recognize the spirit that the Lord has so richly blessed me with and it has changed who I am today and who I will be for the rest of my life. It took 2 years to develop and I am certainly still developing it and trying to refine it, but if the Lord had required me to go and serve a 10 year mission to even get where I am today...I would do it, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Sunday, Elder Stanford and I decided to fast for our area and Brother Sheriff and it was one of the best fast Sundays of my life. We were just so happy and we had so much energy, more than after a pday, more than any day, and yet we had no food or water, it truly was the spirit that was running our withered and exhausted bodies as we laughed and joked and literally ran through some of our areas, talking to everybody and finding some amazing contacts. The first one we had been trying to get inside the BOMBA house for so long, and the Lord provided an opening when we randomly contacted this Muslim pa, and that was obviously going to fail, but we tried anyways, and then a sa lone mommie started Palava, but that even led to the next opening, a woman came out of the BOMBA house and we were able to contact her and she was from Denmark...she married a man from Denmark and had lived there for years but he died and her and her kids moved back. Her kids didn't even look black at all, they were almost WHITE but they spoke pure krio haha, it was the coolest thing as we sat down with her and her 2 white kids  and were able to have a small discussion with them :) continued to see miracles throughout the rest of the day as we found and taught prepared people, found less actives and received referrals from contacts for very prepared families and wow, it was truly a spiritual high as we RAN back to the apartment, late for follow up calls, ate real quick to close the fast and were on the computers until 10:20 hahaha. oh so sweet!

Today, my last football game and it started POURING during our personal studies, but I had faith it would stop for my last football game, and it did and ALL the missionaries in Lumley zone and Freetown zone came, so we had close to 30 or so and we just had a great time playing and oh boy...my last concrete football game, it was sad but I enjoyed and received a hearty salute from my boys as I left for the last time for seeing some of them. Eddy Bangura of Mt.Aureol ward bought me a custom jersey with my name on the back, so all the children now saw me wearing it, so thank goodness it was my last Monday and I didn't ever wear it before, because now children ALL know my REAL name...I liked it better when they called me "Eto" ;) hahah we then were joined my Elders Kvist, Flament, Tucker, Rogers, Maxfield, and Khumoetsile and went to Meds for the last time for a hamburger and then made our way back to start emailing...

Have a very busy week ahead of us, and will be making the 4 hour drive to Makeni tomorrow for their zone conferenec, then Wednesday we will have zone conference in Kossoh Town, then Thursday we will have zone conference here...in Freetown, for the final time. Saturday, my last baptism for the Sherrif family, Mr sheriff and his 2 children, Mohamed isn't old enough yet, poor little guy ;) Saturday, Elder Weller comes in, Sunday I will bear my testimony to the members of the Dwarzak ward for the last time, in the chapel that I have been worshiping in for 20 months now, with the people I have been laboring for and with for the past 2 years...I'm probably going to cry like a little baby haha, and then that night we will gather all of us departing missionaries and have our final farewell dinner and testimony meeting. Monday, we will take the missionaries shopping, or rather I guess the APs will take me shopping and then we leave to go to the airport for our 5:00 flight...oh boy, it is coming too quickly..

Wow, 2 years has truly flown by and it has certainly been the hardest 2 years of my life, but without a doubt it has been the best. I love Sierra Leone, I love the people, I love the culture, I love the food, I love the weather, I love the church here, I love the opportunity I have had to come here and serve and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for allowing me to come and serve in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission...I was privileged to serve a lot of missionaries and members and people, and blessed to witness the creation of the 3,000 stake by Elder Holland. I have seen miracles, I have been an instrument in the hand of the Lord in performing miracles, I have gained and built a testimony that has changed the fibers of my being and changed everything from my spirit to my countenance. I left Virginia in 2012 as a little boy, and have grown into...a bigger boy, still trying to become a man, but I know that I have become the man that my Heavenly Father wanted to make me. I have gone through wonderful physical trials, terrible emotional trials, spiritual stretches, doubts, answers, and confirmations that have converted me beyond my ability to express...I am a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I tried my hardest and though it wasn't easy...not at all, I know I have done everything I  could, and that make me honestly shed tears, always looking at from day to day how tired I was, and how I doubted I could ever go another week at the same pace...watching time and the world pass by and feeling like I could never catch up, the Lord has blessed me immensely and I have come to know Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost more and more. I still have so much to learn, study, and apply, but I am grateful for the person that the Lord has changed me into. I am not the same boy, I don't think the same, I don't talk the same (mostly because now I am an uneducated bush bobo), I don't feel the same, I don't look the same (surely Africa has made me a lot more wo wo) and I am grateful for that. I know that my Redeemer lives and what comfort that gives me to know that this isn't a waste, it never is and never was and never will be. There is a greater plan and we are all a part of it, and we have so much potential that we don't ever fully comprehend and probably never will and I know...I know that our Heavenly father loves us, we really are his children and I know that he hears and answers us. Even though sometimes we might feel alone and want to cry out, Father where art thou? he is there...He is listening, and he is trying to make us grow. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, it changed my life, started my repentance, and gave me a testimony and witness of the atonement of Jesus Christ. I can sing the song of redeeming love and it makes me so happy. I am tired, exhausted, beaten and torn up and looking uglier then ever, but I am the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. My testimony is so long and so broad now, but in the end it all just comes down to one thing for me... Families can be together forever, through Heavenly Father's plan, I always want to be with my own family, and the Lord has shown me how I can...and I showed them how they can...I love you all and can't wait to see your wonderful faces...thank you for all writing me, thank you for your encouraging words and testimonies and just the fact that you were thinking of me...your prayers changed my life and probably saved my life and I love you and thank you all! I will see you all soon enough :) Till we meet!

Love,

Elder Jesse Sumrak

Love the Work

So, I am not "trunky" at all, though I must admit that my one suitcase is already packed and pretty much the only thing I need is my scriptures and my plane ticket and I'm ready to go ;) but besides what is actually packed up, I am far from being "trunky"  with my wonderful work that we are doing here! Such a busy week has passed and an even busier week ahead, since President Ostler decided that we are going to be having zone conference week 5 and week 6.  I will get to give 5 last instructions before I leave, so I am really excited for that and Elder Stanford and I are praying hard and studying to make it the best so far! 

Tuesday, we had our monthly MLC meeting and it went really well as we discussed some of the weaknesses we are seeing with some of the missionaries in the mission as of right now, and it really set up well for president to announce the zone conference training ideas that we will be instructing on starting tomorrow! 

Wednesday, we had a lot of office work and the like to do, but ended up catching a ride with President Kargbo out to Allentown where we were to join up with the entire Waterloo Zone for their Zone Blitz training on finding and contacting families. So we get a call that they started early and were having the training, and the traffic delayed us small, but Elder Stanford and I napped...yeah, we're pathetic and we got a call who we would be training...so then epicly of course, we see them standing at the junction, ready to go and teach the Lord's Lost Sheep, and our driver pulls up, we throw open the van door, scriptures in hand, jumping out with our marine haircuts..."Let's go save some lost souls boys!" so, yeah maybe Elder Stanford and I made it a lot more dramatic then it actually was, but Igot to take Elder Udofot into his proselyting area and help train him on finding and teaching families and kingdom builders...first contact, my mistake, 2 pastors and a muslim, show down, bear testimony, lets go! on to the next one, its a hardcore Muslim who won't even look at us and snubs our outstretched hands...going really sweet thus far. 3rd contact, inspired, stopped a man and he asks if we are Jehovah's witness, strange this is, he says it in perfect English, to be honest, quite better then even my own English , as I was having difficulty speaking to him because I am a stinking bush bobo who can't even speak english anymore, but he invites us back to his house, he is a journalist and recently divorced and trying to raise his children and just struggling with life and believes that God sent us to come and help him...prepared?I think so, so the training turned out pretty well and we returned to the chapel to meet with the other 20+ missionaries and close and fly home to go and teaching 1 lesson in the complete dark at Mr. Sherriffs house :) 

Thursday, off to the Kissy Chapel where Elder Stanford and I were invited once again to do a training on the Urgency of the work, so we were able to give that insruction and got to see my good ol pikin Elder Rogers, who just got pre-transfer transferred here to Freetown west tody so I am happy to go and see that boy sometime this week...>AGAIN:) but yeah, we flew home and managed to get on out to the field for the rest of the day and teach and find some sweet families, including the Kamara family, which is a sweet pa teacher and his wife  and their 2 sons...mohamed and mohamed ;) oh yeah, thats right and they are all christian as well, booyeah! 

Friday, weekly planning and a meeting with President Ostler to discuss some emergency transers that would  be taking place all over the mission to prepare for the 8 of my MTC who are going home...poor president, losing 2 APS and 3 Zone leaders and 1 district leader, he is a bit stressed, but these measures are really helping to make it a smooth transition, so then on Saturday we had our stake conference start and we were invited to the afternoon session which was pretty well attended and I was happy to see lots of my friends and converts from the various wards I have served in in the area, so that was inspiring and always uplifts me. President Ostler spoke as well as President Charles so it was really uplfiting and inspiring, then Elder Stanford an I were sprinting up into the dark hills once again to preach the gospel! 

Sunday, we had stake conference at the U building once again and it was very ill prepared and the chairs were not even half enough, so about 50 % of the people got inside and got to listen and watch, about 20 % got to sit outside and listen and the rest of the people, who stayed (half of them didn't) couldn't see or watch, so rather disappointing to be honest and as Elder Stanford and I sat on the stairs outside, not able to see or hear, we silently and almost verbally prayed that all the investigators we invited WOULDN'T Come hahaha...sad, I know. After, got a ride back to the mission office with the Ostler and we sat down and planned and organized the zone conferences, then Elder Stanford went and sent out assgigments to the various zone leaders, then back up to the hills of Dwarzak, where we got to go and teach a Mr. K. and his family, and he is a really intelligent but deep in apostasy and it was frustrating but we practiced patience with him as he tried to tell us that James 1:5 should be interpreted if anyone lacks "Christ" because Christ is Wisdom, am I right...WHAT ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?! hahaha oh these Born again people, I love them so much, they are so funny. Home again in the dark to teach the Sheriff family, love them so much! 

Monday, today, played some sweet football, and my best buddy Sonaldo from Bo came all the way from Bo to spend the day with Elder Stanford and I because he knows I am leaving. So we got to play some wonderful and sweet football...which, if you don't know, I love a lot and yeah, then we got swarmas in town, and now I am just waiting for the man with your guys Africana (clothing) to show up, he is on the way now, so I hope that they are sweet :) I am going strong and not giving up, I am feeling light and full of the spirit and ever so happy as I go out to do the Lord's work. It is so sweet and watching the atonement take place in these people's lives, over 2 years time, over a years time, over a weeks time, it truly is just magical and beautiful and I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so much...I wish I could understand the atonement more and more and know that I never truly will, but that doesn't stop me from doing my best to try to understand more and more through my studies of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is so sweet and has changed my life and taught me so much, I am about to finish it for my 5th time, but I don't think I will finish it before I get back, only in Helaman 12 right now, and I like to take my time, but I AM about to finish the Old Testament for the first time, finishing up Zecariah and then Malachi and then bam! but, yeah, life is great I love it...Take care family and friends! 


Love, 
Jesse 

Elder Sumrak

Keep Going Til The End

A. S. did have his baptism on Saturday and it was very special! I was pretty emotional about it haha, but he bore powerful testimony about the truth and divinity of the church and especially the Book of Mormon, as he is now cruising through 2 Nephi, it's giving him a little trouble but he is hanging in there and doing his best, naturally, and we even got to teach his wife yesterday who is happy to see the changes in his life and is finally showing interest, which is surprising since she is super muslim and all her family is, but its exciting...their WHOLE family live in this compound, so if this whole family joins, her sisters and cousins and uncles and aunties will surely follow, so the work we are doing is slow but crucial and we are determiend to help the Lord and these people! 

I have had a slight issue this week, as I was having some intese upper abdominal pain earlier in the week that was sending me into the fetal position most of the night and the only way I could relieve myself of the pain was to get up and walk around in the night, and that has been continuing, the only thing that has been helping me thus far is popping 10-15 pepto bismal, but I am doing well today and hanging in there :) Just got to survive! that's all, just survive! but, seriously I am doing okay, no problems. I received a beautiful blessing from my companion and Elder Kanzler that really touched my heart and soul and I know the Lord is looking out for me and He is going to help me finish out this work strong, going as strong as I possibly can! Elder Stanford and I had another busy busy week and still managed to get 20 lessons again, so we are dying haha and laugh about how dead we are but are seriously enjoying hastening the work and finding and teaching more and more families!

On Tuesday we went out to Waterloo on the multiple different transports and attended their district meeting which was really sweet and great to see my boy Elder Weller again. Then, the long trip back, then a meeting with President Ostler, then an office meeting with everyone, then ran out the door to go and see the S. family really quick. He has been doing fantastic! He has completely left cigarettes and after I sewed his glasses back together, he has been marking the Book of Mormon a whole lot more now and is making good progress. He and his children all came to church on Sunday, now we are just working on his muslim wife haha, all of these muslim wives! He had a big problem on Saturday though when we showed up and the whole compound was very gloomy and his daughter was in tears, and he didn't look very happy either, but we sat down to talk to him and helped him understand the holy spirit and how he didn't feel it right now and what the source of that dissension of the spirit was and he argued about how white people have different skin and don't take beatings, but black skin is tough and its the only way to teach the children, and we went to the scriptures and during the lesson his countenance changed and the spirit really bore witness to his heart that this was wrong and he promised to never hit his kids again and it was beautiful...it was funny when I thought...I am a 21 year old white kid sitting here helping YOU, an old 55 + family man with your family...and then I realized yet again, I am not doing ANYTHING. It's just the Holy Ghost and the power of God working through Elder Stanford and I, his rusty tools who are trying their best to be polished and usable, and accomplishing his own work...I love being an instrument in the hands of the Lord.

Wednesday was a super sweet day as in the evening time we returned and had a district blitz of the freetown area with the zone leaders as well, and that was sweet as we took 10 missionaries into a single area and just started contacting as many families and kingdom builders as we could. I got to take our phillipino, Elder Alvarino, who can barely speak English haha, and got to take him and we had so much success! we found 4 families and one was full English from New York haha "you guys are the latter day saints right? " No dad! They're the Mormons!" oh, Im sorry Im sorry," :) haha, haven't had that my whole mission...but that was a really sweet experience all going into that area and getting the community and missionaries excited in that difficult part of town.

Thursday, we did our weekly planning, then got to help prepare and send out 2 departing missionaries going to Liberia and Nigeria, so that was nice being able to assist in setting them apart, then lots of teaching that day.

Friday, we had our own zone meeting but had to leave early unfortunately to get taxi all the way to Jui to meet the kissy zone leaders to give them money for the Lungi Elders district funds because they ran out, then headed back and got to go and see some people,

then Saturday was the sweet sweet baptism, and the rest of the day was spent proselyting our faces off.

Sunday was sweet and I was privliged to confirm Abdulai Samura and it ws really sweet and he was super excited...maybe one of my last confirmations for a very long time...at least for the living ;) but then spent the rest of that day out teaching as well, and follow calls in the vening form Thursday night to Sunday night, so were pretty exhausted from that,

but we ran into town this morning, ditching our own zones super pday haha, and I took all the measurements to the tailors and material people and hopefully will be getting some fine africana clothes for my wonderful family, or at least trying my best, then came home and elder stanford  had found some clippers and tried to barb my hair and WHOAH was it WAY too short, and then it died after the first swipe, so I put a hat on and we went down the street and somebody, Ogggaaaaaa, is his name :) he finished up my hair after laughing at my silly haircut and now we look like stinking marines haha our hair is so short you can see our white scalps, but whatever right, its not like I'm trying to impress anyone :) Just as long as I am an appropriate representative of Jesus Christ, but to be honest I look more like a mercenary than anything right now...but, small small, life is great and I am loving it...not too much to say but I love you all, work is sweet ,keep it going till the end!

Love,

Jesse

Elder Sumrak

Working with wonderful missionaries

Wow! I can't wait to come help out back home, and I am so excited
to drive again that I will drive all of you people
everywhere haha.   Still I am just eating the same things pretty much
everyday...eggs, chicken, lentils, black beans, spring onion, sardines,
tuna...carrots, green beans, bell peppers, that is the extent of my variety
I think, yes it IS pretty boring, but we manage it for now. Working out
like crazy in the mornings with Elder Stanford haha, but the rain disturbed
our running plans obnoxiously last week :) but we are planning more for
this week. Can boast and say that last Monday I knocked out 1000
pushups...so sore, but I rounded off the week Saturday night, totaling the
week at 2,110 pushups, so that was a nice achievement for me...not quite
the marathon milestone I was looking for, but I will add that to my
repertoire of 5,000 jump rope too....oh what wasted time...

We had a very busy and powerful week and met on separate occasions with the
Lumley, Freetown, Kissy, and Kossoh Town zone leaders to discuss some new
approaches and plans for the mission as well as to be able to assess their
areas and how we can help them more in ministering to their missionaries. We
are blessed with such a fantastic mission that I just have to brag about how
wonderful all of our missionaries are. We aren't perfect, but gosh I talk
to lots of missionary buddies and some people in their missions just
are...not living up to their potential, and it makes me happy to know that
we have got some great and humble guys and gals here working their best to
serve their Father in Heaven. On Tuesday we attended the Freetown district
meeting with Elder Maxfield, on Wednesday we got to do a lot of proselyting
which was really sweet, Thursday we went and did a weekly planning in
Wellington, then Friday we went and attended the Kossoh Town Zone meeting
and gave a sweet and spiritual instruction on the urgency of this great
work and how to overcome casualness, and it was awesome, the Lord was truly
using us and it was a wonderful experience as Elder Stanford and I just
tried our hardest to seek the Lord's will and to be his mouth piece and to
just humble ourselves to say and do whatever He asked us to...and we really
did :)

Saturday was a FULL day of proselyting, after we attended the baptism that
we invited A. to...then on Sunday he came to church and was
interviewed and his baptism will be THIS saturday and it's going to be so
sweet. A....I can't talk enough about this great father and
husband. Really...I don't even know where to start he is about 42, has a
wife and 2 children, 2 step children as well. 1. He wants to find another
job because he is part of security at a hospital...which does abortions,
which he does not agree with after learning the Law of Chastity. 2. talked
to his boss about giving him Sundays off (not a Sa Lone accepted culture
thing to do by the way haha) 3. told his boss that he could give him
ovaltine(cocoa) instead of tea leaf, or he would taking nothing at all 4.
bought his whole family cocoa instead of tea leaf and preached to his
compound about its harmful substances. 5. came to the baptism straight from
working a 7 p.m - 9 p.m. shift, no sleep, guy is a boss and probably the
most ripped man I have seen in this entire country...I'm talking 8 pack,
but another change is he now wears a shirt all the time, which he never used
to do hahaha. gosh, he has already read almost the whole book of 1
Nephi...and he is just awesome.

Have another guy we are teaching, a muslim man, who used
to smoke 6 a day, and we created a plan for him to leave cigarettes by
June...but he has already not smoked for about 10 days now, so that man is
amazing as well, love him lots. He is(was) a cripple who could barely walk,
but ever since he came to church he has started walking without a cane and
now is walking quite fine...it truly is a miracle and the miracle is
growing more everyday :)

Not too much to say this week, just going hard and enjoying my mission so
much. I wish I could tell you that I was so stinking full of energy, but I
am EXHAUSTED, but still going harder than ever. Usually when we pray at the
end of the day, it takes me about 5-10 minutes to get up...but, tha'ts a
good time to go down and stay down, stay up during the day, go down at the
end, that's the way its supposed to be and I know it's the Lord's way and it
sure does make me happy that way...but tired too...oh, when naps will be
keeping the word of wisdom and not a sin! hahaha :)

I love you all, keep on enjoying life!

Love,
Jesse
Elder Sumrak

Blessings of Sierra Leone

Hello Dear Family! 
Wow, another wonderful week has passed by and its sad to think that this was my last time orienting a new group of missionaries, but at least it was my favorite one so far, so that is a sweet positive! On Tuesday, we didn’t get to go to the airport to pick up the elders, only 8 showing up this time, but we had plenty of work to take care of before we hopped in the Barney’s sweet ride and got a ride down to seacoach to receive the missionaries at the dock. Had a fresh and excited young group with Elders from America, Nigeria, Ghana, and Tonga, and we got them all back to the mission office safe and sound. 

We got up early to start cooking for them…we meant to buy raw eggs, but Jokella got us boiled eggs :) so we broke them all and scrambled up boiled eggs with hot dog and onions and lots of pepe, and it was super yummy, though it kind of hurt my tummy a little bit, not too strange to think why. We then ALL went up to the mission home where Elder Stanford and I got to do a fun orientation with all the new guys! We shared some Krio phrases and the like and helped them understand some of the unique challenges and also blessings of Sierra Leone, so then we all went up to Leicester Peak where the missionaries got to receive their assigned area and companion, and we sang High on the mountain top, and then had a brief testimony meeting. It was a great experience and the spirit was so strong, besides the beating sun, it really was wonderful! We went down to the mission office for lunch and then shipped out all the newbies to their areas, then Elder Stanford and I were out the door with a nice little heel click and big smiles on our face! We got to go and teach some wonderful families and wow did we see some sweet miracles this week! More to come! 

Thursday, we got to help a young lady leaving to go to Ghana. We got to set up her email and give her a brief orientation and then even stand in on the setting apart, so that was awesome. I love being able to hear the wonderful blessings pronounced on them by President Ostler, and its so sweet to see how different they all are, but the great blessings that are promised to them if they will only be obedient and diligent…that’s all it comes down to in the end, God wants to bless us so much and just wants us to be obedient so he can :) we then had a brief sit down with President about the mission concerns and our focuses for the transfer…then, Elder Stanford and I went to planning and spent about 4 hours planning out the transfer, so we are excited for all the trainings, meetings, exchanges, and blitzes that we are organizing, and its going to be busy busy busy everyday but we are going to go HARD until the end. Even with all the craziness and the busyness of this week we still managed to go out and teach 20 lessons, so we are trying to be examples to all the other missionaries that we need to be diligent, no matter how much time you have left or how new you are, or how many meetings you have, go out and fulfil your calling to help these wonderful people with the only thing that will save them and bring true lasting happiness in this life…the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love the gospel so much and it just makes me so happy…I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is for sure, and oh that I were an angel…oh well, actually I would prefer not to be a ministering angel, but no need for that tangent, life is good! I’m ranting… 

Friday, we got to go and attend the Freetown zone’s district and sister trainer leader orientation meeting, which was really nice, then out the door to go and teach the whole day, and then Saturday we had a FULL day of proselyting and got to some awesome people! 

On Sunday, we saw some wonderful miracles as we left early in the morning to bring an old sick man to church. We were leaving his house, him on his broken crutches limping away, when a BIG grizzly man saw him struggling to climb the hill…it started to rain, and this man, smelling like pure marijuana comes and taps me on the shoulder and asks for permission to help the man, I thought the old man was a little brittle and told him to be careful, but the big guy just hoisted the old man into his arms and carried him up the hill. It really touched my heart, because then the man didn’t even wait for thanks or anything, but just continued with his business. We put the old man on bike and then we went and joined him at the church, which was just a great service…besides the trouble I felt of seeing Sister Samba…but, that’s a big story for another day and not for my smiley self this day. Today…football, until the jamba boys wanted to play and refused to leave and we had to leave and go play in the compound..and then they popped my like 5 th ball now :/ geeze, going through too many footballs! Hopefully can do with just 1 more! I pray! Haha, then we went to town to buy Africana and that was just too much of an adventure…now, just laying down in the office waiting until the internet comes back on so I can send this blasted email…but, at least I finally get to rest now…right? :) Life is great! Woot woot!

Love,
Elder Sumrak 

Loved the Phone Call

Gosh, it was so great to talk to you all yesterday and it has just left me invigorated and excited to go out and do the work even more. I just love this gospel so much and it just brings me so much happiness. Teaching families and testifying of families and seeing the love these people have been channeled to their families and Jesus Christ is just fantastic. I know without a doubt that my Redeemer lives and what amazing comfort that gives me...that there is a purpose to everything we do, there is an answer to every why? and we have such great things ahead of us...the future is always so perfectly bright with an eternal focus...it really is amazing! 

Pretty much the phone call was the highlight of my week, and most certainly for our Sunday yesterday haha. We did have one sweet less active mommy come, sister M., who was baptized like 10 or so years ago and hasn't come to church in 6 or so years due to some issues with doctrine and the like, but we went and ate some of her food the other night, got bounced by a ton of people, and it really was a blessing because it led us back to her for a lesson on temples and eternal marriage which gave her the drive to come back and ah, it was so sweet to see her come and sit down next to us in church, gosh it made me so happy :) 

Wednesday was a nice a and busy day as we got up and caught a ride from the Kanzlers over to Kossoh town to attend the kossoh town/ kissy/ makeni zone meeting with the visit from Sister Barret, the west africa mental health advisor, and introduction of our new couples the Barneys. I got to conduct the meeting which was cool since I noticed how scared I would have been 2 years ago, and how comfortable I have become speaking in front of people now, it really is a miracle from the Lord and I am so grateful! We had about 80 missionaries in attendance and it was just a sweet meeting, then we had lunch with the leaders and a nice little Mission leadership counsel meeting with the zone leaders, but to be honest the highlight of the day was seeing our beloved Elder Hill, which made me and Elder Stanford so very happy. that guy is just so awesome and we have missed him so much so it was so great to see his smiling face again haha! 

Thursday we worked on the transfer sheet and all the transfer movements and ran through them with the drivers and Elder Kanzler and everything checked out okay! we got to go out a little bit to teach that day fortunately! 

Friday, in the morning we had the freetown/lumley zone meeting and then president had us preside over the MLC because he had to leave and the meeting went super sweet and we got tons of great ideas from the zone leaders there so we are super excited for the future and the trainings and everything we are planning. it is going to be so sweet! We had quite a bit of office work to do as well as some meetings with President, then some emergency transfer changes already, which meant we had to re do movements, then we had our transfer preplanning meeting with the office and couple staff and got everything all planned and scheduled out...yeah...another busy busy day.  

Saturday was sweet in that we got to proseltye for a considerable portion of the day which was great and we really enjoyed that. The upcoming week is going to be great with transfers and new missionaries and the like. Today was really sweet as we got to go and play some sweet football and have a good ol time with that, now just resting and relaxing and getting our bodies ready...pop some ibuprofen soon probably and take a nap. made some pancakes this morning and then this afternoon I enjoyed the Abdulai (oats, gari, kingdriver, sugar,) mashed up in a cup...then got hungry and made the Sumrak (oats, gari, sugar, peanut butter, almonds, walnuts, and blueberries) mashed up in a cup...living the good life. Life is sweet! got to keep going hard, love you all so much :)

Elder Jesse Sumrak

Heel Clicks

Wow, what a week, what a week! Here is a brief history…Thursday we went to Kissy to go and do a training there, and then spent 2 hours inside taxi on the way home while I tried not to cry my eyes out at the terrible transport system in this wretched city! But, got back and worked in the office until we had our office meeting at 5…then, we had a brilliant idea that we needed to go to Bo to visit the assistants out there…and President Ostler accepted!

Friday morning I was up at 3:45 doing crunches, then we were out the door into the dark by 4:30 to make our way into town to the bus stop so we could catch a government bus to Bo…well, we fortunately found a taxi and got there relatively quickly, but there was already a long line for all the buses to upline, and unfortunately we missed the que for the first bus leaving around 7…and we would have to wait until 9, NOT ACCEPTABLE! So, we got to meet this nice American woman, Georgiana from VA, sweet, then we got to work on our communication skills…so  I managed to convince the bus apprentice that we needed to be on the bus and he got us on the bus…yeah, we're smooth, and there we were, off on our way to Bo, slipping in and out of consciousness on the 5 hour bus ride.

We arrived in Bo and quickly jumped on bikes (gosh it has been such a long long time) and off we went to the chapel to meet up with the ending of Bo West Zone’s zone meeting, and I got to see my children Elder Labrum and Elder Etuk and my grandchildren Kelikume and Eshun as well and even more and it was a sweet reunion with Elder Hales and Hovley too :) We went and got lunch and began discussing our plans to make a new study curriculum for the elders and sisters next transfer. We sat in their apartment for about 3 hours discussing plans and trying out new ideas until we had to take a break and Elder Stanford and I hopped on bikes and ventured over to our former area...Messima Branch, Torkpoi Town and boy was it awesome. I was beaming the whole ride there and when we got there I was practically jumping up and down, and when we arrived at the first compound my heart was just so happy as they all remembered my name and came running from various houses to come out and greet me and the mommies and aunties and everyone and it was just so awesome to see my converts again! We made our way all around town, seeing all the wonderful families and members and people we taught and baptized and saw John Mgavou and his family...I had taught them but never got to see them baptized and it was so great to see him and his wife baptized and so happy with their children, and then to one of my favorite people Nancy Moses (the one who I baptized her daughter in the ocean in Freetown) and she was just so happy to see us and was cooking us food because she heard we were coming and we just went around for a couple of hours, trying not to cry, as we saw our wonderful families and friends and took pictures an ah :) so sweet! We made our way back just before dark and arrived back at the apartment close to 7, and got back to work on the curriculum and other ideas until 10:20 at night, not even eating dinner or anything, then went to bed with nets draped over chairs and crashed...

Up again at 4:00 to get ready to go and Elder Hales and Hovley half got up to wish us farewell and we were out into the darkness...so sketchy, we had to say a deep sincere prayer to be protected because we were off in the bush, far from the main road, in pitch black, and we got to the road and had a miracle...a bike man..at 4:30 in the morning, was passing, and we got a ride with him into town where the vans were loading, and another miracle, a van waiting for 2 more people! and...not-okay, so this one actually wasn't so sweet, we had to sit in the front seat...together...for 4 hours! tish, my butt died from being jammed into the seat belt 10 mins after we started, and we just kept shifting forward and backwards to try to stay comfortable and ahhh I just was so uncomfortable and in so much pain that I just kept slipping out of consciousness while the driver was cruising at close to 80 mph and jamming out to some nice R and B...oh boy, we ditched the van early in Jui and I couldn't even walk...I had to limp all the way to the next taxi stop and my butt didn't even recover before i was jammed in the back seat with 4 other people...we finally arrived at our apartment and looked like complete tish...honestly we looked in the mirror and were just horrified, so we showered and shaved and then immediately had to make our way into town to start looking for 180 umbrellas and 114 boots and 18 mosquitoe nets, but had another miracle when the first man we contacted showed us to all the vendors we would need and we got quotes from all of them, then wrapped it all off by getting a quote for the mothers day phone call...oh what a busy day! 

Sunday..oh my it poured all morning, so we had a diappointing turn out when we arrived to 4 other members there pretty much, but the amazing charles family was there, so we ran up to our apartment and Elder Flament brought bread and water and cups since the others were locked in the office, but at least the 1st counselor showed up so we had sacrament with about 10-12 people not including missionaries, and I got to bless the sacrament which has been a long long time, and we just kept our heads up and had a super spiritual experience and I even got to bear my testimony :) so it was really nice, we had to spend a couple hours in the office and then off to our area in great haste and excitement. We started literally running out of the compound doing heel clicks and it was pretty much the most hilarious thing even in my mind to watch these 2 white guys come running out of a building looking like tired tish, big black bags under their eyes and fasting and so tired and coming running out the door doing heel clicks and then get tired after about 40 yards and starting crying in laughter...yeah, that's our companionship :) we love it!

Yesterday...no p day for us. we took an hour drive with Brother Kargbo down into town and then stood in our lebanese store waiting for them to find all the boots for about 2 hours, we finally got them and got stuck in traffic and moved less then half a mile for 2 and a half hours, and gave up and back tracked to where we started and walked about a mile to the umbrella place, and fortunately found a bobo who would tote the things on his trolly for some money, so got all that back, and picked up some nets along the way, and then we were off to another hour drive home..so we got back and unpacked everything, then mad dashed out the door with a nice cute heel click again and off to our area. We got to meet up with S. for a sweet lesson, well really he had tons of questions about Galatians 1-2 which I thought was funny because I usually use scriptures from there to teach the apostasy, so it went pretty smoothly :) we made our way home and then started organizing all the rain gear until 10:20 and then off to bed...

Today, we thought we were going to have p -day but instead worked the entire day doing all kinds of crazy jobs and had some sweet pre transfer meetings with president and then we went into town and bought 4 thousand dollars worth of phone credit, oh yeah, felt like bosses carrying that around, and made our way back to the office to do some more work, then work work...and now we finally get to email our sweet famlies and life is good :) Staying busy, staying happy, staying awesome. love you all!

Love,

Jesse

Elder Sumrak

3 Miracles

Hello Hello! Sorry for my delay and writing this on Tuesday, we had independence day weekend here, and if holidays fall on a weekend here, they immediately extend to that Monday...not sure if the rest of the world does that, maybe, but its pretty interesting. So, yesterday, instead, we went to a district meeting by my boy Elder Rogers and he did incredible. His instruction was the exact instruction we have been giving around the mission so it was fun to see me and my pikin were receiving the same revelation to share with the missionares. After that, we made our way home the back way through Grafton again and boy did things get crazy in Hill Station. At first, just a couple of drunks dressed up in the road in halloween outfits, like zombies and spiderman, which was kinda entertaining...then as the taxi progressed the entire road was blocked off by hundreds of drunk/high crazy people just going nuts and so many devils were out going crazy and it honestly changed from that's kinda funny, wow this is annoying, to this is sick and gross, to I believe this city needs to be purged! we were pretty freaked out and depressed by what we witnessed and were sick in our hearts for the rest of the day at the iniquity we saw in even drunk 12 year olds and just it hurts my heart to even think about it...things got worse as our caravan of taxis slowly made its way down the hill, as we approached our drop off point and realized that there were 3 devils in the vicinity and a drunk man with a hunting rifle and a beer in the other hand leading what looked to be a mob...so, we payed extra and went to the next junction to grab another longer but different taxi route. arrived at our last location and the street was just crazy with more drunks and partiers, so we made our way down to some back streets and some football fields and got to the mission office and was able to get a notice out to all missionaries to return home...so that is the fun and excitement of Sierra Leone independence day, way too much alcohol....oh wicked and perverse nation that we love so very much, defininitely increases my zeal and "oh that I were an angel" as I go out declaring repentance to my beautiful people of Sa Lone...Settled in yesterday and took care of lots of office work, then even had time to play monopoly with the district again...I must brag in that I completely annihalated everyone with Boardwalk and must brag further by saying I am on a 4 year unbeaten streak continuing all the way back to when I destroyed Thomas / Laura/ and Nate back when I was visiting BYU for the first time...btw, I am dumb and remember THESE sorta things, forgive me of my pride, I love you all :)

Today we had our pday and spent hours in the bank waiting for money and then got some hamburgers, bought a sweet africana shirt, then made our way on home..now...email. yay!

As for the rest of the week, last Tuesday we went and visited Kissy for a zone meeting and it was great to see my old buddies, Nwosu...Penia, Mongalo, Rogers and honestly too many others to name them all. The meeting went well.   We came on home and took care of some work and even got out to see our wonderful family man A. before taking transport to arrive at Lumley by 9:00....oh, it was hard finding the apartment off in the wasteland in the dark, but we found it and settled in nicely with the great missionaries there. Elder Bogh and Richardson and Hartling and the 2 tongans. They all prepared a WONDERFUL meal for us all and we sat down to dinner with smoothies and pasta and just a delicious dinner, sweet time with those guys, then spent a wonderufl day on exchange in the Goderich area with the man Elder Bogh. Honestly, one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and just a great missionary who proseltyes and does his finding with a temple magazine, which he uses so artfully and magnificently. Great exchange, then got home late that night.

Thursday, up early and out the door to go to Jui and then Hastings to go and meet the elders there to aid them in their weekly planning. They are very young  but we were able to help them out considerably, but it went for so long, but we eventually made our way home and then had to take care of lots of office work and our own weekly planning and made it out to go see a person real quick.

Friday, we had our last sisters training meeting over in Congo Cross and it went really well, though it was super hot and everyone was dying. We had a great meeting with them and then were able to come home and spend a bit of time out proselyting, which was really nice.

Saturday, we had a FULL day out proselyting and were so excited that we just rushed out the door and got to work. We found a super sweet guy during our contacting in a new area we had never been and we were just on fire having a great time and just really feeling the spirit. Taught, M., a young father of 3, and then got bounced around considerably by our family appointments and pretty much only the wives and children were home for all the appointments...except for our beloved man A., who we had a great lesson with on the Book of Mormon, and then we had our 1st FM (free meal) as a companionship for an enjoyable and hot Fry stew on rice from sister Loyce.

Sunday...we felt inspired to fast on Sunday for some wonderful families who promised to come to church, and we just wanted it so bad and we just wanted some miracles to happen in these people's lives..and boy did it happen. The Lord poured out so many wonderful blessings to us on Sunday that we were just drowning in smiles and laughter and just an amazing day that we know the Lord gave us in his infinite mercy! First, we went down the street and down in to the valley to where a crippled man lives who we were teaching a while ago. His foot is broken and he has no medical help, so its pretty much permanently broken...but, he has never come to church before...but felt a prompting that he should and prayed that the Lord would help him...so, we showed up in the morning and pretty much said, we are here to help you go to church, so he hollered at his boys, grabbed his walking stick and we got him up the cliff, up the stairs, and into the church...it wasn't until we visited his family that evening that he confessed to us that THAT was the first time he had crossed the road in over a year an a half...what a miracle! He could hardly even walk, but had the faith to go to church and testified to everyone in the compound that the church was true and he was going to be baptized (the muslims weren't much happy about that)  Good times! That was miracle 1! Miracle 2, we were pretty disappointed when HE was the only investigator in sacrament though after our hard work that whole week, but half way through sacrament our family came...brother S, with his wife, and 2 young girls in his arms. WHAT! The whole room watched and stared at them and our ward mission leader rushed over across the room to us and was like IS THAT your family? and we were like yes! Brother S. is a big man in the community and well respected by everyone, his children (ages 3 and 5) speak better English then our bishopric can! It was so awesome for him to finally come after we have been teaching him for such a long while now, and immediately the members all understood and helped in miracle 3. they all just swarmed this family with love. the intermediate hymn starts and immediately 3 members are surrounding them with books helping them sing. as soon as sacrament ends the entire bishopric and even President Charles from the stake went and introduced themselves and then President Charles went to elders quorum with S. and Sister Charles stayed with the wife and the kids the whole day, it was amazing...oh yeah, not to mention that area authorities were there...2nd quorum of the 70 Elder Vinson was there and even got to talk to Elder Koranteng of the area authorities as well. so sweet! Elder Vinson gave an amazing talk that really hit S., so we were super excited!

Went and got to visit A. and his family and his wife is warming up to us, or now is! because she cooked us cassave leaf and we had prayed and fasted and told the Lord that we would fast until evening or unless a miracle happened and one of our families cooked for us, and she did! so that was another miracle that opened her heart to us :)

Then, on to S. T.and his family and we got to sit down with him and boy he just loved church and his wife wants to come back next Sunday and it was just awesome but he had a whole sheet of concerns that we were able to address all through the spirit and scriptures and it was honestly one of my favorite most powerful lessons of my whole mission. Answering concerns from offerings, collection, praise and worship, dancing, fasting, prayers, miracles, speaking in tongues, unpaid clergy, boy it was a bunch of questions, but we answered EVERYTHING through the Book of Mormon and he is really growing in his testimony of it :) finished the day nicely and came on home to prepare for the next day of fun and ceaseless miracles, the Lord truly blessed us and we are trying to be grateful for every blessing big and small!

by the way, Christiana Samba just emailed me, this is her email address
​christiana.samba​@myldsmail.net
I encourage anyone and everyone to write her, even if something is small. She is a convert to the church and has NO family or anyone supporting her while she is gone so I am sure she would love and appreciate even the slightest bit of attention or time you could offer...thank you!:)

Well...yeah, that is the work right now, we are enjoying and working hard and loving mission. life is great! we love mission! love you all!:)

Love,
Jesse
Elder Sumrak

JOY

Hello family and Friends! Oh, my Easter started out depressing...I was struggling so hard to just focus and try to feel the spirit but was really down after a busy busy week that we had worked our butts off to fit in every second we could to go proselyte to only have 1 investigator in sacrament meeting, a wonderful young 21 year old guy who is just changing from Islam and its fun to watch the transformation, but we had taught so many people and so many people had promised to come that the service was just really rough for us to concentrate...but, after I was on the phone with some missionaries, when we realized one of our wonderful families was coming out of the other ward's sacrament meeting!:) The giant ripped father wearing a white shirt and carrying his small daughter in her little white dress and his step daughter at his side, I almost cried with excitement :) we got him with the other missionaries to take care of him for the rest of the day and then hugged my companion in sweet relief and excitement...our hard work this week had not been in vain...we had found a family...a man I had been prompted to engage for a long time now and we finally did it and he is truly prepared to receive the gospel, and I'm so thankful to my Heavenly Father for that tender mercy...It made the whole rest of Easter Sunday sweet as we testified to everyone about the Atonement and literal resurrection of our Living savior, Jesus Christ and it was a wonderful note to end the week on! Even if we were doing follow ups in the office until 10:28 at night haha... 

But...on to my week. Tuesday we caught some transport over to Wellington to go and attend Elder Mongalo's wonderful district meeting and he truly enlightened us and it was very edifying. He talked about our special message to the world, the restoration of the GOSPEL and not the restoration of the CHURCH, and he focused on how the gospel was the more important part of the messsage, and how we can sometimes fall into the routine of focusing too much on how the church was restored instead of the fullness of the everlasting gospel. so it was a good refesher and we saw plenty of spiritual miracles as we went out and fully applied it in our teaching throughout the week. Very sweet meeting and getting transport home didn't prove TOO difficult this time around. Wednesday was supposed to be a full day of proselyting but due to project after project and little disturbances we only got in around a couple hours in the end...but, we did our best with what we had. Thursday was another downer day as we went over to Mt. Aureol to go observe and aid in their weekly planning sessions but were forced to retreat to the office for an emergency missionary departing that day and had crazy day plugging in CDEs and doing weekly planning for ourselves and then no time to even go out, just straight to follow ups, so of course the Lord in his mercy blessed us with a magnificent Friday. 

Friday we got up early and caught Poda Poda around the back way of Grafton and made it to our sister training meeting 45 minutes early due to the easiness of the traffic that way, which was a mighty blessing. Elder Weller and Mosenthal joined us to instruct our wonderful sister trainer leaders and missionaries and it was a really superb meeting and we all left edified and wanting to do better and do more, so that was sweet! Then, we rushed home, enjoying wonderful Clif bars courtesy of mother dearst and went straight out to the field and got to see some wonderful people and had a very uplifiting day of teaching ALL families. Just mother and father and children at almost every appointment, so that was super sweet! came home, follow ups with sisters,  but we enjoy it all as much as we can... 

Saturday...not so sweet, we went over to the sisters apartment in congo cross in the morning to replace their lightbulbs...again, and then rushed into airtel in town to get all of our missionaries numbers registered and the process is so stupid and long that they have to manually put in each number and take my picture and get my thumb print...not once, but 15 STINKING TIMES! It took about 2 and a half hours as they would enter in ALL my information, take my picutre, wait for me to scan my thumb, and gosh they are so slow...and for the record, YOU DON"T HOLD DOWN THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON AND TRY TO USE IT LIKE SHIFT, IT JUST DOESN"T WORK! but, enough about that, I love these sweet people :) at least they are trying. So, with that frustration done, we finally got home and managed to salvage some of the day in the field and teach some wonderful people...so all in all a super duper busy week full of success and miracles and we are just trying to stay as busy as possible, with another insanely busy week of training, exchanges, and zone meetings and the like, so we are very excited for all of that! 

Football today was a lot of fun and I had a good day of dancing and goal scoring and the sun stayed away mostly so I'm not pink at least ;) but, Life is great and we are exhausted and I'm about to take a nap in this office to be honest, that would be really nice...maybe I will get my prayer mat and just pass out...so sweet, life is great, just keeping busy and working hard here, I love and pray for you all, thank you for your prayers and encouragement, it means so much to me!:) 

Love, 
Jesse 
Elder Sumrak

And how could I forget...Christiana Samba left for her mission Friday morning. I got her a mini hymnbook and preach my gospel and we said our goodbyes. She looked so mature and happy and scared and I'm just so proud of her. Only her sister came to see her off, and I imagine that nobody will be writing her throughout her mission except me, so anyone that wants to write this sister just let me know and I'll give you her email address :) So happy to think that she might have entered the temple today, or sometime this week! Oh, joy :) 

The Gospel Changes Lives

So, this past week has been crazy once again and busy out of my mind, but my companion is learning super quickly and it just seems like he has been an Assistant forever now haha, he is a quick learner and never a Junior companion, he is most certainly my equal and helps out so much! Love Elder Stanford, guy is a boss and we get along so well. He doesn't get up every morning to work out with me, but I get up everyday at 5:40 now and do about 1000+ crunches, 200 or so pushups and then some other ab workouts, and then we went to the gym once last week and my bench hasn't dropped so that is good, and we also went on a run on Saturday and I did well with that too, so I am staying in shape and doing well. We sure do love the protein shakes, and mix our powders together for some pretty tasty shakes haha, so we are enjoying that! Also enjoying today, our cheat day (got him on my diet as well ;) ) and we had like 8 pieces of french toast each this morning, ah life is good! 

And Mrs. Casey is most certainly invited to watch Ender's Game with me when I get home and you can tell her thank you so much! I would love if she bought that movie for me.  haha, and I can't wait to watch it and read it again and everything, with whatever stinking free time I find, seems like my life back home is going to be as busy as my mission haha, but to be honest, how my schedule looks right now that honestly isn't even possible.  

Well...the ebola craze has died down with the missionaries and hilariously is sparking up with the people. NOW they are aware and are all taking precautions, while we just lowered all of ours today and are shaking hands again and eating Free meals and the like, so thats just the way things work with the news here in Sa Lone :) 

Well...on to my week! Last Tuesday we had our monthly coordination meeting which was super sweet! Had all the sisters and zone leaders from Freetown for a great meeting and we were able to discuss some sweet topics, even a possibility of having something like sister zone leaders, but nothing for sure yet, but it was a great meeting, and afterwards we took care of some office work, then began what we knew unfortunately would be but shouldn't be an adventure. We left too late, and we knew it, as we walked out the door to the quickly setting sun at 6:30 with our back packs on our backs and 2 mosquitoe nets in a package and our swords (scriptures) held securely in our palms...We were on the way to Wellington to join the Thunderhill apartment for an exchange with the Kissy zone leaders, yeah thats a sentence for ya. As we tried and tried for transport to one of our many destinations, we failed and had to get transport another way and walk a short distance to the next pick up point. So we got taxi, walked about 15 minutes to the poda loading place, and no podas...so we began walking down the super busy/dirty/filthy/ toxic waste dust filled streets towards our destination, praying poda would pass. Many did, all were full, and now the sun was set, so on we walked past millions of people through the dark party streets of the busy part of Sierra Leone, not having any luck with transport, almost completely lost, but we pressed on, walking through neighbourhoods that I might have just curled up and cried had I found myself there without a name tag...but, we felt inspired to jump off that road and head down a sketchy alleyway through pitch black narrow streets and eventually passed through the compound of a giant mosque full of muslims, but we continued until we found the main road and prayers were answered as we found a half full taxi with a taxi man willing to break the law and overload us all in there :) SUCCESS! we then took the taxi about 20 minutes down the road and he let us off too early...so walked another 10 minutes until we met the zone leaders on the street. we were filthy and tired  but not depressed and entered into a house of young wonderful missionaries, Elder Rogers (my pikin!), Elder Hamilton, Elder Mphaka, Elder Orchard, and zone leaders Ahrinful and Arikpo. We had a great time and it was so sweet to catch up with my boy Elder Rogers!  

Well, Wednesday we had the sweet exchange and had such a great time with the elders. I went with Arikpo up into the Thunderhill areas with the intention of training on finding and teaching families and it went super successful and we were able to find a couple and have some sweet lessons with people! Ended the day early so that we could get home on time, and that still didn't really work as it took us close to 2 hours to get home... might I add that the distance without traffic and the hecticness of Freetown really should be about a 5-10 minute drive haha, very disappointing, poor people here :( its not easy! as they would like to say. 

Thursday, up early and back to the streets to hunt for transport and managed to get 2 taxi rides to get to the poda loading area and then ride the poda for an hour and a half to Waterloo to go and do a weekly planning surprise training with the young missionaries and new district leader there. It went super well and we were able to observe, correct and give some good help to these wonderful missionaries to help them be a tad bit more effective, but we were pleasantly graced with wonderful obedient missionaries, so we were very happy. took a good long ride home and managed to get out and teach a couple lessons in the evening, even though we both had dead legs from the stinking poda poda, stupid seats weren't even mounted to the floor haha, then no taxi, so had to walk about an hour and fifteen minutes home and get hit by 2 stinking bike men...tish! but, we were diligent and still went out bloody and diligent :) trying to do our best haha! 

Well, Friday morning we got up early and fortuantely found a ride with Bishop Markus to go back to Kissy to go and do a sisters training meeting, so we were surprised to find all the sisters there on time and got to have an instruction with the 8 sisters there, as well as the sister trainer leaders Mukiisa and Povanhu gave brief instruction and it honestly went fantastic. We were nervous the sisters would just shut down and not even respond, but they were all super engaged and optimistic and we were able to help them learn a lot of things they were struggling with. Poor sisters :( nobody trains them on the simple things so they have a hard time when they become leaders but these sisters are all so committed and humble and willing to learn, I love that about them! We went to a nice lil cheap restaurant and got some uh hamburgers? made out of ...uh luncheon meat...yeah, then paid a fine price to get a taxi man to just take us all the way home (not playing with transport anymore)! Then, found out many of the missionaries phones were in danger of shutting off due to not being registered :( so we got a ride into town and went to the Airtel office and I have a woman contact in the back, the manager, who I was able to fight through the huge crowd to talk to her, we engaged her with our mende and were able to get one of their workers to come back to our office with us and register our huge list of phones...problem, when he showed up he didn't have everything he needed to finish the job...so, we taught him the Restoration and sent him on his way :)  
Saturday morning, taught a quick lesson in the chapel to Hassan and then got transport into town to go finish the registration. Were able to get this  woman to do our short list for us but that took close to 2 hours, and we rushed home to try and salvage the day and teach as much as possible, so we did some weekly planning finally and then made our way out to go and teach some wonderful people and families :) In the evening, during follow ups, one of our best buddies from Bo, Sonaldo, showed up because all the youth there are on a YSA Summit trip to Freetown where a 70 came and addressed them, so he came and visited us and it was so cool to see him again! 2 of my converts made the long trip as well and were enjoying a dance, but Sonaldo isn't into that haha, but he brought Elder Stanford and me 2 pushup bars with our names carved in them that he made haha, that guy is so sweet!:)  

Sunday, had a sweet service and then skipped part of our Sunday School to go and visit Belliar Park, where Christiana  got up to bare her farewell testimony to leave on mission to Liberia on Friday, my sweet convert who was baptized in November 2012. She is just incredible, the change that she has made in her life just wouldn't make complete sense through email. She was on the bad side of life and everything when we found her and she has just completely reversed. She couldn't even look people in the eyes before, couldn't read, couldn't talk well, just ashamed and shy. Now...stood up in front of 200 people, bore testimony about the truth and divinity of the restored gospel and the Book of Mormon, and threw my name into the testimony like 10x haha which got kinda awkward because everytime she did, everybody in the congregation would turn around and look at me, then turn back haha oh but it was beautiful to see how far she has come. The gospel is amazing...it truly is :) 

Well...played some awesome football today  so that was a lot of fun. tired and exhausted and going to go get a haircut!! woot woot! life is great and we are balling hard, trunkiness it no daeo, so una go lef for tok dat one! Love you all :) 

Love, 
Jesse 
Elder Sumrak

All is Well

 Oh, all is well, all is well and everything here is going amazing. I seriously love my new companion to death and we get along perfectly and just have the same work ethic...this has honestly been one of the busiest, most exhausting happiest weeks of my whole mission and I am still tired from it and getting more tired every day, but that's what it's all about. Just keep going and hope that your body quits when you get on the plane home rather than on the top of the mountain ;) He is the perfect missionary to come here and help me to achieve my goal of not getting trunky and going hard until the very last second. The training for him has gone so quickly and smoothly, except he is not so hot with computers, naturally after being in Africa for over a year now, but he is picking it up quickly. We are both cleanly people, obedient, and planners and love to gym, so that is going well and he is also on my diet plan, so we are unified in all things! Life is great! Let's see our week... 

Monday, we left our emailing and went on up to the mission home for our wonderful missionaries departure dinner and boy was it good. We had sloppy joes at the request of Elder Turner and it was madly delicious and then I was exahusted from all the work and passed out during testimonies, but from what I gathered they were really sweet :) haha dessert was massive amounts of ice cream and brownies and I can shamefully say that I had 3 servings...but don't judge me haha. We came on home and the internet was not working and we had to deliver the transport movements to our mission drivers, so at 10:45 at night, President Ostler is driving us around Freetown going to bishop's house to drop those off, and then we finally got to sleep around 11. We were up early to gym and start the transport movements and what not, don't know if I told you about the thief we caught last week in the compound...but he was fired, but on Tuesday EVERYTHING that could go wrong did, and the Lord always provided another way and made so many miracles happen. Well, before it was even 6:30 already got calls that one of our buses broke down and had to figure out different arrangements for that, then came to find out that the driver left 2 of the people he was supposed to pick up, so had to rearrange for them, then the timing didn't work anymore, so had to arrange for elders to spend the night in different places and oh boy I was working hard but we got through the morning and the rearrangements and had the apartment all suited up, then found out an additional missionary was on the way, and got them suited up.  

Ate lunch, then took the 5 departing missionaries on over to the airpot and it was sweet this time because we got to ride across with them, and held back my tears this time as we said goodbye to some really good friends, a companion, and even my future apartment mate Elder Symons...bye bye! Then, we had a briefing with President Ostler about the agenda and program for the Lungi conversion plan haha and that went sweet, then the 15 new missionaries started arriving, looking all fresh and green and happy haha, so we gathered them all up on the bus and got them across on 2 separate sea coach boats, which was a lot of fun! a really excited group with like 4 tongans included, and they were just fun and friendly and super excited for the work. I contacted a man on the bus though, an Indian man R., and that was cool , one of the first Indian contacts I've made, although I tried to contact an Egyptian yesterday and quite honestly I think I would have done better with a deaf person haha, couldn't understand each other at all!:) but we tried. We got all the missionaries back to the mission office safely, fed them all, got everyone snug for bed, did all of our crazy busy work, and we even got to bed on time as well! But...problem, I had ordered and prepared food for 15 missionaries, but I didn't take into account the fact that 1 tongan = 4 normal humans, so when they went to make sandwiches, one elder literally made an 8 piece of bread pb and j...so, did a quick assessment to get extra food...but oh tongans...love them so much :) 

Up early Wednesday to start preparing breakfast for the elders and managed to have them all dressed and ready and even time for personal studies, then went down to the office and the Ostler's arrived with a last minute request...They wanted to take the 15 missionaries up to Leicester Peak, the top of the mountain, 25 minutes away, to do an orientation...well all of our drivers were gone doing movements, but Elder Stanford and I were not discouraged, we loaned 200,000 out from the mission funds and ran out to the junction and miraculously found an empty poda poda (literally, its a miracle to ever see one empty) and we managed to hire him hahaha, Imagine that, it was so cool, so he drove us back to the compound and we piled the missionaries in there and the mission vehicles as well and made our sketchy way up to the top of Leicester Peak for a really sweet and unique orientation that we haven't done before :) Awesome! Made our way down and then managed to get the poda poda man's contact information and then sent it (he has been taught multiple times by the missionaries now and he and his family are progressing :) ). So continued on and had orientation and lunch and got to teach all the new guys everything I know about Sierra Leone, at the request of the Ostlers at lunch haha, which was lots of fun for Elder Stanford and I. After, ran up to the office and managed to coordinate all the drivers and give them their tasks and get the elders in the right cars and sent out to their areas, strangely no mistakes, so that was nice! Got all that done and we still had 5 left who would be leaving Thursday, so I paired each of them with elders here and we all went out to go teach, gosh it felt so sweet to have a newbie again, and I just threw him right in and we contacted 2 families straight and taught them and got him to do some teaching as well. Elder Adu-Gyamfi :) oh, that was such a good time, we exhausted them up on the hills and then tucked 'em all in for bed. 

Thursday we were up by about 5:15 or so starting to wake the elders and pile up all the supplies for Bo/Kenema and fed everyone and what not, and eventually the bus showed up and we got them all out successfully with no more hassle. So, with all that done, finally Elder Nwosu and the others departed for Lungi, farewell! and we continued our work. Sister Brown from Kissy was leaving on her mission so we helped with her orientation and setting apart, then accompanied president to sea coach to drop her off, and we stayed with her to keep her company, then found taxi home fortunately. we then had an office meeting that lasted FOREVER and didn't end until dark, but we went out and taught a lesson anways before coming back to close.   

Friday, we left after personal study and got a ride with Bishop Markus to attend Lumley zone's district/sister training leader orientation meeting, and their chapel is right on the beach, so it was so pretty as we sat outside and had an amazing instruction from Elder Bogh and Richardson and also so cool to see all of our district leades from that side. They helped train everyone up and it was a sweet meetng. We came on home and then had a 4 hour planning session, as we planned the most crazy transfer of my entire life. Everyday, district meetings, exchanges, trainings, observations, follow ups, interviews, my my my we are going to die but its going to be so sweet. we ended the study at 6:30 and had followups at 7...but, we ran out and contacted 2 families before running inside to close and do follow ups until 10:30 haha....boy oh boy.  

Saturday was a sweet and amazing full day out proselyting with miracles and miracles and families and families. Such a sweet day and a nice break from the office :) And yeah...thats how the weekend pretty much went down, we are working our faces off and enjoying it so much and gosh my fingers hurt from typing, so I am going to shut up now, but I love you all so much and I pray for all of you and hope you all continue to endure to the end...yeah, something like that. Love you bye bye! 

Love, 
Jesse 
Elder Sumrak 

New Companion!

FAMILY! Friends! The madness is currently going on and I am trying to keep my sanity. My phone has been ringing off the hook with transfer news, questions, and transfer movement questions and when am I being picked up? Why haven't I been picked up yet? Where am I supposed to go? And boy it's just crazy and just writing this email this one paragraph I have answered the phone like 3 times.  So we are in the process of it all right now, with the 5 departing missionaries with us right now, Jones, Symons, Despain, Turner, and Mills and we just took them all to town to go blow all their money on goodies for home. Got some hamburgers and ice cream and now back to the mission office just trying to shoot off a lil email before we are off to the hardest week possibly of my mission haha....the reason being...I am flying pretty much solo right now, as my companion has received his transfer news and will be going to Lungi to open up that area, and I have received my new companion, the amazing and hard working Elder Stanford, who I have been praying to be compaions with my whole mission because of his work ethic, but he is new here and doesn't really know whats going on, so its all on me right now because I have been here, but my companion is prematurely retired haha, but I will make it through...and if not, then someone died and it wasn't because of ebola! 

Oh, the insanity of it all, this week we received the news about the Ebola entering the country and it has just been pandemonium. Missionaries calling in asking if they have the symptoms. So we had a staff meeting and we all discussed our emergency plans and ended up sending immediate funds to every apartment who went out and bought 2 weeks worth of rice, toilet paper, food, water, and the like to stock every apartment in case we were put into lockdown mode...its been a difficult week...were not allowed to shake hands with people anymore, even missionaries really, we aren't allowed to eat ANYTHING off the street, which we don't cook ourselves, so its super hard right now but we are working to get adjusted. I don't believe that the Ebola is really a threat anymore, even though rumors pop up of people in Freetown getting it...but gosh I had nightmares the first couple nights, thanks to the 3 hour video we watched wtih Mrs. Key in high school on it...geeze that is scary stuff, but all is well here and the exctiement and nerves are finally dying down...all is well... 

But...besides that all is well. Our poor president was so busy and we normally receive transfer news on Wednesday, but it didn't come until Friday, so we have been going ever since in that office until 10 PM just working our minds off! On Friday though, we did go to the bank, then joined Gyewu-Appiah and Lanier to go get Indian food at Saffron, some new restaurant...it wasn't bad. just fried rice with some nice hot indian dressing on it. super yummy though. By the way, last Monday we went to a place called Ginnas which was like a frozen yogurt/jamba juice place haha where I got some real frozen yogurt and it was delicious. It was so sweet! the place was so cool. Wireless interent and just everyobyd in there was white...it was very strange! so, I left and bought some african street food and came back (before the ban might I add...I'm obedient :) ) 
but, Friday evening the Kanzlers took us out for Elder Nwosu's last dinner with them and we went to the nice restaurant, Crown Express! Where we had amazing delicious food and a wonderful experience. I got 2 giant crepes, stuffed with chicken and shrimp haha, which was SOO stinking good! then back home to work the whole night.... And yeah 

Welll....I miss you and love you all...thank you for everything. sorry for how busy I am...I want to talk more but I am so busy right now. Love you all :) love you mamma and pappa! 

Love, 
Jesse
Elder Sumrak 

Visiting the Dentist

Well, mama and papa you both seem interested to know how the tooth is and thank you for your thoughts and prayers; it was definitely an experience to remember haha! 

So Friday morning I was driven there by the Kanzlers and the Seaders and they were just joking giving me a hard time, but it wasn't until I entered the office until I realized;oh my gosh, I am in a 3 rd world country, the poorest country, about to get health care work done on me? WHAT AM I DOING?! Get me outta here! But, the office was very clean and actually looked legit once you got past the outside haha. So, I wait in the lobby and of course, we are tired missionaries, so we pass out instantly on the couch and the nurses wake me up to go on back, so I get chatting with them in Krio and they are all super friendly, and Dr. comes in, and he is just a fun and loving joking guy, so he jabbed me with some novocaine and I'm sitting there wondering, oh my where has that needle been?! But, I try to ignore it, as he does it with no gloves on might I add, but while he is waiting for me to numb up we chat about food and culture and everything, and then he begins the work, but quickly realizes that TISH, that area is not numb enough yet haha;so, he gives me another aggressive shot in my mouth, targeting apparently my main nerve; well, Elder Sumrak didn't like that and started getting very dizzy very quickly, but I tried to man up and just said okay, let us continue, and opened my mouth and next thing you  know I am having some crazy dreams and weird stuff is going on, and then where the heck am I, who are these people? What is the point of life? Seriously, those were my thoughts as I blacked out, and woke up to bright lights and 3 africans massaging my chest and arms. My shirt was unbuttoned and my tie was loose and my laces and my belt and I had passed out and honestly I couldn't breathe hahah and I was very scared, but as they massaged my chest I came back pretty quickly and drank some water and then I made a joke about not eating enough cassava leaf before I came, then laughed my self to tears for like 5 minutes while they couldn't figure out what was going on; but, the rest of the procedure went well and my tooth looks quite amazing to be honest. So, now that my mouth was completely numb, that is when I decided to introduce the gospel and invite him to church; yeah, with spit sliding down my face and everything, probably should have done that before :) 

Well the rest of the day was pretty difficult, as I got back and was really dizzy, I wanted to be a good example to other missionaries, so I manned up and we went proselyting, even though I was teaching with half a face and the most important word in my vocabulary (Jesus Christ) couldn't even be comprehended by myself when I tried to say it haha! But, the day went well and was pretty funny when Jokella, Elder Nwosu and I, sat down to teach one man, who confessed he was planning on taking a second wife, and currently was cheating on his wife, but didn't see any problem with it; while all the neighbours are listening and its just like casual talk. So, that pretty much knocked the novocaine outta my mouth and I was feeling sore but could talk again as we tried to help him understand Jesus Christ's way, but his heart was very hard and we felt like we were getting nowhere;surprisingly, by the end of the lesson after the prayer, he said that he was convinced and he was not planning on having a 2nd wife now;so, we will have to follow up and see how that goes..he has such a beautiful family, a wonderful YOUNG 16-18 year old wife, while he looks to be 35-40 and beautiful children, ah, we don't want him to ruin what he has already been blessed with! 
But on to the rest of the week! 

Wow, what a super active and super fast week has past me by here in the Sierra Leone mission. I don't even remember half the week haha, it just flew by, but I will do my best to recount the awesome week that we had! Well, got our email on Monday what President wanted us to instruct on Tuesday morning at zone conference, so we got to work preparing that evening and really the Spirit just took over and sweet scriptures and references and applications were coming to us, so we were able to knock the preparation out in less than an hour, and had an outline that we were both very content with! The zone conferences were oriented around working with the members and Elder Nwosu and I were to instruct on how to work with members through the branch mission leader, and then to include an instruction on the correct way to give advice and correction to the member leaders. So, we had our instruction prepared for that, giving scriptural references and what not on how to and how not to handle issues, and I loved sharing the example of Uzzah from 2 Samuel 6; I think that's right, about Uzzah and the ark haha, and applying that. 

Well, we were up early Tuesday morning and Elder Appiah and I decided to go for a nice semi-long run and ran 6-7 miles to Murray town and made our way back in the dark. Good times, feeling healthy and good and honestly could have done 10 more, no problem, so catching up with you pops! But, President Ostler came and picked us up, he was a bit late, and then got pulled into a meeting, literally pulled out of the van, but we were blessed with traffic and were only 15 minutes late and we had a wonderful conference over in Kissy :) it was super sweet and fun being my first zone conference giving instruction, I really enjoyed it and was surprised by how smoothly everything went. We had an Elder who finished his mission, Elder Aluka, so we took him on up to Leicester Peak, then to the mission home for a wonderful dinner where we ordered tons of stuff from Crown express, Pasta, Thai curry, pizza, and all this awesome food, then dessert of ice cream and brownies, oh my spoiled taste buds were so happy :) Came on home and slept so well! 
Wednesday, home base, we had zone conference here in Freetown and it went very well as well, except in the morning when we woke up and realized that we had forgot to order food, so we made an emergency order and she said she could do it. When the food was delivered, it was swarmas with cheese balls? Guess she couldn't finish the fries in time;) but, everyone enjoyed and the conference went well. I was surprised by how comfortable I am becoming in front of the missionaries, though the Lord has always blessed me with being comfortable talking in front of people, but being nervous prior has always been a weakness of mine, but that has significantly diminished due to this calling, so that is a great blessing I am having :) 

Thursday, we were up early again and out the door quick to go to the Waterloo Zone Conference, but we stopped in Kissy on the way to meet a departing missionary and his family to set him apart as he was making his way to the airport;it was so cool to be able to stand in in setting apart a missionary and the blessing he gave that young man I know that it came from the Lord; it was so powerful and that boy is going to do great! So, on to our last zone conference of the week, and it went smoothly as well and was over quickly and nicely and in time for Elder Nwosu and I to even get home and get 2 appointments in, so we are trying our best haha! What a super busy week though! 

But, ON Sunday I got to see an old face;Christiana, my convert that I baptized inside Mt. Aureol ward back in November 2012; she came to our sacrament meeting and flagged me down so I ran to go sit with her.  She takes out her bag;SHE HAS RECEIVED HER MISSION CALL and is going to the Liberia Monrovia mission :) ah, I was so stinking happy and just wanted to sing and shout haha and she is so excited as well. She really doesn't know too much about the gospel doctrine or lessons or anything, but just has a great desire to go out and serve, and I'm just so happy because I know it doesn't matter if she isn't prepared now, mission is going to change her life and convert her so much. She is going to be going to the temple! What?! :) I am just so happy to have a convert who is going to the temple and so happy that she is going to go and receive those blessings :) she leaves next month on the 18, so I will make sure I am there to help her with anything she needs as she goes;I am so proud of her! 
But, that was my week;and life is great and kickin well here. We will receive the transfer news this week and get ready to dish out all these fresh 18 coming missionaries, I am super excited and ready to get to work;this week and next week will be the busiest, here we go again!:) 
And as far as Lungi, I'm pretty sure its set and ready for missionaries to go, but we will know for sure this week and my eyes are FINE I Promise, it was just really bright in those pictures, my eyes are just tired but, just from exhaustion haha! 

All is well here...I love you all and miss you so much and pray that you are all doing well...I am still studying myself about undertanding principles to dictate my actions, instead of studying the actions themselves :) it really is sweet and its changing the way I think about a lot of things! everyone, I love you! Bye bye! 

Love, 
Jesse, 
Elder Sumrak