Bed Bugs!

Mother! Wow, it sounds like you guys have been having a super duper time out there in Utah and I am super jealous, but then again, you should be jealous of me because  I am living it up in sweet ol Africa sa Lone and teaching the sweetest restored gospel to the most amazing people in the world...so booyakasha!:) but, seriously, love and miss you all and hope you are having an amazing time! 

My week...my week...I don't even know where to start...well let's go in chronological order then! 

Tuesday, we got up and did our gyming, then headed over across town to Cnogo Cross to attend our wonderful Elder Gyewu-Appiah's district meeting. Got to teach a sweet woman outside the church briefly while we waited for the district to come to the church, so I hope that she came on Sunday haha :) The district meeting was sweet and we had 2 brand new missionaries there, so we had a good time with them as well and the instruction from our sweet Sister Asiimwe was great! After that, we headed on home and had a meeting with president in the office about some mission issues and what not. Then, we got to go out and teach briefly before coming home and packing up our bags for our sleepover...got a taxi to take us the 45 minute drive to Goderich, where we were to go on an exchange with the zone leaders Richardson and Lokpo there. In the dark, walking down a street I had never even seen before, I hear my name called out, and it was Inah Moses, the young lady I baptized in the ocean a couple months ago, and it was so great to see her and catch up and even her mother called me the next day and I  got to talk to her! Oh, I love that family so much! 

Well, we continued on our way to the apartment and had a good time with the elders there before going to bed. They have a bench there so we all went and competed and had a great time with Hartling, Mason, and Ichode before Lokpo made Okra soup with ebba before we went to bed... well, we realized it was 10:30 - too late because the clock on the wall was off, so we rushed to get into the spare bedroom and with the dim light of the flashlight we see the 2 mattresses are just covered in black dirt...just covered and we had stupidly assumed they had mosquitoe nets there...my friends, my family...say hello to my worst night of the entire mission. Trying to solve the issue quickly and obediently, I threw down a prayer mat on top of the bed and the elders came and brought me a pillow...at first it was really nice with the breeze coming through the windown, then around 1:00...the sweetness ended, as something was chewing the tish out of me! I had no sheet or anything, so I eventually ran and threw on my suit pants to cover my poor exposed legs...then, took my shirt off and covered my hands and face with it as well as I could. it was quite a sight to see and needless to say, I didn't sleep at all for pretty much the entire night...woke up to exercise and had no energy...but I had some friendly bites and counted 30+ bites on my left foot 40+ on my right foot and multiple bites on my neck and arms...oh my, I thought I was surely Malaria bound, but tried not to panic and just took my medicine and continued...(came to find out later that it was not mosquite bites THANK GOODNESS but bed bugs...I called and ordered the mattress to be burned immediately) I was so exhausted that I had to stand up during personal studies just to stay awake haha, but the Lord blessed me and gave me strength and I had an amazing day out teaching with Elder Richardson in the Emergency area! It was an awesome and spirit filled day, and I even saw one of my first converrts on mission Abu Joseph Conteh, and he is preparing to leave on mission this summer!:) didn't even know! so sweet haha! 

Well, we finished up the exchange and made it home around 9:00 and closed for the day and crashed... 

Thursday, oh what a sweet day, as we received a special assignment from our sweet mission president to go and look at a NEW area that has never been proseltyed before to go observe the members there and see if they are ready for further progression...so we woke up in the morning and rented a taxi and went to take a ferry across the ocean. It was a fun ride, as we got first class, which meant we sat in a room with a lot of rich people while they played very loud and apostate music and people tried to sell us things...but, it was a better atmosphere then the rest of the market of a ferry that was going on outside haha, so no problem. The ferry was super slow and took about an hour until we arrived at our destination. Receiving us was an excited return missionary, W.,  who has been living in this place for 3 years now from his mission with his wife and has been dying for the church to come there...he has organized a family home evening in his community each week and has  gone to long pursuits to find other members in the area to gather and prosper. He has found 2 other return missionary couples some other members, and already has about 4-5 investigators attending weekly...so they have about 10 or so a week usually and he has been begging president so president sent us to go investigate. So, this wonderful man toured us all around the area! we got to go and meet their investigators who all want to be baptized and were so happy to meet us! They are so anxious for the gospel to come there and were just almost in tears when they saw us. They were like, ah the church is coming, the church is coming! We got to go and see Z., another return missinoary mamma. We got to see H., a convert from Kenema. We got to even teach the first ***** Lesson and the young lady, Julliette accepted to be baptized...although we couldn't really set a date haha! But, then we took a short trip to a school where he is planning on starting to keep service if the home group gets approved, and continued on to the government hospital to meet S S., a super ripped return missionary whose wife is also a return missionary and talk about moving the work forward...we discussed missionary possible apartments, chapel locations, baptismal sites, and the possible proselyting areas and the like..We came on home on the ferry, meeting another police man return missionary who got us on 1st class for free. Then made our long trip home and got home close to 9:00 again...so tired..we crashed. 

Friday, woke up and gave our report to President and Ostler and talked about our future plans to help establish the church there...we will be returning this Friday to look for apartments and the like and hopefully get this show on the road quickly! we are very excited and even prayed and fasted for these people on Sunday...they called Sunday night and said they found 4 potential missionary apartments. I have a testimony and KNOW that the Lord is truly hastening his work here..it is certainly an exciting time!:) 

After our meeting we had an office staff meeting which went on for a long time, then we rushed to the bank to go and get our subsistence and then return back in time to go and teach a lesson before the day was finished...oh, how this week flew by. Saturday was SWEET and we had a full day out proselyting with multiple members and saw some amazing people. Sunday was a great day as well, as were opportuned to keep fast and I rushed to go bare my testimony first before the usual crowd :) President Ostler, his wife, and his daughter were in attendance so it was a sweet sacrament meeting and we even had 4 investigators come, the ones we saw on Saturday! so that was encouraging as well. After church, we gotour ward mission leader to meet with us, and then made our way to go teach J. and her parents about the importance of family, as J. had brought her mother to church and it was a super sweet experience for her :)  

Today, got to play some SWEET SWEET football and everything I touched turned to gold and we had a great time...even proved to myself my juggling skills are still there when I topped over 500 consecutive juggles..oh you would laugh if you see the ball we use to play with haha but that was fun, then we went in to town to get Elder Nwosu a haircut, and now finally emailing... 

Well...as for my diet this week, aye I ate some surely funny meals, protein packed and surprisingly tasty, breafkast usually looked like: 2-3 eggs, onions, green beans, bell peppers, and great northern beans. Lunch: same vegetables, sardines, and beans Dinner: same vegetables, chicken, and beans....well, now I have mixed it up and now also throw in lentils as well with most of my meals and now have carrots and spinach to throw in there as well and just throw it all in a pan and small oil and then throw on random seasonsings that end up making it taste pretty awesome!:) so, I have been enjoying that for EVERY meal of everyday...seriosuly, no variants, no oatmeal, no breads, rice, or anything, that is it...until...SATURDAY!  

Saturday: my cheat day, and I wanted to see how much I could enjoy and boy did I enjoy! and since my reps increased from 18 to 20 so, small difference, but it was more about enjoyment! Started the morning with some sprints and crunches, then some eggs and beans and spinach...then...2 poptarts, tons of peanut butter, digestive biscuits, bowl of oatmeal, tootsie rolls, giant bowl of krin krin rice, king driver (giant sugar cookie) more rice, frozen poptart and mircrowaved poptart with a glass of milk, bowl of oatmeal, bowl of cereal, bowl of jollaf rice, tons of swedish fish, and some bananas, tons of nuts and fruit mixes...for a grand total of about 3,700- 4,000 calories of sweet and deserved delicousness...I can't even remember the last time I ate HALF that much and boy was it nice :) and conveniently almost made fast Sunday too easy..which I feel like I need to sacrifice more haha! I was not even hungry! but, the fast Sunday was very sweet and spiritual so I know it was still amazingly beneficial :) oh boy, what will I eat next Saturday?! I have no clue, but its going to be GOOOOOOOOD!:) 

well, that is my craziness and insanity coming out of Sierra Leone!  I love you all so very much and I miss you all. Hope you all have a fantastic week and always remember your purpose. I love the talk in the February Liahona from Elder Scott, just read it this morning and it was SOO good :) encourage everyone to live by those principles and then hopefully a part of the USA will not fall off into the great abyss!  

Love, 
Elder Jesse Sumrak