Moyamba Week 11

Disclaimer: I am okay, I am fine, please nobody call the Mission Office and most definitely do not get on a plane to Sierra Leone. But I got Malaria this week! oh yeah and Typhoid at the same time.

Let's start with the beginning of the week though!

Tuesday our Zone Leaders from Bo made the long trek out to Moyamba for exchanges. It was the first time Zone Leaders had come for a while and my companion was very surprised when he heard they were coming. Apparently, they wanted to see how we suffered out here in the bush, and they caught us at a good time because once again we are out of fuel. When means well we didn't have electricity before, now we really don't because we can't even run our generator. But it was good and they brought us peanut butter and fried chicken so we were appreciative.

Wednesday I woke up with some back pain, but I didn't think too much of it, just thought that I slept on my back weird and I'd take some Alieve and move on with the day. The Zone Leaders conducted their meeting in the morning and then left to go back to Bo. After they left I felt really tired, like really tired. I laid down to ease the pain of my joints and slept for like two hours. I woke up a got dressed on to still feel horrible, but hey no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing so we went out for the day. The first stop was lunch and I didn't eat because I had no appetite. Elder Kabosha finally asked if all was well and quickly realized it was not. They gave me a blessing and we waited small to see if I felt better. I didn't so my companion took me back to our house where I took my temperature...102.9! Called the mission nurse and she told me to go to the clinic in town to get a malaria test, sure enough, I had malaria and small typhoid. Now before anyone gets mad at me I would like to just clarify that for the 3 months on my mission I have not missed a day of taking Doxy or sleeping under a mosquito net, I did everything I could to prevent this and still got screwed.

Thursday was great. Woke up feeling 100%, weird I know because Wednesday as I was vomiting 13 times and going to the bathroom every 10 minutes, I felt that I was going to die. The only bad part about this day was taking the medicine because they don't put coating around the pills here. The mission nurse told me to rest for the day but as my best friend Matt McCord would say "momma raised a soldier" so we proselyted all day!

Friday was even better! Finished the Malaria medicine and taught some great lessons.
Saturday we baptized 3 more people and it was a really spiritual service, maybe because I was conducting, but I doubt it haha. Elder Applegarth baptized them, and it was his last baptism as an elder.

Sunday started way too early, 3:30am to be exact and here's why. Sierra Leone is famous for lying, cheating, and stealing. Thieves are crazy here. All windows have bars and the reasons we have a barbed wire wall around our house is to keep them out. People will cause motorcar wrecks on the highway so while people are attending to the injured they can steal their stuff. So back to the story, we're all sleeping outside under our veranda because like I said before, we have no fuel so instead of sweating inside we'll sleep outside. And I feel a tap from Elder Kabosha through our mosquito net, saying "thief man in de apartment" I look inside to see a figure moving very slowly and a dim light. We figured someone had climbed the wall and was trying to steal our stuff. Kabosha quickly hid under the kitchen table ready to jump the man when he came down the hall while Applegarth went around the back grabbed a shovel and waited for him to come out the door. Meanwhile, I watched from my mattress. We hear the door close and the light starts to get brighter as the man comes down the hall...Only to
be Elder Flake using the bathroom! We got a pretty good laugh as well as the members that we told.

This week sucked but it strengthened me as well. I can now say that I have survived malaria but I also can say I never want to experience it again. Elder Applegarth leaves this Thursday. So I only have about four more days with him which is sad, our friendship has really grown the last few months. The people of Moyamba love him so the next few days is basically going to be parties with missionary work thrown in here and there. But I am excited to move forward, while it does suck to see missionaries go home and leave, it also means your time is moving faster than you think. Which is true, time has moved so quick as I have immersed myself and grown a love for the people of Moyamba. It brings me joy to see the joy that they discover when we teach the gospel.

I love you all and wish you the best! And just want to let you know that I am doing great!!!!

Elder Hendricks

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:

How did you end up with Malaria and do you have a lot of bites?

Doxy is only like 96% effective in preventing, and yeah, I have a bunch of bites always and they do itch

How is the fuel paid for?

The mission office sends a check and they haven’t sent it.

Is there a way for you to get snail mail?

There’s a post, that has a jungle growing inside, so no they don’t have mail.  If you were to drop a letter in the box it would stay there till the second coming  (clarification – no, the mission office doesn’t mail the check for fuel….)

What happened to the tailor that got fired?

He gives us discounts on our stuff and when we went to pick up the jackets he wasn’t there, so we gave the money to his boss and the boss wasn’t happy.  But it’s all good because he’s back now!

Are you keeping track of the wins/losses for the BYU Cougars, WSU Cougars and UW Huskies based on what Dad and I email you?

Do you really expect me to go about my mission and not know that wsu is 6-1 uw is 6-2 and byu is 4-3.  No, you shouldn’t. Don’t worry, it’s not taking away from the work - just reminds me which color tie I should wear on Saturday. And as you can imagine, last Saturday I was repping my crimson and grey tie hard at baptism. 

Teaching is going really good as well as my personal study. I started the book of Mormon for the third time on my mission. Yeah third time!  I figured I’m going to slow down and really study the tar out of it, which I have been. I have read 1 Nephi so many times, but wow, how did I miss all this stuff?

Moyamba Week 10

Last week Will sent a quick email home expressing some frustrations regarding the wifi, and therefore there wasn't much to post. However, he did answer some questions that were asked! They are posted at the end of this.

This was a lot better of a week!

We did run out of gas though and still no one has come to bring us money to buy gas so instead of suffering inside and sweating all night we moved all our mattresses and mosquito nets outside under our gazebo
type things and we've slept outside ever since last Monday. It has been really nice, we are approaching the end of the rainy season so it just rains at night so it cools down real nice and we're able to get a good night sleep. I even woke up cold everyone and the lowest temperature my alarm clock said was 75 degrees.

Some funny things that happened this week are, on Wednesday one of our investigators that is getting baptized this week was teaching me how to say the days of the week in Mende (a tribe which is mainly in Moyamba
and Bo). So after he taught me that, I taught he about a nickname we give Wednesday,  HUMP DAY! So naturally I had to tell him about the camel and the Geico commercial, he thought it was pretty funny and we had a good laugh.

Second funny thing is hilarious, so there is this really weird guy that follows my companion and I around, like every day, don't be scared I am 100% confident in my companion and my ability to beat the guy up if he tries to do anything. But he was sitting on the other side of this yard as we taught a lesson and afterward we left fast to try and lose him. We did, and taught another person before going to the family where we always eat. Upon walking in the eating area we saw him sitting there. Turns out he had come and asked the Sister in the branch for her daughter's hand in marriage!!! This guy is like 30, maybe older, and the girls he asked for is 17. Strange but hilarious but not even the best part. African culture is very open, anyone can come and go or stay, which is why this guy just sitting there was somewhat normal. Unlike in America where if a stranger just comes to your house, they would not stay long. But at these members house a tailor works there, old guy, and after hearing this man came to ask for marriage he sprang into action questioning this guy and asking for price. The man kept replying that he had an education and didn't need to give money.  (This section of the story has been censored by Will's Mother, but involves references to some foul language that, while normal in Africa, is not something you would typically hear an old man in the US saying.) Elder Applegarth and I were dying laughing so hard. This old man was roasting this dude.

The final funny thing was Saturday, Elder Kabosha and Flake had a baptism in the morning and afterward we ate well, like lots of food. So after eating we came back to study and get ready for the day. We were planning to go out at 2 and around 1:45 we got a call from a less active member saying that we needed to come quick and like right now. Elder Applegarth and I went thinking we were going to give a blessing to a dying child, so we're praying the whole bike ride there asking for the ability to save this child, and when we arrive she invites us in. Only to set down two giant plates of food. Like nice food, cut rice, noodles, beef (like real beef), fried chicken. So generous and proabably like an 80,000 Le meal in Bo. The only problem was we just had eaten. But long story short Heavenly Father answered our prayers of asking to be able to keep all that food down.

Elder Applegarth is down to his last two weeks before he goes home, and honestly is crazy how fast the time has gone, I have determined because I am doing the Lords work and also it still feels like summer to me. Probably because I have never been in 85 degree weather in October, but hey I enjoy it.

Elder Hendricks

QUESTION ANSWERS:

When we teach people about temples they get all excited until we tell them it’s in Ghana. The Church does pay travel costs for a member’s first temple trip so there are 6 branch members that we are trying to prepare for the trip.

Oh I totally forgot to tell you guys, but at the start of this transfer, I shaved my head, lol.  I got a picture but I haven’t been able to send it yet. Honestly, it looks pretty good and I’ll probably continue this style when I get home.  It was like dad short and I was styling.

The mission gave us a brand new 4g wifi thing, only problem is that we got back and Moyamba doesn’t have 4g so we are stuck using some 2g one that doesn’t work because the nearest tower for it is probably 80km away.  We couldn’t watch General Conference, so we called elders in Rutile and they put their phone up to their speaker and we listened to conference through the phone, and the quality of listening wasn’t good.  We did get to partake of the sacrament on Sunday, probably one of the few in the world, because as you can probably tell, if we elders have trouble getting conference there is no way for any of the members to watch.

We have well water within a storage tank, so yes we have running water but only if the generator is on.

There is NO POWER in Moyamba, only generators. So hospital and bank and radio station have 24 hours generators but nothing else. We have solar power to run 3 really dim lights if we need it but I haven’t seen other solar besides to like charge a radio.

Sleeping is fine. It’s kind of weird to have to lift something up to get out of bed.

Rainy Season here is Late May through October so it rains almost every day in those and is about 80-85 degrees with 95-99% humidity.  November to early May is dry season, never rains, not once and is 90-105 degrees but only 90% humidity lol – I’m going to die.

Moyamba Week 8

Not much happened this week and we weren't able to email in Bo for Zone conference so pictures no de.

Not a lot happened this week besides Zone conference so I'll talk a little about it.

So Monday we were picked up and made the two hour drive to Bo. When we got there we immediately went to eat food and buy certain food. I found Maple Leaf cookies that I love at home and bought the store out haha. We had sandwiches and shwarma. After this, about 8 elders played American Football, after we went to a really nice Hotel and had dinner, where I had a steak and fries, not even close to an American steak but it wasn't bad.

Today was Zone Conference, the chapel is right across the street from where we stay so it was nice to just stroll over there for conference. We had zone conference from 9-12 after we went back to buy a little more food and drove back to Moyamba and here we are.

Now a little bit about what I learned in Zone Conference and what things have surprised me about Sierra Leone. We were taught today to teach using The Spirit and how The Spirit will be our guide. Our AP's taught this and after that President Clawson spoke. His message was to Meet those where they are and help. This has two meanings, first physical where to go to them, find them, use the spirit to understand where we need to go. He talked about a story of him jogging in Freetown and meeting a dad and his son. Second I understood it on a spiritual level, the people of Sierra Leone are an interesting people. The lessons we teach are nothing like they are taught in the states. We can't go over their heads.

The things that surprise me the most is how hard it is to actually teach. I was told that everyone is willing to hear the gospel and be baptized, which is true everyone will listen to me because I AM WHITE. They won't change and they won't do anything they need to do to work towards baptism. It makes it challenging but good. The other thing that has surprised me is how little people have, and how generous they are. These people are very poor, like we teach on dirt floors in houses with no lights, few chairs, and no doors. Yet anytime we go they want to feed us. Not only people we teach but anyone we walk by offers us their food. It is crazy to see their love. It makes me cry a little when my little three year old friend Dennis runs out with his dinner trying to give it to me, knowing that is all he has to eat.

It has also been so amazing to develop a Love for the people of Moyamba. I thought that it would be hard because I didn't know their language, culture, or food. But I love these people, I see them as children of God and it brings me joy to be able to teach them Jesus Christ's Gospel.

Elder Hendricks