Dear
Family and friends!
Wow,
what a week. Where to start? It sure has been a wet week! Every day it has been
raining, some days the entire day, others just overcast most of the time.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday it rained non-stop. Friday, my companion and I
decided that we would combat the rain with our spiffy rain jackets rather than
the usual umbrellas. Needless to say, our arms were tired of carrying
the stinkin things and seeing that we both had super nice jackets, why bring an
umbrella?! Well, about 5 minutes out the door into the fairly heavy pouring
rain on Friday, we figured out first hand why jackets by themselves are somehow
unuseful. My pants were soaked, as expected, no problem. But then my pants
soaked my socks, then my socks somhow absorbed all the water from my legs and
it drained into my impenetrable GORTEX shoes, thus leaving me wet all over. It
was kinda a cold day too for the first time in 365 days, so we were
miserable the remainder of the day. At least when we got to our appointments
and took our jackets off, our white shirts were dry!
Saturday
I was a lot smarter. My companion was defeated from Friday’s rain, but I was
determined not to give into the elements. Rather than only wearing my jacket, I
had the sense to also wear my handy dandy rain pants that my mother sent with me! Although they were gigantic and I look like a fool, I was very
dry the whole day! BAM. Poor Elder Lamont walked around with a goofy umbrella
while I walked around in a giant black rain suit. I felt pretty cool because I
didn’t even have to wear pants under my rain pants because I knew I would have
them on all day! Rain cant stop us!
The
rain flooded our chapel as it does each year. Its located in a bit of
a valley thus rainwater drains to it. Despite the pressing urges of our branch
president, our members fail to clean out the water canals that are supposed to
divert the water to behind the chapel rather than INSIDE it. Anyways,
thankfully there is no such thing as Carpet in all of Liberia and within a few
hours, with the help of some mops, the place was cleaned up. The missionaries
spent a few extra hours in the rain digging trenches around the building to
keep the oncoming rain from flooding again. It’s an annual service project we elders
look forward to: abandon all appointments and save the flooding chapel! I seem
to recall this project last year and have even seen pictures from
two years ago when the Kirkhams, then Elder and sister Kirkham, did the same.
Too easy.
We
were able to attend the monthly council the mission President has with all the
Zone Leaders this week, which was enjoyable. We were able to discuss some
wonderful improvements we can make in the way we set goals as a mission. You
all might be interested that the couples, who usually provide lunch,
were somehow able to get a hold of some pizza for us. Wow, it was no where near
anything like home but still, the fact that I had pizza for the first time in
over a year was kinda a big deal. I was flying high that day :)
To
add to the topic of American food, we celebrated the fourth of July as a zone
by making a little fire and roasting weenies! That’s something I’ve always
wanted to do and Im glad we were able to do it. I was even able to heat up that
canned chili and melt some velveeta from moms package and have some chili
dogs! mmMMMmm good! Sang a few hymns (which just happen to be American
patriotic songs) to remind us of the wonderful country we miss and love. I
don’t think I would ever love and appreciate how wonderful America is without
coming here. Its so unfortunate to see the wickedness prevailing throughout our
beloved country, but I am still profoundly grateful for the wonderful land of
the free. We are still a blessed nation! God Bless America!
Now
onto the greatest event of the week! Friday evening, my companion and I went to
help one of our recent converts set up for a little celebration party they were
to have Saturday. She is the only baptized member, but her father loves us
missionaries to death and is working on getting legally married so he too can
become baptized. Anyways, the family really likes us so we expressed to them
our desire to help with the celebration as a little service project. Now, don’t
get the wrong idea, we were focused on providing service, but we also happened
to know that they would be killing a goat (no small thing) for the next day, so
my companion happened to bring his newly sharpened 10 inch machete just in case
we got the chance to help with the livestock…
Let
me just resolve your concerns and say YES, we killed a goat. NBD. Let me tell
you how. Scott, Nate and Ryan, you’re going to be jealous… So apparently, if
you’re killing a male goat, its appropriate according to tradition to castrate
it to prevent the goat from urinating on itself and spoiling the skin while
you’re killing it. This part we weren’t able to do… Brother Agustine, probably
the manliest man I know, cut off the genitailia (while my companion and I held
the legs) while the goat was alive. Yeah, that one still makes me cring just
thinking about it… then, we rushed to the head and my companion took the honor
of sawing off the head. You would not believe how hard it is to break through a
goat’s hide and windpipe/ spine! It was no small thing! I was honored to hold
the legs and I got away with only a few squirts of blood on me and a few kicks
from the headless goat. If you’re wondering, a dead goat doesn’t just “twitch”
as I imagined, rather it has a flipping seizure! I got only one hard jab in my
leg from its kicking, and the goat’s head has quite a sight to see after it was
completely dismantled from the body. Ok, that’s probably enough gruesome
details. My stomach was turning around quite a bit for the next hour, not going
to lie.
Wow,
let me tell you how wonderful that goat soup and fufu tasted the next day! I
have never eaten goat before, but that meat just fell apart in my mouth! Wow,
it had such an exquisite taste and I wonder if my assisting in the slaughter
made it just that much sweeter. I sure do have a greater appreciation for meat
and that it doesn’t just come from a supermarket, but rather from some farm
somewhere from an animal our Heavenly Father blessed us with.
Anyways,
that’s my exciting experiences from this week. It was quite the week. We’re
getting transfer news this weekend so we’re anxious to see all the changes
coming for our zone. Should be another exciting week.
Love
you all,
-Elder
Fairwell
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