November 26, 2012

Hello Family,

Well, this week was good. We had some nice lessons and met some new investigators that seem pretty interested. We haven’t been able to see them over the last few days though so we will have to make sure that we quickly get back on that so that they don’t fade away or lose the interest and excitement that they had while we were first sharing our message with them.

Most of this letter will come from events happening from Friday on... Friday was our Zone Conference. It was way sweet. President talked about how all the churches out there base off of Bible or sacred text, signs and wonders, or the priesthood... He talked about how we need to teach each person according to what they are coming from and how in our church we can actually claim the authority from each source. As he continued he talked about how we are each given Gifts. Everybody has been given at least one and is expected to use it to the best of our ability and to try and accumulate more gifts as we go along. From these gifts we are able to see signs. He applied this to our investigators and how many people look for signs before they will believe. As we know, it takes faith and believing for the sign to come not the other way around. As we use our gifts we will be able to see the signs for ourselves and to help others especially our investigators to see the signs to help them believe. From this we receive the fruits. There are many fruits for them and for us. We can see the spiritual enlightenment in us and them; we can see a change of life style and attitude. And a missionaries’ favourite...  If the people truly see and understand they will want to give to us because they know that we are giving unto them. And so, they give us FOOD! Yes, receiving FMs does let you know that your area is progressing.:) It was sweet. As always Sister Roggia talked about following the rules and how our white handbook is our Celestial Law out here. That if we follow it the more gifts we can find, the more signs we will see and the more fruits we will be able to partake of.

As the talks were finished, President gave us a ‘’state of the Union’’ address and shared with us some many exciting and interesting facts that I know you will enjoy. .

1.       I am now in Sierra Leone and will currently remain here for the remainder of my mission. Because of the increase of missionaries and due to other things. President can no longer do any more border crossings with missionaries... So, I will never see the land of Liberia.

2.       When he and Sister Roggia came to the mission it was a two year mission president mission but has since turned to a three year.

3.       When the mission was starting in 2007 they averaged 40 conversions a month. Since 2010 when president came, we have averaged 100 a month!

4.       In this last year, Elder Holland has come, the General Relief society president has come. Elder Sitati, Elder Mensah, Elder Dickson, and Elder Curtis have come. On Sunday Elder Holland is coming to make the first stake in Sierra Leone.

5.        President has received many phone calls from the mission office in Salt lake asking what we are doing here. All he says is that it isn’t because of a good looking are a great charismatic mission president but because this is a preach my gospel following mission and that there isn’t anything special that the can take to other missions around the world.

6.       When the age announcement was made in October. They were receiving on average 700 papers a week. Since then, they have averaged 4000 a week!! With that and only 341 or so missions it means that there is going to be a lot of missionaries going to each mission and a lot of missions splitting or being created. My mission will split when president leaves in 7 months...

7.       Since they have been here in 2010 to 2013, they will have had approximately 6000 conversions!

Talk about success in the mission. There was some other stuff but I don’t have my notes with me.

On Friday after zone conference we went out and were teaching. As we headed to our last appointment we could hear all over everybody’s radios that they were about to announce the results for the elections. We quickly headed home just in case something was to happen. On the announcements we heard that they found errors in many voting booths such as over voting. So they cast those out. Nation wide, this took out 4% of all votes... The results were 58% APC (the current president) and 37% for SLPP the next big competitor. Everybody else was receiving no more than 3%. Everything was pretty calm and no worries.

On Sunday we had District Conference where they created a new district splitting it apart from our district of Bo and creating the Kenema District.. Afterwards we went and had a bunch of baptismal interviews between us and the zone leaders which took all day. As we were in our area I had one of the zone leaders doing a couple of people at one house. While he was doing the interview i was just talking with the others and all of a sudden we heard lots of honking and hollering. We asked around and people were saying that there was a fight in town.. But this quickly died down so we weren’t worried. After the day we were heading home and as we were coming to the road coming infront of our house there was Tons and tons of people all through the street. As we were trying to get past they started to beat another bike man.. we made it past quickly paid and ran inside locking the gate behind us. Apparently, what had happened was that there was some voting boxes that were found here in Bo that had apparently been ‘’stolen’’ or ‘’forgotten’’ and so all of the people here in this area are mostly for SLPP were saying that it isn’t fair and they wanted a re-vote. It was all just a big hoop and holler. But then as we were just finishing our planning I heard some low pitched shots. Knowing that they weren’t real guns and we went to the front to see what we could hear or see. The police were shooting Tear gas! And everybody was running. As we were standing inside watching from the windows all a sudden all of us started coughing and our eyes were burning! One of the canisters had been shot and landed in the yard next to us and the fumes were now in our apartment!! We all went to the back room closed the windows and put on the fans to keep it away. After a while we were able to go back out and all was VERY quiet all night and even this morning.

All is fine and nobody is hurt. But I can say that I got Tear Gassed while on mission. 

My thanksgiving was alright. Yes all I had was a bowl of rice and some stew. We did get a bottle of what is close to a martinelli to celebrate haha :) Man, I can't believe that I forgot to tel you all to get me a bunch of movies at the black friday shopping.. o well.

Well, that was my exciting news for the week. I am doing ok and all is well.

I love you so much

Love Elder Jones

Bo East and West Zones-Posted on Mission Blog November 27. 2012