It's a Boy!

Dear America,

I have a son. His name is Elder Duaryenneh and he's from Monrovia, Liberia. He's awesome. I've enjoyed being with him so much already. As soon as I walked into the mission home and sat down to wait for President Cosgrave to announce the companionships, I thought, "I would like to train that one." As President read his name and began to announce who his companion would be, I found myself already moving because I knew that it would be me. It was sweet.

Elder Duaryenneh was at the conference when Elder Bednar came to re-open Liberia. His branch there has over 750 members in it. They literally have to hold two sacrament meetings for the same branch. The church is exploding so quickly there. He was the branch mission leader before he came, so he has a lot of experience working with missionaries. He's been a member for one year, four months, and eleven days. He's really powerful, a hard worker, and he came into the mission field pre-trained. His family consists of staunch members of differing churches, and they strongly opposed his coming on his mission. His father was a polygamist before he died. A lot of the tribalists practice polygamy. He worked hard to get money to support himself on his mission. He's doctrinally sound. All that's left for me to help with is the finer technicalities of missionary work. I've been pushing him hard the last few days. He's responding wonderfully. We're good friends -- it's strange how the gospel can move you across oceans and continents in order to meet a friend from Liberia or even from Utah.

Elder Duaryenneh is a nurse. He's taken my blood pressure and re-taught me how to take his. It's been a while since anat and phys:P

On a different topic, we've been meeting with a man named Prince Dankwah for a while now -- he was just baptized and confirmed last week. One interesting circumstance has to do with Prince's father. He goes to farm every day, but 'coincedentally' on the days we come will find himself at home. Every day -- apart from the days we come -- he is able to go. But his motorcycle will break or it will rain in the morning or he will have something that he needs to stay for. I don't know if he's noticed it yet, but I definitely have. We've taken it to be divine intervention and we've started to teach him. He used to be a teacher, so he speaks really good English. The first time we were able to teach him, he got a phone call halfway through "The Gospel Blesses Families" informing him that his brother had died in a car accident. What the hey. That was Elder Duaryenneh's second lesson ever. Needless to say, we weren't able to finish the lesson. We've been checking up on them and introducing the Plan of Salvation little by little, but I still don't know what will come of all this. We'll see.

That's my week. Have a great week there at home. The fruit that you see in the pictures is what Elder Duaryenneh calls sasa. It's amazing. It's like having a fruit cocktail. The more you eat it, the more you like it. Which kind of makes me concerned.

Elder Nelson