Elder Verdoni's son and father. (His trainee and trainer) 

Elder Hill and Elder Moshani

Aug 31, 2015

Liberia and General Authorities

Hey everyone! I hope you had a good week. My grandmothers funeral was this week and I see that it went well. I will miss her but I know that she is in a much better place. I love her dearly.

This week I met Elder Clayton of the Presidents of the Seventy. Big words I know but he was amazing. The spirit that was with him was very very noticeable. He spoke and I could feel the Spirit as he did. I learned a lot from him, it was a really good experience. Tomorrow I get to meet Elder Curtis of the Seventy, so I'm still excited!

I don't really have too much news concerning Liberia other than I am still going! Out of the 180 missionaries in my mission I am one of the two reassigned to Liberia. The other is Sister Williams, she left today as she is a native Liberian and all of them are reassigned to open the Mission there. There will only be 25 Elders in the mission(!!) so it will be very, very, very small. But awesome! I feel honored that I am able to go and lay the foundation of missionary work that other missionaries will build on for decades to come. It's kind of heavy, but I am ready for that kind of responsibility, at least the Lord knows I am. I should be leaving in a week or two, just waiting for THE CALL haha.

I went on exchanges with my Zone Leader, Elder Peterson this week, I loved it! He is a great missionary and I learned a lot from him. I know now what specifically I can work on to improve. I am striving to become a total "Preach my Gospel" Missionary, so that I can be as effective as I can be in the Lords hands.

We had an "evangelist" come to church this Sunday.. He doesn't go to any church but helps people find Christ, although he came to ours. It was okay until the second hour, he refused to listen and wanted to teach, he was just so hardhearted and he drove The Spirit the away. I had to stand up in class and tell him and everyone else to stop. It was an interesting experience. He left after that class. I feel bad for him, but I felt the Spirit of the Lord that day and that's what matters.
What also matters is that I love this work! I love being a missionary
Elder Verdoni

In Letter to Mom

I went to see "Em" this morning, I loved it so much!! It was so so nice to see her and her family. We spent some time there and she fed us four elders, it was a good goodbye, so grateful I was able to see her again. 

What is something you didn't need to bring and what is something you should have brought?
yeah, two shoulder bags lol mostly useless, but I use them for meetings, just not proselyting.
umm, like I wished I had  a laundry plunger!! look it up! Elder Hill has one and it's an angel. I'm gonna miss that. 

 

 Kids made a cart and played for awhile

Hand wash plunger

vs

Hand washing (in the dark)

Aug 24, 2015

REALLY REALLY REALLY BIG NEWS

Hey everyone!! This email sure is early! (3:30a.m. AZ time) But we are in town today so that we can meet President Clayton of the Seventy tomorrow! So that's pretty exciting!! 

This week was good though, Elder Merrill's new companion is Elder St. Mars from Idaho, his older brother is actually in the same mission as my lil bro Elder Verdoni, so that's 2legit. He is a cool guy and is really prepared, I like him.

In other news, Sardines flipping rock! They're delicious! I never tried that back home but they are definitely my favorite fish here, I honestly could eat them straight out of the can.
Like I said, we meet President Clayton tomorrow as a mission, so I will see a lot of my friends who I haven't seen in a while.

OKAY TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE BIG NEWS: LIBERIA
I received a call from my Mission President telling me that I have been reassigned to the Liberia Monrovia Mission...WHAT? I am one of the only two from this mission assigned to go re-open it. I will be going and obviously be a trainer for some of the new missionaries coming. I don't know a ton of information, but I will meet with President Cosgrave Tuesday and we will discuss more. But he got a call late in the night giving him the news that I will be going. It went through the First Presidency, that's so cool. We don't know when I will be leaving, (Mom was told Sept 10 by stake president) but the new missionaries get there late September, and I will need to be there before them, So it will be in a few weeks. Kinda crazy, I get to go back to my original call, and serve there for a year almost exactly. I just think it's crazy that I get to do this, I feel honored. Really honored. It's gonna be a REALLY crazy ride, but I'm gonna ride it with no hands. That's pretty much all I know, but I should know more next week so we'll see! I don't even get to finish this transfer here! but that's my week.

I love you guys tons, sorry I didn't take many, if any, pictures this week, it went fast.
Take care
Elder Verdoni

Aug 17, 2015

What a Week

This week has been very very busy and full on news! also fish

SO to start, I just wanna to say how grateful you should be for the quality of public transportation in the US, even if you don't use it. IT IS NICE. We came back from Kumasi on monday in a Mercedes Sprinter (like a small bus/van). It seats 25 people, there are rows with 4 seats, unfortunately it's only big enough for 3. There was 5 of us in every row. Super hot, super packed, super long, and smelled like gasoline for all 2 painstaking hours of it. We also hit 86(!!!!!!) speed bumps on a straight road back to our home. Elder Mkandla counted. so yeah, be grateful!

Speaking of Mkandla, he is being transferred to Obuasi! And on top of my training I have been called as a District Leader again. Big news right? Well on top of all that Elder Merrill is training a new missionary! We will find out who that is on Wednesday. Big changes for our district, even our mission president expressed his sadness in breaking up such a district, but he needs us, so I hope we can perform to his and the Lords expectations.

A member family this week gifted us some fried fish. delicious if you didn't know. At least I think so. Everything is so soft that you can eat the entire fish, 100% of it. It's like snack food haha, gross right? Also we made doughnuts this week at another members house! So life is pretty sweet here!

The work is going good, we have some progressing investigators, even 2 that were to be baptized this coming sunday but one is ill and the other in Accra, so we got some speedbumps but nothing to stop up. I love this work
Elder Verdoni
 

Fried fish

It's called okra stew

 

Just call me Stevie  

    

 

Aug 9, 2015

An Email from Africa

Hey Everyone!
Well I'll just get right to it, this week was awesome. It started out with going on exchanges with Elder Merrill, that was super fun! He is a great missionary, and he goes home to Spanish Fork, UT in 3 months, so we've been having fun as a District.

I have been studying the Old Testament and I am now in Psalms! more than halfway!! shoot thought I would never get there, but I did and I'm really enjoying it. I found a really good insight in it as well this week. It is 2 Chronicles 7: 14-16. This is right after Solomon dedicates the temple. Basically it first talks about the Lords love and how willing he is to forgive us and to bless us if only were humble and repentant. Then it talks about why the temples are so holy and why we can feel Him so close while were there and why when we pray to Him in there, they are so much more effective. 

I love studying the words and Gospel of our Savior. I really am feeling Him and His love.
I love how serving a mission has changed me so much for the better, helping me become a man, the man The Lord needs me to become.
I love this work, and I love you all
Stay strong, and stay close to Him. If you aren't, then get close, you can, and He will help you.
Elder Verdoni

Aug 3, 2015

Welcome to the Jungle

Hey everyone! Okay this week was pretty good, it was a lot of fun.
We went to a farm this week in the middle of the JUNGLE and have some really cool investigators!

So, the farm; we went Saturday with a member and her siblings to her farm. We walked from her house to the farm, we left at 8:30am  and got there around 10. We walked, I kid you not, up and over huge hills straight into the middle of the jungle, or the rain forest, still not sure what's what, but holy wow, it was so cool! Except the spiders, there were tons, and they were big, but my machete dealt with them nicely.

We came to clear some of the "bush" (pure jungle) for their farm. Felt like some adventure guy, just whacking the heck out of the jungle with a machete, pretty much super awesome. I loved it. Although my hands and legs were sore when we got home around 2. Tons of fun, I love giving service.

So, we buy a lot of fried rice here, and there's this husband and wife that cook it and it's the best in town, so we've gotten pretty close with them. I felt really prompted to contact them this week and so I did. We taught them Saturday and it went perfectly. They are awesome. Teaching families is pretty rare here, at least it has been for me but this one has so much potential, they really understood the message. So I will update you on that but I'm just so happy because they have become some good friends with us here.

That's pretty much it, been eating tons of rice and pancakes. Although had to make our own chocolate sauce since we ran out of syrup, but its no problem. We're resourceful. I love my District, they are the best.

Came down to Kumasi today to eat KFC again, 2 hours just to do it, but so beyond worth it. 

Love you guys! 

Take care and appreciate what you have.

Elder Verdoni in Ghana