Elder Verdoni Monrovia Liberia Mission

Sept 21, 2015

Clif Bars, The work is sweet, and 23

This week was incredible, absolutely amazing, so let me tell you why:
We had our first lesson in Liberia on Thursday, and it was awesome, so good to be back and teaching again. I really missed it. The rest of the week we were able to work and we had a members with us at every lesson. We have 10 Branch missionaries who have mission calls and 1 or 2 of them worked with us, all day, every day, till Sunday. Like, I had more member present lessons in ONE DAY than the last 6 weeks. At one point we taught at the chapel and we were like doctors, haha because all we did was sit there, and every hour to the dot we would finish a lesson and the next would arrive just in time for his appointment, AWESOME. I love the work here so much, it's so great.

Right now we have about 15 on track for baptism in October, and we had 23 investigators at church, 23!! It's truly humbling, actually, to see how humble these people are, and how reliant they are on the Gospel for hope. I love that I am able to work with these people, they have built my faith. Church has been great, and its pretty diverse, like there's an American working for an NGO (Non-government organization, any non-profit, voluntary citizens' group) and he is the Elders Quorum President, he fed us chili and chocolate cake and cobbler for dessert, AKA the best meal of my mission, oh how I will treasure that meal. And there's an Italian who works for the UN, he is the District Family History Representative and he spoke at church, it was so cool. It's so cool to see Members of the church from all parts of the world, and can work and talk in perfect unity with each other. The Gospel is the same wherever you are, no matter who you are.

Life has been good for my companion and I here, we have been making meals for about 1 USD a day, needless to say I have gotten pretty good at making a "poor mans stew". Okay but get this, they sell Clif Bars here on the road, which is cool, but what's cooler is that its only 15LD! that's like 20 cents a bar! So we have been enjoying that little, and very cheap, lunch.

A pet peeve I have developed is when people open glass bottles with their teeth..oh it gives me the shivers. I can blame my parents for having me care so much. I use my ring to open it, and I will open as many as it takes to protect those poor peoples teeth, man.

Also, I am starting to Pick up the Liberian English, or otherwise, ruining my English. It's sweet.
So that's it! Life is amazing and I love being in Liberia more and more each day, Don't worry about me, I'm safe and doing great. And I love what I'm doing and I know its true.
with Love, Elder Verdoni

Q & A with Mom

So do you hear any stories about the Ebola experience?

Plenty, all the time, and from the civil war too. We have 2 men who work here who experienced first hand, one of them is portrayed in the movie Freetown, Elder Nyanforh, really cool guy!

So do you still have to wash your own clothes? What's the word on the other missionaries that transferred over from Ghana? They adjusting well and is it worse than what it was for them in Ghana?
Hahah nope, they have a washer here for us that us also spins them, lucky us. And the other Elders are doing great! We're all loving it here. We all adjusteded fine. Some find that their apartments and the emailing and stuff is better here! so pretty cool!