Nov 9, 2015

Liberian Thanksgiving

This week was such a good week, I can tell because by Sunday evening I was exhausted, almost too tired to get up from my desk, this week was a lot of work.

The week was so good because all we did was normal missionary work, just go and teach people. I loved it so much. We have 6 people progressing towards Baptism this month as well as two part-member families we are about to start teaching. The work in Liberia is incredible.

A cool thing about this week was Liberia's Thanksgiving. Now when I first heard about it I told myself, "Yeah, they just say that, it's not gonna be like home." You know what I was? I was wrong, really really wrong. It went like this; Since no one is gonna celebrate thanksgiving lets go get a nice lunch. We did that and as we were walking back to the chapel we got invited to our Recent Converts house to eat. Okay no big deal, I have learned to eat a lot. Man, we ate a lot, haha, they really celebrate it here, except not with turkey, just rice. Little did I know, I was about to experience THREE more of those before the day was over. It was really tough actually, so much food, it stopped being enjoyable and turned into endurance, and then torture. I was so full that I hurt. Awesome day.

On another note, I started the book of Isaiah this week, and boy can that man write. It takes a lot of rereading and thinking and searching to fully understand what he is saying, but I have enjoyed it so far and I am that much closer to finishing the Old Testament!

Now for the crazy note. The Mayor of Monrovia has started some city-wide beautification project. Sounds good right? I thought so too, until It looked like a bomb has gone off all over the place. I would take pictures, but I felt that would be insensitive. Along the roads and all over building (people's houses, shops, shacks) are destroyed. It's a crazy thing to see, honestly looked like a war-zone. You get the demolition crew with their bulldozers and such, and to protect them you've got the riot police, it's insane! One night, as we were walking back to our apartment around 7pm we ran into a police roadblock. It was not letting any cars down the street we needed to go, but allowed foot-traffic (mind you it's pitch black outside so it's all dramatic 'cause you got the police with their megaphones yelling and their lights flashing over all the buildings) so we walk through so confused to run into the "beautification." More police, more lights, two huge Backhoes with a dump truck crushing buildings on the road. And at the end of the road you have two dump trucks blocking the road to stop traffic. It felt like a movie with the way it looked, so crazy. Now granted, the houses she is taking down are ones illegally built too close to the road, in alleys, or without permits. But they don't compensate the people or help them relocate, they just come and destroy and move on. Pretty hardcore stuff. Luckily none of the members of the Church or our investigators have been affected by it.

Liberia is crazy and I love it.
Well, this week went by too fast to remember much else, I hope it was a good one.
Take care,
Elder Verdoni.

Here is the video they made last week with Elder Bednar and his wife.
Elder Bednar Visits Liberia LINK

Donuts and Weights