Dec 28, 2015

Tis The Season to be Jolly!

This week was awesome!
But this email is gonna be short, I've just been so tired lately so this might not be the longest email.
Christmas was the big thing this week, I GOT TO TALK TO MY FAMILY, man what a time, that was so cool. I was even able to talk to Brandon, my brother, serving in Ohio, that was so cool. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few stories that I thought were interesting.

Early Christmas morning, Elder Treadway and I headed to Doe Community (a relatively far distance) to give a gift to our widowed investigator. Her husband Peter, who was also an investigator, passed away the Saturday before Christmas. We bought two, 25kg (like 50lbs) bags of rice for her for Christmas, and we dropped those off at her house in the morning while she was away (felt like Santa haha). All was good and great, till I realized I left my scripture bag, with our house keys, on the keke (thats what they call it). We are way out of our area, which is where we found him, and man I was freaking out. But I remembered that mom said something about Miracle prayers, so that's what I did. I prayed, asked God to help me find my scriptures, then went back to work. We visited a few of our investigators in Doe and spent a little time with them, it was fun. Now I really had the faith to find my scriptures, but man it was a little worry in my head the whole time, I tried my best to not focus on it though. Anyway, we did our things, hopped on another keke and headed back into town. We take the drive, and he drops us off at an intersection, as we're crossing the intersection, a keke stops at the red light and yells at us "hey I have your bible!", IT WAS THE GUY, He had them still. I gave him a hug, Then I had a stupidly big smile on my face long enough to make my cheeks hurt cause my Prayers were answered and I had my own Christmas miracle.

We have a couple of baptisms coming up soon! One this week, one on the 9th of January and another on the 16th. We've worked really hard to teach these people, and I say it every time, and I know I'll say it again later but man watching people change their lives is an incredible thing to witness. When we teach, and the Spirit touches their heart, they know it, and their spirit clings to it, clutches it and doesn't let it leave. They love the spirit and the Gospel, and so do I. It's changed my life just as much as it has changed theirs.

I hope all of you have a Great New Years! And keep ALL the resolutions you make!
Love, Elder Verdoni

She's awesome

Mom's favorite game, Plants vs Zombies

KeKe

  

Dec 21, 2015

Elder Verdoni versus the Christmas Party

NOTE: sorry this is long, I know.

I know I say this Every week, and I'm sure I'm going to continue to say it, but this week was incredible, and it went by so fast.
I've had to just to do so much this week that it just *poof!* flew by.

Elder Treadway and I were in charge of planning/organizing/preparing/executing a Christmas Party-Devotional for the mission. We have known for a few weeks but this was the week (it happened today). I can tell ya it was a lot of work, more than I thought, but it was fun. NOTE: I now know that my fiance will definitely be in charge of planning the wedding, cus shoot planning a five hour party was rough. 

Anyway we did a lot of running around and phone calls and office work, but it was quite fun. The Office Couples really helped out with the whole thing, it would have been impossible without them. But we did go without two very important people; President and Sister Carlson. They are stateside for another week for some things, but will return quite soon. 

We did the party at The Mission Home and it was awesome, it went really well! One thing I learned was "success comes from the preparation, not the execution."
There was a lot of socializing and fun and food but I really wanted to highlight my favorite:

The Carnival of Life.
So this little game was to represent the Plan of Salvation. We had set up 10 various little stations to do around the compound, stuff like minute to win it games and soccer penalty kicks, to watching Nativity videos and scripture mastery. Each rewarded tickets if they completed the activity. The catch is though, the spiritual stations (like the nativity and scrip mastery, ect) gave out different tickets than the fun ones. Elder Treadway spent his time trying to get people away from the spiritual ones and stay at the fun ones, while I did just the opposite. At the end, they were gathered one by one until all were together again.
Now, none of the missionaries knew what was going on, until I said "Elders and Sisters, I'm glad you all had fun, but welcome to judgement day." I then proceeded to have them count their tickets. The ones from the fun games meant nothing, but the ones from the spiritual activites were the ones that mattered, so who ever had the most tickets from the spiritual activities was the winner. I explained my role (Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost) and Elder Treadways (Satan) and how we tried to get them to the certain activities, and how those activities determined their eventual outcome. They got a kick out of it and thought it was really cool, as Did I. Elder Allen (office couple) then gave a talk about the plan of Salvation and the Birth of Christ. It was a really fun and cool experience.

We then called President and Sister Carlson and sung Christmas Carols to them, wishing them a Merry Christmas, they loved it and sang to us back, I love those two so much.
So the Christmas party was a kick and I'm exhausted. 

We have had some good things happen at Doe Community this week. We went their a couple times and we now have some Branch Missionaries who also come and help teach, loved it! The investigators are progressing really well and love us, and I love them. Crazy how you can develop a love for a people so fast, but I've done it. 

Sorry I don't have like super cool spiritual experiences to share this week, I've been busy.
Love you all and I GET TO TALK TO MY FAMILY ON CHRISTMAS YES! MAN SO STOKED!!
Elder Verdoni

Dec 14, 2015

One of the Funnest Weeks Of My Mission

Oh man this week was beyond awesome. I loved every hour of the day, it was so cool! Every day is different here. After My Mission President said that, it has been proven true every day, especially for this week.

First, we had Guests most of the week!
The New missionaries arrived Tuesday night around 9 pm to our apartment. They were with us (doing orientation and getting things ready) till about 11 a.m. the next day where they were all transferred to their various areas. One of them, named Adjei-Boachie, is from Ghana, but specifically where I served! That was really cool, so we connected on old missionaries and places of his home. Really cool. 

The rest of that day and Wednesday was filled with teaching our investigators to get them ready for their baptism on Saturday, which is always fun. I love these people. Wednesday though, we went to Doe Community to teach the people there that I have talked about, we had eleven show up. They are great people too, this whole country is filled with great people. In the Evening though, Elder Hawkins arrived from the Provo MTC in Utah. So he is coming in blind to West Africa, to the heat and the language, from 20 degree weather UTAH. And all his luggage was lost on arrival to put the cherry on top. He was a great sport about it all and asked a lot of questions, which is great! He was fun to talk to. We tracked his luggage and it was stuck in Amsterdam (he never flew through there so we're still confused) but he got it about 2 days later. What a start to his mission!

Friday was the day that we were having our investigators interviewed at the Chapel for their baptism. Our District Leader, Elder Hales, and his companion Elder Adams, showed up to do the interviews. On top of those people, quite a few others were there to practice the Primary Program, and even more were setting up for a wedding the next day. So there were quite a few people there, and Elder Treadway brought a Football. It was a huge hit! from little kids to old people, they loved it. Some even surprised me by how good they could catch and throw, didn't see that coming! It was a ton of fun. 

We got the baptismal font cleaned and ready that evening for the baptism the next day.
Saturday was the baptism. It was to start around 10am. We got a call from our Zone Leaders Elder Wight and Elder Tarbah around 7 saying that their chapel baptismal font has no water, so they had to ship their four candidates from their area to ours (luckily they are pretty close). So we thought all was well until we find out that our font has no stopper and the water will just drain. Dangit. After some time, we jerry rigged our own and were ready to start the water.. but now our water didn't work! Oh man! so we ran around and the facilities manger and some others were helping us and FINALLY got it running. We just started the service as it was filling, it filled fast so that was okay. The service was great, I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. I have really gained a testimony on the wonderful and sacred Gift that is the Companionship of the Holy Spirit and the guidance, comfort, counsel and protection that He gives. I also was the one who was able to baptize our investigators, that was so cool and such a great experience, I love them all so much. 

Later that day, we went back to Doe Community to teach them again, and extended a baptismal date to sixteen of them, I've never seen a happier group of people. And I love them so much! It's so odd to me how quickly I feel close to the people there and how much love I have for them. 

Sunday was a great day too, went back to Doe Community again to teach them even more, all loved it. I still loved it. Spent the rest of that day with great members and investigators. I just love this place so much, This is where I am supposed to be, and I know it. These are my brothers and sister and I can feel it. I love them.

Also, I am learning Chinese! On of our (now) Recent Converts is fluent and teaches it at the UN, So I am trying to pick it up haha, I only have the conversational basics like "how are you, I'm fine, good morning, thank you, see you" but it's pretty cool.

Anyway yeah, thats my week. Super filled and super cool! This coming week is going to be really busy too, but I'll let you know all about it.
Elder Verdoni

Dec 7, 2015

Christmas Mist and RPG's

This week was a cool week! Still went by super fast but I remember much more than I did of last week! so let me talk about it!

First! Christmas Mist. So this week Christmas Mist started, it is pretty much this dense mist that covers the whole city from now till early January. From our office we can see all of Downtown, but now, I can't see any of it, it's cool. The best part is that it cools the weather down, which is so nice because it's getting so hot. It's to the point where If I'm only sweating on my face when I go to bed it's a good night and I can sleep well. It's hot here.

This week, Sister Smith, the receptionist for the Mission Office had her birthday, so she had cake. But this was real cake. PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE. It was the most delicious thing I've had in 15 months, or darn close.

Okay and as for the RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) let me explain, it's not as exciting as one would hope. We have a member at our Branch who is a good friend of ours, really cool, funny guy. We were talking to him one day and he started talking about how during the Civil War his Grandpa taught him how to work, assemble, and shoot weapons. He explained everything from AK47's to an RPG to a Grenade like it was normal. I didn't know you could do something to an RPG to stop it from exploding and instead it just becomes some huge rock that you shoot. But he did! I thought it was awesome at least. 

I also have an Investigator, Sister P, she is a great woman. The problem we face with her though is that she is illiterate and cannot speak English well. She speaks colloqua (really bad English). We were teaching her with some members this week and she brought up how Elder Treadway's name and mine were too difficult to say and remember. So the members told her to come up with names for us that she could remember. Elder Treadway is now T-Boy, and I am Sonny Boy. Those are Common nicknames here and I guess they stick with her because she really does call us that now, it's so funny.

The Embassy of the United States had a little fair this week, it's where they sell all their trinkets and souvenirs and cater it to the white folk (and make it super expensive, smart move though) Of course I went to see if I could find some things. I bought two Nativity scenes, one carved out of wood, but my favorite is MADE OUT OF BULLETS. Yeah, it's so cool. And incredible Ironic. Things made to kill and destroy are changed to represent the Prince of Peace Himself. I though it fit really well with the Scripture in Isaiah, "they shall beat their swords into plowshares."

Pretty much that was my week, I have been working in the office a lot getting ready for the Transfers today, and preparing for the new missionaries coming in Tomorrow, super excited, the Mission is growing so fast, faster than we can kind of handle, but we'll manage. This upcoming week should be filled pretty much with teaching people. Wednesday we're going to Doe Community to start teaching a large group of people who want to be baptized, really excited.
Love you! 

Letter to Mom

We met a man who is a Marine and works at the Embassy, he didn't know the church was here and has been inactive since he has been deployed. Super excited to see us, and we were super excited to meet him. Okay mostly me cause he's a marine, but he wants us to meet with him and yeah it's super cool!

Christmas is coming up! How exciting!! I am excited, they actually celebrate it here! and the Ebola rules will be lifted prior to that so I will be getting FM's! WHOOO!!! 

But really I am so glad that I am serving here, or well serving at all. I have grown up so much, physically and spiritually. I was going through older emails, I don't know how much I have changed, but I hope I have. I feel that I have. I shutter at the thought though of who I would be if I didn't serve a mission, I would be so lost and without direction and would not have nearly as much help from Above as I do now. I know I came here to bless and serve others, but I feel that I have been just as equally blessed. I love it so much.

Rasta Wig

Bullet Nativity

Craft Fair - US Embassy

Packing charcoal with a member family

Elder Treadway Helping with Laundry

 Christmas Decorations and Christmas Mist