There and Back, a Mission Tale

Well this week was fun to say the least. We just got the news today that there is no Ebola in Sierra Leone so we can finally eat some of the food here. I’m tired of hot dogs and tomato stew ha, ha.  The mangos in our compound are starting to get ripe. I can’t wait for them. The view from my front door is amazing. The complex is on the side of a mountain overlooking a big river with a bunch of jungle near it and the sun rises right over the water. It's so great. We got a 60kg weight for the complex on my request and I made a pull-up bar in one of the mango trees with rope (that I made). The complex itself is hard to describe, a bunch of different rooms with tile floor that looks like a blind guy put it down after shattering every piece. The ceilings are low and everything is covered with a thin layer of dirt. I shower from a bucket and wash all my clothes by hand. We get power every other night. There are 3 other missionaries in the complex but it is made for like 8 so we have plenty of room to spread out. About every morning at 2am every wild dog in the country sits around our complex and howls!!! Till 3am.

Over this last week I have been learning Krio and I think I finally am starting to get it down to the point that I can communicate effectively. I titled my journal, “There and Back, a Mission Tale by Elder Gebauer”. Still enjoying being here and something weird happened the other morning. I woke up and I was cold? My shirts are brown by the end of the day and I can’t tell whether I brought black or brown shoes.

I would love to send home pics but there is no way on earth that I am plugging in my SD card into these computers. I got to see a monkey yesterday. It was a pet one but it was still cool.

Oh man, we have something like 20 investigators and I could walk for an hour and not reach the end of our zone that we are in charge of. We will see general conference in about a month or so.

I could use some personal funds, just like 120,000 Leones that's something like $40 US but that would just be for fun stuff like food!!! I found a Snickers bar at a shop the other day. I didn't even look at the price. Man, what I wouldn't do for cheese. That is the one thing I miss most, except for family of course.

The days are flying by faster and faster. I can’t believe that I have almost been out a month. This week we didn’t do much teaching because most of the time we were addressing the water issue, either guarding our pipe or fixing it. Two things you don't mess with here is water and land! I’m getting used to the heat. I can comfortably sleep at night now. One thing that drives me up the wall is all the tiny ants. They are everywhere, especially in my condensed milk. It drives me nuts. I’m still healthy and doing fine mentally, I think? Next week is super P-day so we get to do something super fun.

 We lost one of my MTC buddies this week. It was the British one which is a shame because I kind of found the accent enjoyable, but only the strong shall survive (that's me).

How was the father sons campout? I got the pictures.  Looks like you guys are having fun. How was Gannon's talk? All and all it was a great week in Africa had fun and did lots of new stuff.

Your African missionary,

Elder Gebauer