New Apt and More Miracles

Scott has moved to a new apartment, the details are in his letter below.  Scotty is such a great missionary.  He knows his purpose and is doing everything he should be doing and more.  I am so proud o f him and I miss and love him with all my heart.  He is setting such a great example for his little brother, and the service he is performing is blessing the lives of everyone he knows.  

Dear Mama,
I love the letter's and for my friends I thank them for the letters as well. But it looks like it took almost 30 days to recieve. And it will be about that before everyone gets mine so patience is important :) Do not worry about my living and health conditions, I think I got typhoid because of some stuff I ate. So now I know to be more careful. I will be fine, I could go through it again. It is a good time to rest and really think about things anyway. The days are soooo busy. I wake up and I only have time to think about what I am doing, but I actually do spend a good amount of time each day thinking about what I want for dinner. The new apartment is nice. But the running water is not as great as I thought it would be. It is still very limited because it is only running for as long as we have water in the tank on the roof. And it is unfiltered so we only use it for flushing the toilets and filling our bucket for showering. I am getting used to the way of living, I used to have to say a special prayer to have the courage to pour, before each first cold cup of showering water. But now it is not to bad. I am also not really having any trouble dealing with the people's poverty. I have realized the people aren't starving to death, sure there is malnutrition very much so. But I have not heard of any dying lately of starvation. There is a poor lack of health care though. It is very unfortunate, a woman we know had her 4 year old taken from her and yet when we asked her how she is doing all she could say is"I tell God tenky" Basically I Tell God thanks. So even after that she will not complain of anything. My Krio is slowly improving. But it will still certainly take time. It is a little frustrating because it sounds similar to English so you feel like you could understand it, but then you do not understand. But it is difficult to teach in a way that these people understand. There is a severe lack of education especially in many adults. About half or more of the people we teach cannot read and those ones also do not speak much English. So with time. Those who cannot read when we give them Book of Mormon assignments we just have them go through a few chapters and underline certain words such as God, Spirit or Lord. And then we have them pray about that. Even though they do not understand the scriptures they learn that they talk about God and The Lord quite often  and they are still able to receive revelation to know of the truth of it. My testimony is certainly growing. I feel like I do not have enough time each morning to study all of the things I want. Things have become so interesting to me. Lately I have been very intrigued about the Second Coming and the book of Revelations. But I cannot study it much due to lack of time and it does not pertain to the teachings of the people. But I can study small about it. Right now I am trying to learn how to refine my capabilities of receiving personal revelation, I have had very weird dreams since I have been out on my mission and I think I may start keeping a dream journal and look for answers to my questions in my dreams. I feel like that will be fun. But I will have to work in the time. I hardly have time to write in my daily journal. And there are so many things each day I do not know what to write about. But I will continue to do my best to write in it. I am glad to hear Jared did that thing, even if he was forced. I gotta go, so I will talk to you next week.
Love Elder McDonald.

First Experience with Typhoid Fever

Scott explained why his last letter was so short; he was coming down with Typhoid. I was so exhausted and was down for at least two days with as he quotes, "worst headache ever and fever I have ever had." I am actually glad I didn't know he was sick because I would have worried and felt so helpless. While he was sick, he was given a lot lof time to think. I will post part of this letter here:

Dear Mama,
I want to start off that this has so far been the hardest/best week of my mission so far. Last week my email was short because I only took about 20 minutes of email time. I was exhausted it turns out I was actually coming down with Typhoid. So I spent the first couple days of this week with Typhoid, worst head ache and fever I have ever had. But honestly I am very grateful for it. I was not able to sleep much during it so I had so much time to finally think. Even though when I had my fever to the max I was like how can I possibly survive in a climate like this, Why can't I be in Siberia Russia right now. But now that my senses are straight I am back and so glad I am in this particular mission. These people need nothing but the gospel. And I want to be able to share it with them. So my faith is continuing to grow. I am fully recovered and better than ever from my Typhoid. We have had some wonderful lessons this week that I feel I cannot even begin to express how they are. But the spirit is here with these people and these people just need to know what it is they need to do. My Krio is coming along quite well. It is quite imperative that I learn it because I am getting decent at understanding the people. But the major problem is actually that a lot of the people do not understand me. Sometimes I will talk for about 10 minutes and realize the person did not understand any of the message I just shared. So I throw the small Krio I know and it helps out. Yes, I am living in the Grafton Complex. It is a nice place, we are actually getting a new apartment this wednesday. It will sure be nice. We going to have a big water tank on the roof so it will supply us small running water through out the apartment. I am assuming I will not be in this apartment to long though because we are planning on opening up the Waterloo mission soon. My companion and I cover all the way from Hastings to Waterloo and all of it. We are planning on making Waterloo itself a district with 6 missionaries just there. So my companion and I will more than likely split and each take a missionary unfamiliar to the area. We have been looking at apartments over there and a building to make a Chapel. But also your worry about the glass and barbed wire around the compound fence. No we are not in danger, but there are a lot of Teef's (thieves) who would like to teef our stuff, so it keeps them out.
I have realized how much good this is doing in preparing me for my life and I am so excited for my life. Because time is going pretty quickly out here and before I know it I will be done and onto the rest of my life. This time I am fortunate that the internet is working well enough to attach some pictures, hopefully they send properly. But picture 1 is some of the neighborhood kids mainly the Kanus and brother Kanu and I. 2 is the baptismal candidates we had. 3 Me eating a little bit of cow intestine and brain soup. It wasn't to bad of tasting but the thought of it was sickening. and then a pic or 2 of some of the area. Mom if you get on your email mondays about 8-12 in the morning you may be able to email me immediately back and forth. But I love you so much. And I sure hope you are able to make it to the Temple often. I have really missed it honestly and I get a lot of emotion when I talk to the members here about the temple and how one day maybe there will be one for them. Because it is a lifelong savings to make it to the Ghana Temple once for these people so a lot of them cannot make it. We are so blessed to be in the United States.
Love, Elder McDonald

Scott with a few of the neighbor kids.  They look like his fans to me!

Scott with the Kanu family, ready to be baptized

Seriously?  Scott is eating brain soup with cow intestine!  He said it tasted ok, it's just thinking about it that becomes the problem. 

This is what the area looks like around Scotty.  It is rainy season and they are in lot's of mud. 

Hamatan Winds

Today is Monday, which means a letter from Scott. What a great way to start the week off. He is doing great as you will see from the letter below. And about the showers, Scotty was one that loved long, hot showers. Maybe it was a good thing when he started practicing taking shorter showers before he left home. It is amazing all the things that we are so blessed with and take for granted. And I think it is time to put together a Sweet Tooth package for him. I think I will send him Double Stuff Oreos since he loved those here. If anyone does send him a package, it's important to put religious stickers all over it, tape it well, and write "missionary supplies" on it. The people in Africa are very superstitious about religious items and will not break into them. If you have some time, write him a letter through DearElder.com, but I can't guarantee that he will have much time to write you back...he seems to be staying very busy there. I will put up more pictures as soon as Sister Roggia posts them. I know she and President Roggia have been doing a lot of traveling this past week.


Dear Family,
Things are going real well here in Sierra Leone. This has been an interesting week. And all things are going well. I am loving it everyday. The days are passing by rather quickly. Much faster than in the MTC. Even though I really liked the MTC. The only thing I do not like is the showering. Showering basically consists of a bucket of cold rain/well water, a bar of soap and I. That first cup each morning is very hard. But there is boku {many} miracles each day. we had boku investigators come fo church on Sunday. And they truly love what they are finding. The heat is kinda bearable, but I am dreading the dry season. We will have many dust storms called Hamatan winds I believe, where is when the dust comes down from the Sahara. I truly wish I was able to post these pictures. They are few but well. All the ones of Sierra Leone so far were taken and posted by Sister Roggia. Mine just will not work. We are having so many people come to us about the Church. Yesterday we had a man call us so he could meet with us. And he is so humble. He has a far way to go before baptism. But he is willing to do what is right. There are so many miracles to share. I am grateful to hear about Jared, he is specifically in my prayer's about that every morning and evening. Each day is getting better. Especially as I become better at teaching and loving what I am doing. It is the hardest thing I have ever done except maybe the Ronnow's roof. In my package I do not have much desire to receive spices. Just small things, do not make it to heavy. I miss the sweets of the U.S. There is a big difference between their definition and ours back home. You are all in my prayerz each day. I promise to be careful and use my net and doxy each day. Love you all
Elder McDonald

One Month Already!

This is Scott on the day of mission interviews with his Mission President, President Roggia. In Scott's last letter prior to today's, he said that his gas stove was not reliable and they were cooking on charcoal...I have a picture of their charcoal stove below along with some great pics of Scott with his companion, and fellow elders in his zone. (Note they are all wearing sandals.)

Scotty has been out for one month already! 

I am sure he wishes he had some hotdogs to barbque

Beautiful  flowering tree growing in front of the chapel in Scott's area

President Roggia checking out their new baptismal font in front of the chapel, this is where Scott will be performing baptisms.

More beautiful folage at the Elders compound

Greetings from Salone!

This is a Poda Poda, and they cram as many as 20 people at a time in these.

Scotty is doing great in Sierra Leone! Gordon and I finally got a letter from him today. He is only able to write once a week now and because he is out in such a rural area, getting emails and sending them are not as reliable as they were at the mission home. He has requested that we all use . This way he will get our letters and will be replying the same way. In his last letter he mentioed the Poda Poda's, so I included a picture of one below. Also, I am posting Scott's letter we received. Please write him back, your letters mean so much to him.

Greetings from Salone!
I love hearing from you guys. This week has been amazing. I have realized everyday how much spiritual growth is happening and yet there is still so much yet to happen and is required. Miracles are happening everyday. Some are big and some are small. But they are there. I cannot begin to explain how prepared these people are for the Gospel. Everyone is so accepting and they truly love it. We have to to limit how many people we talk to because almost everyone is willing to listen and it can be overwhelming. So we have to pinpoint the people who are truly desirous to hear the message and are willing to make changes in their lives. But the Lord has done so much and paved the way for us. The other day we walked up to a man and said we were from the Church. He said he actually found a Book of Mormon and has been reading it. He has so many questions about it and it amazes him. He would take all the questions to his pastor who had no idea what he was talking about. So this mans name is Moses and we are going to continue teaching him. We have so many experiences like this. It is so wonderful whenever someone takes it seriously and loves what they are learning. Also, my area is not just Rokel that is just the name. The thing about my area is since the church is so new. It is way to big for us. The Church is actually looking to split the area assigned to just the 2 of us for about 10 more missionaries. Our area is HUGE. Look up the town Waterloo, that is the main place of our area. We spend a ton of time there. We have a FHE every week there and the kids love it. The kids out here are amazing. Now when they run up yelling Apoto Apoto Yamadi. I will say Owanibi Yamadi. "Black boy, I want to eat". They laugh. I haven't had much time to get pictures. We are really busy and I have to avoid appearing like a tourist. But I have a couple I will send if the internet will let me. The internet is really poor here. We are in an internet cafe and they do not run well. I am trying to get used to the food. The changes sure have effects on the system, but I am adjusting. Out here there is pretty much no sugary treats so that would be really nice in a package. Also I was told there are these meals you can buy. Mom look into the brand Mountain House. But like oreos and peanut butter would be awesome. Just some treats. Tell everyone you know to write me on Dear Elder. It is the most reliable way and it is free to my mission so make sure everyone does it! You guys may want to occasionally as well. The internet is very unreliable. Most missionaries have had more weeks where it does not work then it actually does.
Also, I am starting to slowly understand the people a bit better. I can tell you that I am definitely going to need to get down Krio. I am slowly learning. Some of the lessons I get pretty lost because I do not know what they are saying at all. And sometimes they get lost because they do not understand me. My mission call should have said you will kind of speak english and Krio. But you will not learn Krio in the MTC.... But I will get it eventually. I am having trouble uploading pictures so I do not think it will work. Maybe I will have better luck next week if you do not get it. But mom make sure to tell people to write me on dear elder.
Love Elder McDonald

Streets and People of Freetown

Here is a great video I have found that takes you through the streets of Freetown, giving you a clearer vision of the people and the poverty, and yet, they find a way to be happy. Scotty is learning about a whole new way of life that he could have never imagined.

Rokel, Sierra Leone

Here is a the video of the new school in Rokel, Sierra Leone. This will give you an idea of the people that Scotty is growing to love so much.