July 28, 2014

Dear Parental Units and Family,

This week is just like usual just half of the week was hot and humid and the other half was just raining cats and dogs. But through the sweat cold and tears we have made it to be a successful week.

We are continuing to focus on our families that we are teaching. In all we have about 8 couples with at least one of the spouses are progressing toward baptism. We are hoping that as we teach the couples together that we will have more partners prepared for baptism. This is what we are focusing on now. We have found that even though couples have been living together sometimes even 15 years that they say that they can’t trust one another and a whole lot of other things which is holding them from being married. Thankfully we have such a strong Branch President, President Harmon, who is in full support of the combined marriage that we wanted to perform. He each Sunday sits down with all of the couples who come to church and ask them about what they have done that week in order to have the money for the certificate.  This is such a blessing to us missionaries so we don’t have to worry about the marital problems people are facing but just teach them the commandment. Even sometimes when he gets off of work, we will find him to our investigators house solving problems that they may have and helping them to work out how people can have the funds for this marriage and also problems they may have. President Harmon is the perfect man for the job. He himself didn’t have a flashy wedding and big ceremony. They didn’t have any money at the time they wanted to marry so they said they didn’t have anyone besides family to come and witness the marriage certificate signing. He and His wife still to this day don’t where rings because they don’t have the money for them. Now, they have been to the temple and back and are sealed for time and all eternity.

We have started really focusing on the doctrines in our companionship study as well, and at least for me I can see a big difference on how we are teaching both as a companionship and what I feel inspired to talk about during the lessons. We had a good miracle happen as we were wondering what to teach one of our brothers named Anthony who had a hard time of being committed; he like the church, the teachings, and everything, but it was just being committed to the church was his problem. So we were reading in companionship study about “following the prophet” and we realized that this is exactly what this brother needs.  We sat down later that day with him and his baptized brother and had an amazing lesson which he really understood what we were talking about. He is a politician out here in Kakata and following leaders and being a leader is what he knows about so the whole thing just worked out perfectly.

On Wednesday as we went to Morris Farm we met this woman whose name is Nyampu. We started to teach her but there was a big fight next door so we decided to postpone it until Friday. We came back Friday and had a dope lesson with our Relief Society President about the message of the Restoration. We invited her to church and she actually came on Sunday. We were so happy to see hear there and the Relief Society sisters did a great job at putting her under their wing. We really wanted to meet her husband but he is a police officer in another part of Morris Farm and seems to be never home. After church we were proselyting in Morris farm when it started raining hard. Half of me wanted to go home and get dry and eat, my other heart (as Liberians describe it) told me that we should try to pass by Sister Nyampu and ask her how she like service. I told my companion and we went under the heavy rain. Just before we got there the rain stopped which was a miracle and we finally met Mr. Nyampu or Vesselie. He is such a dope guy with a lot of good questions and so we had another good lesson about the restoration which was a good follow up for Sister Nyampu. The lord blessed our extra mile that we walk and it seems to be like that every day.

I could really say like 3 more stories that happen just like that one this week. The Lord is really hastening the work here in Kakata, and I am just happy and excited to be a part of it. Can I just say I love being a missionary!

I hope everything is going well with our family back at home. I love and miss you but aint quite ready to come home yet. Give it a month or two.

Love,

Elder Skouson

July 21, 2014

Dear Family,
Well this has been a full week! Elder Khasiahi and i have been working really hard this last week trying to help as many people as we could. To be honest we were focusing on doctrines and trying to teach many lesson. We did alright especially for our first week as being companions. We taught in total 39 lessons. There is still room for improvement and i think it will come in better planning sessions and having back ups for our back ups.
Elder Khasiahi is super dope. He was telling me about what life was like back at home. Just makes me realize i did absolutely nothing when i was at home. In Kenya, he worked on one of the largest refugee camps for a few months until rebels took out some members of his team so he decided maybe its a little too risky. He has been filling me in on about how Somalia is just a bad country all around and that is where all the refugees come from. He is just a cool guy and is teaching me a lot about east africa. He is my first east african companion and i just sweet. 
Well, during the week as we were meeting our investigators i noticed that we were teaching a lot of husband and wives. Most of them, at least, are progressing. But just like i told my companion i don't have time to spend on non progressing investigators. So sometime we are dropping people so we can pick up new good ones.
During weekly planning i got to see all of our investigators and we have about 10 couples that we are teaching. I remembered about the general conference talk by Elder Anderson about the 8 or so couples in Mozambique who were all married at the same time and then baptized the day after. I brought the idea up to my companion and we talked about how we could do it. We decided that we need the Branch and Branch President to be behind us if we are going to do this. So we finally got to meet with him Saturday and discuss about what our idea was. President Harmon is so wonderful, he went behind it 100%. He suggested that some of the couples come early to churchtomorrow so that he could meet with them and discuss about how the church doesn't believe in something flashy. 
So the plan went into effect. By the end of church President Harmon sat with 8 different families to talk about how it would look like. We are planning on September 6 to be the marriage and thenSeptember 13 to be the baptism. We know this is going to take a lot of work on our side to be able to get these couples truly ready for their baptisms. Now some of the families, their spouse might not be as progressing as them but we figure if we work really hard and let Heavenly Father do the rest i know that things will work out. 
Not too much today but this is the plan that we have made and we are working towards accomplishing it. We are working very hard so i can finish my mission with no regrets, i am just glad to be dying in the field, so i can die with my boots on!
By the way we went fishing again today but as i said before there are no fish in Liberia. Well its not true, maybe the fish are racist. Until next week!
Love,
Elder Skouson

July 14, 2014

Dear Family,

Well just like I said I am outta Harbel, far far away! But thankfully I am not living the city life too much cause they sent me out to KAKATA. Kak city baby!!! So literally I will never see most of the missionaries in this mission ever again. Saddd but I am excited to be out here in the bush so I thought. To be honest Kakata is like little Monrovia. Everything moves very quickly out here. There is more business being done and bikes transporting people so it does quite have that bush feel like harbel but it is still pretty nice. Our apartment is Celestial because we don’t worry about turning on our generator but another person does it. We also have…..drum roll please…… working showers!!!!!!! I have taken two so far and that feel so good but to be honest I almost like buckets then you can control pressure to one section of your body.

Elder Egbu is now to the mission office preparing for his departure home. Saddd but good that he went home. We worked really hard this last week trying to prepare our people to not be taught by missionaries for the next couple of months.

I got to spend sacrament meeting in Harbel to give a talk on service and magnifying your calling, and then we loaded the truck and headed towards Kakata. This was the most scenic drive I have been on for a long long time. We were driving through firestone rubber trees on a dirt road and the trees cover the road and made like this canopy cover!! It was just beautiful.  We got there just in time to see the ending part of Kakata’s branch. I was just trying to get to know some people as one of the other Elders , Elder Marondera from Zimbabwe, was just taking photos cause he was going home.

My new companion is Elder Khasiahi from Kenya! He is just a sweet funny guy who is ready to work. He only arrived in Kakata 3 weeks before I did so we are both going to be learning the area! We sat down with the branch president and he invited us to eat some Fufu and pepper soup. It tasted pretty good, but the thing with Liberians is they say they can sleep if they don’t eat rice in the day. So he brought a bowl of rice and red oil as well.  We then discussed about what we could do as missionaries to be able to help this branch grow! He gave us some few suggestions and told us an interesting story. He himself is one of the most Christ-like men I have ever met. He just wants to always help people in every way he can. But he says he wasn’t always like that. He use to Drink, he says no small drinker as well. Couldn’t hold any job and people could not trust him with anything because he would go and pawn it off for drink money. But his friend introduced him to the church and he decided to change his life around. Now he is the man he is today. His house is very very nice, he works at the bank, and his family is just a Latter-day saint kind of family.

Well I am just happy to be out here in Kakata. The best place to sprint to the finish! Thank you for constantly praying for me and helping me in every way.

By the way, remember the Kenyans’ at the Noorda’s house who killed I think a goat and we had a feast! Ya, that has crossed my mind with my companion being from Kenya. Maybe we are lining up a Goat or a pig to do it with. I am pretty excited, I will try to send pictures if we do it. Maybe my birthday or something!

Thank you Kaden cuz for the letter. Mission will be the best two years of your life. Always live worthily for that call one day to come out on a mission! You will love every minute of it! just like i have.

Well that is all for this week folks, tune in next week when I actually teach people in Kak City!

Love,

Elder Skouson

July 7, 2014

Dear Family,

This week nothing too exciting. Elder Egbu and I now have 6 days left together. Its saddddd! This last thursday we found out that our area harbel 1 will be closing down. So sad news is i will be leaving harbel to go in town. I thought i was going to avoid town for the rest of my mission, guess not. I will miss the bush like frog which is saddddd. So ya i still don't know exactly where i am going though which makes it even more sad. But next week i probably wont be emailing you from harbel. 

But we are really trying to work hard with Elder Egbu being his last week proselyting. We are focusing on our recent converts like crazy because we wont them to be very strong because no missionaries will teach them. The Zone Leaders will still be in there area but we will be going. 

We have tried to help our people in the best way possible. We realized that many people both men and women alike don't understand much about the Priesthood. So we are going to be focusing on that through out the next week and help as many people as possible. 

By the way i love the new front yard it looks great. Shalese looks amazing, and her husband didn't shave. am i judging yes just because sometimes i want a beard too!!!! 

We had a really good lesson yesterday with one of our investigators named Martha Tambah. We invited our relief Society to sit down with us. We talked about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy! As Martha sells cold water on Sunday. Sis koineg, the relief society president, bore one of the most powerful testimonies of keeping the sabbath day holy. Not going to lie before this happened we hadn't had a very good teaching week due to excessive rain and people working at our house. So this little small short lesson just made my week to say ya it was a good week. Times when you feel the spirit when other people bear their testimonies just makes my day or week just turn out great! Im sure it was heavenly father answering my prayers. 

Today we were suppose to be at a chicken farm eating at a restaurant for my companion Elder Egbu last p day, the place is in our zone but kind of far away. When i woke up this morning i had a small prompting that said, maybe you need to ask President if you could go. This never crossed my mind or the zone leaders minds but i feel like it was the spirit so i said it to the zone leaders. The zone leaders thought about it and decided to call. Which ya we didn't get approved to go. We don't really know why but i feel as though it was the right thing to do, and talking to the other missionaries they all felt the same way. I am just thankful for the spirit to be with us, to guide and protect us even. 

Well not much else to talk about, just know we are needing all the prayers we can get out here. I am truly thankful to be a missionary. This has really changed my life being here and learning the things i have. I love you all.

Love,
Elder SkousonDear Family,

This week nothing too exciting. Elder Egbu and I now have 6 days left together. Its saddddd! This last thursday we found out that our area harbel 1 will be closing down. So sad news is i will be leaving harbel to go in town. I thought i was going to avoid town for the rest of my mission, guess not. I will miss the bush like frog which is saddddd. So ya i still don't know exactly where i am going though which makes it even more sad. But next week i probably wont be emailing you from harbel. 

But we are really trying to work hard with Elder Egbu being his last week proselyting. We are focusing on our recent converts like crazy because we wont them to be very strong because no missionaries will teach them. The Zone Leaders will still be in there area but we will be going. 

We have tried to help our people in the best way possible. We realized that many people both men and women alike don't understand much about the Priesthood. So we are going to be focusing on that through out the next week and help as many people as possible. 

By the way i love the new front yard it looks great. Shalese looks amazing, and her husband didn't shave. am i judging yes just because sometimes i want a beard too!!!! 

We had a really good lesson yesterday with one of our investigators named Martha Tambah. We invited our relief Society to sit down with us. We talked about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy! As Martha sells cold water on Sunday. Sis koineg, the relief society president, bore one of the most powerful testimonies of keeping the sabbath day holy. Not going to lie before this happened we hadn't had a very good teaching week due to excessive rain and people working at our house. So this little small short lesson just made my week to say ya it was a good week. Times when you feel the spirit when other people bear their testimonies just makes my day or week just turn out great! Im sure it was heavenly father answering my prayers. 

Today we were suppose to be at a chicken farm eating at a restaurant for my companion Elder Egbu last p day, the place is in our zone but kind of far away. When i woke up this morning i had a small prompting that said, maybe you need to ask President if you could go. This never crossed my mind or the zone leaders minds but i feel like it was the spirit so i said it to the zone leaders. The zone leaders thought about it and decided to call. Which ya we didn't get approved to go. We don't really know why but i feel as though it was the right thing to do, and talking to the other missionaries they all felt the same way. I am just thankful for the spirit to be with us, to guide and protect us even. 

Well not much else to talk about, just know we are needing all the prayers we can get out here. I am truly thankful to be a missionary. This has really changed my life being here and learning the things i have. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Skouson

Pictures from June 30, 2014

From Elder Zaugg: Elder Skouson and I doing what we do best

June 30, 2014

Dear Family,

Happy 4th of July!!!!!! in like 5 days. Elder Zaugg and I are still trying to plan something to celebrate with. We are thinking we are going to go all out and buy some hamburger meat from the super market and grill some hamburgers. He didnt like the idea of Chicken feet with a little BBQ sauce on it, on a piece of bread. Oooh that does sound nice. even drizzle some mayonnaise on it just to make it taste a little bit sweeter. Ya if you cant tell i am quite hungry right now.

Speaking of food... well i will get to that. 

Speaking of missionary work, we did a lot of that this week. It happened to be a lot of physical work that we did though. On Thursday we took a few hours to go down to the other Elders area and pump water with the hand pump for people to get our name out a little bit more. We would fill the people buckets then carry it back to there house for them. There is just nothing as rewarding as service!

On Friday we got a call from our repair man for the mission that he was coming out again to Harbel to pump water from the river and take it down to the baptismal font to fill the font for our baptism the next day. No small journey through the jungle on the back of a truck filled with water. Yup just everyday life here in the Bush in Liberia. We also did another small service project for an older woman that morning who because of the heavy rain her dirt porch was partially washed out and i  twas hard for her to step over because of the length on the water erosion. So we went into the rubber bush and found some bamboo to cut and carry back to the woman's house. You should have seen the happiness on the women's face. She was just so thankful for the help that we gave to her. 

We taught a recent covert named William Glay, he is such a great man who just has an excited personality. He gave a talk on the Sabbath Day and it was really great. He just gave it just like a pastor would. Actually kind of funny. We were teaching him about priesthood ordinances and blessings which he didn't know too much about. His friends joined in about half way through the lesson. and he kept telling them, you see this is why our church is true, or this is why the church is true. One man was a catholic man and had many questions and brother Glay did his very best to be a wonderful missionary. We are going back to him this week, i don't know i just like his lessons. 

As it is Elder Egbu's last couple weeks we are going to be focusing on teaching recent converts about the Priesthood and the power and authority we have in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. We noticed not many people understand about the Priesthood and it is the last thing people would think about when they are sick or get hurt or anything like that. In which for me at least it is one of the first things that come to my mind. So we are going to helping people understand that a little bit better.

Ok now back to the food. So I was Elder Haas's One year on mission on Saturday so we tried to do something special for him. So we bought four pounds of beef and we grilled it over a coal fire. We also drizzled BBQ sauce on it before it was done. We fried and baked some french fries and had a can of re fried beans. Turns out we made some sort of carne asada fries. I think Bobby Flay himself would had tasted it an been impressed with what we did!!!

Well thank you for the constant prayers that you send my way, i know they truly help me work harder and harder everyday!

Love,

Elder Skouson.

June 23, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you for your emails. They always help me so much!!! Sounds like its been quite a week back at home.

This week has been kind of heck deck as well. 

I wasn't feeling the best this last week. Nothing serious just fresh cold knocked me down and out for a day or two. But it is nice to get some good rest so you can just get back on your feet and work. My companion and i have been working hard to help some people prepare for their baptism next week. So we are working hard so that the branch members can be doing there part as well. Sounds kind of funny but the most effective missionary work is when members and missionaries work together. Sometimes it is just difficult to get the members involved in missionary work.

With rain season coming in at full force it has been hacking at our zinc roof little by little and where there is rust is now starting to get holes. So last week the mission hired some help to fix our roof small small so that we can sleep in dry clothes now yay!!!!

Even through all of these problems we were still able to have a good week proselyting. We have realized how our own efforts haven't been giving us too many results so far. So we rearranged our game plan and started asking for referrals from members like crazy. Any chance we have we have tried to get a member to show us, not only tell us, to somebody who is there friend. Emmanuel Giah is one that we have been using like crazy and he has literally shown us almost all of his friends, many in which are at least partially interested. Eman is going to be baptized on this Saturday. Which reminds me we have to set up a time with our bossman Felix so we can go to the river again and pump water and take it to our font again. That was a lot of fun last time so i am kind of excited to do some more service on Friday. Be praying that everything goes very well so we can have our baptism.

My Companion has less then a month with me now which has its cons and pros. Elder Egbu is a great elder and i am happy that i am with him. Teaches me something new everyday!

President Kirkham has had us start to just focus on teaching doctrines in the lessons. This helps our lessons to be shorter and more beneficial as we are hitting the nail straight on the head. We can see how are people are growing more because of the simpleness of our lessons. The are able to understand clearly and people are able to tell others about what this churches Doctrine is!!!! 

Recently due to our efforts we have been finishing rumors that are here in Harbel and cotton tree. People don't usually talk about the five dollar church anymore. The only now say that "latter day saint church". It is interesting that people don't use the word "Mormons" to describe the Church or the members. Well they also don't refer to us as missionaries, just white man, but that is another issue.

We have been teaching this woman who lives right behind the church and sells cold water right in front. She came to church 3 weeks ago because she says as she sells in front she has seen how we worship and likes it so she just showed up one day. Her name is Martha Tambah. She is very sweet actually. She lost her husband 3 years ago and has been struggling for work ever since then. But you should she her now. She has gone from a kind of depressed mode to an energetic woman in the matter of weeks. When she thinks about her husband it still pains her small but when we taught her about the Plan of Salvation those cares seemed to deteriorate. She has been doing so very well in the few weeks that she has been introduced to the gospel and the wonderfulness of Jesus Christ!

Speaking of Jesus Christ, I have been reading in the Doctrine and Covenants and i just love how he give the revelations to Joseph Smith and others. Just puts things into prospective a little bit more, as the Doctrine and Covenants was written not too long ago. I love studying the gospel and how it makes feel. The Spirit is there when you study, i wish we could get some of our struggling investigators to understand this a little bit more! 

Well this week has just been good. Trying to continue to sprint to the finish! No small something we are doing here. Thank you for your support that you have given me throughout!!!

Love,

Elder Skouson

P.S. Not that i am thinking about how or nothing, but you are welcome to send me a letter i can open on the plane ride home. Even you can send letters now for me to be encouraged to get on that plane, cause i am going to be very nervous to do that business.