Sunday & Monday, September 23-24, 2012
Dear Family & Friends,
This country could be so beautiful with its lush green foliage,
sparkling ocean and flowing rivers if it weren’t for the blight of poverty and
garbage that sits like a pockmark on its face. We went to a place on Monday called Thunder Mountain Kissy Town Wellington where the Mission President wanted us to do
some water projects. I couldn’t stop
taking pictures, either looking up at the beautiful mountain or gazing at the view
of the sea from its great height. We saw
beautiful springs with children frolicking in the larger parts of the river;
people bathing, washing clothes, or filling cans with water coming out of the
pipe. It was so much fun and
breathtakingly beautiful. We might be
able to further develop those springs and also add hand pumps down below in the
valley. Many have tried though, and they
hit rock, lots and lots of rock. We saw
a few broken down pumps too.
Children
frolicking in the river below the spring development. Above them were women washing clothes. I
couldn’t stop taking pictures of this beautiful place, Thunder Mountain
We drove home late a filthy, sweating mess, and brought the Branch President
with us through the looking and even back to Freetown where he works fixing computers. We saw a very big church building in
Kissy—not too many that the church has built here—most are old rented
homes. We were so late getting home we
ate at the Country Lodge where we usually stay and discovered they had
completely remodeled the dining area—it was beautiful, but in the bar area
there was this flashy gold couch—I could picture some sports star sitting there
dripping with gold, two beautiful ladies hanging on his arms! The new buildings under construction were not
completed but they were making good progress.
Yesterday, Sunday morning, we went to church and actually understood
most of what was said, at least till we got to Relief Society. If they asked us a question, we had to ask
them to repeat it for us.
When we parked near the building we noticed another car, very
familiar—it was our ‘toaster’ car that we had rented from Sahr Doe. Sahr is in Hawaii going to school for three years! He had remarried and has a wife and
child. I thought maybe he’d sold the
car, but when we got inside we saw his wife and there she was, getting
confirmed a member of the church! We met
her the last time we were in Sierra Leone , several months ago. She took her time studying the Gospel but we
could tell she has a very strong testimony.
She said she missed her husband terribly and maybe they would let her
visit him in April. She couldn’t get a
visa (they probably want to make sure he comes back!).
After Relief Society the President thought Sister Burns ought to visit a
lady who lost her father last week. She
also thinks Sister Burns ought to be the Relief Society President and the
current President should be her counselor!
I guess she doesn’t get the program yet!
Also, Burns’s are here to do humanitarian work, not train branch
members.
We get in the truck and are supposed to follow Sahr Doe’s wife to the
house of this lady and all of a sudden a bunch of people jump in the back
seat! Right away Jim said that it was
not allowed. Somehow they were still
in—two ladies and two kids and someone in the back of the truck! On the way Sister Burns explained that this
was against the rules! They are so fast
and sometimes a bit pushy. I also told
Sister Burns that unless she knew the lady personally, it was not up to her to
visit a lady she didn’t know—the members of the Branch are supposed to do
that. So she visited the lady but left
all the hangers on at the house…and it wasn’t ‘just there’ (meaning short
distance in African lingo)—it took a long time to get there on that very
crowded, very bad road.
Finally we got home, had dinner and walked down to the spring area below
the house. While checking it out I
really thought they already were well taken care of. They have city water most of the time, which
is clean to drink. When the city water
stops they buy drinking water. There are
several springs in the area with beautiful, clean looking water that they use
for bathing, washing and cooking. But,
it would be fun to do! The area is
beautiful with ample water coming out of the ground flowing into little rivers
and streams around crops and into spring boxes. I tried to picture the area
without garbage, how divine it would look, like a little piece of
paradise. While there we met a bunch of
little boys playing soccer. We told them
we’d bring them some uniforms and a ball next week if they could provide a
needle and pump to blow up the ball.
Can you imagine
how beautiful this place would be without the garbage? This was below our house near one of the many
springs.
We discovered today why we are not getting water in our tank. The city has turned off our pipe because some
people in the area don’t pay their bill.
Elder Burns called the landlord and told him to get it turned back on
again. He said he would, but then we
don’t know if it will work or not. In
the meantime I saw a young man and asked him if a big water truck could get
down here and he said he thought it would (he helped deliver the
furniture). They may end up having to do
that and deduct it from the rent. It is
not the landlord’s fault, but I don’t think the Burns’s can stand one more
glitch. The water tanks are so low that
neither of us have hot water in our showers because there is no water pressure.
Also it now takes over one hour to fill
one bottle with clean water through the filter.
Each night I warm a pot full of water for my shower. We have to heat water every time we do dishes.
Each time these things come up, Sister
Burns just thinks about how lucky we are to be here in this nice house and not
in a shanty. I suggested to save water
we could do dishes once at the end of the day, but then I realized we don’t
have enough dishes to do that, even using paper goods. And each night I get eaten by a mosquito,
waking me up, itching.
With all of these problems there are always tender mercies—for me it has
been that my hair doesn’t look stupid, and I have no idea why. If I did things this way at home I’d
definitely look like a drowned rat… We
also are enjoying Elder & Sister Burns very much.
Love, mom & dad, grandma & grandpa, E/S Greding , Jim & Karen
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