The Final Email - Yippee

Hey family,

Things here are going great. I am pretty excited that this is my last email. Actually, I am more excited that I don’t have to use this internet café again!

The work is going great - transfers changed since I sent my last email. I didn't go to Elder Ngerem in Freetown. I am with Elder Despain on Sewa road which is still in Bo. So that means that I will be taking a bus back to Freetown at like 5 in the morning on Saturday. That should be fun! Elder Despain is awesome. It is too bad that I only get to spend one week with him. Maybe I will extend so that I can finish out with him. What do you think? Ha ha Just kidding. It is bittersweet - yeah - I am going home.

So I heard a sweet quote this week. It is really an awesome idea and really true. It goes like this:

 

I went outside to find a friend
But could not find one there;
I went outside to be a friend,
And friends were everywhere! —Payne

This is awesome. It makes me think that people need to stop waiting for blessings and go and be the blessing. I believe charity is what it is all about. If you want to make yourself happy then go and make others happy. I think that is one of the things that I really want to focus on when I get home. Serving others.

As for the work, it is great. I just heard an amazing story, about a man that I baptized named Emanuel Tarpeh and his whole family. I love him. He is great! I was just told that he and his family went to the temple, that one I knew for awhile, but the big news is that he brought 23 people to the temple with him!!!!! I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me feel to know that the gospel is finally sinking in. I love this work and I can't wait to do it at home.

So for my final week I have been transferred into the shlums. The apartment name is the dungeon or hell. It is rough, so rough that a general authority saw it and told us to get out now, ha ha. Anyway, I don’t think it is worse than the Kissy apartment that I stayed in for 5 months. So today my task was to celestialize the apartment. Wow - that was a project and a half. I cleaned years of scum out of the bathroom and threw away pounds of garbage. The elders are amazed that the place can look so nice. That is a trait I picked up on mission. I love to be very clean and organized. I have learned something about suffering in hell. It is in accordance to what you do in life that makes you suffer. So it makes me laugh when people call the apartment hell, it is because they are too lazy to clean it and that’s why it sucks. I understand that the apartment sucks and you can.t fix that but you don’t have to live in the dirt. Anyway, maybe some day they will learn to take some initiative and just do what needs to be done.

That’s about it. I love you guys so much. Thanks so much for all the love and support over the last two years. Take care of yourselves and I will see you in a few short days. Love you so much!

Love your son and missionary,

Elder Kevin Moss

 

PS keep the faith, never give up or let up!

Hey family,

So it's been another week! I guess that means I only have one more email after this one. Kinda crazy to think that I am actually going to come home. The work here is the same as normal. Honestly, I wish that I had something super exciting to talk about but nothing is coming to me. We didn’t have any baptisms this last Saturday but we did have an awesome meeting with the district councilman over missionary work. He had lots of great ideas that we can try to get the branches more involved in missionary work. Members here kind of forget the importance of helping missionaries. But we will try to rekindle the spirit of conversions in the branches. Well, others will because I am being transferred to Freetown so I can have a slow death in the apartment next to the mission office. Which might be nice because I think I will have water finally for my last one week. Maybe that will help my transition back to American standards. Honestly, I am going to be sick when I get home if I am not careful. You sent that package and the candy in it virtually put me into cardiac arrest. I was not feeling good after eating some few sweets. So if you plan on feeding me sweets and candy and stuff when I get home, you can take it easy for a bit so I can get readjusted so I don’t eat to much and pass out. Thank you so much for the package by the way. It is awesome to feel the love that I get form home. It is great to know that I have so much support. I just hope that I don’t disappoint anyone when I get home. I have changed but we will see how much people like me now.

So I guess the excitement for the week is that I got stung by a wasp. Ya, we had a wasp nest in our house in the hallway. Just one of the things you learn to deal with here. As you can imagine, everyone is too scared to kill them. So they multiplied until I found one in my bed and it stung me. I got vexed and went and grabbed a can of bug spray and matches and went redneck style on it. Yep, we torched them! Let me tell you, that is the best way to kill bees but they can get angry when you burn there wings off.

Wow - this week I almost lost it. I almost got into a brawl with 4-8 people because I was so vexed. And I am sure that I could have beaten the tar out of all 8 of them. You would not believe what happened. Here I am, sitting at the church, my companion is doing an interview and I look out the window and see people are gathering and watching something. I see this man with a whip, beating someone like he wanted to kill them. So I grabbed another missionary and ran out there to see what we could do. When I get there, there is a maybe 7 year old boy, hog tied and they are beating him like you wouldn’t believe. He was laying on the ground bleeding and looking half dead. Anyone who knows me can imagine where it went from there. I am not sure if I turned green or not but I am sure that I looked like hulk. I definitely acted like him. I started to untie him when someone tried to stop me, notice I said “tried” to stop me . . . I am telling you, I would have beat up all 8 of them if I was not a missionary. After I untied this boy and helped him to get up and go, we had a nice talk with the parents and the people there. Well, it wasn’t that nice but it was the truth. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I don’t know exactly what he did, but I know that he didn't deserve a beating like that. I guess the people there are lucky I showed compassion. Afterward, I went back to the church and cooled down. These people are lucky that there is not really anything like calling the police or they would have found themselves in a heap of trouble. Moving on . . . .

So since I am being transferred, I am going to miss the next baptism. Which is sad. We put lots of work into finding these investigators that are going to be baptized and my companion and I helped our zone to have around 20 so that will be great. We are hoping for about 60 baptisms for our zone this month. We have been working hard and they are doing great. I think the biggest thing is that we are doing what we are asked to do. Even president has recognized that because he is leaving the whole zone the same this next transfer except for me because I am going home. Like dad says, "don’t change something that works".

Anyway, things are great - thanks for the gifts and most of all, the love. I don’t have much else to say except I think I am going to miss this place. As much suffering as I have endured, I love the people here. I love this mission. I love you guys Talk to you next week.

Love Elder Kev

Bo West Zone
The Mission President and his wife on the left
The two Americans behind them are the APs
The couple on the right is the senior couple in Bo
And that cute American in the middle is Elder Moss
 ZL to all those African missionaries
The Lone American Missionary

Hey family,

So as you know Mother's day was SWEET!  It is always so awesome to talk with you guys.  I am sure people laugh at me after my phone call (even while I am calling) because I always have this stupid huge, cheesy smile that I can't hide.  It makes me so happy to talk with all of you.  I love it!  I can’t wait to be able to do it every day. I am what you would call trunky.  On the flip side,  I am still working my tail off. This week was full of business - mission politics kind of stuff.  We had meetings all week.  We had leadership training and zone council and the next day we had zone conference, my last one, might I add.  It was good, just a lot of stuff going on.  Something that I gathered from president was cool. It is a quote from president Packer. President Packer said "better to be one mile from hell heading away from it then 100 miles from hell heading towards it".  I think this is true.   if we are trying to find our way to heaven then it doesn’t really matter where hell is.  Lots of times people want to be that super hero, that one person that can have that fame. People always have that dream to save the world. The problem is people always go about doing it the wrong way. If you want to change the world, the best place to start is with yourself.  It bugs me when people forget about little things.  These little things are the things that make the big things.  I loved how coach Hos would always stress the importance of small and simple things. If you cannot do the small things then how can you ever do the big things

I am grateful for this mission.  It has done a lot of me.  It hasn’t helped my English at all but it has really opened my eyes to becoming the person that I want and know I can be. I don’t know of another place that I could have served that would been so refining.  Mission is something that you can pass through or it can pass through you.  The decision is yours, no one can make it for you and no one will force it on you. But I am glad that my mission is passing through me and making me a man.

So the week was good like I said.  We had a baptism.. which was a challenge all in itself, but worth it when all the headaches are over.  We had an awesome baptism.  In our zone alone, we had 30 baptized.  It was a good day, lots of conversions.  Even though we are always having baptisms, for some reason I am never satisfied.  I think it Is because I want to see more souls come unto Christ. I can't even imagine how Christ and Heavenly Father are feeling.  I KNOW that God is not satisfied with 50 percent of his children returning to him.  He can't be.  He loves us all and he wants all us to accept the gospel.  He loves baptisms but he wants more conversions.  He will only be satisfied if all return to Him.  That’s why I wish I could do more sometimes. I want to walk away knowing that I have done all that I could do.

Well I really don’t have much to say except that I feel sorry for the family.  I know Caden is coming home tomorrow and I know that is going to make mom so trunky!  She is going to make you guys nuts!  I love you guys so much and thank you for the love and support that you give me. Let the Lord always be your light.

Love Elder Kev

PS I don’t sound like an African.  I blame it on the phone :)

Hey Family,

Bo is good - mission is good.  How is life over in the states?  I bet you are getting excited for me to come home :) because I am definitely getting excited for me to come home! So I don’t have much to say.  We had a great baptism this week.  It was a zone baptism and it was small but spirit filled.   It was 11 people. The baptism was great but I tell you this drought is kicking my butt left and right. We suffered to fill the font and when we finally got it filled, it was really dirty, like too dirty to see the bottom.  But it is ok.  The people were very happy to be able to make sacred covenants with God. Next week will be a big baptism.  I think we are having like 26 people or something so we really need to pray that everything goes well.  We are praying for rain.  Speaking of rain,  I swear every time it rains outside, it rains in my bed as well.  It really sucks!   Two nights last week I was driven from my bed on because I was soaking wet from the rain. The dilemma is if I close the window, then it is too hot and if I open them, then I risk getting rained on.  Rain is good.  It is the means by which we fill our buckets to drink water, take showers and even to wash our clothes. So I guess it Is bittersweet when it rains.  Soon I won’t have to worry about these crazy weather patterns.

This week I have learned that my competitive spirit is still very much a part of me. We played some football, well soccer, and it got a little heated. Sometimes Africans can make me crazy but whatever, I just let it go. So I have been thinking that when I get home I want to train for a triathlon. I know I am still fat but I would love to get fit enough to do one.

The week was filled with lots of business.  I went on exchanges back to one of my old areas and that was fun.  They seemed to really miss me over there.  Had food in surplus. Everyone wanted to feed me. It was a nice reunion. Also this week we had the opportunity to watch conference, which was good.  People here just don’t understand the magnitude of watching a living prophet.  They need to realize that we have a living oracle of God on the earth.  They need to understand that the purpose of prayer is for seeking help  I am glad that I have the Lord in my life.  It is so much different when you use His help.  It doesn’t mean that we have to be super weird or different or change our personality to be Christlike but it does mean that we need to do what's right. Always - no compromising.  Prayer is something we need to always remember to do it. I can't wait to start it in my own home and always pray morning and night.

Do what is right, the day dawn is breaking.  I was thinking today about soccer.  Many times people stand around and wait for the ball but the good players are the ones that go and get the ball.  Don’t wait for blessings to come but go and be the blessing for someone and then the blessings come your way.  I think dad, you are a great example of that. Thank you.  Dad you remind me of yes man.  Whenever someone asks for help, dad says Yes! Yes! Yes!   Thanks for you example.

Love all you guys.  Sorry this is scattered and crazy but love ya!  See you soon!  Talk to you Sunday -  woot woot!

Love Elder Kev