The Trapani's in Liberia

 Elder Bednar and Elder Kearon Visited Liberia for a day. The first thing they did was meet with all the missionaries.  If you look closely Cheryl and I are part of the group in the very back who are standing. Elder Bednar had us stand and said nice things about senior missionaries. The main reason for the visit is that they met with the new president of Liberia, President Bokai. President Bokai seems to be a nice man who is quite familiar with the church and almost attended general conference a few years ago.  After the missionary meeting, but before the meeting with the president the two elders and their entourage came to the mission president's house for a meal. Cheryl and I had the assignment to pick up the meal from the hotel and bring it to the mission home. Sister Thomas, the mission president's wife asked if we would stay and help serve. While we were there both Elder Kearon and Elder Bednar took time and came and had a nice conversation with me. The meeting they ...

  A member of the church contacted us and asked for help appealing a rejection he received for his US Visa. His family had qualified via a lottery for a visa but his wife failed the reading test during the evaluation interview. I had to write a letter that was accompanied by her educational documents and deliver all the papers to the US embassy. It's quite a big structure. This is just the entrance to one area. This first area sent us to a second area who sent us back to the first area who sent us back to the second area. Eventually the second area accepted our packet of information. If they don't contact me this week I will have to do some sort of follow up. It is so difficult to find a job and provide for a family in Liberia. Even immigrants that do no better than coming to America and working fast food or driving Uber feel like they've hit the life's lottery. We get contacted a lot by schools, medical facilities and contractors seeking for funding for projects.  This...

 The farmer we visited today prepared a meal for us. It was rice, gravy and the meat was a species of rabbit found in the jungle. It didn't taste too bad. It's been more than 24 hours and I'm not sick so I think I'm okay. We stayed overnight at Elder and Sister Dustin's house. One of the members of their branch just received his mission call. He had to go to the Dustin's to open the electronic letter. He is going to one of the Nigeria missions. He was very excited. Nigeria is actually a much nicer country than Liberia. It will be hard on him when he comes home. We spent all day Friday and part day Saturday visiting farmers who had attended our farm training class.  Some of them required quite a bit of hiking. This little footbridge at least had hand rails. Most did not. These are not Cheryl's favorite type of bridges. All the farms were very impressive.  In addition to the training they were given a reference notebook, seeds, fertilizer, pesticide, pesticide...

Cheryl is presenting the award for the Cleanest Missionary apartment to Elder Obadiah from Nigeria and Elder Cea from the Philippines. It was breakfast ingredients of bacon, eggs, sweet rolls and orange juice.  We didn't have much to do with the contest other than we delivered the prize to the missionaries who were in the branch that we are assigned to. Elder Obadiah has never had bacon before.  This is the branch President, President Darius from the other branch we are assigned to.  He is registering online for the BYU pathways program. The pathways program is a big thing here. It is one of the few college opportunities that many can afford that is available in the country. For Liberia the church only charges $3.80 per unit. He was not able to register on his own because he does not have a credit card, only a debit card. The church only accepts credit cards. Not many have credit cards in this country because of the high monthly service fees. He paid me cash in exchange f...