This is the view looking our our office windows.  We see this every day.  I wanted to take a picture now during the dry season and they I will take another one after the rainy season.  We have had a few rain storms, mostly at night.  The first one woke us up, the rain was so noisy and came down in sheets.  We hear that it will start raining a lot in May, but July August and September are really wet. 

 "The Place"  We spent last Friday night here at "The Place"  That is the name of this resort.  Brent is standing in front of the Chalet we stayed in and he is looking at the Atlantic Ocean.  It was really fun.  We had a Senior Couple's training here on Saturday.  The Clawson's and Brent and I were the only ones who stayed overnight.  The rest of them came on Saturday. 

 We walked on the Beach Friday afternoon with President and Sister Clawson.  We also all played and swam in the ocean.  The water was almost to warm.  I would have liked it colder because the outside air temperature was so hot.  I know I usually like it warm, but this was down right hot.  We were still sweating in the ocean.  

 Brent and I went for a walk down the beach on Saturday morning and these cute little boys started following us and talking to us.  They walked with us about an hour so we took a picture of them.  I picked up a shell so they all started gathering shells for me.  The little boy on the right has a plastic wheel that he rolled along the sand with a thin piece of metal about like a hanger, that was stretched out long.  It was a lot like the pioneer children used only with wood.  (Like at Cove Fort)  Had to get that in.  We gave them each a jolly rancher at the end of our walk and they were thrilled.  Cute boys!

 All the couples bought some crap and lobster.  We brought the Lobster's home live in these baskets covered with leaves. 

 The two taller boys are who we bought the crab and lobster from but everyone on the beach wanted to be in the picture.  (They call pictures "Snaps".  They love to have their picture taken. 

We came back home and all the couples went to the Presidents apartment and washed and cooked our crabs and lobster.  Brent cleaned ours.  It was a great experience.  We have a saying here that fits,  it is TIA, which stands for This Is Africa. 

 The Chapel in Kossoh Town.  The  Kossoh Town branch goes to church here and it is by far the nicest building we have attended Church in.  They even had a generator and turned it on and we had lights and a microphone and fans.  It was still open air, but a little cooler with the fans.  There is a really sweet feeling in this branch and they are doing well.  Their branch President is Ali Kargbo and he does a lot of work for the mission too.  He is a really humble kind man. 

 This picture was standing with my back to the Kossoh Town chapel and looking into the street.

The "Truck" story as this picture has become know here in the Sierra Leone mission office.  I wrote it in my journal so you will have to read about it, or ask me sometime.  Exciting!!!  The man in the white shirt on the right is pointing at me.

               This is a map of Sierra Leone.  Freetown is on the far left right near the coast.
                       We have missionaries in Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Makeni. 

 Our first P-Day in Sierra Leone.  We are up on the top of a mountain at a place called Leicester Peak.  You can see the valley below us.  It was a pretty clear day and we could see to the ocean. 

 Of course there is Coke here.  The Coca Cola plant is not far from the mission home.  We walked along this street.  It is kind of a side street so there wasn't much traffic.  Some kids were playing a game like tennis on the road with a tennis ball and just their hands.  

 We went for a "walka walka"  That is Krio for Walk.  We walked along the mountain and it goes right past peoples homes and it is just dirt.  Most roads are dirt here.  There are a few main roads that are paved. 

 Our second P-Day we also went for a "walka, walka"  We drove up a pretty steep hill, 4 wheel drive road with ruts, rocks and dirt.  We came to this church which is called the St Andrews Church.  The Vicar lives across the road and saw us come. He came over and unlocked the church and took us for a tour inside.  It was a beautiful old church.   It was like a lot of churches we saw in England, but it was really small.  It had 3 beautiful stained glass windows depicting the Baptism, Crucifixion,and the resurrection of the Savior.  The Vicor said they had come from Italy.  We went with President and Sister Clawson, Elder and Sister Barney, Elder and Sister Lauritzen and Brent and I.  After our tour all of us but the Barney's walked back to the Mission Home.  It took about an hour. 

                          President Clawson coming down the last part of our walka walka. 

When we got back to town Brent had to stop at Freetown's version of Home Depot.  On the left you can see the plywood stacked towards the ceiling.  Brent is by the white post in a white t-shirt, he is kind of hard to see. 

 Brent brought seeds from home with us to plant and he needed some good rich soil.  We drove out to the country side and stopped and asked this lady, her family called her "Aunty" if he could buy some soil.  She was so cute and agreed to sell him some of her soil.  She charged him 10,000 Leones which is about $1.70. 

 Here is Brent digging the dirt.  He filled the red buckey you can see about half full.  That bucket is actually our garbage can for the kitchen.

 This is a great market we stopped at on the way back from getting the dirt.  It is actually the best one we have been to.  She had wonderful potatoes you can see in the middle.  We bought some and baked them and they were delicious. This cute girl let me have a picture with her.  She is holding lettuce and we bought some.  We can eat lettuce, we just have to wash it really good. 

 Our first Sunday to attend Church in Sierra Leone. This is after church and  Brother Barney is driving and is trying to turn around.  He got high centered here and you can see the car in front of him. We didn't know who it belonged to. 

 This is looking up the hill from where the car is.  We had to walk from where the car is parked up this hill to church.  A little different that walking to our Stake Center from our home in Utah.  Sister Barney is the lady with her back to us, she is trying to ask some members of the Branch coming down the hill if they know who the car in front of us belongs to.  Love the chicken by her.  There are chickens everywhere here. 

                                        This is just off to the left of where the car was parked. 

Brent and the young Elders and a brother from the branch trying to decide what to do.  See how close our car is to the other one.  How many Elders does it take to move a car? What an adventure!  Eventually the owner came and moved his car and Brother Barney was able to turn around and we made it back home. 

Another picture out our front window.  They young man you see on the left is James.  He is our guard for the compound during the day.  You can see the white fence about the middle of the picture.  That goes all the way around the mission home, the office and our apartments.  It is fun to look out in the mornings and see the people going their different ways and see them carrying everything on their heads.  The kids that go past to school all have uniforms on.