Grafton Branch's First Baptism since the Ebola Outbreak

Waiting to go to Bo

We are still here in Grafton, a few miles from the mission home.  We still have at least a week until we can go to Bo.  Two vehicles came in Friday.  We hear that one of them is for us. We were out in Bo for 2 days with the mission facilities manager Bishop Markus Wallace, looking at our apartment and several of the young missionaries apartments.  He was inspecting new apartments for the missionaries who are coming.  It turned out that one of these apartments he and Pres. and Sister Clawson felt would make a better couples apartment then the one they were planning on for us.  They wanted us to see it first before making the decision.  Both of them needed a lot of work, but this one was smaller, less expensive, and could be done in a week instead of 2-3 weeks.  Sounded good to us.  It is located right across the street from the Bo West District center and is more central to all of the branches and apartments in Bo.

What a Baptism

Today is Sunday.  Yesterday the Grafton branch had a baptism.  15 new members were baptized.  15 were confirmed today in Sacrament meeting.  Six of them were ordained to the priesthood during priesthood meeting.  There was hardly time in sacrament meeting after all the confirmations for the district president to give the talk he was planning.  This was the first baptism in the branch since the ebola outbreak, so many of them had been coming for 1-3 years waiting to be baptized.  What a beautiful experience.

Baptismal Candidates

Notice the small lady in the front row with white hair.  She is 100 years old.  Her name is Vincent Gbassay.  She has been attending for four years.  She finally decided she didn't want to wait any longer to be baptized.  She now has her sights on the temple. She was so happy.  But a little scared.  She insisted on going last.  A couple of the younger ones were also afraid of going under the water.

Sister Gbassay, 100 years old.

Sis. Gbassay entering the font.

During the baptism meeting as they read the names of those being baptized the congregation said "welcome" after each name.  Such a nice touch, such a loving people.

The Mission Begins

The Map in the MTC

We have been in Sierra Leone for 10 days and are starting to know what we are doing. We spent the first week helping the short term couples get the mission office cleaned and ready for missionaries. We need to put this all in perspective.

Two years ago at the height of the Ebola scare the country announced they were going to close the borders and not allow anyone in or out. The church gave the missionaries, young and old, including the presidency, about 2 days to pack and get out. The church sent a plane and they got out within hours of the country being closed.

The local members in the Sierra Leone Stake and surrounding districts emptied all the apartments that were used by the young missionaries and stored everything in the mission offices and the couples apartments. This included all the furniture, bedding, kitchen items, generators, and personal that were left behind in the rush. Those apartments were then let go. The couples apartments, which were now storage units were kept with full time security, along with the mission home and offices.

Fast Forward to spring 2015. The country is close to being Ebola free. The Clawsons received a call to be the new mission presidents. They came to the MTC for the annual mission presidents seminar/training in July. We were able to talk with them and share in their excitement. However, they could not go to Sierra Leone until it was declared Ebola free by the World Health Organization(WHO).

Fast Forward to November. President and Sister Clawson travel to Sierra Leone and open the doors of the mission home/offices. Wow! What a mess! For 3 months they have worked with the local members in trying to figure out where everything was and what needed to be done. They worked with the Stake and traveled to all the districts and branches. Reorganized the district leaderships, and split branches which had continued to grow while the mission was gone.

The church was sending experienced missionaries from other West African missions to start up the Sierra Leone Mission. They needed to find apartments for the 20 Elders they were expecting to arrive early February. February 8 the young elders and sisters arrived and 1 senior couple. The church had arranged for 3 couples to come to the mission for 4 to 6 months. These couples had been home from missions in West Africa less than a year. They were coming to help get things restarted.

After our week in the Provo MTC we arrived in Sierra Leone February 12 with the other two temporary couples. Those 3 couples were going to be working in the mission office, doing medical, financial, and distribution tasks. We are expected to go to the eastern half of the country to a city called Bo. There are two districts in Bo and another in Kenema, 1 hour further east. There are a total of 20 branches in these districts with 17 chapels. We will be the emissaries for the mission President to these three districts, and for all the missionaries that will be assigned there. Currently we have one set of Elders in each of the the districts. There will be more coming as they come from the Accra, Ghana MTC over the next few months. The next group comes in about 2 weeks.

Our couples' apartment in Bo is not ready for us. It is still a storage facility and is in disrepair and needs cleaning. We also do not yet have a vehicle. We also do not have internet capability. In the mean time we have been working in the mission offices helping to clean out rooms, and get things organized. We are going with the country Facilities Maintenance guy on Thursday morning to spend 2 days in Bo. We will meet with local leaders and contractors to see what it will take to get the apartment ready for us.

Elder Sherwood and President Clawson at Bo Apartment

While we are waiting for our apartment in Bo we are staying in a couples apartment in the suburbs of Freetown.

Temporary Apartment new Freetown

Here is a friend of ours in our Freetown apartment.  Notice
the reflection on the ceiling.

Last weekend we spent 3 days in Bo and Kenema. We accompanied President and Sister Clawson to attend district training meetings in those three districts. We were able to quickly meet many of the district and branch leaders. Some day we may begin to remember all their names and faces. That will come. Meantime we have been preparing organization charts and maps to help acquaint us with the people and to get around the area.

We are excited to get involved in our area and to get working with the people.

We love you all. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. The Kingdom is rolling forth. Not even Ebola could stop it. The people here are amazing.

Africa Here We Come/Fools Rushing In

Alright, it is now official.  We go into the MTC on February 8 instead of April 11.  

Ever since we got the call, we have been working with our mission President and the mission department on how we could get there earlier.  The key issue was getting the visas.  It looks like they are confident we will have them.
We have been working like crazy. Finishing up grandma's walk in bathtub, cleaning the garage, packing all of our stuff in the house that we are not taking, spending money on immunizations, luggage, clothes, international drivers licenses, police clearance, etc., etc. etc.
We were planning on going to Colorado and Detroit when we thought we had more time, but have given up on that goal.
We are so excited to go on this mission. We will post occasional on this blog.

We Are Going On Another Mission

Hello Again!  We are going on a new mission.  We have been called for 23 months to the Sierra Leone, Freetown mission in West Africa.

We got our call on Monday, Dec 28 and go into the MTC on April 11.  We are so excited to work with Kevin and Toi Clawson who are the mission President and Wife, and were formerly our Bishop in NY.  We do not know how we have been put in their mission except that the Lord wants us there and we are grateful.

At the present we are trying to get our act together by packing up our belongings, organizing our family, getting immunizations and getting visas.  We will be leaving Susan's mother in the capable hands of her sister and husband who just got home from a mission in Ohio.

As we know more, we will post more.  We do not know about our internet access while in Sierra Leone but we will post when we can.

We Love Baptisms

This is Allen with his father, grandfather, best friend and best friends mom.  He was our 8 year old baptism.  He was so excited and brought a great spirit of enthusiasm.

This is President Burke, our branch president.  As you can see he baptized Allen.

This is Donya and Lizzie with Donya's sister, husband and daughter.  We also see the Jamestown Elders.  Her sisters husband baptized Donya and Lizzie.

Here we are with Donya and Lizzie.

Here we are with the Jamestown Elders.



The baptisms on Saturday went very well.  The weather was marginal, several inches of blowing snow but everyone made it there just fine.  Sunday we were able to confirm all three as members of the church.  In our Gospel Essentials class, we gave a lesson on the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which they had just received.  We also had all the youth in the class so it was big.  Sister Sherwood taught the Relief Society lesson also, so we were very grateful the weather did not prevent us from getting to the branch for the weekend.

Next weekend will be our last one in Fredonia.  After church there is going to be a "Linger Longer" and then we will leave from there to go to Detroit that night and spend some time with our daughter, her husband and three grandchildren.  We will then head for home via Colorado Springs where we will stop and play with some more grandchildren.  We have very mixed feelings about leaving this mission.  It has been wonderful and entirely too short, and we will really miss the friends we have made here.  But it will be so good to be back home with family and friends there.

We love you all and will see you soon.

Another Great Missionary Weekend

Sunday we had another fun day in Fredonia.  Before Sacrament meeting Melissa and her son, Allen came up to us wanting to set up a time later in the day for us to come teach Allen.  Allen told us he really wanted to be baptized.  They couldn't meet with us until 4:00 and they live 30 minutes south of Fredonia.  Since her other committment was in Fredonia and we were wanting to avoid and extra hour of driving, we had the inspiration to suggest we meet with them in the  Branch President's home.  The Burkes were willing and President Burke sat down with us as we began teaching Allen. We had a delightful time with him and were amazed about how much he remembered from his limited primary experience.  When we were finished with our lesson, we turned to the Branch President and said, "We think he is ready to talk to the Branch President, what do you think?"  He said "I think so too.  We need to set up an appointment with him for a baptismal interview".  Allen asked who was the Branch President, as he was excited to get everything done so he could be baptized. President Burke said, "I guess that would be me!  Lets go talk."  He took Allen into the next room where he has his home office and they talked for a few minutes.  Then the office door flew open and Allen came running out to his mother shouting, "I passed!"  It was so fun.  Then President Burke asked him who he wanted to baptize him and he immediately responded, "My Mom!"  We then taught him about the necessity that it be done by someone holding the proper priesthood authority and he then asked President Burke if he would do it.
He is going to be baptized this coming Saturday with our other two investigators.  We are so excited.

Donya and Lizzie were both sick with the flu this week-end so we weren't able to visit with them.  However as we checked in with them last night to finish up  the preparations for them, they were both much better and  are also eager to be baptized.  Donya's brother-in-law will baptize them and she asked Paul last night if he would confirm them. So things are moving right along.

Noel was in our Gospel Essentials class this week.  She said she had an appointment with the Jamestown Elders for Tuesday evening (last night) so we didn't try to teach her this weekend.  The Elders called us last night to report that they had taught the plan of salvation and that she has committed to baptism for the 1st week in March.  She will be coming to observe the baptism on Saturday.

We have enjoyed so much serving in the Fredonia Branch.  It has been a thrill to be a part of these good people accepting the gospel and preparing for baptism.  We are so grateful for this experience.  Our temple president told us when he set us apart at the beginning of our mission, that even though it was a temple mission what we would remember most would be our experinces in the branch.  This has proven true.  Our experiences in the temple have been wonderful.  Our love for Heavenly Father has grown so deeply from our serving there each day.  But the joy we feel from helping these dear people in Fredonia learn about the gospel has been overwhelming.  We wish this mission didn't have to end, but we are ready to be coming  home.  Our mission has been perfect.  Hard, challenging, and perfect.

Great Missionary Weekend

New College Investigator
Last week-end we gave a ride to one of our college freshmen from Palmyra down to Fredonia.  School was starting again for them on that Monday, after their Christmas break.  He had been bringing his girlfriend out to church for about a month before the break, and we have been teaching her in the gospel essentials class.  We were thinking that she might be ready to start the missionary lessons if she was still interested in coming out to church.  We challenged him to ask her if she wanted to learn more about the church.  He was a little hesitant because he wasn't sure how she would respond, but agreed to ask her. 

This Sunday at church, he told us that she had said yes.    We  had an appointment to teach an 8 year old son of a member of the branch as well as her finace right after church.  That fell through because the son was ill yesterday.  The missionaries from Jamestown had come up to help us teach them, so we thought that if Noel was willing, we could give her the lesson instead.  Her boyfriend had an appointment with the branch president right after church, so she was just going to be sitting around waiting for him anyway.  She was happy to have something to do while she waited.  So we all went into a classroom  and we turned it over to the Elders.   It is fun to watch the young missionaries teach.  They have prepared so well and are very good at it.  They also know to bear testimony often and bring a great spirit.  She was ready, and is feeling the spirit as she learns.  It was a great first discussion and we finished about the same time Jeff finished his interview.  The branch president was getting him started on submitting his mission papers and he came out of the interview with a "Preach My Gospel" in his hand.  It was great!

  That make the 8th person we have been able to teach while in the Fredonia Branch.  We had six investigators and one recently activated member in our Gospel Essentials class yesterday.  If Melissa and her fiance had been there as well, we would have had to find a bigger room.  How blessed we have been!  And oh, how we will hate leaving Fredonia with so many good things happening now!

Baptismal Date Set


Later on we met with the mother and daughter we have been teaching, and finished the lessons with them.  The Elders came with us to their home also.  They had taught them last Thursday at her sister's home in Jamestown and were back to help plan a baptism.  We set a baptismal date for Feb. 11 at 3:30pm. They are excited to be baptized. Her sister and brother-in-law will come and be a part of it. They have set a great example for this family and that is why they are ready for baptism.
We are most grateful that we are getting the Jamestown Elders involved so that they can continue with these good people when we are gone.