I love being a missionary!

I love hearing from you all every monday.  Makes my week(:
First off I want to answer a few questions from the last emails. I have not received mail/packages in the last three months.  Now the African Elders... Oh man what joy it is to house with some of them.  When you listen to the stories they tell, you would think it came straight from an action movie, but its real life.  You never know what kind of person you will serve with.  And yes, I have made  friends and will have friends for a life time.  Most of them come from Utah, California, and Texas.  But the African friends I have, I will definitely miss when I leave.  I know that this is probably the last time we will see each other until we meet in the next life. I don't think I will ever take my family to Liberia and show them around.  Liberia is a sketchy place if you are not a missionary protected by the Lord.  The places we go to are places you would stay far away from if you were a tourist.  But Thats why I love being a misssionary here because we get to see and interact with them and how they live everyday for 2 years.  I will never regret coming on a mission.  It has been the most positive thing that I have done in my life.  You learn non stop on how to better yourself and how to better others who are around you.  Also you become aware of what things you need to do to become a Celestial person.  When I read more and more, I find that getting to heaven is not so easy after all.  When they say that the more knowledge you obtain here will benefit you in the next life, its so true.   MIssion has OPENED my eyes really wide. The best advice I could give to you is to study the gospel everyday.  Try to be the person that Christ has intended us to be like.  We always need to be able to be the instrument in Gods hand to bring others unto Christ.  If we don't live how we are suppose to, then how can we endure to the end?  As we go to Church, study the scriptures, and attend the temple, we will be helping further the work, and we will start living the way that Christ has intended us to live.  We will begin to feel the full happiness that God wants us to have.  If you read Mosiah 2:41, we can see that we will be blessed by keeping his commandments.  Not only spiritually, but temporally as well.  Anytime we are feeling like we don't have happiness or joy in our life, then we need to take a step back and look at how we're living our life.  Maybe we aren't keeping the commandments like we're suppose to.  Maybe we're not being obedient to our Heavenly Father.  I encourage you all to take a step back and see if there is anything that you could do or change in your life so that you can be that instrument in Gods hands. but I got a few stories to write but I don't know if I'll be able to write them all.

First one....  We were out at Banjor Beach trying to teach one of our recent converts T.  I don't know if I told you about T. but his cousin who lives in america, is a member of the church and was telling T. that he should attend the church.  T. was not attending church at all, until one day he woke up and had the strong desire to go to church.  This was the week right after my training so I had the area all to myself....  We met him at the Duala Branch since, me and Elder Smith were attending his branch that Sunday.  We talked with him afterwards and he showed a great interest in the church.  I told him that we would come see him that week then he left.  We taught him for a good month and a half and he just barely got baptized last Saturday.  One of the Happiest days on mission so far.  I had the privilege to baptize him as well.  But the cool thing about the story, is that the whole time we were teaching him, he had been in a search for a job.  He would spend a couple days at a time in Monrovia searching, but he never would have any luck.  Then after he got baptized and confirmed, the following Tuesday he got a job.  We found this out when we went to teach him on Wednesday and we ran into his brother W. instead.  W. told us that T. wasn't home but he wanted him to tell us that he found a job.  We were so excited for him!! It just shows that when you do whats right, you will get blessed.  That simple.  Do what is right.

This same day, we left T's place and went to find his uncle to teach, who lives in a run down compound on the other side of the fence.  When we reached his place, he wasn't available, but his wife was, and she wanted us to talk to her and her brother.  Now her brothers name is E.  After we had opened with prayer, we were talking with them and said that if they had any questions that they should ask them so we can address all their concerns.  This sparked his interest and he replied with "Even if they dont have to do with the topic of discussion?"  We told him of course.  If he had any questions we were here to answer them.  The first question he started with was,  "how long after Adam, did Eve come?"........ Are you serious? only Liberians would think of these questions.   We told him that the bible doesn't tell us the time, we just know it was the same day.  Then you wont believe the following question.....  "What is Noahs full name?"  What?!  when do you ever have time to think of such questions?  This guy the whole time after this, was trying to confound us about Jesus Christ being God and not the Son of God.  We showed him all the evidence but he wasn't teachable.  He did not want to learn at all.  The whole time he was trying to teach us instead, but we told him to pray about it.  So we'll see what happens next right?  Maybe he'll have time to think of some more questions that won't help him return to heaven.....

I am running out of time but I want you to know at how good I am with money.  For the past week I have lived off of 5 US dollars and still had a few Liberian dollars to spare.  Just shows how the Liberian currency is worth near to nothing. I was able to eat and take transport different places for a week and still had money.  It usually takes around 20 US to live for a week, but this was the week right before we sub, so It was our affliction week you could say.  I didn't run out of money though!!  Now for next month I created a good budget though.  I will be able to spend around 2.50 US a day and have around 50 US left over to buy good food at the end of the month. it seems like a small amount of money, but 2.50 is a good amount for one day here.  I have more stories and pictures I want to attatch next time, so Be ready for them!
I love you all and I keep you in my prayers! 

Love Elder Zaugg

Sabbath Day, Rat Pee, and PePe Soup

Africa is treating me great like always! But how is everything with you all?  Now to answer a few questions.  My mosquito net gets tucked into my bed for sure.  Look who your talking to.  Do you think I will EVER let my net hang down when I know I have 6inch, 8 legged beasts roaming around my apartment?  Nope.  So I tuck my net in ALL the time.  That is one experience that I could care less to have out here;  Is a Spider crawling across me in the middle of the night.  Now the meat that was for our hamburgers (on the 4th of July)  was suppose to be cow meat.... but we don't know if its "actually" cow meat.  We just went along with what the package said, and said it was cow meat. so yeah! 

     I'm running out of time because The power kept shutting off at this email place so I don't have time to write too much, but I have a good story to tell.  We were at our investigators house named A. B.  This is the lady that we teach Pastor T. with, but this time Pastor T. wasn't there.  The only ones who were there, was mama, her, and D. who is one of my recent converts.  Anyway, we were teaching them about the sabbath day and how they're not suppose to work or do anything on Sunday besides go to church, study the scriptures, relax, visit the sick, visit family, and reflect on how things are going in life.  She asked us a question about if it would be alright for her to wash dishes Sunday morning.  We told her that if she was able to do it on Saturday then she should do it Saturday.  She said, the rats pee pee in the dishes at night so we have to wash them in the morning.  Now the interesting part of the story... me and my companion had just finished a nice bowl of pepe soup and rice from her....  You can kind of imagine how our facial expressions  changed once we heard her say that.  Oh well right? we blessed it with a prayer of faith so it won't get us sick. haha Faith is very important on a mission!!  We are still healthy and strong and haven't come down with some weird illness from it yet, so I think we're in the clear.  The joys of being In LIB!  and one more thing.  I tried a new kind of nut/fruit the other day.  They call it Tiger nut.  It tastes like maple syrup when you chew it.... weird at first, but i can handle it.
    

Love Elder Zaugg

Learning Meekness

  Hi Everyone,
Yes it is the rainy season right now.  It will rain all the way up until the end of October I believe.  They say that it gets bad in August.  I thought it was bad right now so I don’t know what to expect as "bad" anymore. Rainy season is A LOT better than dry season.  Dry season is comparable to what the bathroom felt like after I let the hot water run for a while and all the steam built up in there.  Yeah,  no fun.  That’s when things get real sweaty and gross.  You don’t ever actually fall asleep at night. Dry season is horrible to say the least.

I finished my first journal on my mission now!  I made it a goal to write in my journal everyday so that I’ll have a record of every day on my mission.  I’m not sure I will keep one when I get home, so I might as well keep a record of this important event in my life right?  I might have you send me another journal in the next 3 to 4 months though, so that I will have it before I run out of pages to write on.

Now one of the toughest things on my mission is to obtain Christ like attributes.   I really want to have these attributes on my mission, and when you pray for them, the Lord definitely provides the way for you to receive them.  I was reading about the attribute, meekness.  And some of it means that you don’t get mad easily and you don’t let things bother you.  Certain situations that I have been in  on my mission makes for a great way to learn these attributes and really makes you pray hard so you don’t  lose it. haha   I love how the Lord answers prayers.

 I Love you all,

 

Elder Zaugg

Celebrating Independence Day with Elders from Around the World

Family!

Everything is great in LIB!!  The mission is going strong! We are expecting 11 new missionaries on Wednesday, so we will be around 70 - 76 missionaries in Liberia.  Over the next few months we will be gaining so many new missionaries!  Crazy how fast things change!  Being on a mission is one of the best things I could have done.  All of the experiences I have had will and have effected my life for the better.   LIB is going to have a stake in the near future I Bet!  It will be interesting to see how developed the church will get over the course of my mission. Now we had our interviews with president this last week, and he seems like a cool guy.  Very strict and exactly Obedient kind of guy.  

So last week was the 4th of July!!!  America's Independence Day! How was it for you guys?  We made sure to celebrate Americas birthday as well here in LIB!!  I came up with a genius Idea to grill hamburgers on some of the coal stands they have... and yes, it worked!  I was having trouble thinking about what we could use to set the hamburgers on to grill, but my district leader thought out the idea of using the oven racks.  Yes, I will send pictures of this contraption we put together!  It was the closest thing, besides french toast, to home that we have had on mission.  The only problem was that the meat tasted weird and wasn't the best.  But hey, we had French fries with it as well, so its the thought that counts, not the taste right? Before we ate our food, we gathered together, South Africans, Nigerians, Ghanians, and Britain's and we sang the Star Spangled Banner.  We then had Elder Pentreath our British man,  give our prayer since his people participated in bringing this day about. ha ha   We definitely enjoyed this 4th of July!! Only one more in A-town and then I'll be celebrating back home!

Get this, last pday I was wanting to get a haircut, so we go to Logan town and go to the place where the only guy who knows how to cut white man hair is, which is about 20ld per person to get there.  We get there and his shack is open, so we peak in and the dude is packing his things up.  I say hello, and he looks up and almost falls over.  This dude is drunk off his butt and can barely speak.  Great, we just paid 20 Ld to get here and now we have to pay 20 ld to get back. No small thing! He tells me that the LEC (Liberian Electric Company. what they call electricity all the time) is going in and out so I should come back in a half hour.  huh? This man thinks I'm coming back to get my hair cut from him?  An African hair cut is bad as it is, so why would I want to see what a Drunk African hair cut looks like?  Crazy guy.  We went back today though and he was sober, so now I have a nice, Short, African hair cut once again.  Oh the joys of mission life(:
 

Alright, so I talked about my boy Pastor T. last week I believe.  This guy seriously believes what we say, but just doesn't want to leave his church.  That's the only problem he has  or otherwise he would be baptized into the church.  He knows he doesn't have the Holy Ghost because he didn't receive it by the laying on of hands.  But this week as we sat down and were discussing, you will not believe what he said to us.  We asked if he had any questions and he told us this, "I want you guys to come with me to Ka Ka Town, and preach to my people because that's where I'm from.  I only want you to come out one whole day and win souls."  Really Pastor T.? You want us to come to your home town and win souls?  If your church is from God, why aren't your preaching to them winning souls?  This guy doesn't think things through haha he should be baptized by now!  But oh well,  Having a pastor on your side bringing people to you isn't bad at all, right?  Its good if we get referrals from him(; I can see Pastor T. becoming a member in the future.  Him realizing he didn't have the Holy Ghost wasn't enough, so maybe  he'll have something happen in his life that will make him want to change.  We can only hope.
 

If you are really having the desire to gain a testimony for yourself, I would say to "study" the Bible and Book of Mormon to know for yourself.  I have gained so much knowledge about how true The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints really is, and nobody will ever be able to tell me other wise.  Prayer is the key to knowing anything.  Through prayer is how you can gain that strong testimony/witness to know for yourself its true.  Every time I teach a lesson, the spirit always testifies to me of the truth of these things.  I can tell anyone I meet that I know these things are true and that I know that Joseph Smith had our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appear to him.  He is the prophet that was called by God to restore the church and its authority back to the Earth.  Without the authority, nothing would be bound in Heaven.  Everything done on earth would be for nothing.  Joseph Smith is a great man, and did so many  things to restore the church.  I love knowing the church is true for myself, so I encourage all who read this that they will do the same, and find out for themselves really how true the church is.  Nobody can convince me of it being false.

D&C 38:39
2 Cor 9:7
Just scriptures I found in my studying

Love, Elder Zaugg

Africa is Sweet!!

Africa is an experience I will cherish forever!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

I was thinking back on when we arrived in the mission. I realized that Me and Elder Burr were the first 18 year olds to enter The Liberia Monrovia mission.  Kind of a cool thing.  Almost making history in a way for Liberia (;  Investigators that are being baptized are coming along.  This last month was really slow, but this month is looking promising.  We have 31 investigators with baptismal dates, and we are hoping for 2 baptisms the 20th and then 3 or 4 on the 27th.  So I will let you know how that goes. 
This last week for a good 3 days it rained everyday and even through the night.  The temperatures dropped to around 78 degrees, which at night I was scrambling to find my blanket.  Its crazy how your body adapts to the temperatures!  I must say, that I LOVE RAINY SEASON!  It for the most part stays relatively cool and I don't sweat as much. With it being rainy season, we get to wear our boots more often then normal, so I am hoping that I will be able to wear one pair of shoes for a solid year or longer! That would be sweet if I didn't have to buy any shoes here! My area that I am in right now, Banjor, doesn't get to muddy if it just sprinkles for a little bit but if it rains for maybe ten minutes, the road/paths become rivers and streams. I look at all the water that runs down the road and I am continually amazed at how much rain falls!  Africa is an experience that I will cherish forever! 

Now I had one story that I really want to share this week.  Its about our pastor friend named, Pastor T..  We met pastor T. during a lesson at Sister G. house, when he decided to join us.  We were talking about the restoration during this lesson and he really enjoyed it.  He was asking plenty of questions!  Pastor T. after the lesson wanted to give us his number so that we could discuss more.  We were fine with it, but the thing about pastors here, is that they are set in their ways.  They don't want to learn, so we didn't think anything of it when he wanted to give us his number.  We later came back on Saturday and we were discussing the last part of lesson 3 with Sister G. (because we only finished faith and repentance then we had to head back to the apartment)  When we were just talking with her, she told me that I should call T. so he could come.  I call him up and he is excited to know we're teaching again. He said he'll be over just give him 5 minutes. I told my companion that we'll just continue teaching and then fill him in once he comes.  Because 5 minutes to a Liberian man is a half hour.  Whenever they say, "I'll be there by 2pm!" They show up at 3....  They are worse then Mormon Standard Time. He showed up not to long after that, so we filled him in.  We were discussing Baptism, The Gift of The Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.  We started talking about baptism and how it needs to be done by the proper authority, only immersed one time, and all that good stuff about baptism. Now at this point he is really soaking it in. We asked him how he was baptized and he said he was baptized that way.... thinking his pastor in his church he was with before he left had the authority.  We talked to him about it, and then went on to the Holy Ghost. Once we explained everything about the Holy Ghost, and he realized that He didn't receive it because he didn't have hands laid upon his head. He then asked us a question that made me start laughing inside....  he said, "So can I come to your church and receive the holy ghost and then come back to my ministering?"  Wait a minute Pastor T.... Are you saying that you know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has the power and authority to do these things? haha Thats what was running through my head the entire time.  I was also thinking, " WE'RE BAPTIZING THIS MAN!" I explained to him that If he realized that he can receive the Holy Ghost through our church, then he knows that we have the Priesthood and that he knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet Called of God and that He then would know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was the only true church upon the face of the earth.  Yeah, his baptismal date is for the 27th...(;  We are going back to teach him this week, so we will see how his praying went these last couple of days.  How sweet would that be to baptize a pastor? We'll see if it happens.

I haven't received any packages if you guys have sent any... so maybe the mail men stole them. haha We have zone conference on Wednesday so maybe I will get them there.  Next pday I will be at my  4 months!   Hope you all have a great week!!  I love you guys and you are constantly in my prayers morning day and night!  Have lots of food for the 4th of July this week!! I will be missing bbqing these next two years so enjoy it for me!! 

Love, Elder Zaugg

Excerpts from a letter he sent on 6/16/2013
African life is one of a kind!
I am doing good here in A-Town. Things are going smoothly. We just received the new missionaries yesterday. (6/10/2013) So me and Elder Smith are no longer companions together. Something interesting happened to us yesterday. We were walking through Duala market. it probably goes at least a mile or more. So its quite the market. Anyways, we're walking through this market past a taxi, when a lady with a hairy chest walked past. Yes, she had A LOT of chest hair. I have come across  ladies with hairy chins and necks, this surprised me! You really never know what you will see during your day out in the mission field here in Africa. Africa can find a way to keep you on your toes, you never know what it will throw at you next. I LOVE IT! I can't remember if I sent the monkey picture with me touching it or if it was just the picture of the monkey. The monkey was cool. They gave it a mirror one time and it started checking itself out. It was awesome! Working with Elder Smith was one of the greatest times on my mission. We are from the same MTC. We were working in Duala and Banjor so his area and then my area. I will still be in Banjor training my new companion for 9 weeks, then his training will be over. Crazy, I know. This transfer is only 4 weeks so it will end the first week in July. You will probably receive this letter after that time, but its because the MTC and Mission for Liberia, are trying to get on the same schedule. What I heard is that all missionaries will come home 2 weeks earlier, so mid February, or end of February is when I will be coming home. Its not confirmed yet, but that's what it is looking like. I love getting packages! If you can send food or supplements that are healthy, that would be great! I have noticed I am losing my vocabulary out here on my mission. I don't know how, but you do. The Priesthood is POWERFUL. If one lives worthy, they will be able to do miracles. I have a story. There is a lady named P. who owns the internet café we email at and is in Elder Smiths area. We have been visiting her the past 2 weeks and she is getting baptized this Saturday. Anyways, during the week she went to the hospital because she wasn't feeling well and her back was paining her. The pain went on for a few days. So we read to her a verse in James that talks If you are sick, call upon the Elders of the church to bless and anoint you. We told her this then let her decide if she wanted a blessing or not. She said yes, so we gave her a blessing and then we went our separate ways. The next day when we were emailing she came up to us and you could see the spunk back in her. She said to us, "I feel great! I know it was because of the blessing. Why didn't you do it sooner?" She was so happy and you could tell it was a testimony builder for her. I am grateful to have and be able to use the Priesthood.  I love and miss you guys but I know that what I am doing is important and that it will bless the lives of many.