Fred-n-Tracy Together

  Missionary memories We love spending time helping the missionaries as they work hard each day and week.    Feeding the missionaries has been a fun way for us to give back to all of the faithful members that have fed our boys as they have served around the world.  Thank you to each of you that loved and cared for our sons in Argentina and the Dominican Republic.    Elder Thacker and I recognize that boys and men appreciate life when their stomachs are full.  Here in Sierra Leone, food can be slim picking and not many choices for the elders.  They also have to prepare all of their meals.  Some have to learn quickly how to cook to survive. :)  Senior Couples have a few more perks than the Jr. missionaries so we choose to feed them often.  It is so fun to see their faces light up with a variety of food and also foods they haven't been able to eat since they left home.  I do always feel badly that I do not know how to cook other c...

  Sunday's are a delight Sunday November 24, 2024    This Sunday we made history!  I will include in this post a history of how and when the church was established here in our area of Sierra Leone, but I will briefly write the history for ease of catching up. Here in the Kono district, in 2016 members of the church received permission to open a home group.  It began with 11 members I believe was the count.  Yesterday, Kono held their first Area Conference.  The area consists of 2 branches and 3 home groups.  On a side note, you need to have 3-4 branches to form a District, so we are not as of yet a District.  There are 451 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on record in this area.  Yesterday at the conference we had just short of 500 attending the conference.  It was a beautiful sight to see the growth of the church and the excitement of the members to see that a District, will hopefully be coming in the near...

  Emails November 25, 2024 Dear Friends and Family,     I hope you all are well.  Most of you are settling into cold weather and possibly snow.  I'm sorry about that as I sit in heat wishing the A/C could push out more cool air.    Elder Thacker and I still continue to have fun adventurous days, but it does feel like Sierra Leone is  our home away from home.  We continue to be blown away by what we see and how an entire country lives so far behind the rest of the world.  I find myself enjoying the simplicity of life here and wondering if I really need all that I have at home.   I have learned that malaria is real and is not selective on who it choses.  Most Sierra Leones will contract it many times in their life, that is if they live through it.  There are a few ways the malaria parasite affects the body.  1.  The brain,  2. The muscle and joints, and 3. Nausea and stomach. We have a dear Branch President wh...

  Experiences to remember Visiting the Yengema school    Friends took us to visit a school in a village a little ways from our town.  The school serviced a few surrounding villages that were close to it.  It was a beautiful drive and a great history lesson as we were told of how the villages and area were before the war.  I was surprised at the capacity of the school.  It has 450 students from primary age to secondary age.  It had housing for the full-time teachers to live in during the week.  We spent most of our time visiting the secondary age of students.  We were asked to speak to each of the classrooms.  The focus was to encourage them to stay in school and to respect their parents for giving them the opportunity to learn.   Grace is our friend who is the principal of the students.  She stays in school housing throughout the week, then returns to her home on the weekends.  She is about a 30 minute drive from her ...

Email October 28, 2024 Dear Friends and family,     Elder Thacker and I are alive and well in Sierra Leone.  With each passing day, week, and month we still marvel at all we are learning.  We are humbled by our experiences.  Many times we will encounter experiences that make us sit in silence as we individually try to formulate how to put it into words the ways in which it affected us.      We often feel directed to post on Facebook, yet neither of us are comfortable with it. We do not wish to make our mission experiences about us or what good others might think we are doing.  We are only instruments in the Lord's work that get the chance to have beautiful experiences.    In our area in which we are serving  the missionaries, branch leadership, and members are working hard to grow the church.  Each week the home groups and branches grow in leaps and bounds.  The home groups have outgrown their places to meet in....

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