Sunday is a delight

- November 25, 2024

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 future.

To make this possible, the home groups will be made into branches. It looks as if the numbers are very close to meet the criteria. Building have been found to host the numbers of members in their respective branches. We are just waiting for negotiations to be done. I can not tell you the blessing it will be to have bigger buildings. These members have long since outgrown their respective primary school rooms and 1 room homes.

The conference was held in a large assemble hall that the church was able to rent. We then had to rent another 150 chairs to accommodate most all that attended. Many still had to stand (our missionaries and others). The choir prepared and practiced 2 music pieces. They began practicing 6 week prior, and 2 days a week. They had matching attire made.

Sound systems can be a real problem here in SL, but we do what we can. Elder Thacker gathered the systems from the church and the hymnbooks the morning of. This was a sort of over looked problem from the organizing committee. I began printing the opening and closing songs about 1 hour before it began. Needless to say, there was not enough time to get enough copies made. Singing is a huge thing that the people here enjoy. To not have words and music that can be heard was sad for them. Keep in mind the sound system. Even with what was brought from the branch buildings it was just not adequate. From the middle of the assembly hall to the back wall sound was very quite unless the speakers held the microphone perfectly and spoke loudly. These faithful members sat through the entire conference! It was remarkable. I will always be grateful when I am at home sitting in our church houses for the amazing sound systems!!

On a funny note...they insisted that all of the primary children sit in their own section, away from the parents. We tried to make the change, but as most of the members came 1-2 hours early all were in their seats so a mix up would have been hard. Any late ones coming in we just told them to sit with their family. I felt sorry for the primary instructors that had to sit with them. :(

I will share 1 thing about a speaker. Esther is a 9 year old orphan. Her parents have passed away and she has been taken in by her aunt. Her aunt is a single mother of 8 children and then there is Esther. Well Esther found herself at church one day and felt that it was truth. She now attends every Sunday and is knowledgeable in the gospel. She studied with a return missionary after school. Elder Thacker and I couldn't help but to have a dress made for her to wear from her conference talk. She just radiated with joy feeling so pretty in her special dress. Might be her only dress that was made and given to only her.

See the attached pictures of our Area Conference with friends.