Hardest week of my life - 8/11/14

Alexandria zone

So to start please do not put this email on facebook or even my blog for now (he has since given the ok to do so). You can email to people but we don't want people freaking out. 

So basically as most of you know all the missionaries in Sierra Leone have been evacuated because of the deadly plague Ebola. I'll go into a little more detail of what happened.

Thursday July 31: We are in the middle of a lesson when the zone leaders call me and say "you and everyone in your district is to go back to the apartment immediately and that I need to buy food storage for 5 days and that there was to be no contact with anyone except for mission leaders." And that's what we did. We were in lock down for that day

Fri: Lock down very boring. Going crazy.

Sat: Lock down. In the evening I find that my mission is being changed to Ghana Kumasi.

Sun: Take Poda Poda to mission home.

Mon: Leave Freetown and stay in a hotel in Lungi while we wait to get a flight out. 

Tues:Still lock down. Sierra Leone goes on lock down where there is to be no one really leaving the country. We eventually have a plane take us to another country where we go through lots of screening and stay overnight there. Also we arrive and they tell me my mission has been re-re-assigned to Baton Rouge Louisiana.

Wed: Very long flight

And now I'm here. It was such a culture shock. My mind has been everywhere. This has been so hard on me. I never even got to say goodbye to anyone in Sierra Leone. It is so different. My companions are Elder Murray who is going home in 10 days and Elder Hacking who is from Orem, Utah. he has been out for 21 months. It is hard to talk to white people. I don't know how to do it. And what is really hard is that I am not to tell any members or investigators here that I came from Sierra Leone because we don't want people to panic because of Ebola. So that makes it even harder to relate to people when I can't tell them about my life or where I came from. This really feels like a Mission Impossible mission for me. Except it is possible. I'm just a secret agent :)

I'm starting to adjust though. Honestly I have actually lost weight here believe it or not. The food is good. I'm still really stingie in buying stuff.  (More like "wise" in his use of funds) But I guess it's just that it's no more rice. Rice is evil for my belly haha. It's weird reporting 0 for most of my key indicators. Also I'm serving in Many (pronounced Man E) which is as out in the boonies as you can get. It takes about 1hr 30min to drive from one side to the other. Oh and we have a truck :) And it's the boonies of the south so it's like all trailer homes and super super hick people. It's so awesome. These people are so hick. It's very interesting experience 2 COMPLETELY different missions. 

Love Elder Lehr

:)

P.S. I'm pretty good. Still adjusting. So I'm happy.

And I'm not stressed as much just still in shock of my universe exploding before my eyes and my African city sinking into the bottom of the ocean. Other than that I'm good. See :) smile.