It's P day and our work was done, so we went for a walk.  Here we're across the valley looking back toward the mission home.

 A friendly neighborhood soccer match in an abandoned cistern.

Beautiful little stream that runs down the valley.

We have to avoid taking pictures with the local people because they don't like it, but we visited with dozens of people along our walk and they were all extremely friendly and offered to show us the way.

 Sister Lauritzen, Sister Randall, Albert and Elder Randall.  Albert is one of our gate guards at the mission home.  He was baptized yesterday.  I assisted Elder Randall in confirming him today.  He was a Muslim and he was concerned what his mother would think.  He says his mother is happy for him.

The four in the middle were baptized yesterday.  Albert, the tall one in the middle, conked his head on the font when he came up and was wearing a bandage over his left eye when he was confirmed today.  Elder Hales (farthest left) is from Spanish Fork.

Two tired and dirty missionaries.  Worked all day sorting and stacking Church literature in the cage under the mission office.  Found a toad, a lizard and a box of Catholic supplies including dozens of rosaries, pictures of Saint Philomena, scapulars and a bag full of medallions.  How they got there we can't imagine.  One of our local branch presidents took them.  Hope he doesn't share them with his branch members.

 On the road to Grafton for church.

 The new back road from Freetown to Grafton is being built by the Chinese.

 Water is falling down the rocks.  It's the rainy season so everything is wet and green.

 Closer picture of water spilling down over the rocks.

 A river follows below the road.

 Sometimes the water is crystal clear.  Here it's green.

 One of the nicer sections of the back road.

 Rice paddies beside the road.

   This is the road.  You always have to wonder how deep the water is.  Sometimes the rain washes deep gullies.

A terraced garden.

 Sister Randall's birthday in President Roggia's office.  Sister Lauritzen baked the cake.

Birthday dinner with the Randalls (from Fairview) at the Country Lodge where Elder Holland stayed during his visit in February.  We had a great dinner of snapper (head and tail included) and Lebanese hummus.  Afterward we were entertained by an all African jazz band.  They were good.

 Banana tree behind the mission office.  See how the bananas come out of the purple pods and have blossoms on their ends.

 Sister Lauritzen is standing in front of a cotton tree behind the Belliar Park Chapel.  The tree is probably over two hundred years old.  It produces "cotton" which is carded, spun and woven.

Elder Lauritzen at the base of the cotton tree.

 

These three tanks feed the three levels of the Belliar Park chapel.

 Elder Lauritzen and Brother Charles (Seminary and Institude Director for Sierra Leone) in front of the mission office.

 Belliar Park Chapel next to the mission office.

The central front area inside the mission compound.

 

 Flowers

Mission Office Elders' Apartment.  These buildings are old colonial structures.  The interior is very spartan ... painted concrete floors and walls.

 Brother Johnson ... Freetown District Young Mens' President

Elder Lauritzen entering the mission home.  This is about five miles up the mountain from the mission office.  The president and his wife have the upstairs and the Lauritzens and the Randalls are in separate apartments downstairs.

 Elder Lauritzen by the generator house at the mission office.  When the government electricity goes off we have to go in and start the diesel generators. 

 Sister Lauritzen by the Belliar Park baptismal font.  After a baptism the elders empty the font with buckets and dump the water back into the storage tanks.

 We finally got the new well pump.  The breaker is the on/off switch.  At least there is a circuit breaker.  Most everything here has no separate breaker. 

More African flowers.

 Hassan is one of our mission home compound guards.  Every once in a while we pay him to wash our car.  He uses rain water he catches in a garbage can.

 The only electricity we have at the mission home comes from two diesel generators in this cage in our compound.

 This is the mission vehicle assigned to us.  It's parked next to our mission home apartment.

 We had a sick young sister missionary we took to the hospital.  We visited her  there two or three times daily for twelve days.  The walkways to the various parts of the hospital are covered by tin roofs.

Elder Lauritzen overlooking the city and the Atlantic from the balcony of Choithram's Memorial Hospital.  The tree is a mango tree.