Well my people this week was not bad-o, tell God thank you.
First week with my new Ivorian companion and things were alright.
Since a few Elders recently went home (yes apparently people
in this mission actually do go home after 2 years because I wasn't sure)
and no one has come to replace them yet, we had to take over some other
missionaries' area. Sooooo, our area is super big and our time was pretty
limited this week due to some meetings and whatnot. We still gave it our best
effort of course and tried to visit the people that the other missionaries were
teaching in that area. We'll continue to manage it.
So yeah that's how the week was. We had a little
training meeting on Tuesday that was pretty good. Learned more about how to
help others make good choices and stuff. Saturday we had a meeting with
the Stake President so I went with my Zone Leader companion Elder Silvis who is
from Idaho that day. We got some ice cream while we were in town before
returning to our area. I miss ice cream. It was good.
So this week my theme is the auto shop, the car dealership,
the car salesman. I want to see if I can sell you one of the cars that we find
here in Liberia, namely, a taxi.
Cars in Liberia are really remarkable works of God. I say
that because by some power not known yet to man, they continue to move. Despite
all odds and proper judgement that should be taken into account when handling
heavy machinery, Liberians seem to get their cars to move. So this is the
thing, cars here are not maintained at all. I'm sure if you asked someone when
the last time they put oil in the car was they would ask you if you were
talking about gas. If it moves, don't touch it and just let it keep moving
until it breaks down.
There are a lot of yellow cars here, majorly Nissan's and
nearly all are manually driven. Often times the floor of the car has some holes
in it or at least parts where water can get up through to get a nice damp floor
mat. I was once in a car that actually had a large hole at my feet. If I would
have tried I could have touched the pavement. YABADABADOOO!!!!! Oh good times.
Many cars have broken windshields, or extremely dirty windshields that are very
hard to see out of especially when it is raining. Door handles are often broken
off, ceiling has had the carpet removed, seats with almost no padding anymore.
When you get in a car each person does not get their own seat either. With 3
seats in the back you squeeze 4 persons and sometimes two persons in the front
seat. 4 in the back is okay but apparently 2 in the front is illegal. Sometimes
I'm not even sure if the clutch is even used I don't even know how they do it I
just know they are not very good at driving either. Not to mention, they make
sure to only get one gallon of gas right when they are about to run out so at
least they just fill up the tank a little, but I guess they can't ever afford
to fill it all the way up, or maybe that's jsut too big of an investment. Not
only that, but they need to buy it from some people on the side of the road who
put their hands into the gasoline from a large gallon mayonaise jar and put it in
your car rather than go to the gas station even though they are the same price.
They can't see the gas at the gas station so I guess they can't trust that!
The main point to remember when getting in a car is that if
it will get you to where you need to go, then let it stay. It's alright.
Well that's about it for my dealership show today. I hope I
was able to convince you to buy a car from someone here but if not... Well I
don't blame you. Have a great week!
Elder Bush
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