Friends and Farming Prepares a Young Man to Serve

With the permission from Elder Sumrak mother I was able to pull the following from Elder Sumrak blog site
Elder Sumrak and Elder Hales became friends in the Ghana MTC, now in Sierra Leone Freetown Mission living under the same roof.

President and Sister Roggia and Elder Sumrak

Here is a few paragraphs from Elder Sumrak blog:

So, unorganized but gosh that is so sweet that Elder Bednar came and

visited! i am so jealous! I doubt an apostle will visit while I am

here, having Elder Holland so recently. But as the saying goes

for everything here, well at least for me and Elder Hales,

TIA (This is Africa). Spider in your cereal? TIA. No running water

today? TIA. Someone pooping on the side of the road? TIA. Get your

pants splashed? TIA. PUMWEI, WAMPATU, WHITE MAN....TIA. but, it is

okay :) we love it here. Let me talk a little bit about my Dear Elder

Hales:

Elder Hales is my MTC mate from Spanish Fork, Utah. He is companions

with Elder Symons. He is pretty much the man! He lives on a farm back

home, so he can pretty much do anything here. From fixing the toilet,

to the stove, to the shower, to jerry rigging just about anything, he

is the man to go to. We usually have our nightly conversations about

our day, and have started a tradition of our nightly melo (hot

chocolate) and we talk about how the day went and about everything

TIA. and about our Dates back home (DATE = girlfiend, but you don't

say girlfriend here because that implies that you have violated the

law of chastity) hahaha. So, we are pretty much best buds. I am really

happy that he is here with me. Both being fresh, it really is a giant

relief to have someone chill to talk to. He wants me to come home and

work with him on the farm, like 15 minutes out of Provo. I am

strongly considering it hahah. Well, not interfering with my school

time at least, or my time with Jenalyn :) but yeah, that would be

maybe something to do.

So, my companion, and the Zone leaders believe that I will be training

someone after my 12 weeks of training are up. I am kinda nervous but

they believe I will be. There are 17 new missionaries coming and only

2 leaving I believe, which means that I will probably be training a

freshie, as will Elder Hales, which means I may get to be with Elder

Hales for 6 months, which would be super sweet :)