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Family, Well we had a great and busy past two weeks. We have had interviews with president, zone meeting and also an awesome training from president. On Saturday me and elder Essego had an awesome baptism in Grafton. They were all sisters, 1 was about dads age the others were my age group and one 10 year old girl. We had the service in the compound. Then we broke and walked down to the waterside which is about a few hundred yards down this small hill, and elder Essego baptized them all. It was such a perfect baptism, we are going to have another one on the 22nd at the same place, we will be spending the whole week preparing them for the interview. In the training I learned something from President Roggia that I have been asking myself ever since i came on mission and kind of realized that one day I will have my own family and have to raise them. We were talking about leading with love and teaching with love. I brought up the instance of Jesus in the temple when he somehow scattered the place because they were selling and trading and the rest. Well President kind of expounded on those few verses and we came to see that in that instance Christ didn't use any kind of force or any kind of fury or rage. He simply told them to leave, he didn't even want the doves to be harmed. well then came the saying, spare the rod, spoil the child. That day I learned, and also decided that I will NEVER use beating as a way of raising my kids. We shouldn't, we simply dont need to. It doesn't do anything, when we force people against their will, they don't change, they will keep on doing the same thing. It comes by persuasion and gentleness. It was this last week that the truth of everything came and it was confirmed. We heard a child screaming, we knew immediately that the boy was being beaten for one thing or another. So we rushed over and on the way someone made a comment like that guy always beats that kid, the kid is stubborn. Well when we got there we asked the man to stop and although he was super mad he stopped and started venting to us, or giving us excuses about why he beats the boy. The boy was supposed to go buy pepper from the market and some razor blades, after 3 hours he came back with one pack of blades and no pepper. After all this venting I noticed something funny, the same boy who had been screaming and shouted like he was severely suffering, had stopped crying completely and was just standing there like well dad I won.. again. They say something in krio. Kanda Wam, Kanda Cold. that is when you are getting beat you will be in pain, but in a matter of minutes you will be fine, you aren't going to die. Because this man beat his kid so many times, the kid had learned that well, even if I do something dumb like take 3 hours to buy some blades and my dad beats me, the beating won't kill me. The play and fun outweighed the beating he would get at the end. All the man kept saying is this boy is stubborn and the rest. When you tell someone something enough times they start to believe it. I felt bad for the kid but, I really learned something that day. I will be teaching my children someday to love Heavenly Father and to love the gospel, when they make a mistake.Talk to them, and let the spirit teach them will be 100 times more effective than any beating you can give a child. The things i'm learning here are incredible, how could I ever have learned and decided how I will raise my kids if I wouldn't have decided to come to Sierra Leone for this mission. I'm loving every second of my mission its going by so fast I cant believe it, I just want to learn as many lessons about life like this as I can, I know I will be so much more prepared to face the challenges at home because of this mission. It was a awesome week and this next 2 weeks is gonna be packed full of stuff as well including the baptism on the 22nd at the same waterside. I love you all have a great week! love your son, Elder Wood