Brady's Mission to Ghana: Baptism Day for Anna and Kojo.

Yo my family.

We were able to baptize Anna Hammond and Kojo Otu Larty on Saturday. They received the Holy Ghost on Sunday. It was so very sweet! Anna came early and was very happy, Kojo's mother and father came. It was sweet! Kojo is the little boy next to Anna in the attached photo. Anna is the bigger lady in the blue and then in the white. We did the baptism with the Kaneshi ward, they baptized 2 young girls. It was pretty cool. My companion and I were the witnesses to the baptism and another elder from Kaneshi baptized them. It was so nice to see the fruits of our labors. Reminds me of my missionary scripture in the D&C section 33:9-10. We are opening our mouths all the time, everywhere we go and the Lord is blessing us with sheaves upon our backs. It is like a boost to our work.

We got stinkin' tired that week but we are now re energized. We still will visit them often to make sure that they don't fall away and let them know that we care for them as individuals. Annah is so great, she reads faithfully everyday and is very kind. Kojo is funny. He is too skinny so I made it a goal to slip him a peanut butter (ground nut paste) banana sandwich (toasted of course) and was successful haha. I asked him a couple weeks ago if he received an answer after praying to know if the Book of Mormon was true and if what we have been teaching him was true and he said "I felt like I was a child of God." It was great. His prayers are growing and so is his testimony. It is so good. We are now working on his mom and dad. His mommy is the lady in the 2nd row of the white baptismal photo.

There is a lot of hard work that goes into each baptism on part of both the missionary and member. They have to read, study, ask, learn to recognize the Spirit and then act on what they feel. A lot of people feel that the church is true and accept the book of mormon and its' teachings but they do not act on it. There are many many churches here and they meet multiple times each day and a lot of people have mulitple callings in their churches so they feel very needed in their church and are not willing to let the social thing go. We have one sister who knows that it is true but is not willing to act and stop going to her church even though she knows that the church is correct. We will keep working to help her.

Oh funny story with Kojo, I was teaching him the word of wisdom and I told him about the no tea and coffee thing and he told me that he drank tea. I asked him if he was willing to give it up to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost and open the gate to the heaven etc and he said he was. I later learned that "tea" here referes to things like lipton tea and also milo, a chocolate drink. I felt terrible. I realized I just asked someone to give up hot chocolate and chocolate powder drinks. That is like saying "are you willing to give up chocolate milk and stephens hot cocoa and all that chocolatey goodness? The Lord knows your body very well and doesn't want you to drink that." In other words "no more happiness" haha. We cleared that up very quickly.

We realized that on Sunday that we were working very hard and after Kojo and Anna were baptized that we were focusing on other people and moving forward and were planning in our planner about the upcoming week and takin' care of business. I read a Prez Monson talk from the conference awhile ago called "finding joy in the journey" (does Asian sitting on a rock pose while going "oaaahh" while drawing those Asian letters on that rice paper. How suzuki does that talk title sound?) and it pretty much talked about the Suzuki method and how you need to find joy today because you will have a bunch of empty yesterdays if you don't enjoy the journey (Doing ching doing doing on a japanese instrument). I then told my companion that we have much need to rejoice so I got some cokes and we sat back and celebrated a bit and goofed around and rejoiced because we are doin it! So just a thought, find joy always in what you are doing. Sometimes you just need to celebrate and rejoice and be joyful. Kinda like in 1st Nephi 21:13 "...break forth into singing, O mountains: for they shall be smitten no more..." We have a great need to rejoice. They did it!!! WOHOO! (homer simpson)

So I am starting to enjoy the food here. I can almost finish that gross skin stuff. I had some cow skin the other day, if you wan't to know what it tastes like then go outside and lick a cow and that is the right taste, and I finished it. I had some banku yesterday with some chicken and ground nut soup. It was stinkin good. I really enjoy the banku, it is a fermented corn dough plus casava dough thing. It is great. Fufu is really really filling and starchy... I prefer the banku. They have this other stuff, i forgot what it is called but it means "face the wall" in twi, and it is very good as well. The people here like to feed us and they feed us in like mammoth sized portions. So I didn't spend a lot of money this week so I am going to buy a lot of pineapple and cokes! We are going to celebrate again with our district because we are going to make our goal of 7 baptisms this transfer (6 weeks) and get some fan ice, coke and pineapple. Excellent Smithers! (mr burns.)

I have now advanced to Obroni tutu (white man with black skin) vs. Obroni koko (white man with red skin). I am pretty dark, all my companions that have been here awhile and don't use sunscreen are burnt red. I will always buy sunscreen and solid roll on deodorant no matter how much it costs. Sun burns are no good. The kids here called us Obama the other day... I can't escape him! Oh I can't escape phil collins! AHHHH I am halfway around the world and what do I hear? Phil collins all over the place. There is no escape. Trapped, trapped like rats (can't remember what movie thats from, but it definately is from one. Help me out Brit;) )

Yeah do the spook alley, for the children!!! Sad story, there is no halloween here... or thanksgiving. I guess Christmas is big here though so we will see. Hope my britts costume goes well. All Dave needs to do to be c3po is put on a helmet and paint himself gold haha. "I just don't understand it" (c3po).

Glad all is going well with Grandma's surgery. She is a trooper.

We cleaned the apartment today and bought some tupperware. My comp and I got sick of the cockroaches and so we got some sealed containers and some legit actual rags to dry off our plates so we can store them in the tupperware. This way I know my plate is not an arena for cockroaches to boogie in. We went to this walmart type of place. It was weird, i think it was called metcome. I am excited for my clean clean tupperware. Oh tomorrow I am going to get some "Ayo" for breakfast. THis lady comes buy and sells it. We call her over and help her get the bowl off her head and she pours it into our bowls. It is like corn on the cob mixed with oatmeal. It is really good....if you add oceans of sugar and a banana on it ;)

Thanks for the thought dad. THe work is going good. Glad to see you are all doing well. When you are happy, I am happy.

WHat is this? Dad typing fast? I'll believe it when I see it. I still think he kinda spasms around when he double clicks.

Hey on Sunday we are going to watch 2 hours of conference. Yahoo! Soon we will get the magazine as well. I wanna read it. Oh go check out mosiah 5:2. Talks about after we hear the prophet's voice, we should change they way we live. Not just listen and go "ah that was nice. Hey, beer me" but rather change for the better (ulgh that is a lyric from one of britts plays, "I have been changed for the better" or something sappy like that)

Thanks for studying the scriptures family. Hope you get a runnin' start on your "moseltoff-ing (or however you spell it)" (spits over shoulder)

So I am doing good. I am healthy, eating a vitamin every once in awhile, eating as good as I can, exercising, sleeping in a mosquito net, taking my doxycylcline mosquito pills and sleeping well. I'm doing good. Don't worry. I'm as healthy as... an ox... an American ox, not the sickly ones here haah.

oh 1 last funny. We taught this dude, we probably will baptize him, and he wanted us to teach his bros so he took us over to this place and called over 24 kids and some adults. IT was like an ocean of kids, the family here includes extended family. We then taught them about a prophet and Jesus. It was funny. Some darn cat started eating my shoe during the lesson.

Cool, glad you are all doing well. Gotta run. Sorry I can't respond to everything or all the family but I like to read your stuff, keep on sending it.

I love you all, thanks for your prayers. Keep on going to the temple and doing what is right. Miss you. I'll be home in no time, i need to be here right now though. Talk to you soon.

Elda Bills