A rough week, got Malaria too

Yo my family

So this week was really a bummer. Two of our missionaries were sentenced to 7 and 9 years in a Ghanaian prison. They were falsely accused because:

1. They weren't even companions

2. One was a zone leader and we keep track of the lessons we taught in our planners. The accuser kept track of the days and times and they don't match with the missionaries planners. For example, lets say the crime happened on a Tuesday; but actually that Tuesday the missionary was on splits in a totally different town.

3. I personally know and served with these two, they would not do this.

The church will appeal, but I heard it can take 2 years to appeal. So before they can redo the case, they might have to wait 2 years. BIG SUCKY MESS.

I couldn't sleep for 2 nights as I was so upset. I kept thinking about how freaked out their families must be in Nigeria and Botswana. These prisons are also terrible. They are probably going to the Nsawam prison, I guess it is the big one. We don't know too much right now but it just really sucks.

It especially sucks when you go knock on a door and people say, "I just heard about your church on the news" and stuff like that. Man it absolutely sucks. I just pretend like I have heard nothing about it.

Lately it seems that the church news is getting bigger. More and more people keep stopping me and asking me about Mormons, Utah and polygamy. They say, "Hey I heard that you Mormons marry more than one wife and your prophet got arrested." I then explain that all that nonsense was the flds (Fundamentalist) or rlds (Reorganized) folk and it has nothing to do with us. The strange thing is that polygamy is an actual current issue with some people in Ghana, so why is it news? I am trying just to ignore all the nonsense and mockery and just drop them with a pamphlet and a smile and then try and find the other people who want to listen.

Whenever I sense there will be contention I just get out of there. Elder Hortin taught me this. While on splits we contacted a pastors house, they invited us inside and we told them about the book of mormon, they started with the whole "can't add to the bible" stuff and started getting a little hostile. Elder Hortin then said that we had another appointment but we would leave the pamphlet with them with our phone number on it and they could call us. This was nice. No fighting, no arguing, no contention. Maybe later in life they will have a chance to read the pamphlet when they are not hostile. Reminds me of the "spirit of contention is not of Me, but of the devil" scripture. I will have to use this for the next couple of weeks as the church is hot in the news.

In our apartment the spirits have kinda been down. Elder Rampe, from Botswanna, came on his mission with the Elder in prison. They filled out their papers together and are close friends. His mom took them to the airport and everything. He is super bummed out about it. He goes home in 3 weeks and today is having to answer dozens of emails from people back home who have been hearing the news. We are trying to keep the spirits up. I'm trying to think of something we can do.

Well anywho, on the bright side, we have some sweet people progressing towards baptism. Sis Joy shared with us how she is planning to go back to work and start selling again. Sis Joy was just sitting at home, then we shared the gospel with her and she accepted. She all of the sudden felt the urge to become a busy bee and start exercising and sell again. She is retired but wants to just get out and stay busy. She reminds me of Annah, the first person Elder Riding and I baptized. Sis Joy is doing great. She should be baptized Saturday next.

Our buddy with the smoking problem has been clean for a long time now. We should be able to baptize him in September some time. That is the only thing keeping him from being baptized. Just to scare him into not smoking, I gave him one of the conference ensigns you sent me. I had him read Elder Nelsons talk about family history work. I then told him that not only did he have to earn his own salvation, his deceased father and ancestors were counting on him to do their temple work. I'm getting some of the forms for him today so he can fill it out. His mom is getting interested as well.

What kinda blows is that for the past 3 weeks we have had a list of around 10-12 people who promise us that they will come to church, then we have 2 or 3 show up. It drives me bananas. Oh well.

Our bishop, Bishop Engemann told me something that really helped me out. He said that even though there is a lot of garbage going on (well okay he didn't say 'garbage' but you get the idea), he said that we are still baptizing and the work will continue. This is very true. No matter how much bad stuff will be thrown in our way, we will continue to baptize. Plus most of us have lived in Ashaiman and are used to climbing over mounds of poo. So we can do it! (puts on a pair of rubber gloves and grabs some antiseptic gel)

Speaking of poo. I got malaria yesterday. Luckily I have been faithful in taking my doxycycline pills so it only lasted one night. Most people who get it end up heaving from both ends, but luckily for me I just had some runny tummy (diarrhea) and a headache. I am puke free, yay! It wasn't even as bad as the flu or a cold (you know how I despise a runny nose!). I just called sister smith and said that I had a headache, fever, body chills and some diarrhea. She said that it was malaria and that I should start the malaria medication. Luckily I have seen all my companions have it so I knew what to do. We just got back from proselyting and I changed into my moftys (pajamas) grabbed a big bottle of sprite and went to sleep with the fan on small. I slept forever and woke up this morning, took some more pills and some ibuprofen and ate some cookie biscuits. The reason all my companions got freaking sick is that they don't take their doxycycline and don't sleep with a net. So my malaria lasted for a total of about 18 hours. It reminds me of a scripture "you are saved by grace AFTER ALL YOU CAN DO." I have been doing 'all that I can do' to protect myself from malaria and now even though I got it, the Lord has blessed me because of my faithfulness and diligence in taking the pills and sleeping with a net. I don't think my other companions got this blessing because they didn't do these small and simple things. So now I can tell everyone at home that I got malaria on my mission, sounds terrifying but it is a small thing really. I'm feeling great. No worries.

I remember my patriarchal blessing states that 'I will be blessed with all the physical strength to do the work that the Lord has need for me to do.' It is really cool to see how blessed I am. So don't worry mom, no need to hop on a plane and rescue me. I'm doing great. All that you can do to help my malaria experience is put some cash into the account because I had another true missionary experience, so for my 1 year mark I'm going to buy all new garments. They are 75 cents a pair here.

Well anywho we had 3 new investigators at church. Mary who is the daughter of one of our investigators. She prayed about Joseph Smith and said that she felt that it was true. She said that she felt that there was something special about the message we had after the first time she saw us. Her mother was going to come to church but had a 4 day funeral thingie but next week she will come. We had some members take Mary to church and now the families are good friends. The members who picked her to church are the Dayo family. The mom makes tye dye clothes so I'm going to get a buncha tye dye stuff soon. Far out dude!

We also had a boy named Dallan come to church. His mother came last week to church and she liked it, we then gave her and Dallan a date and they accepted. We invited Dallan to come to witness a baptism and then come to the ward activity on Saturday. He came late but luckily everyone here runs on GMT, Ghana Man Time, which is usually an hour behind the rest of the world. So even though he came late, he was right on time. Also the ward activity started an hour late so all is well. (can you see now why it is hard to get people to church and meetings!) Well he had a good time, he even saw some of his friends at church. So he will do well. He had some doubts about the Book of Mormon and only believed in the bible. Luckily he was using the 'Good News' bible which is missing Mark 7:16. So I asked him to turn to Mark 7:16 and he was like "I can't find it!" Then I told him that many plain and precious things have been taken out of the bible and that the Book of Mormon is the most correct out of them all. He then accepted it and started reading it.

So even though we took a big big big blow this week, we still will continue the work. I just hope they don't do something drastic and close the mission or something. I don't think they would ever do that. There are always things fighting against the church, first with the freeze in 1989 and now this thing. I don't know why. We will keep trying harder.

Yo Sis! NICE SCHOOL! I'm so proud of you. You have your own real classroom and stage with everything. It is like a dream come true. You will do a great job. Mom sent me a buncha pictures on Picasa and it looks like a place where you can grow old and crazy like Mrs. Green. I'll have to buy you some old lady teacher beads. Head bonk!

Well you're looking fit in your weirdo fairytale dress thing. Can't even jiggle any arm flab. Fitness plan must be working. Keep it up!

Well dudes, glad Brian is home and is doing good. His party looked fun and he is looking like a returned missionary.
Dad is looking good. His new shades are rad. FAST RAD! FAST DAD!

HOLY COW! All my friends got dates at the same time? This has never happened! No wonder they looked so proud. I always tried to do that with them but they never could pull it off, or someones date would bail at the last min. Well good for them. I'm preparing for some date ideas. I'll buy some cassava and plantain and we could make fufu! Actually she would probably barf all over and then I would barf thus causing a chain reaction of barfing. I bought this grinding dish thing and am practicing making this salsa like thing. It has garden eggs (like an eggplant), peppe (chili pepper), onions, tomato and stuff. They eat it with boiled yam, kinda like potatoes. It is really good, it is like salsa but not quite. My companion freaked out, along with our favorite ward member mom Sis Selina, because I was eating the skins on the yam. They were like, why are you eating the skins? I said that we ate the skins at home and that is where all the nutrients are. They were weirded out and lookin at me funny. I got a kick out of it. (cafe is too slow for pictures, i'll repent and hit a fast cafe soon so I can get you guys some pics).

Nice pics of Mike and Brandon in the Charlie Jenkins band. Do you see how Mike understands the need of having the correct looking guitar for the type of band he is playing in? He has a taylor acoustic, you gotta use taylor for the country bands. Then he has a Telecaster aka tele. It is a must for the country. Just take a look at braid paisley. Even though they all kinda sound the same, you gotta do it for the look. Dig?

Well my family I love you all. Just say some special prayers for this mission and all the mounds of poop going on. Keep up all your good hard work.

My companion is doing really good. He tore his first 2 pairs of trousers on the right pant leg while riding his bicycle. I was so proud. ALL of my trousers have a right pant leg tear. All real missionaries have it, except Elder Chamberlain tucked his pants into his sock when he was riding so all his trousers are okay. Sometimes he forgot to untuck it after riding so he was walking around looking like a dorkus haha. Well I gotta run and go find some more people to teach!

Love all you guys.
Elder Bills