So this week was again a stressful crazy week full of Christmas conference, traveling on long tro-tro rides, going on splits to Abomosu with the zone leaders so they could do some baptismal interviews for us and then finally, the best part, ending the week with 7 baptisms!
Man I love baptizing families! It truly rocks.
We baptized:
Nicholas A (Kofi)
Richmond A
Janice A
Emmanuel A
Mercy (sister of Nicholas)
Ernest Az
Philomena B
I’ll babble a little bit about each of them.
Nicholas, Aka Kofi, sells spare cart parts in a Zongo (muslim area) in Kade. He first heard of the church from a friend who works a couple of stores over. He came to church and loved it. He hasn’t had a lot of schooling before but he knows how to read enough. A local pastor came over to him as he was reading the Book of Mormon at his shop. The man told him that the book was, “The Book of Mammon” and that it is a Satanic book. Kofi was concerned so he looked up the Mammon scripture in the bible and noticed the obvious difference between Mammon and Mormon and told the pastor the difference. Kofi has been to a lot of churches and knows that this one is true. He immediately brought his family. Even though Kofi doesn’t understand everything yet, he knows that this is right and brought his family to partake. This is the first time his whole family has been to church together. He is a great man.
He has his children Richmond 14 years, Janice 13 years, Emmanuel 10 years and 2 small baby girls. His wife will be baptized very soon. We have to get a translator for us while we teach and interview her.
Ernest has been taught by Elder Stout about a year ago, however he moved to go farm. He has now moved back. He is 22 years old. He is a great person. He had a friend who was a member but his friend drown in the nearby river about a year ago. He respected his friend and now is a member. Ernest stays with his family. I took the side face hut picture at his house. That is his house.
Philomena B is the mother of a baby girl Selina. Philomena has been coming to church for a long time however the missionaries didn’t think she could read, or she couldn’t read a couple of months ago. I went and met her and had her pull out her Book of Mormon, it was tattered and well used. I could tell that she had been reading it, or attempting to read it. I had her read some things from it and she can read. She might have been afraid to read in front of the previous missionaries, or if she was put on the spot she might have been nervous to read, but I think she has been practicing. Anywho she can read and she already knew most of the necessary lesson information.
She was so happy that she was going to get baptized. She said that she had been waiting a long time and it was finally time. She is a great member and a very loving person.
Here is some stuff you can read from my journal. Kinda sums the week up.
Journal entry for Dec. 18, 2010
Story Number 1.
Wow! Today we baptized 7 people. We were able to baptize Nicholas A’s family. We usually call Nicholas bro Kofi. We will baptize his wife in a couple of weeks as she can’t read or speak English and she needs a little extra time and attention to understand the commandments and teachings. We obtained permission from President Smith to baptize her because Kofi can be responsible for her and can teach her the doctrine at home.
The baptism went on great. The Terry’s, the senior missionary couple, came to support us and see it. The Terry’s do some of our interviews for us as Accra is forever away. The Terry’s live up in Abomosu with the zone leaders. This is the Terry’s 3rd mission to Africa! They are from Las Vegas. Anywho the Kade branch president’s wife was supposed to be baptized but is having some concerns and didn’t come to church. Sister Terry ran over to her house to see what she could do to help her with her concerns. She had a good chat with her. She might get baptized next week. I pray that we will be able to get her baptized so she can be with her family.
So the baptism was great, however we still are missing that one person. I have faith that she will be baptized very soon. Even though it was a great, we were still concerned because we were missing one that we expected. (Kinda like the parable of the lost sheep.)
The highlights of the baptism: It was the biggest baptism Kade has ever had. We baptized a family. Our Baptist was brother Lartey, a 20 year old who was baptizing for the first time. The font wasn’t full all the way as the tap was off and they used all the polytank water. The whole area was dry. Brother John did a great job baptizing, no problems.
Sister Mercy, Kofi’s sister, showed up in the morning just in time to have her interview with Elder Terry! Sister Janice, one of Kofi’s children, didn’t go under all the way and we had to do it again. Man she was terrified of the water. We did her baptism again and brother John pushed her all the way under. Man she was scared and mad looking haha. She still likes us though. Just a little 13 year old pouty thing haha. Some of our candidates have never been completely submerged before.
I have compassion for her as I was so afraid to be baptized because of my fear of water as a child. I was terrified of the loud sound that water makes. I also had weird ear problems, weird pressure rupture eardrum problems that made my ears hurt. For some crazy 8 year old scared of water reason, baptizing me face forward was no problem for me. So my dad asked the bishop if he could baptize me face forward instead of laying me down backwards. The bishop okayed it and said that immersion and the priesthood is the important part. So I was baptized face first. I sympathize for the scared of water people haha.
Story number 2.
We visited the hospital today and gave a blessing to our dear brother Eko. We gave him a baptismal date the first day we met him, on the 8th of Dec 2010. He came to church last week! However he has typhoid fever and was rushed to the hospital by our member friend Frank, who referred us to him. Bro Eko was loosing so much water that he had to have 21 drip bags of fluid because of the dysentery. He nearly died. He was stable when we went and saw him after the baptism. He was in a room full of about 12 beds. The place was really noisy and hot, no fans, loud tv, plenty of visitors, no curtains for privacy. We felt like we should give him a priesthood blessing however we were having a concern about the lack of privacy and all the noise.
We taught him about priesthood blessings while sitting at his bedside amidst all the chaos that goes along with hospitals. He said that he would like one. He was strong enough to walk so we tried to find an empty room. We searched and searched but all the rooms were full of patients and full of noise. No privacy anywhere. Finally we found an empty broom closet. It was the only reverent place. He said that it would be fine to give him a blessing there. We gave him a priesthood blessing in that tiny broom closet. It was a very reverent thing and he was very grateful. After we sat him back in his bed in the noisy 12 bed room, he smiled at us and said, “ I didn’t know that you would come. Thank you.” He is a great man with great faith. He then recalled all of his blessings and how God has blessed him with so many friends who love him. It is interesting to see how this very sick man feels so blessed while we healthy people sometimes complain.
Story number 3.
A couple days ago I went on splits with Elder Dominic, our zone leader, to Abomosu. We went to a town called Asunafo, it was like a ghost town because everyone there goes to farm during the day. To get there we had to bike on this dirt road thingie up and down these hills for about 30 min. On the outskirts of town you have the nice LDS church building. The rest of the town is small shack shanty town like homes. On the way back home we were approaching the church and I noticed a house with a nice groomed lawn and another house next to it with a man eating some food on his front porch. I felt like we should stop at the house with the nice lawn, I felt good about the place and felt like I should also talk to the man who was eating . However we were late to another appointment in another town and we didn’t stop, there seemed to be no time. When biking home a big bus drove by and kicked up a lot of dust. We stopped to let the dust settle. I felt sad as we had not visited the home next to the church with nice lawn. I told my companion, Elder Dominic, that I felt bad that we didn’t stop at the nice lawn house and the man who was eating. We decided to go back. We pedaled our way back and first talked to the man who was eating on his porch. We talked with him and he turned out to be a teacher. He accepted a Book of Mormon with much interest and also a return appointment. We then went to the nice lawn house. I knocked and a woman named Victoria came from around the back of the house. She said she was busy, we offered to help. She said that she was busy but it wasn’t so important and she gave us some chairs to sit in. We taught her and gave her a baptismal date. She wanted to follow Jesus Christ and his gospel so much.
LESSON INSTANT REPLAY! She mentioned that she was a Christian and she loved Christ. We asked her what she does to show Christ that she loves Him. She said that she liked to sing songs to show her love for the Savior. We then sang “Lord I will Follow Thee” from the church hymn book. We discussed the words from the hymn and then taught her about baptism. She accepted a date to be baptized and “Follow {the Savior}.”
She was very happy and joyful and anxious.
THANK GOODNESS we had turned back to visit the house with the nice lawn and the man ‘chopping’ in his front yard. The Holy Ghost will lead us where we are supposed to go. I have set a goal to listen the first time, no matter how inconvenient or awkward it may seem.
P.S. The appointment we were ‘late’ to forgot and wasn’t there anyways, he was still at the farm. I’m so glad we turned back ;) End of journal entry.
Well on Sunday we got all of the 7 candidates confirmed. That was big relief. We also met up with the Zone Leaders who interviewed 2 more girls for baptism. The girls are sisters, Gifty and Fausty. Gifty is 18 and Fausty is 14. Their elder sister Gertrude is around 25 and is a member already. They didn’t come to church because their mom had them work at the store on Sunday. We went over to the families house with the zone leaders and had a little pow wow with all the 3 girls there and the parents. We taught about the Sabbath day. They said that they will stop having the girls sell on Sunday and will allow them to always go to church.
We invited the mother to come to church to learn how to speak English and read. We will see if she comes. The dad likes us however he said that he won’t sit down with us just yet so we can teach him. They will however attend the baptism ;)
We also went over to the Branch Presidents wife’s house. We were going to try to find out her concerns about being baptized. We started off by just singing. We sang about 3 Christmas hymns. We then didn’t address her baptism, but rather taught about the temple and eternal families. We read from the “proclamation to the world” on the family and we showed her some pictures of temples. We taught her and she said that she has heard about this and wants to do it. We explained that before she can do that she needs to be baptized. She said that she will do it. She then revealed some other concerns about taking offense to a former member etc etc. All that is resolved and she will be baptized very soon! YAHOO! She also mentioned that her husband did the civil marriage but they didn’t have a ‘blessing of the marriage’ which means that they signed the papers but they didn’t have a wedding ceremony with a party and stuff and she wants one! During the ‘blessing of the marriage’ that is where they get rings to wear. We told her husband and they discussed all of it last night after we left. She should get baptized very soon.
NOTE TO SELF!
Have a freakin’ shindig of a wedding!
Get the most best freakin’ sweet ring ever!
Sounds like you had quite the week mom and dad. I’m glad that my grandparents first met by having grandma land on grandpas head at a pool party. Also that grandpa framed grandma’s date and pinched her butt to get grandma’s date in trouble. Sounds like you had a fun party and game getting to know grandma and grandpa's history.
I bet it was nice to have a Christmas party without so much "stuff" all around. Instead you gave good stuff that will help others. More Christlike of a Christmas party. You guys musta had a lot of fun.
Cool you got to see President Monson at the Conference Center Program. I have seen him once in general conference before with President Hinckley. I like the temple square music stuff. It is always sounding very nice.
Well I hope you all are having a good week. Glad dads toenail problem is finally getting resolved. Man you had to go to the toenail specialist? Serious eh?
The family is looking like they are doing great.
Well I love you all. We are doing well here.
This area was so well prepared. It seems like everyone was just planting seeds and planting seeds. I got transferred here and was like, “Holy cow look at all this wheat!?” and I just have to thrust out my sickle and start whacking. It is sometimes pretty tricky to get some to be baptised but we are trying.
I am so blessed to be here. No better area in the mission.
I got your Christmas packages and the thanksgiving package. We are freaking tired! I still have not made the pumpkin pie yet. That shows you how tired we are. To tired for pie. It is a serious tired. I will make the pie today though, promise!
Thanks so much guys for everything.
Well gotta run! Love you guys so much.
I’ll call you guys on Saturday around the usual time around 6 here so around 12 or 1 for you guys. So just lay around on Saturday afternoon and I’ll call. Look forward to talk to you guys!
Talk to you later!
Oh, I almost forgot.
So the Christmans conference was cool. Elder Afu and the rest of the polynesians took the show with their wicked awesome Haka. They did it on stage and then jumped off the stage and did it right in front of the 70, Elder Dickson and his wife, President and Sister Smith and some office couples. They were terrified slightly haha. Elder Dickson was just smiling.
I did the boot scoot'n boogie with God blessed texas with Elder Beeston on the harmonica. I had Elder Holt and Elder Farnbach and the rest get up out of the crowd and boot scoot on stage. It was fun. We all had a good time.
Christmas Conference! One of the best meals I have had in 1 year. This was Elder Holts last meal before he went back home!
Thanks for the package yall! I especially liked the candy cane herheys kisses! Oh and the Victoria chocolate toffee! My favorite gift was the thing grandma Patsy did with quotes of me and mom when I was a baby. Thanks everybody!
Going to Asunafo by Abomosu. We biked on this for what seemed forever. This is the road where we felt prompted to turn back and visit the house with the nice lawn.
Kade Baptism!
Our baptismal candidates! Kade's biggest baptism ever!
Just outside the temple. The chapel where we did the Christmas conference is right next door. We just did a rehearsal for the talent show thingie. Elder Holt took my camera and started doing a photo shoot.
Photo shoot 3. The guitar is around 50 bucks haha.
Someone made a funny.
I'm smiling because I knew I was getting a hot shower at the mission home when we got back. First hot shower in 14 months! YES!!!
The 2 guys going home. Elder Beeston redshirts for the Y football team. Him and Brian will be friends. Elder Holt is going to rock it up at BYU Idaho.
