Hello my people!
Well this week was usual. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY is becoming a usual thing.
We were able to baptize 6 amazing people this week in 3 different branches. The highlight of the week was on Saturday-Sunday.
The baptisms were going to be in Kade at 9 AM and then at Asamankese at 5 PM on Saturday. Duel baptism day KABLAM! However our branch President in Kade forgot that there was a leadership training meeting on Saturday morning that he had to be present for. We were baptizing 3 of his children (3 nephews who he has legal custody over and has raised, pretty much his kids) and wanted him to be present. Postponing prepared people's baptism is never a good idea, so we decided to do it Sunday morning at 8 AM before church and then have them confirmed one hour later at church.
Let me tell you how it went.
We baptized 3 at Asamankese, a mother, her 15 year old son and a man who works at a palm oil plantation/corn mill. The mother is Victoria (quite a Ghanian name eh?) and her son is “El-Na-than”
(means something in Muslim speak. None of his direct family is Muslim, but whatever cool.) Victoria has been investigating for a long while.
Her brother is a member. We visited her brother who is now an old man who had a stroke. He is blind and can’t speak English. I can speak Twi well enough to communicate with him and he understands. He is a good man. Well Victoria liked her brother’s example so she decided to join the church. She just moved back to Ghana from Mali, her husband will return soon and join. Her boy El-Nathan is a smart boy and can speak French, English and Twi. They moved from Mali so her son can get a better education.
We also baptized Stephen A. He has been investigating the church for about 5 years now. He has been taught by many missionaries and knew everything already; however he had never been baptized. He came to church and our branch president told us to baptize him. I taught him at his corn mill, about 10 min tro tro ride away. We also taught him with his Rastafarian brother named “Philadelphia” sitting there for lessons as well.
Those Rasta guys are potentially smart, however too much Bob Marley influences. “Ya Mon.” Well we scheduled for the Zone Leaders to interview him on a Tuesday. The Terry’s came down to interview Nathaniel and Victoria and they saw me and said, “you look pale and you sound really sick.” I still felt really poopy. Well by 6 PM my head felt like it was going to explode and I was having a coughing fit type of thing and my snot was thick and a yellow/green color and it was just coming like crazy. We decided to go inside and have my companion go with the Zone Leader to interview Stephen. I went inside and called Sister Smith who called the mission doctor and read off my symptoms. She said it was unusual for me to call because I only call for things like Malaria or something serious. Turns out the Doctor said I had a sinus infection and I went to buy my best friend drug AMOXOCYLLIN. Yahoo. Well it started to clear up later and as of now I’m pretty okay, I’m still coughing and blowing out yellow infection globulues but at a manageable rate, no major headaches. Well anywho Stephen wasn’t there for the interview. My companion forgot what he looked like and didn’t see him at church where they were supposed to interview him (smacks head against wall. WHY?!?!?). Anywho I split with the Zone Leaders the next morning, still feeling like major poop because I only slept for some small time because of the headache of the century again but we found him and got him interviewed. They were all confirmed on Sunday.
Yahoo!
Well on Sunday morning we woke up at 5 and left to Kade by 6 as the baptism had to start by 8. Well we waited at the tro-tro station for an hour waiting for the car to fill up. WHY?!?!?! I prayed so hard for us to get there on time. Then our tro-tro driver was driving so slow, probably listened to a lot of Bob Marley the night before and had lost the ambition to do anything productive or prompt. Old cautious grannies driving with baby on board stickers would have put him to shame. Anywho we got to the church by 7:58. I have no idea how it happened. Power of prayer I guess. Well I baptized the branch Presidents kids in the outdoor bucket filled font. He was so happy as were the kids. They will be a bunch of great stripling warriors. As of right now they are 8, 10 and 16. They are pretty goofy like all normal little kids. The 16 year old will be very strong. The branch President was so happy and I dunno, I just know he is a great man.
Hopefully his wife will join very soon.
After the baptism we tried to stop and enjoy but we had to run, literally, to the tro-tro station to make it back for the Asamankese branches Sacrament meetings etc. Man no time to enjoy eh? I did enjoy every min of those precious moments I had. When I get home I will promise myself not to overbook myself, I mean it this time… Well it was an overall success. Everyone that wasn’t baptized will be baptized in the up and coming months. Nobody was lost but was either pregnant and wanted to wait, sick at the hospital, needs to be taught more etc. They will all still get baptized.
I have a great paper to write you about “The Washing Machine” but don’t have enough email time today. I’ll transcribe it next week. You will laugh.
I love you all so much. Thanks for the stories mom. I’ll try it out.
Met with president smith this week. He is proud of me and wants me to train my companion up. Training up some of the young guys is tough.
Well glad the little doggy is doing okay. I love you all. Gotta run!
The church is true, I know it is.
Elder Bills
Monday, January 24, 2011
Dear Family,
Man this week was crazy! Actually these past 2 weeks were crazy! I slept in 3 different places last week. We went to Accra to have a mission tour with Elder Sitati from the 70. He is an African, one of 2 in the 70. He is the only black one in the 1st quorum so it was really cool to hear him speak. Before I get to what he said let me back up.
We traveled down to Accra on a 3 and a half hour tro tro ride to Kwame Nkromah circle (a tro tro/taxi station with a round about) where we make an exchange from a tro-tro to a taxi. Kwame Nkromah circle, circle for short, is an interesting place. They have all sorts of people hawking stuff at you and you just kinda keep looking forward haha. It is a place where you don’t want to look lost or confused so I just walk really fast and act like I know 100% where I am going and where I need to change cars, done it a thousand times… At Circle there are a lot of gypsy looking brown boys, like Aladin. They are from Chad. I guess Chad might be fighting right now or something so a lot of them have run down here to Ghana with their families. The boys are cute little pickpockets and the girls are just adorable with little dirty faces and a little African dred-lock hair. If Britt were here she would like to put one of them into a big purse and take him or her home because they are so cute.
Their parents are always a little afar off sitting on a carpet, I swear it is magic, with some Arabic looking garb one. They have a Jafar little goatee beard thingie. I hope the gospel goes up there one day.
Well we got to the mission home. Prior to arrival I came up with a master pie obtaining plan with backups (1st pie no go, repeat no go, operation Mallam commence!) The Terrys were driving to the Accra Shoprite with the Zone Leaders, Elder Farnbach and Elder Dominic, and they were going to pick up 4 apple pies and bring them to the mission home. Just in case they were out I called the Oda Elders, who come to the mission home by way of the Shoprite near McCarthy Hill and Mallam junction. Luckily the Zone Leaders got the pies so we didn’t have to use our backup Mallam pie plan. We got to the mission home and I started immediately washing my clothes, which I packed down with me in that ginormous carry on bag mom bought me, in the office Elders washing machine. Holy easy! They were done in like 15 min and they were clean!
Best part is that my hands didn’t hurt at all. I washed my sheets and put them in the drier. When the sheets were done I picked them up and they were nice and warm and I held them up to my face. AH, couldn’t beat it.
Well at night time President Smith ran into our apartment and said, “Boys we got some extra food inside, grab your plates!” So immediately all of us ran, pushing and shoving, to get some plates in the office Elders kitchen. I guess they were having a big get together with all the head haunchos of the church in Africa or just some friends. Elder Sitati was there. We got catered food leftovers with ….wait for it… Broccoli and cauliflower and zucchini with carrots! Ah man. It was the best! I could taste that it was really good for me. We can’t really eat vegetables out here much because it has stuff living in it, including typhoid. You gotta bleach your vegetables or else you end up like our investigator Eko Prah. Plus 1 carrot is like 1 Cedi, can’t afford it. We stuffed our faces with as much nutrition as we could then moved on to the pie. I microwaved them, that’s right. The office has a microwave! We all sat down to eat them and the insides were not apple… Well it might have been…we all thought it was chocolate because it looked like chocolate. I found some raisons in ours. So it was like a chocolate/apple/raison pie… Very interesting. We still ate it though.
Well after being spoiled rotten with vegetables, washing machine and a hot shower with warm sheets and pie…oh and an air conditioned room for one night. We left to the real hot and sticky, vitamin A lacking world again; however not before we listened to Elder Sitati. He used to be a mission President in Nigeria so he said almost the exact same stuff that President Smith had been saying. “By the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses” right? Man it was cool. Our new thing has been giving baptismal invitations sooner, probably on our first visit. Elder Sitati said that was a great thing to do and taught us how to do it.
He is the man. He is very smart, he joined the church after reading some of Joseph Smiths writings, journals or something. He thinks a lot. His wife gave a good talk as well. They are a good example for Africa. The wife is right by his side. She is a good person. They are the ones who are against the bride price. Great couple. They opened up the last 15 min for questions. One senior couple asked how people could stay retained and active in the church. Elder Sitati said that if the gospel was not practiced in the home, family prayer, family scripture study etc. then they will fall inactive. The key is the gospel in the home. I then asked him a question. “It is essential to have them practice the gospel in the home, however a lot of people are sending their children away to boarding school (even in the same town in which they reside) thus keeping their family separated and not being able to have family prayer, scripture study, sacrament attendance. What can we do to remedy this?” He told me that we need to teach them and then it is up to them to exercise their agency. They will one day be held accountable before God on how well they carried out their parental responsibilities.
Man my patrirachial blessings states that I need to know that “Proclamation to the World on the Family” very well so I will know my duties in the church. Man I know that thing well and think about it every time I enter into a Ghanaian home. We have taught a couple people about it and they give excuses like, “well you Americans don’t understand. You have different traditions, she still is attending Seminary.”
I have come up with a scripture chain of boarding school destruction!
• “Pray in your Family” – 3 Nephi 18:21
• “Always observe to do” to take the sacrament – 3rd Nephi 18:6
• “they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt,
God would deliver them” – Alma 56:47
• “Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them.” – Alma 57:21
• “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father” – 1 Nephi 1:1
• “And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers. But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. But verily I say unto you, my servant Fredrick G. Williams, you have continued under this condemnation; you have not taught your children light and truth, according to the commandments; and that wicked one hath power, as yet, over you, and this is the cause of your affliction. And now a commandment I give unto you- if you will be delivered you shall set in order your own house, for there are many things that are not right in your house. Veriily I say unto my servant Sidney rigdon, that in some things he hath not kept the commandments, concerning his children; therefore, first set in order thy house. – Doctrine and Covenants 93: 39-44
Even after the chain of boarding school destruction they still don’t listen. I asked one person why I just met his daughter at church recently and I have been there for months now. He said that she was back from boarding school, in the same town in which they reside, for 2 weeks. I then asked him why she was boarding if she lives so close.
He replied that he didn’t want anyone to interrupt her studies at home by sending her to buy stuff etc. I then asked him if he could try and get her an exit pass or something so she could at least take the sacrament on Sundays. He said that they wouldn’t allow it. I then told him that I had called and got someone an exit in the Lebanon ward by simply having the mother call. They are not willing to try. Well I did my part I tried. I’ll be there in heaven going like, “I told them! I tried my best to convince them.” The Apostles just gave a talk on stuff like this a couple months ago to a whole continent wide church conference, the scriptures testify of it, the proclamation to the world as well. I think they are waiting for a definitive “thou shalt not send them, your children, to boarding school.” This of course will never happen. Maybe for a person who lives on a remote island and there is no electricity, books, opportunity, then sure go ahead and send them to boarding school. But for here in Ghana, Forggettahboutit!
Anywho, I’ll step of my soapbox for a moment. Just to step onto a smaller one. After church on Sunday I almost saw lots of members go to a store next to our church and buy stuff. (smacks head). Then a nice woman, sister Tetteh, contacted us and gave us referrals. It was great. Sometime they will contact us though while selling on Sunday… Man. Sometime I think we need to reteach the basics again in all the branches. Okay, off the soapbox.
We are hopefully going to baptize a lot of people on Sunday. Hopefully 8. It was going to be 9 but some people didn’t come to church due to sickness, children having runny tummy etc. Also a 10 year old, Emmanuel, and his mom didn’t come. The mother is a member and didn’t know that 8 is the age, however she couldn’t remember her phone number so I just know the neighborhood she lives. She was supposed to call us but did not, also our branch president said he would get her number at church but she didn’t come. I might just go to the area and start yelling, “Emmanuel! Emmanuel!” haha. I’m sure he will turn up.
Oh yeah, with the weather in the dry season all the Africans think it is cold, I’m actually kinda chilly too, yes I am a wuss. So everyone is coughing and yes most of us missionaries caught a cold. I have been a running faucet with my nose. I have a massive sinus headache and the pressure was so bad that I thought it was causing my teeth to hurt. I then thought maybe I was having a cavity in my back teeth. Turns out, while I was taking a recovery nap this morning, I found myself biting down really hard when I was sleeping. Remember I asked the dentist before I left about it and he said I was biting down when I was sleeping because of stress. Well these past weeks have been freaking stressful! Being sick, going on splits to Oda where there are some struggles. Traveling on billions of tro-tros, people not coming to church. Gotta keep track of the traveling money, also schedule our baptismal interviews with the zone leaders and office couple who live 3 hours away. My companion has been out 6 months, he is fresh from the office, so he's learning. So I gotta lotta load on my back. Well I’ll keep pulling and heaving and shovin’. Don’t worry about my teeth, I’m almost better from my sniffles and I’ll get it all worked out. I think the remedy is more coke and I’ll try to take a snooze for the rest of today to get better.
Man we are getting more missionaries up here in a couple of weeks.
There will be 4 missionaries now in our apartment vs just us 2. I’ll write President and ask him to send up somebody really strong to help out. I think all the travel makes it feel all helter-skelter and less organized. I have hope that everything will be alright. I think I need to let others do some stuff.
Kinda like when I did the Prince band, people didn't show or practice too much so you gotta put on the makeup and glitter and do it yourself. You can quote me on that one. “Sometimes you gotta put on the makeup and glitter and do it yourself.” I’m still trying to find my posse of dudes I can count on here in the North Zone. Elder Farnbach and Elder Dominic are part of my reliable posse. I know that more will become reliable soon and maybe a couple will get shipped in.
Thanks mom for all your nice words. We really are blessed to be here.
Isaiah would jump on a tro-tro with me and start handing out pamphlets along with me, the sons of Mosiah would be downing all sorts of unknown meats and taking freezing showers. We would all have massive headaches and would all go, “dude!” and give the thumbs up sign like Evil Kanevil does in a stretcher after he biffs it on his motorcycle jump across 52 cars and a ring of fire. “He’s okay everybody!” (thumbs up and big smile here from stretcher.)
Well I talked with President Smith about when I go home and he thinks I go home the “July” transfer so I can make it home in time for college in the Fall. This means late july or some time August I’d be going home. I’m supposed to call him tomorrow morning though to double check exactly when he has scheduled me to go home. If you could mail me the byu form I’ll try to print it out and have him fill it out for me sometime. Then he can mail it to provo or something eh? So if I go home to start Fall semester that means I got only 6 months leftish. Weird. I don’t like to think about it. I’ll talk to him soon and I'll know more.
Well glad Britt is doing better. Glad the little puppy is busy.
Grandpa dad always loved dogs. He is a good doggy person. He can get them to instantly love him. Well sorry about the pee. Get used to cleaning it up, I think when I come home all the new food will get me sick and I’ll have a couple accidents…
If we pull of this week then It’ll be amazing. We are having a baptism in Kade at 8 am, should baptize 5, then we will have one in Asamankese at 5pm where we should baptize 3. MAN! CRAZY!
All is cool. The church is true. The work out here is so important, it brings the families closer together and helps them know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Even though we are tired and stressed, wouldn’t rather be anywhere else right now. This is the place I’m supposed to be. Going to keep on rockin’ till the sun comes down, the ever so constant 6pm sun goes down. No daylight savings time here.
Constant 6 up 6 down. Love you all.
Oh one last upper of a story. We were riding home from Kade, I was all huddled in the back of a tro-tro having no leg room because the spare tire and I shared a seat. I managed to get somehow comfy and hunkered up into a little ball and was taking a nap. Well the transport money wallet fell out of my pocket. The tro-tro dropped us off and then I noticed. I prayed that we could find it again. We walked to the final station stop. We looked and no tro-tro. Then feeling defeated we were walking to a lesson and I spotted the tro-tro parked on the side of the road. I asked my companion if that was it, he said he didn't think so. I decided to check anyways and found the dude and he opened it up for me and viola!
I found the money in the back next to the spare tire. Heavenly Father does answer prayers. He loves us. His work will continue. It can’t be stopped.
Love you all. My family rocks!
Love you mom, dad, britt, dave, big dave, grandparents. You are the best.
Elder Bills
Man this week was crazy! Actually these past 2 weeks were crazy! I slept in 3 different places last week. We went to Accra to have a mission tour with Elder Sitati from the 70. He is an African, one of 2 in the 70. He is the only black one in the 1st quorum so it was really cool to hear him speak. Before I get to what he said let me back up.
We traveled down to Accra on a 3 and a half hour tro tro ride to Kwame Nkromah circle (a tro tro/taxi station with a round about) where we make an exchange from a tro-tro to a taxi. Kwame Nkromah circle, circle for short, is an interesting place. They have all sorts of people hawking stuff at you and you just kinda keep looking forward haha. It is a place where you don’t want to look lost or confused so I just walk really fast and act like I know 100% where I am going and where I need to change cars, done it a thousand times… At Circle there are a lot of gypsy looking brown boys, like Aladin. They are from Chad. I guess Chad might be fighting right now or something so a lot of them have run down here to Ghana with their families. The boys are cute little pickpockets and the girls are just adorable with little dirty faces and a little African dred-lock hair. If Britt were here she would like to put one of them into a big purse and take him or her home because they are so cute.
Their parents are always a little afar off sitting on a carpet, I swear it is magic, with some Arabic looking garb one. They have a Jafar little goatee beard thingie. I hope the gospel goes up there one day.
Well we got to the mission home. Prior to arrival I came up with a master pie obtaining plan with backups (1st pie no go, repeat no go, operation Mallam commence!) The Terrys were driving to the Accra Shoprite with the Zone Leaders, Elder Farnbach and Elder Dominic, and they were going to pick up 4 apple pies and bring them to the mission home. Just in case they were out I called the Oda Elders, who come to the mission home by way of the Shoprite near McCarthy Hill and Mallam junction. Luckily the Zone Leaders got the pies so we didn’t have to use our backup Mallam pie plan. We got to the mission home and I started immediately washing my clothes, which I packed down with me in that ginormous carry on bag mom bought me, in the office Elders washing machine. Holy easy! They were done in like 15 min and they were clean!
Best part is that my hands didn’t hurt at all. I washed my sheets and put them in the drier. When the sheets were done I picked them up and they were nice and warm and I held them up to my face. AH, couldn’t beat it.
Well at night time President Smith ran into our apartment and said, “Boys we got some extra food inside, grab your plates!” So immediately all of us ran, pushing and shoving, to get some plates in the office Elders kitchen. I guess they were having a big get together with all the head haunchos of the church in Africa or just some friends. Elder Sitati was there. We got catered food leftovers with ….wait for it… Broccoli and cauliflower and zucchini with carrots! Ah man. It was the best! I could taste that it was really good for me. We can’t really eat vegetables out here much because it has stuff living in it, including typhoid. You gotta bleach your vegetables or else you end up like our investigator Eko Prah. Plus 1 carrot is like 1 Cedi, can’t afford it. We stuffed our faces with as much nutrition as we could then moved on to the pie. I microwaved them, that’s right. The office has a microwave! We all sat down to eat them and the insides were not apple… Well it might have been…we all thought it was chocolate because it looked like chocolate. I found some raisons in ours. So it was like a chocolate/apple/raison pie… Very interesting. We still ate it though.
Well after being spoiled rotten with vegetables, washing machine and a hot shower with warm sheets and pie…oh and an air conditioned room for one night. We left to the real hot and sticky, vitamin A lacking world again; however not before we listened to Elder Sitati. He used to be a mission President in Nigeria so he said almost the exact same stuff that President Smith had been saying. “By the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses” right? Man it was cool. Our new thing has been giving baptismal invitations sooner, probably on our first visit. Elder Sitati said that was a great thing to do and taught us how to do it.
He is the man. He is very smart, he joined the church after reading some of Joseph Smiths writings, journals or something. He thinks a lot. His wife gave a good talk as well. They are a good example for Africa. The wife is right by his side. She is a good person. They are the ones who are against the bride price. Great couple. They opened up the last 15 min for questions. One senior couple asked how people could stay retained and active in the church. Elder Sitati said that if the gospel was not practiced in the home, family prayer, family scripture study etc. then they will fall inactive. The key is the gospel in the home. I then asked him a question. “It is essential to have them practice the gospel in the home, however a lot of people are sending their children away to boarding school (even in the same town in which they reside) thus keeping their family separated and not being able to have family prayer, scripture study, sacrament attendance. What can we do to remedy this?” He told me that we need to teach them and then it is up to them to exercise their agency. They will one day be held accountable before God on how well they carried out their parental responsibilities.
Man my patrirachial blessings states that I need to know that “Proclamation to the World on the Family” very well so I will know my duties in the church. Man I know that thing well and think about it every time I enter into a Ghanaian home. We have taught a couple people about it and they give excuses like, “well you Americans don’t understand. You have different traditions, she still is attending Seminary.”
I have come up with a scripture chain of boarding school destruction!
• “Pray in your Family” – 3 Nephi 18:21
• “Always observe to do” to take the sacrament – 3rd Nephi 18:6
• “they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt,
God would deliver them” – Alma 56:47
• “Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them.” – Alma 57:21
• “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father” – 1 Nephi 1:1
• “And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers. But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. But verily I say unto you, my servant Fredrick G. Williams, you have continued under this condemnation; you have not taught your children light and truth, according to the commandments; and that wicked one hath power, as yet, over you, and this is the cause of your affliction. And now a commandment I give unto you- if you will be delivered you shall set in order your own house, for there are many things that are not right in your house. Veriily I say unto my servant Sidney rigdon, that in some things he hath not kept the commandments, concerning his children; therefore, first set in order thy house. – Doctrine and Covenants 93: 39-44
Even after the chain of boarding school destruction they still don’t listen. I asked one person why I just met his daughter at church recently and I have been there for months now. He said that she was back from boarding school, in the same town in which they reside, for 2 weeks. I then asked him why she was boarding if she lives so close.
He replied that he didn’t want anyone to interrupt her studies at home by sending her to buy stuff etc. I then asked him if he could try and get her an exit pass or something so she could at least take the sacrament on Sundays. He said that they wouldn’t allow it. I then told him that I had called and got someone an exit in the Lebanon ward by simply having the mother call. They are not willing to try. Well I did my part I tried. I’ll be there in heaven going like, “I told them! I tried my best to convince them.” The Apostles just gave a talk on stuff like this a couple months ago to a whole continent wide church conference, the scriptures testify of it, the proclamation to the world as well. I think they are waiting for a definitive “thou shalt not send them, your children, to boarding school.” This of course will never happen. Maybe for a person who lives on a remote island and there is no electricity, books, opportunity, then sure go ahead and send them to boarding school. But for here in Ghana, Forggettahboutit!
Anywho, I’ll step of my soapbox for a moment. Just to step onto a smaller one. After church on Sunday I almost saw lots of members go to a store next to our church and buy stuff. (smacks head). Then a nice woman, sister Tetteh, contacted us and gave us referrals. It was great. Sometime they will contact us though while selling on Sunday… Man. Sometime I think we need to reteach the basics again in all the branches. Okay, off the soapbox.
We are hopefully going to baptize a lot of people on Sunday. Hopefully 8. It was going to be 9 but some people didn’t come to church due to sickness, children having runny tummy etc. Also a 10 year old, Emmanuel, and his mom didn’t come. The mother is a member and didn’t know that 8 is the age, however she couldn’t remember her phone number so I just know the neighborhood she lives. She was supposed to call us but did not, also our branch president said he would get her number at church but she didn’t come. I might just go to the area and start yelling, “Emmanuel! Emmanuel!” haha. I’m sure he will turn up.
Oh yeah, with the weather in the dry season all the Africans think it is cold, I’m actually kinda chilly too, yes I am a wuss. So everyone is coughing and yes most of us missionaries caught a cold. I have been a running faucet with my nose. I have a massive sinus headache and the pressure was so bad that I thought it was causing my teeth to hurt. I then thought maybe I was having a cavity in my back teeth. Turns out, while I was taking a recovery nap this morning, I found myself biting down really hard when I was sleeping. Remember I asked the dentist before I left about it and he said I was biting down when I was sleeping because of stress. Well these past weeks have been freaking stressful! Being sick, going on splits to Oda where there are some struggles. Traveling on billions of tro-tros, people not coming to church. Gotta keep track of the traveling money, also schedule our baptismal interviews with the zone leaders and office couple who live 3 hours away. My companion has been out 6 months, he is fresh from the office, so he's learning. So I gotta lotta load on my back. Well I’ll keep pulling and heaving and shovin’. Don’t worry about my teeth, I’m almost better from my sniffles and I’ll get it all worked out. I think the remedy is more coke and I’ll try to take a snooze for the rest of today to get better.
Man we are getting more missionaries up here in a couple of weeks.
There will be 4 missionaries now in our apartment vs just us 2. I’ll write President and ask him to send up somebody really strong to help out. I think all the travel makes it feel all helter-skelter and less organized. I have hope that everything will be alright. I think I need to let others do some stuff.
Kinda like when I did the Prince band, people didn't show or practice too much so you gotta put on the makeup and glitter and do it yourself. You can quote me on that one. “Sometimes you gotta put on the makeup and glitter and do it yourself.” I’m still trying to find my posse of dudes I can count on here in the North Zone. Elder Farnbach and Elder Dominic are part of my reliable posse. I know that more will become reliable soon and maybe a couple will get shipped in.
Thanks mom for all your nice words. We really are blessed to be here.
Isaiah would jump on a tro-tro with me and start handing out pamphlets along with me, the sons of Mosiah would be downing all sorts of unknown meats and taking freezing showers. We would all have massive headaches and would all go, “dude!” and give the thumbs up sign like Evil Kanevil does in a stretcher after he biffs it on his motorcycle jump across 52 cars and a ring of fire. “He’s okay everybody!” (thumbs up and big smile here from stretcher.)
Well I talked with President Smith about when I go home and he thinks I go home the “July” transfer so I can make it home in time for college in the Fall. This means late july or some time August I’d be going home. I’m supposed to call him tomorrow morning though to double check exactly when he has scheduled me to go home. If you could mail me the byu form I’ll try to print it out and have him fill it out for me sometime. Then he can mail it to provo or something eh? So if I go home to start Fall semester that means I got only 6 months leftish. Weird. I don’t like to think about it. I’ll talk to him soon and I'll know more.
Well glad Britt is doing better. Glad the little puppy is busy.
Grandpa dad always loved dogs. He is a good doggy person. He can get them to instantly love him. Well sorry about the pee. Get used to cleaning it up, I think when I come home all the new food will get me sick and I’ll have a couple accidents…
If we pull of this week then It’ll be amazing. We are having a baptism in Kade at 8 am, should baptize 5, then we will have one in Asamankese at 5pm where we should baptize 3. MAN! CRAZY!
All is cool. The church is true. The work out here is so important, it brings the families closer together and helps them know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Even though we are tired and stressed, wouldn’t rather be anywhere else right now. This is the place I’m supposed to be. Going to keep on rockin’ till the sun comes down, the ever so constant 6pm sun goes down. No daylight savings time here.
Constant 6 up 6 down. Love you all.
Oh one last upper of a story. We were riding home from Kade, I was all huddled in the back of a tro-tro having no leg room because the spare tire and I shared a seat. I managed to get somehow comfy and hunkered up into a little ball and was taking a nap. Well the transport money wallet fell out of my pocket. The tro-tro dropped us off and then I noticed. I prayed that we could find it again. We walked to the final station stop. We looked and no tro-tro. Then feeling defeated we were walking to a lesson and I spotted the tro-tro parked on the side of the road. I asked my companion if that was it, he said he didn't think so. I decided to check anyways and found the dude and he opened it up for me and viola!
I found the money in the back next to the spare tire. Heavenly Father does answer prayers. He loves us. His work will continue. It can’t be stopped.
Love you all. My family rocks!
Love you mom, dad, britt, dave, big dave, grandparents. You are the best.
Elder Bills
Monday, January 17, 2011
Crazy!
Well all the internet is down in the area. I am at a radio station in Asamankese, they are nice and are letting us use a guys personal laptop.
All is well. I am safe, no problems.
We baptized SD last week.
We will baptize 11 more on the 29th.
We are going to the mission home on Wednesday to hear Elder Sitati from the 70. Sleep over! I am brining my laundry to wash in the mission home washing machines, yahoo. Also we are buying pie at shoprite! Yahoo! The zone leaders, Oda and us are going to enjoy.
Sorry time is short.
Did some interviews in Oda today. Didn't really have a p-day. I cleaned the shower. IT IS WHITE! Who knew... Well I love the new puppy! Put it in a shoe and take a picture eh? I like the puppies name haha.
I love you all. I'll write a lot next week okay?
Elder Bills
(Sisters new puppy back at home)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Dear Family,
To start off this week I feel like I should start off talking about the temple. We the Latter Day Saints care not only for those who are living, but for those who have passed on and those who are yet to come or not born yet. We build sacred Holy places called temples, to fulfill God’s eternal purposes for all of his children, deceased, living or those not yet born.
The church put out a Liahona magazine a couple of months talking about the Latter Day Saint temples. Last week I toted that magazine around with me in my bag and was teaching a lot of recent converts about the blessings of the temple. Yesterday we went to interview Kofi’s wife for her baptism. While she was being interviewed we sat down with brother Kofi and his children. I opened the magazine and showed them a picture of the Ghana Accra temple. The children were very excited and Kofi said, “that is a very nice building.” I then asked the children why they were excited and what did they see in the picture. They noticed that there was no garbage there, no polybags or empty water sachets on the grass. I then asked them if they saw the big steeple on the top. I asked them where it was pointing. They replied, “to God.”
The photo has clouds in the background and it looks as if the temple could touch the clouds. We then explained that the temple is where heaven and earth touch. We then asked them if they wanted to go there and go inside. They delightfully said yes.
We opened up the magazine and showed them the pictures of the inside of the temple. We taught them about baptism for the dead and eternal marriage. Kofi is a mechanic and we asked him if he knew the word “seal.” He didn’t know, as his English is small small, so we used the word as ‘bind’ and we took our hands and crossed our fingers together very firmly. He had an “ah ha!” moment and understood. (The Holy Ghost brings those “ah hah!” moments often) We asked him if anything could break this seal. He said that “no! Not even death!” We then committed him to get civilly married, instead of only traditionally, so he and his wife and his children could go to the temple. He delightfully agreed. We will baptize his wife this Saturday and they will go to the temple to do baptism for the dead on the 19th of February.
We then showed them a picture of a path (at the end of the magazine) leading to the temple. It has all the things you need to do to go to the temple with little pictures to illustrate; faith, pay your tithing, praying, sitting reverently, baptism and taking the sacrament. They recognized where they were on the path and the entire family committed to enter into the temple. After Georgina’s interview, we sat the whole family down and taught them the hymn, “Love One Another.”
There is something very special about the temple. The family doesn’t understand all about the temple, the children don’t know much but they know that it is “the place to be.” They know that it is a place for families, a house of God, “a place of love and beauty.”
After hearing about our little Kumquat passing back to Heavenly Father I found a place where I could be alone and I prayed and asked for comfort and more understanding about Heavenly Fathers plan. I stayed there for a little while and pondered. I remembered the first time I was able to go to the temple. Lots of my family members were there. I remembered I was nervous as I didn’t really know what in the heck was going on but then my family started entering in one by one, and I watched with anticipation as each family member entered. I learned a very great thing. Our families will be together forever, the same people and same personalities will continue on in the next life. I will be with my same short and smiling parents, still have my witty and clever grandparents, still have my sister and her husband, still have my sometimes almost losing his shorts Grandpa Bob and Grandma Carol.
I know that Britt and Dave with have a chance to raise their little Kumquat and we will meet. Their little Kumquat is happily waiting with The Father until the time where Britt and Dave can raise him/her. I also have the great blessing that I will be able to still teach him/her how to fart with the armpit, etc. because we are all sealed together. I am one proud Uncle and brother. I love my family, I love my Britt, I love my Dave.
I can only imagine how hard and depressing life can be when people do not have this knowledge. I have the delightful job of explaining that the family can be together forever. However Satan does not want this comforting truth to be revealed. Just yesterday we were at a member’s house and the member said that his neighbor knew a lot about the church but wasn’t a member. He introduced us to him and the man said that he knew all about the church. We showed him the picture of the temple and he said that he knew about this place. We asked him if he knew what happened there. He said that weddings happened there. Our branch president then bore his testimony about eternal families and how it is such a wonderful blessing. The man then said that, ‘there is no marriage in heaven’ and that families can’t be eternal and that marriage is only something we do here, it isn’t necessary. It was so upsetting to hear. He was looking all proud and smarty pants, and he quoted a scripture so that brought scriptures into it. We gave him more references, only using the bible and it confounded him. We left him with a pamphlet and he committed to read it. Here is the instant replay. I asked him what the first commandment God gave us was. He said, “Love the Lord God with all thine heart.” Good answer but I meant chronologically in the scriptures, but we went with it. We then said, “how do we love God? We then quoted the “if ye love Me, keep My commandments.” Then we read Genesis 1:28. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” We then asked the man what the commandment was here. He admitted multiplying the earth. Then we asked him if Adam and Eve were married and who married them. He said yes and that God married them. I asked him if marriage was not important, not necessary, not eternal, then why would God make the first commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth” and then God Himself perform the marriage? THEN Adam, a prophet, gives us a ‘thou shall’ type of commandment in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
After all that stuff he then asked a soul searching question, “what does a man have to do in order to be saved?” We left him with the gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet and we will pass by him later. Hopefully he will investigate. I hate confounding people as it usually doesn’t bring forth fruit, but maybe he needed to hear it. I dunno.
Yeah so, especially right now, I'm sensitive about the temple and eternal marriage, so if someone becomes all smarty about the temple or eternal marraige, I’ll “pop ya one right on the konk", scripturally speaking only of course.
Well this week we were able to baptize 3 more people. Esther, Samuel and Isaac. They were all confirmed and Isaac and Samuel will receive the Aaronic priesthood next week. We worked very hard this week and are trying to bring more and more into the church. Isaac gave us a referral last week that we gave a baptism date to. We were also able to give 12 more dates this week. Our mission president told us all that we needed to give more dates than we were giving, so we did. It really paid off and helped us out because we had to drop a lot of people this week as they didn’t come. So the new 12 replaced the old ones that weren't coming to church. Our mission president is truly inspired.
We had a great experience this week. We went to visit Felo, the one who just recently lost her 3 year old baby girl, and talked with her about the law of chastity. She is living with the father of her children whom she is not correctly married to. Now in order to understand this we need to understand Ghana law and marriage. If the parents of the woman agree, then they are married legally even if there is no written evidence or documentation. The parents hold the binding authority. Yes this is a big confusing mess but that is how it is. Most of the time a bride price is required before the parents will agree that they are married. However; Felo's mother is a member of the church so she would also like them to be married legally. We asked Felo if she would obey the law of chastity and she said yes. She agreed that she needed to get correctly married. Felo's mother said she requires for the bride price for them to agree to get civilly married at the church. Felo agreed and they are talking with the husband. So since the mother agrees they are now ‘traditionally married’ this is now legally binding. Yes it makes no sense but that is how it works. They are going to talk with the branch president and organize the legally signing papers soon. YAHOO! Best bride price ever!
We will baptize 2 more people this week. SD who lives in Kade. We will baptize his family later on this month and his wife early next month. We will also baptize Kofi’s wife. We were scheduled to baptize some of our branch presidents nephews in a few weeks after they are taught more. Eko Prah was supposed to be baptized but he was too sick and unable to come to church. He went to a better hospital, his brothers paid for it, and he got some better tests. He is getting better and will be baptized at the end of the month.
Big news. New companion. Elder Afu got transferred to the office. He will now drive the van around Ghana delivering pamphlets and doing a logistical stuff. He was really sad that he had to leave this area however he knew that it was the right thing to do. We still keep in touch and he keeps calling me (as he has unlimited cell phone credit now) to follow up if we baptized everyone etc.
My new companion is Elder Skepu from South Africa. He is black and he speaks Xhosa (the clicky language). He is really cool and reserved. He used to be in the office. He teaches very slowly and calmly. I’m learning to slow down my teaching and help people feel the Spirit more. We are good team.
I’ll keep them interested and Elder Skepu will make sure that we are going at a good pace and bring the Spirit. It is a great thing. He is from the same town as Elder Chamberlain, East London in South Africa.
He is the only member in his family and was baptized 2 years ago. He has been on his mission for 6 months now. Great missionary.
Well I better get ready to go. I got grandma Carols package of chocolate chip cookies and goodies! YES!!! Man I love swiss miss hot chocolate any time any weather anywhere. Tell them thank you so much.
Thanks for the cool card too. I especially liked how everything was wrapped in a cool green and red rope with bells on it. Everyone kept shaking the box, as it was jingling haha. It was great. I got a cool Snowbird t-shirt with some rad skier dude on it. Sweet.
Well I love you all my family. I know everyone will get through everything. I will switch out the black tie to a pink one for awhile ;) I know I can’t do much out here but I’ll continue to pray and try my hardest to bring everyone I can into this gospel and this knowledge that will lead their families to Heavenly Father.
This church is true. Jesus is the Christ. This is His church. The priesthood is real and it is the correct authority to act in His name.
The principles and ordinances available in the temple will bring us to God with our families. We will all resurrect with perfect glorified physical bodies, free from all physical problems, ailments and disease. The scriptures are true. The Holy Ghost testifies that the Book of Mormon is true, that God restored the church through Joseph Smith and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. The family is eternal and essential, our families can be together forever!
I love my family.
Elder Bills
To start off this week I feel like I should start off talking about the temple. We the Latter Day Saints care not only for those who are living, but for those who have passed on and those who are yet to come or not born yet. We build sacred Holy places called temples, to fulfill God’s eternal purposes for all of his children, deceased, living or those not yet born.
The church put out a Liahona magazine a couple of months talking about the Latter Day Saint temples. Last week I toted that magazine around with me in my bag and was teaching a lot of recent converts about the blessings of the temple. Yesterday we went to interview Kofi’s wife for her baptism. While she was being interviewed we sat down with brother Kofi and his children. I opened the magazine and showed them a picture of the Ghana Accra temple. The children were very excited and Kofi said, “that is a very nice building.” I then asked the children why they were excited and what did they see in the picture. They noticed that there was no garbage there, no polybags or empty water sachets on the grass. I then asked them if they saw the big steeple on the top. I asked them where it was pointing. They replied, “to God.”
The photo has clouds in the background and it looks as if the temple could touch the clouds. We then explained that the temple is where heaven and earth touch. We then asked them if they wanted to go there and go inside. They delightfully said yes.
We opened up the magazine and showed them the pictures of the inside of the temple. We taught them about baptism for the dead and eternal marriage. Kofi is a mechanic and we asked him if he knew the word “seal.” He didn’t know, as his English is small small, so we used the word as ‘bind’ and we took our hands and crossed our fingers together very firmly. He had an “ah ha!” moment and understood. (The Holy Ghost brings those “ah hah!” moments often) We asked him if anything could break this seal. He said that “no! Not even death!” We then committed him to get civilly married, instead of only traditionally, so he and his wife and his children could go to the temple. He delightfully agreed. We will baptize his wife this Saturday and they will go to the temple to do baptism for the dead on the 19th of February.
We then showed them a picture of a path (at the end of the magazine) leading to the temple. It has all the things you need to do to go to the temple with little pictures to illustrate; faith, pay your tithing, praying, sitting reverently, baptism and taking the sacrament. They recognized where they were on the path and the entire family committed to enter into the temple. After Georgina’s interview, we sat the whole family down and taught them the hymn, “Love One Another.”
There is something very special about the temple. The family doesn’t understand all about the temple, the children don’t know much but they know that it is “the place to be.” They know that it is a place for families, a house of God, “a place of love and beauty.”
After hearing about our little Kumquat passing back to Heavenly Father I found a place where I could be alone and I prayed and asked for comfort and more understanding about Heavenly Fathers plan. I stayed there for a little while and pondered. I remembered the first time I was able to go to the temple. Lots of my family members were there. I remembered I was nervous as I didn’t really know what in the heck was going on but then my family started entering in one by one, and I watched with anticipation as each family member entered. I learned a very great thing. Our families will be together forever, the same people and same personalities will continue on in the next life. I will be with my same short and smiling parents, still have my witty and clever grandparents, still have my sister and her husband, still have my sometimes almost losing his shorts Grandpa Bob and Grandma Carol.
I know that Britt and Dave with have a chance to raise their little Kumquat and we will meet. Their little Kumquat is happily waiting with The Father until the time where Britt and Dave can raise him/her. I also have the great blessing that I will be able to still teach him/her how to fart with the armpit, etc. because we are all sealed together. I am one proud Uncle and brother. I love my family, I love my Britt, I love my Dave.
I can only imagine how hard and depressing life can be when people do not have this knowledge. I have the delightful job of explaining that the family can be together forever. However Satan does not want this comforting truth to be revealed. Just yesterday we were at a member’s house and the member said that his neighbor knew a lot about the church but wasn’t a member. He introduced us to him and the man said that he knew all about the church. We showed him the picture of the temple and he said that he knew about this place. We asked him if he knew what happened there. He said that weddings happened there. Our branch president then bore his testimony about eternal families and how it is such a wonderful blessing. The man then said that, ‘there is no marriage in heaven’ and that families can’t be eternal and that marriage is only something we do here, it isn’t necessary. It was so upsetting to hear. He was looking all proud and smarty pants, and he quoted a scripture so that brought scriptures into it. We gave him more references, only using the bible and it confounded him. We left him with a pamphlet and he committed to read it. Here is the instant replay. I asked him what the first commandment God gave us was. He said, “Love the Lord God with all thine heart.” Good answer but I meant chronologically in the scriptures, but we went with it. We then said, “how do we love God? We then quoted the “if ye love Me, keep My commandments.” Then we read Genesis 1:28. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” We then asked the man what the commandment was here. He admitted multiplying the earth. Then we asked him if Adam and Eve were married and who married them. He said yes and that God married them. I asked him if marriage was not important, not necessary, not eternal, then why would God make the first commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth” and then God Himself perform the marriage? THEN Adam, a prophet, gives us a ‘thou shall’ type of commandment in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
After all that stuff he then asked a soul searching question, “what does a man have to do in order to be saved?” We left him with the gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet and we will pass by him later. Hopefully he will investigate. I hate confounding people as it usually doesn’t bring forth fruit, but maybe he needed to hear it. I dunno.
Yeah so, especially right now, I'm sensitive about the temple and eternal marriage, so if someone becomes all smarty about the temple or eternal marraige, I’ll “pop ya one right on the konk", scripturally speaking only of course.
Well this week we were able to baptize 3 more people. Esther, Samuel and Isaac. They were all confirmed and Isaac and Samuel will receive the Aaronic priesthood next week. We worked very hard this week and are trying to bring more and more into the church. Isaac gave us a referral last week that we gave a baptism date to. We were also able to give 12 more dates this week. Our mission president told us all that we needed to give more dates than we were giving, so we did. It really paid off and helped us out because we had to drop a lot of people this week as they didn’t come. So the new 12 replaced the old ones that weren't coming to church. Our mission president is truly inspired.
We had a great experience this week. We went to visit Felo, the one who just recently lost her 3 year old baby girl, and talked with her about the law of chastity. She is living with the father of her children whom she is not correctly married to. Now in order to understand this we need to understand Ghana law and marriage. If the parents of the woman agree, then they are married legally even if there is no written evidence or documentation. The parents hold the binding authority. Yes this is a big confusing mess but that is how it is. Most of the time a bride price is required before the parents will agree that they are married. However; Felo's mother is a member of the church so she would also like them to be married legally. We asked Felo if she would obey the law of chastity and she said yes. She agreed that she needed to get correctly married. Felo's mother said she requires for the bride price for them to agree to get civilly married at the church. Felo agreed and they are talking with the husband. So since the mother agrees they are now ‘traditionally married’ this is now legally binding. Yes it makes no sense but that is how it works. They are going to talk with the branch president and organize the legally signing papers soon. YAHOO! Best bride price ever!
We will baptize 2 more people this week. SD who lives in Kade. We will baptize his family later on this month and his wife early next month. We will also baptize Kofi’s wife. We were scheduled to baptize some of our branch presidents nephews in a few weeks after they are taught more. Eko Prah was supposed to be baptized but he was too sick and unable to come to church. He went to a better hospital, his brothers paid for it, and he got some better tests. He is getting better and will be baptized at the end of the month.
Big news. New companion. Elder Afu got transferred to the office. He will now drive the van around Ghana delivering pamphlets and doing a logistical stuff. He was really sad that he had to leave this area however he knew that it was the right thing to do. We still keep in touch and he keeps calling me (as he has unlimited cell phone credit now) to follow up if we baptized everyone etc.
My new companion is Elder Skepu from South Africa. He is black and he speaks Xhosa (the clicky language). He is really cool and reserved. He used to be in the office. He teaches very slowly and calmly. I’m learning to slow down my teaching and help people feel the Spirit more. We are good team.
I’ll keep them interested and Elder Skepu will make sure that we are going at a good pace and bring the Spirit. It is a great thing. He is from the same town as Elder Chamberlain, East London in South Africa.
He is the only member in his family and was baptized 2 years ago. He has been on his mission for 6 months now. Great missionary.
Well I better get ready to go. I got grandma Carols package of chocolate chip cookies and goodies! YES!!! Man I love swiss miss hot chocolate any time any weather anywhere. Tell them thank you so much.
Thanks for the cool card too. I especially liked how everything was wrapped in a cool green and red rope with bells on it. Everyone kept shaking the box, as it was jingling haha. It was great. I got a cool Snowbird t-shirt with some rad skier dude on it. Sweet.
Well I love you all my family. I know everyone will get through everything. I will switch out the black tie to a pink one for awhile ;) I know I can’t do much out here but I’ll continue to pray and try my hardest to bring everyone I can into this gospel and this knowledge that will lead their families to Heavenly Father.
This church is true. Jesus is the Christ. This is His church. The priesthood is real and it is the correct authority to act in His name.
The principles and ordinances available in the temple will bring us to God with our families. We will all resurrect with perfect glorified physical bodies, free from all physical problems, ailments and disease. The scriptures are true. The Holy Ghost testifies that the Book of Mormon is true, that God restored the church through Joseph Smith and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. The family is eternal and essential, our families can be together forever!
I love my family.
Elder Bills
Monday, January 3, 2011
Dear Family!
So much happened this week. The highlight is that we got 3 baptized.
It was way too much stuff packed into one week. We were super bummed out because we didn’t get a lot of people at church, at all!!! We got only 7. We set a goal of getting 19… We were/are super upset. The main problem was 3 big families didn’t show up.
• One of the families father’s traveled to the Volta Region this week to his hometown for the new year so his family didn’t want to come to the new church without the father there to lead the way
• Another family promised us to come and just didn’t show up. An unexpected someone came and invited them to a something rather at another church. I called them on the phone and asked them, “what happened?” They said that they were unexpectedly invited to a program.
I then told them we invited them to a program 2 weeks ago and they didn’t come, then we invited them to come every day last week and they still didn’t come. BUMMER!!! I still think they have a chance though.
• We had a father who was going to bring his whole family. His friends are all members. However there was a big football match on Sunday night and he works for the ECG (electrical company of Ghana) and he had to go make sure that all the electricity for the city was going to be on. The power always goes off here in Ghana, they are on like a ‘lights off’ schedule and he had to make sure that the power was going to be on during the game so the city wouldn’t riot haha. Crazy eh?
Man so we were bummed. However amongst all the disappointment, we did have a man named S bring his family to church in Kade. He has come twice now. He has a wife, an 8 year old girl, a 4 year old boy and a brand spankin new baby boy. The wife couldn’t come to church because she had to go and ‘show thanks’ to her church because they did the baby blessing at the church last week. She is very interested in our teachings because of the emphasis on the family. Only struggle is getting everyone to sit down together as a family and teach them. It is a little bit of a struggle probably never having done it before.
Sitting down as a family and keeping track of all the little kids and getting them to sit down must be tricky. The little 4 year old boy thought he was going to die when he went to primary and got a little restless and squiggly during sacrament haha. It made me laugh. S has been going to many churches and has been very upset because he noticed that they were all different and was very confused on where to go. He noticed that the ‘gift of tongues’ thing they do here (go “hubabugagaaaaanoisenoiseblahblah” and roll around in the mud) is not true. He finally just started attending a church that didn’t do that stuff. We then came to meet him, stays next door to a member. I contacted his wife and offered to help her stir her banku (which is quite a task, gets you tired) she politely declined. S then came and we were able to teach him. He is doing really great. I’m glad we are able to teach him. He too prayed about the message. On Sunday morning he was tired and was going to sleep in and not come. He had a dream where an angel dressed like us visited him and told him that he needed to get up and go to church and that it was of the utmost importance for his family. So luckily he came. Man what is with Ghana and all the dreams?
So HERE COME THE EVENTS OF THE WEEK!
• Baptism on Wednesday – We baptized R. R has had a rough life and was so ready to get baptized. We came to the single adults program on the 31st of Jan and they asked him to help MC and he was really happy. He came to the program talking about Temple Marriage and Eternal Marriage. It was really cool. He is excited and will be a good member.
Wednesday started off really poopy. At 6:30 am we got a call (bad enough to get a call at 6:30 huh?) and it was our member from Kade. He said that his wife went to Accra to collect some items to sell and didn’t want to be baptized that day. She said that she wants to take her time etc. I don’t know what is holding her back. She told us that she wants to go to the temple etc. We explained that the way to the temple is baptism! She knows it is true though. Her husband is really sad. I can imagine that it would be really hard to have a companion who is not walking with you and your family on the path. Please pray for them. I think we are going to read the scriptures a whole lot with her and her family sitting right by her side. We are going to baptize 3 of their family members in 2 weeks so hopefully she can be baptised with them.
• Baptism on Thursday – We went over to Subi to get the young sisters G and F to their baptism. The two are sisters they stay with their parents, who we are also teaching. Their mom doesn't understand English. The father does not want to sit down with us yet, but maybe with time he will come.
We went to collect them for their baptism and the parents said that they were busy and couldn’t come. So we disappointingly took them by themselves to their baptism. Just as we were trying to catch a taxi to the church, it started to rain like mad! Mad! MAD!
We finally caught a car, full of a buncha people trying to escape the rain. Elbows were shoved in ears etc haha. When we dropped from the taxi we all darted to the nearest covering which happened to be a ‘spot’ or bar that was closed. ALL the roofs here are made of tin sheets so the whole town was super noisy! CLACK CLACK CLACK the whole time. We were going to dart down the street towards the church and take cover there and get dried off as it was getting to 4 pm and we didn’t want to start the baptism late or have our presidency go home etc. Only problem is F was having a hurt foot. She wacked it with a cutlass at the farm, it was okay though. She couldn’t really run.
Elder Afu and I decided to pray. We said a prayer that the rain would stop just for long enough that we would be able to get them to the church and baptized then it could rain all it wanted afterwards. At around 4 the rain stopped and we were able to get them to the church, hold the baptismal service without the roofs going CLACK CLACK. It was awesome.
• Young Single Adult New Years activity Party! – Well the young single adults were going to have a party and activity to celebrate the New Year…and find other single Ghanian members to marry haha. The Abomosu branch had an activity with all those games like pass the apple haha, our seniour couple missionary Sister Terry must have organized that one. She wants them all married off very soon haha. Down here in Asamankese they had a morning full of football, sack races etc. Then at night time they had a dance with food and stuff. The girls got themselves all ‘blinking.’ This means they got all their glossy lipstick on and also their shiny weave on hair stuff.
It was fun. They all danced etc. They had a game where they made people pick a card and it had embarrassing stuff on it they had to do, like they made our YSA guy bleet like a goat into the microphone etc.
It was fun for the young single adults. Of course some of our recent converts who were underage came and instead of kicking them out, we fed them and they got to hang out with us the missionaries the whole time. SUCKAS! They eventually lost interest and went home. We stayed and chopped loads and loads of food and helped some of our recent converts make friends.
• 1st January temple president talk on Eternal Marriage fireside – We got our newest member R to come to the fireside talk about Eternal Marriage. He liked it. I wrote down a lot of notes to show one of our investigator families, bro D. D. came to see the Giddyglows wedding and he is wondering about all of this temple marriage stuff.
o One of the good things I got from this fireside was from the temple president’s wife. She talked about the CTR rings, not just meaning ‘choose the right’ but talked about how to keep ourselves pure and to keep the law of chastity. She said we need to ‘commit’ ourselves to never do those things and save yourself for your temple married spouse. Then to ‘transform’ any thought you have or anything you are doing to make it pure. If you have a bad thought then transform it to a good one, if you have bad media change it etc. The last one is to ‘rehearse’ what you would do in a bad situation. If you have already thought about what you would do then you will not fall into a bad situation. Rehearse before hand. So Commit, Transform, Rehearse. It liked it. Like the ctr of chastity. The temple president also talked about how marriage and parenthood is like a calling, you don’t run away from it. He said that you can’t become pure without jumping into the fire. I think they were emphasizing this because people here usually wait a long time until they are married. He said that marriage and parenthood puts skydiving, scubadiving, bull riding look like childs play. I thought that was a fun quote. Anywho speaking of marriage, (mawiage! Mawiage is what bwings us togeva today!) we are hoping that there will be another civil marriage down here very soon.
We are working on getting two people in Kade married who are currently living together…We will see if it works!
Man well after all that we were tired. Of course on Sunday we would go to Kade early in the morning so we can make it to church by 9. Then right after church the Terry’s picked us up and drove us back down to Asamankese so we could do a baptismal interview with Ich. Upon arrival Ich was nowhere to be found at the church! His phone was not picking either so we went on the hunt. We had the Terry’s drive us to his house. I knocked and no answer. We shouted and no answer. We then asked his neighbors if he was home and they said that he wasn’t. I then opened his house and and found him sleeping deeply with a pillow no his head. The guy is a deep sleeper. We plopped him out of his house and got him interviewed with a pillow line in his face haha. He felt so stupid that he slept through it. He promised never to disappoint us again. After that we ran over to some obscure village on our bicycles to meet some Nigerian members who had a referral for us.
We finally got there and they started cooking for us. Man we had crepes but with fish inside them and plantain and spinach. It totally rocked. The Nigerian food rocked! We met the referral and she seems sweet. She is 10 years old and lives with her family so we are going to teach the whole family. Yahoo! Man so after all that we finally did our weekly planning for this week. Both of us fell asleep during it with our church clothes on.
Oh here are some more cool stories for the week. A grandma in our branch just lost her granddaughter who is 3 years old. She died about 1 week ago. The branch and district presidents went and visited with her and arranged the funeral etc. We went there and talked with the grandma. We asked her how we could help and how she was doing. She said that she was fine because she understands the plan of salvation.
We then asked how her daughter, the mother of the recently deceased girl, was doing. She said that she was doing okay but wasn’t a member.
We sat down with the grandma and mother and taught her about the plan of salvation. The mother was very hmm changed, she seemed very happy when we were teaching her. She is pregnant with another baby right now and was comforted when we taught her about eternal families. We explained that her daughter has gone to Heaven. The mom was very happy and said, “so my daughter has gone straight to Jesus?” We answered, “yes.” The woman was very desirous to be able to live with her children forever and wanted us to come back everyday to teach her more. We then extended her a baptismal invitation and explained that baptism was the first step. She accepted. The grandma was very happy.
We should baptize her by the end of the month.
These last couple of weeks have been full of talk of life, new babies, death and the plan of salvation. I’m so glad that we have this knowledge. So glad that we are in the church with the keys and the power to bind on earth and to bind in heaven. When thinking about the plan of salvation, I kinda recognized that families are not only central to the plan but families ARE the plan. Man I’m glad to be a part of a family that will be with me for ETERNITY! Yahoo! Also I’m glad for the temple. The temple is the only way to go! Regardless what we have done in our lives or where we currently are, we can change and go to the temple to receive the blessings inside which include LIVING FOREVER WITH YOUR SPOUSE AND FAMILY. This is one of the greatest blessings ever. I have been praying for Britts little kumquat every night and asking for it to grow safely and correctly and to make sure that it is okay.
Well transfers are this Wednesday and Tuesday. We are not sure if anything is going to happen. We hope that we are going to get a set of 2 more missionaries here in Asamankese to help out with the work.
They just closed an area up here in the North and they might bring 2 more elders up here. Our apartment already has the bikes and stuff up here for them. I believe that us being able to only attend 1 building each week is slowing the work! For instance we can only really see our people once or twice each week. Boo! I hope they will bring 2 more missionaries here, it would help out a lot!
I heard that Elder Asiedu, our AP, is training next transfer. I hope they will stick him up here. We are all hoping for it!
Well all is well. Glad to hear you all had a very good new year.
Thanks tons mom for collecting all of my priceless stuff from my room and are categorizing it. MAN I hated losing the ¼ to 1/8 adapters, glad you found them. Thanks tons for the cool organization deelie.
Good new years resolution. Thank you so much.
My new years resolution was to keep a gratitude journal. I have been blessed with soo so so so so much and take it for granted. I have that little journal thingie dad gave me so I am going to keep track of the blessing I have and reflect upon it regularly.
Cool keep up the good work everybody.
Well I gotta run. Here are some photos you should enjoy!
Love you all so much!
Ellen's Baptism.
ROCKIN the chinese ripp-off sweet Fender, I mean FENDAR bass!
Dan's family.
Cute little girl.
Carrying my bag on my head. The school kids do this. See the strap over the back of my head.
About to eat some fufu and light soup at the Ayieh's house.
After eating meal number 4 on Christmas day! So full!
Little guy. I like his suit!
Chicken laid an egg on our doorstep. We woke up and there was an egg and chicken there. It was a weird moment.
Sean Connery sighting. It could be his new release "007 and the Only Diamond African Golden Princess...with love." I can picture the quote now, "madase pa Money Penney!"
Our 2 faithful branch missionaries! These 2 are the best. I caught them as they were out teaching our recent converts and I snapped a photo. They do a great job! We made them their own area book, that little green folder with all the names to visit inside.
6X24 eggs on the head! Useful skill eh? I thought carrying one on a spoon in my mouth was hard enough.
Sister Rahmat, our recent convert, and her little sister at church.
Teaching the plan of salvation.
Esther, little Esther and Samuel. They will be baptized very soon. Their grandmother is a member.
2-4-6-1-1- game.
Mama Vecentia and a boy pounding fufu.
Learning the plan of salvation in the sand.
This is the little Giddyglow girl, Momme.
The Giddyglow family!
Sisters at their baptism.
The 2 are sisters. Can you tell?
So much happened this week. The highlight is that we got 3 baptized.
It was way too much stuff packed into one week. We were super bummed out because we didn’t get a lot of people at church, at all!!! We got only 7. We set a goal of getting 19… We were/are super upset. The main problem was 3 big families didn’t show up.
• One of the families father’s traveled to the Volta Region this week to his hometown for the new year so his family didn’t want to come to the new church without the father there to lead the way
• Another family promised us to come and just didn’t show up. An unexpected someone came and invited them to a something rather at another church. I called them on the phone and asked them, “what happened?” They said that they were unexpectedly invited to a program.
I then told them we invited them to a program 2 weeks ago and they didn’t come, then we invited them to come every day last week and they still didn’t come. BUMMER!!! I still think they have a chance though.
• We had a father who was going to bring his whole family. His friends are all members. However there was a big football match on Sunday night and he works for the ECG (electrical company of Ghana) and he had to go make sure that all the electricity for the city was going to be on. The power always goes off here in Ghana, they are on like a ‘lights off’ schedule and he had to make sure that the power was going to be on during the game so the city wouldn’t riot haha. Crazy eh?
Man so we were bummed. However amongst all the disappointment, we did have a man named S bring his family to church in Kade. He has come twice now. He has a wife, an 8 year old girl, a 4 year old boy and a brand spankin new baby boy. The wife couldn’t come to church because she had to go and ‘show thanks’ to her church because they did the baby blessing at the church last week. She is very interested in our teachings because of the emphasis on the family. Only struggle is getting everyone to sit down together as a family and teach them. It is a little bit of a struggle probably never having done it before.
Sitting down as a family and keeping track of all the little kids and getting them to sit down must be tricky. The little 4 year old boy thought he was going to die when he went to primary and got a little restless and squiggly during sacrament haha. It made me laugh. S has been going to many churches and has been very upset because he noticed that they were all different and was very confused on where to go. He noticed that the ‘gift of tongues’ thing they do here (go “hubabugagaaaaanoisenoiseblahblah” and roll around in the mud) is not true. He finally just started attending a church that didn’t do that stuff. We then came to meet him, stays next door to a member. I contacted his wife and offered to help her stir her banku (which is quite a task, gets you tired) she politely declined. S then came and we were able to teach him. He is doing really great. I’m glad we are able to teach him. He too prayed about the message. On Sunday morning he was tired and was going to sleep in and not come. He had a dream where an angel dressed like us visited him and told him that he needed to get up and go to church and that it was of the utmost importance for his family. So luckily he came. Man what is with Ghana and all the dreams?
So HERE COME THE EVENTS OF THE WEEK!
• Baptism on Wednesday – We baptized R. R has had a rough life and was so ready to get baptized. We came to the single adults program on the 31st of Jan and they asked him to help MC and he was really happy. He came to the program talking about Temple Marriage and Eternal Marriage. It was really cool. He is excited and will be a good member.
Wednesday started off really poopy. At 6:30 am we got a call (bad enough to get a call at 6:30 huh?) and it was our member from Kade. He said that his wife went to Accra to collect some items to sell and didn’t want to be baptized that day. She said that she wants to take her time etc. I don’t know what is holding her back. She told us that she wants to go to the temple etc. We explained that the way to the temple is baptism! She knows it is true though. Her husband is really sad. I can imagine that it would be really hard to have a companion who is not walking with you and your family on the path. Please pray for them. I think we are going to read the scriptures a whole lot with her and her family sitting right by her side. We are going to baptize 3 of their family members in 2 weeks so hopefully she can be baptised with them.
• Baptism on Thursday – We went over to Subi to get the young sisters G and F to their baptism. The two are sisters they stay with their parents, who we are also teaching. Their mom doesn't understand English. The father does not want to sit down with us yet, but maybe with time he will come.
We went to collect them for their baptism and the parents said that they were busy and couldn’t come. So we disappointingly took them by themselves to their baptism. Just as we were trying to catch a taxi to the church, it started to rain like mad! Mad! MAD!
We finally caught a car, full of a buncha people trying to escape the rain. Elbows were shoved in ears etc haha. When we dropped from the taxi we all darted to the nearest covering which happened to be a ‘spot’ or bar that was closed. ALL the roofs here are made of tin sheets so the whole town was super noisy! CLACK CLACK CLACK the whole time. We were going to dart down the street towards the church and take cover there and get dried off as it was getting to 4 pm and we didn’t want to start the baptism late or have our presidency go home etc. Only problem is F was having a hurt foot. She wacked it with a cutlass at the farm, it was okay though. She couldn’t really run.
Elder Afu and I decided to pray. We said a prayer that the rain would stop just for long enough that we would be able to get them to the church and baptized then it could rain all it wanted afterwards. At around 4 the rain stopped and we were able to get them to the church, hold the baptismal service without the roofs going CLACK CLACK. It was awesome.
• Young Single Adult New Years activity Party! – Well the young single adults were going to have a party and activity to celebrate the New Year…and find other single Ghanian members to marry haha. The Abomosu branch had an activity with all those games like pass the apple haha, our seniour couple missionary Sister Terry must have organized that one. She wants them all married off very soon haha. Down here in Asamankese they had a morning full of football, sack races etc. Then at night time they had a dance with food and stuff. The girls got themselves all ‘blinking.’ This means they got all their glossy lipstick on and also their shiny weave on hair stuff.
It was fun. They all danced etc. They had a game where they made people pick a card and it had embarrassing stuff on it they had to do, like they made our YSA guy bleet like a goat into the microphone etc.
It was fun for the young single adults. Of course some of our recent converts who were underage came and instead of kicking them out, we fed them and they got to hang out with us the missionaries the whole time. SUCKAS! They eventually lost interest and went home. We stayed and chopped loads and loads of food and helped some of our recent converts make friends.
• 1st January temple president talk on Eternal Marriage fireside – We got our newest member R to come to the fireside talk about Eternal Marriage. He liked it. I wrote down a lot of notes to show one of our investigator families, bro D. D. came to see the Giddyglows wedding and he is wondering about all of this temple marriage stuff.
o One of the good things I got from this fireside was from the temple president’s wife. She talked about the CTR rings, not just meaning ‘choose the right’ but talked about how to keep ourselves pure and to keep the law of chastity. She said we need to ‘commit’ ourselves to never do those things and save yourself for your temple married spouse. Then to ‘transform’ any thought you have or anything you are doing to make it pure. If you have a bad thought then transform it to a good one, if you have bad media change it etc. The last one is to ‘rehearse’ what you would do in a bad situation. If you have already thought about what you would do then you will not fall into a bad situation. Rehearse before hand. So Commit, Transform, Rehearse. It liked it. Like the ctr of chastity. The temple president also talked about how marriage and parenthood is like a calling, you don’t run away from it. He said that you can’t become pure without jumping into the fire. I think they were emphasizing this because people here usually wait a long time until they are married. He said that marriage and parenthood puts skydiving, scubadiving, bull riding look like childs play. I thought that was a fun quote. Anywho speaking of marriage, (mawiage! Mawiage is what bwings us togeva today!) we are hoping that there will be another civil marriage down here very soon.
We are working on getting two people in Kade married who are currently living together…We will see if it works!
Man well after all that we were tired. Of course on Sunday we would go to Kade early in the morning so we can make it to church by 9. Then right after church the Terry’s picked us up and drove us back down to Asamankese so we could do a baptismal interview with Ich. Upon arrival Ich was nowhere to be found at the church! His phone was not picking either so we went on the hunt. We had the Terry’s drive us to his house. I knocked and no answer. We shouted and no answer. We then asked his neighbors if he was home and they said that he wasn’t. I then opened his house and and found him sleeping deeply with a pillow no his head. The guy is a deep sleeper. We plopped him out of his house and got him interviewed with a pillow line in his face haha. He felt so stupid that he slept through it. He promised never to disappoint us again. After that we ran over to some obscure village on our bicycles to meet some Nigerian members who had a referral for us.
We finally got there and they started cooking for us. Man we had crepes but with fish inside them and plantain and spinach. It totally rocked. The Nigerian food rocked! We met the referral and she seems sweet. She is 10 years old and lives with her family so we are going to teach the whole family. Yahoo! Man so after all that we finally did our weekly planning for this week. Both of us fell asleep during it with our church clothes on.
Oh here are some more cool stories for the week. A grandma in our branch just lost her granddaughter who is 3 years old. She died about 1 week ago. The branch and district presidents went and visited with her and arranged the funeral etc. We went there and talked with the grandma. We asked her how we could help and how she was doing. She said that she was fine because she understands the plan of salvation.
We then asked how her daughter, the mother of the recently deceased girl, was doing. She said that she was doing okay but wasn’t a member.
We sat down with the grandma and mother and taught her about the plan of salvation. The mother was very hmm changed, she seemed very happy when we were teaching her. She is pregnant with another baby right now and was comforted when we taught her about eternal families. We explained that her daughter has gone to Heaven. The mom was very happy and said, “so my daughter has gone straight to Jesus?” We answered, “yes.” The woman was very desirous to be able to live with her children forever and wanted us to come back everyday to teach her more. We then extended her a baptismal invitation and explained that baptism was the first step. She accepted. The grandma was very happy.
We should baptize her by the end of the month.
These last couple of weeks have been full of talk of life, new babies, death and the plan of salvation. I’m so glad that we have this knowledge. So glad that we are in the church with the keys and the power to bind on earth and to bind in heaven. When thinking about the plan of salvation, I kinda recognized that families are not only central to the plan but families ARE the plan. Man I’m glad to be a part of a family that will be with me for ETERNITY! Yahoo! Also I’m glad for the temple. The temple is the only way to go! Regardless what we have done in our lives or where we currently are, we can change and go to the temple to receive the blessings inside which include LIVING FOREVER WITH YOUR SPOUSE AND FAMILY. This is one of the greatest blessings ever. I have been praying for Britts little kumquat every night and asking for it to grow safely and correctly and to make sure that it is okay.
Well transfers are this Wednesday and Tuesday. We are not sure if anything is going to happen. We hope that we are going to get a set of 2 more missionaries here in Asamankese to help out with the work.
They just closed an area up here in the North and they might bring 2 more elders up here. Our apartment already has the bikes and stuff up here for them. I believe that us being able to only attend 1 building each week is slowing the work! For instance we can only really see our people once or twice each week. Boo! I hope they will bring 2 more missionaries here, it would help out a lot!
I heard that Elder Asiedu, our AP, is training next transfer. I hope they will stick him up here. We are all hoping for it!
Well all is well. Glad to hear you all had a very good new year.
Thanks tons mom for collecting all of my priceless stuff from my room and are categorizing it. MAN I hated losing the ¼ to 1/8 adapters, glad you found them. Thanks tons for the cool organization deelie.
Good new years resolution. Thank you so much.
My new years resolution was to keep a gratitude journal. I have been blessed with soo so so so so much and take it for granted. I have that little journal thingie dad gave me so I am going to keep track of the blessing I have and reflect upon it regularly.
Cool keep up the good work everybody.
Well I gotta run. Here are some photos you should enjoy!
Love you all so much!
Ellen's Baptism.
ROCKIN the chinese ripp-off sweet Fender, I mean FENDAR bass!
Esther, little Esther and Samuel. They will be baptized very soon. Their grandmother is a member.
Our district president and our Branch President. I love both of these guys.
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