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