My FAMILY!


Well this week I pretty much felt the Spirit unlike any other time in my life. I'll take some parts from my journal entry for you.

Elder Oaks from the quorum of the 12 Apostles came and visited us. We all got to shake his hand. He looked into my eyes and smiled, he loves the missionaries. He asked me where I was from after looking at my name tag. I replied. He smiled and said, "Oh, I have heard of the place." He had a twinkle in his eye as he is in our home town all the time.

Elder Cardon from the 70 and is the West Africa Area President spoke first. He read Alma 4:20.

20 And thus in the commencement of the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, Alma delivered up the judgment-seat to Nephihah, and confined himself wholly to the bhigh priesthood of the holy order of God, to the ctestimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy.

He then told us to remember in our minds and take note forever this day, as we were about to hear from such a man. A man who delivered up his judgement seat and confined himself wholly to preaching the gospel. Elder Oaks used to be a Utah supreme court judge but gave it up when called to the Apostleship.

Elder Oaks wife spoke next, she sounds just like a THS high school girl, even though she is in her mid 60's. It reminded me of high school. She must have had a lot of young women callings or is from our home-town or something haha. She was fun. She is probably a very funny person, but was well reserved for her talk.

Elder Oaks then got up. Man he is a very wise man. He reminds me of Ray Smith a little bit. He got up and talked about how blessed we are to have President and Sister Smith with us, and indeed we are. He then asked us "Who are you?" He explained that on a mission, it does not matter what school you went to, what football team you associate yourself with, the country you are from etc. All are servants of the Lord. Leave the rest of those things for awhile. He then told the senior couple missionaries that it doestn' matter how many grand kids you have etc. We need not to worry about such things on our missions. So I think we are to all be one because "if {we} are not one, {we} are not {His}."
He then talked about 2 things we can do to preach the gospel by the Spirit.

1. Keep the commandments

- Especially watch your thoughts and control them

2. Partake of the sacrament

- with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. This means to take the sacrament after recognizing your shortcomings, praying to God asking for forgiveness and trying all you can to repent with a hope and desire to do better next week.

If we have the Spirit then we, even though young and not very eloquent in speech and learning, will be able to put people on the pathway back to Heavenly Father.

He then talked about members. Befriend your members. We should not counsel our leaders or threaten them with the scriptures. He told us the way is to pray for them. he hten explained that was the Lords way. We should not be too directive to the local leaders. I think I have been doing a good job at not threatening the local leaders with scriptures, however I think I might have once or twice...Just concerning boarding schools haha. I do not really recall specifically praying for our local leaders too much if they were falling short. I will do that from now on rather than get frustrated in my mind.

Time is an important thing. He talked about how he learned to manage his time as a 10 year old boy, by working at a radio repair shop. Many young people do not work today even before going on a mission, so most missionaries have not learned how to manage their time yet. He mentioned he had to wake up early, work and use the time well. He mentioned he used to clean the radio tubes. He chuckled because none of us knew what a radio tube was.

He went to college and said he was not the smartest, but he knew how to manage his time, that way he excelled in schooling beyond his peers. He said he got twice as much done as the rest because he could manage his time.

Then Elder Oaks taught me one of my most treasured lessons of my life. He talked about getting help from God. He said that the Apostles meet together and discuss issues concerning the work. He said that he learned a great lesson from James E. Faust concerning help from God. They were all discussing an issue concerning the missionaries in a certain European country not being able to enter into that country anymore due to a hostile government leader. They discussed everything and finally James E. Faust said, "Let's get some spiritual power on this." This is when they asked and pleaded with the Lord for help. This is when the seas can part, this is when the most powerful Being puts in the mighty change.

Elder Oaks said we need to do all that we can and then turn it over to the Lord. He then talked about our mission and how he wanted to get some "spiritual power to work on some issues". He then invited all of us to bow our heads and he would offer a prayer. He then gave one of the most powerful prayers I have ever felt in my life. The Spirit was incredibly strong. I have felt something like that very rarely in my life. His prayer was full of love for the missionaries and brought most everyone to tears. It was also very powerful. I knew that I was in the presence of an Apostle of God.

It was very powerful, my heart was touched and the Spirit overcame everyone. I knew that, "surely this man must be a man of God." It was amazing. Moses must have been like Elder Oaks.

After the prayer he bore his testimony. I don't remember much of what he said but I do know that the church is true. I do know that God is there and that Jesus died for all mankind. I have a greater desire to share this message with everyone. I have a desire to repent and do better each day.

An Apostle's job is to witness of Jesus Christ. He did a good job I can say haha.

President Smith was in tears as mission issues have been weighing heavily on him. He gave Elder Oaks a great big hug after. It was a great day.

Elder Oaks closed and said that he thinks the end is not yet. The gospel will be preached to every nation and then the end will come. All of course in God's own due time.

Anywho it was a great day. 22 February 2011!

Well anywho on the proselyting side of things we are teaching some great people right now.

1st we have a husband and wife we are working with named W. and  J. W was going to be baptized and his wife was still thinking about it, then we came and talked to his wife and now she wants to be baptized. We taught her about the Holy Ghost and how He testifies of the truth, usually through feelings and a whisper. She then had an "ah hah!" moment and then said that she knows it is true. We will baptize them this Saturday. They have 3 little kids. The little boy was all running around crazy when we were there with his little sister. They have a baby that was napping on the moms back. The little boy took a permanent maker and drew all over himself and his little sister as they ran around all hyper, good luck getting the marker off haha. Primary will be good for them haha. They like us a lot and get excited when we come over. I just have to keep them from playing on our bikes and pulling them down on themselves. They were all markered up and climbing on the bikes with dirt all over themselves. They are awesome.

2nd we have a father D and his 10 year old daughter E. D has had a lot of family problems in his life but is doing great now. His daughter is very smart, she can read and does excellent in school. We are working on her with praying, I gave her dad an assignment to pray with her every morning and night for the next 3 days then the little girl is going to report to me how many times they prayed. It should be 6. So I can't wait to go see E and see how many fingers she holds up for how many times they prayed together. They also will be baptized on Saturday.

3rd is an around 25-year-old woman. She lives with a member woman. She has come to church for the past 4 months and has not been baptized. She is around 25 and has been reluctant when taught by past missionaries. We got there planning to teach the member woman's husband. We taught him small and tried to teach her too however she was closed. I then tried to get to know her more by asking her which films she likes, as there were lots of dvd's around. Still she was closed. Upon the next visit I started talking with her as she was playing with her phone and not really listening. Somehow she just asked the question, "how can I know if Joseph Smith had the authority to baptize." It was a miracle. We gave her the Book of Mormon and I texted her a place to read, as it seemed that would be more appropriate for her instead of writing a place for her to read. I called her 2 days later and SHE READ!!! We met with her and she was well read in the chapter and was smiling really big while explaining why Christ was baptized. I asked her why she was so happy. She said she didn't know. "Maybe I'm just happy." We then taught her about the fruits of the Spirit, one of them being joy. We gave her another place to read so she can confirm her joyfulness and confirmation through the Holy Ghost. It was great to see her smiling so big. She accepted to be baptized on the 19th of March. YAHOO! I love that family up there. I want to do all I can to bring them happiness, I pray for them and God is listening and answering.

4th is ES. Her father is an inactive member. She understands the message however is concerned saying, "so what you are saying is all the other churches are false." I then tried to politician my way out of it by saying, "this church has the fullness of the gospel and Jesus built one church" but she saw through it haha. We then walked her through the scriptures and then we asked, "am I saying all the other churches or wrong or did Christ say it first? I don't speak of myself, but I speak the words of Christ." She agreed to be baptized, if, and only if, the Holy Ghost tells her it is true. She committed to come this Sunday to see it. We met the non-active father and he committed to come on Sunday as well with his younger boy. Hopefully they will all come and he could baptize his children. That's what I hope for.

We also have lots of other sweet people. I'll update you more as time goes on.

Our problem this week is that not a lot of people came to church. We think it is because the Spirit wasn't with us as much as it should have been. My companion and I don't always see eye to eye on the best way to teach, but we are working on it. For instance I don't ever ask people which church they currently go to as this builds up a wall right from the beginning, also I don't invite people to church just on the street rather I invite them if we could share this message with them where we could extend a church invitation in a setting where the Holy Ghost is there more fully and where we can write down the commitment and follow up on it later as to not establish a non-commitment keeping relationship right from the beginning. As you can tell President taught us this haha. Whenever we learn a new a way to do missionary work, and are taught the reasons why, i'll usually just change and follow it with ease. A lot of times i'll just follow it without really knowing why. "sir yes sir, will study with my shoes on from now on, i'm not sure why but yes sir!" Anywho we resolved everything and should have the Spirit with us more fully this week.

I hope that everything goes well this week with church attendance. Oh Collins and Sis Joyce sister Vanessa are officially baptized. High 5!

Well we have a zone leaders counsel this week. Man I think it'll be a ceo-esque meeting. Also this is the time when we all let loose and use our normal vocabulary. I'll let you know how it goes haha.

Well I gotta run. The work is sweet and all is well.

Glad to hear about the BYU basketball player guy shooting 3 pointers, whoot!

ALSO WHAT THE HECK! WE TRADED WILLIAMS! Man WHY WHY WHY WHY! Well I don't care about the Jazz anymore. Sloan and Williams are gone. Well poop.

Anywho I love you all. I'll talk to president Smith about my BYU form thingie this week, just got it in the mail.

p.s. I inhaled all of the gronola bars and chocolate. Cheescake soon to come. I love you all.

Elder Bills

Howdy my shorties!

So guess where I am? Yup back in McCarthy Hills Zone. President Smith called me up on Tuesday morning and said that I he wanted to send me back to the hills to be a zone leader. So I left the north zone and am now in the Odorkor ward as a zone leader with Elder Dakouri (Ivory Coast), it connects to the McCarthy Hill ward area. We worship in the same chapel as the McCarthy Hill ward. So I left my people in Asamankese traveled back to the hot, sticky and dirty Accra.

ALSO!!! Get ready for it! Elder Oaks is coming tomorrow to meet with us. Holy cow! He is meeting with all the missionaries except the North Zone because it is too far for them to travel. Man I feel bad for them. I will take good notes for Elder Farnbach and give it to him. Man I get to meet 2 awesome Apostles on my mission, first Elder Holland and now Elder Oaks. Man I love Elder Oaks. He is very wise. I remember I saw his "good better or best" talk live at the conference center in Salt Lake City and it was so awesome. He just gave a talk during the Africa conference and said some awesome stuff, mostly about stopping all those traditions that make me slap my face in disappointment and annoyance and bang my head against the wall such as people not getting civilly married, families living in separate houses etc. It is going to be awesome! I'll letcha know how it goes!

I took out some cash today as ALL of my trousers (look at me with my African English with the British influence. Can't say "pants" because that means underwear. Me trousers have gone all higgledy piggledy in my bicycle, i'll buy some new ones after some digestives and crumpits during tea time as I gossip about the queen) got all torn in my bicycle. I better buy some nicer ones, especially when I'm going to shake hands with an Apostle.
The day before the transfer call came, the AP's called up and said that I needed to get the Oda elders baptismal interviews on Tuesday instead of our planned Wednesday. So I went to Oda on Tuesday and spent the night over there on splits with Elder Kim (from Hawaii). Elder Kim started eating these hard boiled eggs that the women sell on their head. He said he was scared but he tried it awhile ago and they are delicious. Of course I had to have one and now I am converted to the eggs on the womens head. They break off the shell for you then slice it open and shove tomato and onion salsa like stuff inside, oh and of course the lava hot peppers as well. Man it is the best treat to eat on a tro-tro. Upon arrival I interviewed a great 20-year-old who really knew his stuff and will be a great member. It was a good interview.

After the interview and proselyting we got to the Oda apartment. By then I knew I was being transferred and I had a goal to take a hot bubble bath in the Oda bath tub. They had apartment inspections that same week so the bathtub was freshly scrubbed for me! I boiled 6 pots full of water and mixed it with the tap water and took a lukewarm bubble bath. Wasn't hot or anything but it was nice. Goal accomplished! First time being submerged in a long time.

They called 2 more elders to Asamankese and called Elder Brandis to be the new district leader there. So the area is growing. I got a text from Elder Farnbach saying that Emmanuel N. (a 10 year old boy, should have been baptized at 8) and Victor O. (a great father) got baptized. I guess that Sandra A. (a 9 year old girl should have been baptized at 8) didn't get baptized yet, I can see the parents traveling or going to a funeral or something like that. She will get baptized soon.

Well we got to Odorkor and met with our Bishop, Bishop D. Right after our coordination meeting with him I went on splits with the Dansoman elders. Man going back to the Dansoman apartment was crazy! They still have my flowers there that Elder Holt and I planted. We got inside and a whole buncha nostalgia hit me. The tables were still in the same place. I saw Elder Riding teaching me how to drink my first Malta drink and eating lots of plantain late at night. I then saw the toilet where I had about 3 months of runny tummy problems and the backyard where Elder Stout and Elder Nelson taught me how to wash and then Elder Riding helped me and washed my clothes with me because my fingers were bleeding. It was a lot of great memories. Well I went on splits with Elder Kiiza from Uganda. He played on the Uganda national under 20 football team. He is a cool guy. Anywho they had 5 progressing investigators, so we went there and gave them all baptismal dates. They accepted! Yahoo! I had to lay the smack down on Dansomans area book and planners and white boards, as they were shabby. I did it in a nice way (cuz I've been there). They will do a good job.

Elder Taylor got transferred back there. He will do a good job at all that type of stuff. Also Elder Nelson is the district leader in McCarthy Hills and is now my district leader. It is cool. All my buddies are around me.

Well we had a baptism on Saturday for 2 people Elder Dakouri was teaching. They got baptized however of course there is always a logistical problem. This time it was with the clothes. The assignment was made during our coordination meeting that one of the ward leaders was going to get the clothes ready as in this zone they don't allow missionaries to get keys to the buildings and stuff. Upon arrival there was nobody there with the correct keys and the clothes were nowhere to be found. Ah yes. We rummaged up 2 baptismal dresses however we needed 3, 2 for the candidates and 1 for the baptist. Nobody with the keys were around and so they told us to buy some at the Kaneshi market, a process that would take 3 hours. I talked the presiding leaders into having the baptist and the girl being baptized wear the baptismal clothes, then after the girl was baptized we would give her baptismal clothes the to dude getting baptized. The candidates were around 23 and were cool with it, they didn't care. Finally the ones presiding agreed. THEN they realized they had no towels...So I was going to run home and grab my personal towel once again, a process that would take 1 hour. I prayed to know what to do. When I was pedaling on my bike, a guy selling clothlike blanket thingies on his head passed by. I bought 2 and brought them back. They were like fleece blankets, I wanted to rub them on my face. Then those presiding said they appreciated the efforts however those were not 'real' towels. I then explained that baptizing these people was very important and that this would be good enough. They were still not wanting to do it because the towels were not 'real' rather they were freaking ethereal heavenly blankets that would make a crying baby fall instantly asleep. It would be like drying off on a cloud. They still didn't want to do it claiming they weren't good enough and that it might offend someone because it was not 'proper'. I then explained that I saw 4 people defecating in the street and this doesn't bother anyone about being not 'proper' and that we buy meat from the Kaneshi market that has been laying in the sun for 4 days next to a tire and use it to make our soup, and that he was worried about the towels not being proper?

Something must have clicked because they then called in the candidates and had the baptism. Anywho just as the baptism was starting and I was pacing around like a nervous crazed looney bin patient as I always do during baptisms, I saw Bishop E. He yelled, "Hey is that my friend?!" Then he ran up and hugged me, I love that bishop. He then opened up the storage room for us and gave us some extra baptismal clothes, so right after our first girl was baptized, I ran and gave a fresh set of clothes to our other candidate. It wall worked out. MAN!

Also on Sunday I saw a lot of the McCarthy Hill people and they all freaked out. I found out that I was doing 2 interviews for people that I was formerly teaching that were now going to get baptized. One was Collings, his father who stays somewhere in the central region didn't allow him to get baptized but now his father had a change of heart after reading some pamphlets. I interviewed him for his baptism and it was a great experience. Also Joyce C's daughter was getting baptized, her name is Vanessa. I taught Vanessa for awhile but she moved away for awhile. She returned and accepted everything, her interview was done at sis Joyce house. Bervilyn and Jeffery ran up and said, "ELDER BILLS ELDER BILLS" and ran up and hugged me like they did that once. So did Sis Joyce C. Everyone was so happy. Man some tears were shed. Vanessa's interview was so great, I explained to her what she was feeling in the interview was the Holy Ghost and she started crying small. It was a great day. I'll never forget it. I was so happy and it felt so great. It taught me how heaven will be like when we all meet again, there might be some going "ELDER BILLS ELDER BILLS" and i'll be so happy to see them. Man the church is true!

I saw Edward A., who we baptized last year, and he is very very active and attends institute every week. MAN AWESOME!

Well anywho Elder Dakouri and I are going to work hard and baptize as many as we can here in Odorkor. I'll learn to love it here too I think. I scrubbed down the big apartment, it is a new one.

Well family I love all of you. It is so good to be back where I started. It feels like home here.
Tell Jordan I have no money to live on campus when I get home. Maybe we will get a gym pass or something together. Man I'm skinny and weak! Anywho no time for home, gotta get out there and baptize! YAAAAAAA!!!

Man doing all this number stuff makes my head want to explode. Also my companion has a thick French accent so I'm learning how to hear him haha. I'll pray for the gift of tongues, or gift of hearing accents haha.

Well I'll head out and rock it! I'm in the final stretch, time to get out there and get as freaking tired as possible! TIME TO ROCK IT!

Well I liked your little egg and chick thingie you made. I've been eating lots of eggs lately, yum yum yum. I've been cooking indomie (ramen equivalent), eggs, tomatoes and then toasting bread and making a sandwich out of it. I also use this mayonaise/salad creme thingie made by Heinz that I can dip it in. It'll keep me alive. So it is a tribute to all the eggs i'm eating lately.

Thanks for the table you are making for my room. Man it looks great. Dad is the tile master. You guys rock.

Tell Britt to keep it up and I bet Dave's grandma is happy doing those high kicks standing in a line in heaven so no need to worry.
Love you all

Elder Bills

ppss. a package of CHEESECAKE mix!? I love you guys so much!

Dear family!

Well this week was crazy. It was full of people making decisions, some chose good and reaped the benefits while others chose bad and also faced the consequences. Everyone’s agency was highlighted. Now for all you non church jargon speakers, ‘Agency’ is the power given to all to make choices for themselves. Everyone has agency. We are free to choose for ourselves. This power to choose is called ‘agency.’

My first story about agency was on Wednesday. One of our candidates for baptism was interviewed last week for baptism and was eager to be a member of the church. This candidate has a wonderful little baby girl who looks exactly like her, except has baby chubby cheeks that need to be played with. (yes I played with her fat baby face cheeks, gotta get it in while you can before the cheeks start to dissipate and starts to lose the bulldog resemblance). Anywho, the baby receives child support from the father who comes every 2 months or so for a couple days. Now the candidate is not married to the father of her baby, they are not having a relationship. The candidate agreed to have the man live in a different house for the days he comes. Now when the man came he was not in agreement to sleeping at a different place, when she addressed this he threatened to not pay the child support etc. I visited the house with my companion and put on a smiley face and went to meet with the candidate and the man. I introduced myself and he was not enthused. We asked if we could share this message with him and know more about the church that our candidate was joining. He wouldn’t let us sit, even though it isn’t his house… so standing we tried to address the concerns and he said that “his organization would not let him believe such a thing as cohabitating being wrong.” In my mind I was thinking, “did Satan found your orginazation…oh wait...”

The man was just being hostile because he knows that the cohabitating is wrong. The guy hated us before we even went to meet him. We left him and I shook his hand. We talked to our candidate and told her that she could still be baptized if she didn’t sleep in the same house as him. Her mother stays in the next house and she agreed to sleep there until the father of her baby left. I called her the morning of her baptism and she said that he forced her to sleep in the same room and was not worthy to be baptized. I felt like poop.

Well she is not having a relationship with the man but still was cohabitating so we gotta wait for some long while before she can be baptized. Man it was really poopy.

Spent a split with Elder Farnbach this week. He is a hard working missionary. It is for sure we will be doing much sweating when we are companions. We don’t have to pull each other but both of us are running full speed with our feet in the work. He definitely gets it. I always love going on splits with him. We are connected on the mission, where he goes I’ll go - haha. We have been in the same place for over 13 months. It is great to have him around. Great friend.

The next instance of agency was on Saturday. We went on splits with the zone leaders because they had to do some interviews for us. The interviews were in Asamankese so Elder Farnbach came over to spend the night and my companion Elder Skepu went to stay in Abomosu. Well we were all going to meet in Kade as it is the middle location between Asamankese and Abomosu. Well we were having a baptism in Kade in the morning so after the baptism we were just going to meet up there and leave to do the work in our various areas. (Splits here are quite a choreography work of art, every time we split it involves at least 4 hours of tro-tro rides per person) So we arrived for the baptism in the morning, we were going to baptize Georgina Boadi, bro Afriyie’s wife. Brother Afriyie was baptized only a couple of weeks ago, he was given the Aaronic Priesthood last week so I invited him to baptize his wife. He was scared but accepted. He can’t read very strongly but I wrote down the words he had to say and he memorized them, he practiced baptizing me at his work (a little mechanic shop). All the muslims were watching us and laughing but we didn’t care. I thought it was interesting they were making fun of us when they all just got done praying on a mat with their foreheads on the ground while one guy was standing there yelling into a microphone connected to a big megaphone on top of the mosque so all can hear and know that they are praying and then they all grabbed tea kettles and pouring water on themselves and washing themselves. Did I point and mock them as they did this? No.

It reminded me of the tree of life story, they were laughing and scoffing from their great and spacious building with their megaphone atop of it while we were quietly teaching a brother how to excerise his priesthood calling. Bro Afriyie didn’t mind. Bro Afriyie also practiced baptizing his wife at home as well. She was very proud of him.

Well we came to the baptism only to find that nobody filled the font in spite of our coordination meeting assignments and my reminder calls the night prior. The branch president said he had to run to a meeting so he wanted to do the baptism later. HAH! So I taught him about if you blow it then you gotta deal with it, so he went and explained to bro and sis Afriyie what happened. We then decided that we could do the baptism at 4pm that night. So we all split with our new companions back to our different areas. Elder Farnbach and I interviewed our candidates with the Terry’s. THEN we took a tro tro back to Kade and bro Afriyie baptized his wife, got it right the first time! He did a great job. His wife then bore her testimony on how she knows that this is right and is going to work hard so she can read, speak and hear English (all of this was translated to us by a translator). His whole family is now baptized. I got the names of their deceased parents ready for them so they can do the names at the temple next week.

Kapow!

Then came Sunday. Elder Farnbach and I went to church and only about 7 people came. 3 people who promised were not there so we left the 2nd service after the sacrament in search of them. We found 2 of them. One of them at a barbering salon getting his hair cut. He felt really stupid and he said that he was so sorry and that he was coming right now to church. We went and found another one sleeping at home, I knocked and woke him up. He said that he just came back from another town. He could not comprehend that he made a prior commitment to come to church and that traveling and not coming was breaking that commitment. Elder Farnbach finally explained it to him well. He said that if you had lied to your parents as a child that they would beat you. Our investigator understood this well as this happens to them in Ghana. He said that God would not beat us directly after we make a mistake, and even though He will not beat us after we disappoint him we still need to keep our promises with him. I then grabbed my planner and showed him the 3 times our investigator promised to come to church. I then drew 3 lines and said that he came one time to church for half of it. I circled half of one line. I then explained that this was 1/6th of the times he said he would come that he came. He then said that he was sorry and he was coming right now. Well neither of them came to church. We tried to show our love and concern for them and made sure they knew we loved them. Still they did not come.

Another woman did not come after promising us that she would. I visited this woman every day last week because she was sick. I wrote her a note on her door when she failed our appointment showing our care for her and invited her to call us when she got home. We taught her 3 times, our members visited her and taught her. Then we passed by and she said that she was going to her church tomorrow because she was going to give the opening prayer. She explained that she was sick and they found a replacement but now that she was better she was going to go to her church and say the opening prayer. I felt like crying. I brought up all the things that the missionaries had done for her such as the missionaries washing clothes with her years ago without even teaching her, us visiting her everyday last week, us showing up when we said we would and leaving notes when she failed, calling her to see if she was alright etc. I asked her if we did anything wrong to offend her. She said that she knows that we love her and that we did everything right. We then asked her why she was not coming to see if this was true and why she would not keep her commitment that she and we wrote down and had reminded her about multiple times. She didn’t know what to say. I invited her to come and she said she would come after her prayer role. She didn’t show up either.

I felt like poop.

However one of our investigators called us on Sunday morning at 7 and sounded distressed and asked us to come over right away. We jumped up and ran out the door like minuete men. We ran up to his door and his wife handed me a tie and asked me to tie it for him as he didn’t know how. He was so happy and was dressed in a white shirt and slacks with suspenders. He came to church and kept his commitment and he met with our branch president and asked if we could baptize him that same day because he knows it is true. He was unsure before he came but as he came he knew it was true.
We see agency at work with everyone here. Some for keeping their commitments and the blessings of joy and happiness and finding complete goodness. We also see those who did not keep their commitments and it led them to shame, sadness, guilt, misery.

I was very upset and distraught with a lot of people and their decisions this week, however I could not be happier with our brothers who chose to do right. The joy from their success outdoes the poopy feelings I had from all the others. We will continue to help all of our people. I’m getting better at showing people that I am sad and devastated when they choose not to do what they say. At first I would just be like, ‘oh okay…’ then go into a corner into a little ball and cry. This does no good for anyone so now I let them know that they are not doing what is right and they can sense that their success really matters to me and they can see how sad I am because I want the best for them. I let them know that this is the only way back to God and they sense that.

I’m working on loving them back afterwards. I am trying really hard.

Well the water was off this week. We have been showering with well water and flushing the toilet using the well water. It is a pain and freaking freezing water. This morning and yesterday our neighbor with the well water bucket was gone so we showered with pure water sachets.

Terrible feeling - haha. Well we will try to figure it out. The mission home brought us a new polytank. Hopefully they will hook it up soon. I hope that the city turns the water back on soon.

Sweet barbecue ribs mom! Man I will absolutely love to learn how to make freaking awesome ribs. Big loads of meat sound great.

Well great puppy sitting. I gotta run. Love you all.

Yeah mom if you could send another sd card hidden in a cracker box and a card reader. LOVE YOU.

Thanks for the packages and letters coming!

I love you all so much.

Your son,

Elder Bills

Yo my family!

Well let me first write about health. I’m doing good. I got some amoxicillin and finished off all 20 of them now. I’m feeling great now. Amoxicillin was only 80 cents (or pesuays or however you spell it). Man miracle drug. I had my companion give me a blessing when I had the sinus infection because I was feeling like major poop. It stated that I would get better according to my faith, exercising my faith would include getting the necessary drugs that I needed. Man this is so inline with one of my favorite quotes from Elder Uchtdorf, “When our wagon (or tro-tro ;) gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer.” Best quote ever. Well I am better now.

My patriarchal blessing states that I will have the needed strength in life to accomplish all that is required of me. So far I have only stayed in on 1 p-day when I had malaria and we went in at 7 pm one night when I had this sinus infection. I guess that a lot is required because I have been blessed so much with good health.

So this week we have been running around on bicycle to tro-tro and back again. We had 10 investigators show up this week. This is okay, better than last week, however we really need to get more. We currently have 20 people with a baptismal date. When only 10 show up this is kinda upsetting. They had a lot of funerals this week.

Funerals are a 3 day thing here, Friday through Sunday. So this is a big reason why a lot didn’t come.

I also have some sad news. One of our investigators with a baptismal date passed away. Ekoh Prah, our good friend, had been sick for a long while with intestinal problems and passed away last week. He was in love with the gospel. He loved my conference Liahona and adored President Monson’s priesthood session talk on the 3 R’s of choice. He read all of the pamphlets we have. We taught him all the lessons and we were about to interview him for his baptism when he had to go back to the hospital. He attended twice, even though he was very week and sickly. His friend Bro Frank was a big help to him. Ekoh Prah passed away but I know that he will be in a good place. Luckily I already have all the information needed on his baptismal record that I filled out with him, so I can do his temple work in one year. I will email it to you guys next week so we can keep that important information in a safe place. He was a great friend.

During sacrament meeting I was able to speak about the plan of salvation. I discussed how grateful I am to have the Book of Mormon that talks about how, “little children are alive in Christ” and need no repentance or baptism until the age of accountability (8 years old). Also I talked about how those who did not have the opportunity to accept the gospel and perform the necessary ordinances will have a chance to hear the gospel in the Spirit World and then we can perform proxy ordinances for them in the temple. Man the gospel is very comforting. I would be in a big mess without it.

Well after my little talk some parents came up and told me that they had children that they needed baptized. YAHOO! Teaching children is so great. Most of the time they understand a lot quicker than the adults do. They are usually shy at first but we can get them to open up after being silly with them. The only false thing they all believe is, “God is a Spirit.” At school they have a general religion program that teaches all that nonsense and they get confused a little bit because 5 days a week they have false doctrine pounded into their brains and then we come and teach them the truth and they like it and understand it, only the next day to have more false doctrines pounded into their brains the next day at school… Anywho we should baptize around 4-5 little kids this month. The parents are benefiting from the teaching as well and the whole family grows stronger. ROCK ON!

Well I am being obedient to the white handbook schedule lately. Eating breakfast stinkin’ early, man it makes me want to hurl to eat that early. Usually I just chop while walking in the morning but I am now eating oatmeal or something in the morning at 7! Also I have been eating dinner before 6 and lunch before 12. This is very weird to me.

I can sense how it is healthy and stuff. Usually we proselyte all day and then eat dinner late at night and eat lunch when something goes to crap and someone fails us. Now we are scheduling it in and stuff. We are still teaching a bunch and now we are healthier. President Smith is wanting us all to study with our shoes on because he says we are not running out the door by 10 am. So I’m studying with my shoes on.

The Holy Ghost is with us more now that we are obeying all the schedule stuff. Now all these little children are popping out of the branches which makes the scripture, “suffer the little children to come unto Me” make more sense. We are now doing all that we can do to have the Holy Ghost with us. The people are recognizing and we are getting more to baptize and more to teach. The church is true.

Yeah about the chief with blue eyes we are teaching. His name is Kwodjo B. He is 70 years old, still likes to run around and play football. We call him ‘the wizard’ because he is very short and wise and has a high voice. He contacted us when we were walking out of our district Presidents School he runs. He said that we would be persecuted by many for what we were doing, sharing about Jesus Christ.

He said that we would be richly rewarded for it. He then told us how he was shot in some tribal thing because of his beliefs before and nearly died. He has been through a lot. He spoke very good English and I inquired why. He said he schooled in England for a little bit. We then gave him a restoration pamphlet. He read it and then called us and said he wanted the Book of Mormon. We gave it to him and he read 26 chapters in one day. He committed to be baptized and live the word of wisdom. He had a question about if he could still pour libations to his dead ancestors. We told him to talk to the district president about it because I have no idea what he was talking about. I think it is where they kinda pray to their deceased ancestors and then pour alcohol on the ground for them. Anywho this guy is sweet and sincere and recognizes it is all true. He told us that he is very happy when we are around and loves us. We should baptize him very soon, however he has been gone because of some family issues. He will get baptized shortly. He said that he could make the church the religion of his kingdom and share it with a lot. I told him that we need to let people choose to be members and he understands, he really wants to share it with his people.

Well anywho we are going to baptize 2 people this week in Kade and then a bunch in Asamankese next week. We will baptize Kofi’s wife, she can’t speak English. It was tricky to teach her because he family can’t speak good enough English to translate what we were saying so we had to find a member who can translate the principles correctly. Her name is Georgina. She missed her baptism because of funerals and she slept in etc. We finally got someone to translate effectively for us and taught her the plan of salvation. Something clicked in her mind and now she asked us last week if she could be baptized that same Saturday haha. She gets it now. Another we will baptize is Norah. She has a daughter and lives next to a member named Hagar (yes like Sammy Hagar! DUDE!) Well she has been a great help in the work. She brought her to church and now Norah is very happy. Norah introduced us to her elder sister who we will teach this week. Norah is great. Hagar is a hard working pioneer. Hagar can’t speak English but her husband can.

Hagar doesn’t understand much but she is a doer and hard worker. What she understands, she does. She straps a baby to her back and pulls her friends and husband to church. I found out that they were not correctly married and taught them about it, she then got her mom to come over and they are arranging the bride price stuff. She really tries. I just gotta make sure her husband follows through with the marriage!

They will bring more missionaries to me very soon muahaha! I put my plea to send up some missionaries that really like to smile and that are hungry for work. Smiling is key.

Well here is my washing machine shhpeeal. So some here choose by choice not to use a washing machine. This is a common idea here in Africa. The washing machines are not too costly compared to how much people spend on funerals, weddings, baby naming, birthdays etc. However families have never done it and it is not in their tradition to do it. To me in my mind, a mind that comes from a place founded on the "who cares" attitude about all former attached traditions of the motherland (draw caricature of king george with a pie in the face), I find some traditions hard to figure. Let me explain. It isn’t because the washing machine allows me to be lazy, quite the opposite in fact. The washing machine enables me to be more hard working and effective. I can use all that time for something good that would benefit the rest of mankind rather than just mindlessly scrubbing like a zombie.

I also find it demeaning to women to ignore the washing machine. The woman, by Divine design, is a nurturer and is therefore usually in the home raising the children. In addition to nurturing they have traditionally taken up things like washing clothes and cooking. Now the women here are far behind the men educationally as a whole. If they were freed from all that time scrubbing they could do other things during that time, such as read a book or learn something new or do something they like to do such as a hobby. (Hobbies don’t happen much around here. I asked a small girl what she liked to do for fun and she looked confused and then thought about it, she then told me “to sell.”)Thus where a washing machine is there will your literate and women that are treated equal will be.

The Nephites took up the new technology and embraced it. They fashioned swords that were like unto Labans and then learned how to do new things. If we do not embrace the technology that allows us to be better and more effective and more helpful people, then we are not doing as much good as we could and should be doing. Do we still do family history on paper documents only, no! It goes on the net and enables the work to be faster and better and more are helped. EMBRACE THE TECHNOLOGY. And washing machines for all!

Anywho. I’ll step of my box. (Soapbox - haha). Hope you enjoy the thoughts.

Well a couple of days ago we were at a really cool members house.

Their names are the Ababios. The wife is from Nigeria and is fair skinned. The husband is Ghanian and the baby is a fair skinned cutie pie. He was terrified of me for about 2 months but now he can gather up the courage to shake my hand. We were over there teaching some referrals they gave us. The family is Agnes a chubby 10 year old girl who has been coming with the Ababios, Elisabeth the grandmother and Emmanuella the 13 year old girl. Agnes is perfect and desires to do what is right, she can read very well. The father died about 1 year ago and the mother moved to Accra so the grandmother is raising them.

Upon arrival for the first time Emmanuella innocently called me over and said, “Elder Bills! Bless me.” I could sense her sincerity and pure childhood Godliness. She recognized that we are servants of God and are good. We came to find out that Emmanuella has not gone to school for over 2 years because she can’t walk far distances because her legs and joints have a serious problem. She can only walk some few steps before her legs give up and she falls down. She can’t read much because of the time she has not gone to school. We gave her a priesthood blessing. The Spirit was very strong. Jesus loves the little ones so much. After the blessing the grandmother said with tears in her eyes, “thank you.” She had never felt the Spirit like that before. Emmanuella sat quietly and smiled and shook our hands.

Everything at the moment seemed to be perfect.

Now we just got to get the grandmother reading again. She can’t really comprehend what we are saying, she is not a listener but a reader type of person; however she can’t see good anymore but refuses to use glasses because they will ‘make her go blind.’ I explained that if she tries to read without glasses it will just strain her eye and it will get worse, kinda like stretching saran wrap and then letting it go and trying to look through a crinkled mess. However the traditions are deep. We are trying to help her be able to read again, I have faith that it’ll work out for that family.

While we were there we met some of their new neighbors in the same compound. They are working at a charcoal making plant that is owned by a member. The two guys are from Lebanon but have lived in Ghana for years and years. They are familiar with the church. They are white dudes that talk like my Ghana speak. It was comforting to see somebody with jeans shorts, grizzly non shaved face and a baseball cap on. The dudes probably love MetallicA. Kinda chubby. Well they have attended the church before and are highly interested, they have a lot of Nigerian friends who are members. We are going there to teach them this week.

Well sorry no pictures this week again! I suck. I accidentally left the card reader at the church and it is nowhere to be found. I’ll try to track one down this week. Well all is good. The church is true. I am growing a lot and learning a bunch. I am now tackling the book “Jesus the Christ.” Means I am getting old eh? I can silence anyone who tries to prove me wrong just with scriptures now, however proving the church is true with the scriptures doesn’t do anyone any good.

Weird how that works eh? The stuff really adds to my testimony though, causes me to be a better person.

Well glad you are all doing well with the puppy. Good job on your award mom. You are very competent. Competent people are comforting.

Comforting, competent, cola, considerate, cool, congested, combating crazy kooks, cookie! These words describe my mommy! Minus the cola now.

Well I love you all! The church is true. I am going to eat your pie this week.

DUDE! P.S. I got a letter from a chick, with pictures! Oh man the office elders read it and went through the pictures haha. Elder Farnbach has it now because that is how the mail gets to me. First the office then the Terries collect it and the zone leaders distribute it.

Yes so I don’t even really know what it says yet really because I don’t have it yet. I made Elder Afu transcribe some of it in an email to me. Yeah so I was the man this week. It was from Suzette.

She writes sometimes from Argentina on her mission. She is doing good there. I bet she is baptizing almost as much as we are. I am going to write her back and ask about how the empanadas are down there. I bet they are killer! OH man I want an empanada! Add that to my pile of stuff! Empanadas at Taco Bell when I get home. STAT!

Love you guys.