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.