Hi!!  Thanks for the banana bread recipe, we'll give it a shot and see what happens haha! Yeah I made tortillas a few times, they turned out quite well! Not like the good old Taco shack, but not too bad! Hopefully the banana bread works out the same way! Glad you got to see the side of my head in a picture, that’s always exciting! (The mission blog had a picture of him but only the side of his face is visible)  The mission tour went AWESOME!!!! I just LOVE hearing from general authorities. I really reallly love it! Elder Curtis is an awesome leader and I learned a lot from him. He talked to us about Alma 5. I suggest you go read it. It is, in his words, a 'spiritual questionnaire.’ “ He gave us lots of good advice and insights on it! We need to always be able to answer those questions affirmatively. One of the greatest things I learned from him though was not really in what he said, but rather how he said it. He is such a Christlike individual! That is what really stuck out to me from the meeting. I was pondering over it the next day and thinking about some of the most Christlike people I know and they all share similar characteristics. They are kind, supportive, friendly, warm, encouraging, lighthearted, and patient. I really made it a goal to be more Christlike! I want so badly to be like Him. I need to. We all do! The meeting was great though, we were encouraged to really work with the members and be effective in planning, so we will be working harder to do those things! It was also great to see everyone that I have not seen for a while. I got to talk to E. Cardon for a long time, which was just awesome! I also got to see E. Larsen as well and it was great to see him again. Also, E. Moleme, my good old friend from South Africa!  I loved seeing all these people! Elder Curtis also came to Assin Foso on Saturday and did a stake leadership training meeting and it was AWESOME as well! President Stevenson was there and instructed the stake leaders on the importance of working with missionaries, Elder Davies, a local 70 instructed too and it was hilarious! He is a Ghanaian and is just full of energy and was just running all over, calling on random people from a sheet of names to answer questions, speaking random french haha. He was writing on a board and I’m pretty sure he is a doctor because it was unreadable haha! He did a really good job though! Told a story about how he is afraid of water and heights and was sent to Sierra Leonne and had to cross the sea and a mountain and so he burst into singing, "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go." Elder Curtis also spoke and gave us some pretty crazy numbers. So far this year, 16,000 people have been baptized in West Africa. If they stopped today, it would be the 2^nd biggest year! We still have 3 1/2 months to go! Also, 5 stakes have been created this year with 2 more in the works! The Lord is hastening His work for sure! What a blessing to be a part of it! I get to have my hands right in the dirt! Bereku finally is in a new building. They rented a house and turned it into classrooms and built a sacrament hall in front of it, so we worshiped there with them on Sunday! The stake didn’t send any high councilor to preside, so I did.  The meeting went well though, there were 60 or so people there! Granted, half were kids, but still not bad at all! On Saturday after our meeting with Elder Curtis we went and helped them set all the chairs up and stuff. All the chairs were wrapped in bubble wrap and on Sunday it was still laying on the ground. EVERYONE had a roll of bubble wrap popping it after church haha. Old people, kids, everyone loves bubble wrap! It was funny to see people leaving church with giant armfulls of bubble wrap haha! That made the cleanup pretty simple though!

The work is moving though! We now have 8 people with baptismal dates, so yeah! We had to push back all those we were already planning though because they all have things stopping them as of now. I don’t know if G will be able to be baptized because now she can’t come to church because of how far it is. The church can’t pay for a car for her and she can’t pay herself, so I’m not sure what we will do. We will talk to the bishop and see if they can figure anything out. We were teaching A. about tithing and he doesn’t believe tithing should exist. He is cool with collections, but tithing doesn’t make sense to him. His problem is in the Old Testament tithing is used only for like animals and crops, so why should we pay with money today? We explained that it was given to us by the Lord through Joseph Smith. It is really a matter of knowing if Joseph Smith is a prophet. If we know that is true, everything else kind of just falls into place! If we receive that witness then our questions are not as halting because we have that testimony this IS the Lords work! So very important! We also taught another of our investigators with a baptismal date about the word of wisdom. The doctor gave her green tea to help with her aching foot, but after we taught her she committed to keep it! Hopefully she does and her foot is healed from her faithfulness! I know the Lord will bless us if we are  faithful!

Last night it was pouring like crazy as we were trying to go home.  We finally decided to make a run for it after 30 mins of hiding under a roof and we got SOAKED! Everything was soaked, but luckily my scriptures were dry! The rainy season ain’t over yet!  Man we were soaked from head to toe. It was kind of fun, but having scriptures and a phone made it a bit dicey. We were just running through it trying to get home! I have not run in a long time, I was dead haha! It felt really really good to run, but running in the dark in the rain is not the best way to do it haha! It was raining SO hard it was crazy!  We got home and just wrung out our clothes. It’s crazy it’s already almost time for conference! The time goes fast!  Again, thanks for the pics of hiking, they looked awesome!!! I love you so much! Thanks for all you do for me! I hope you are all doing great! I LOVE YOU!!!!