Pictures from Swedru, with a couple of 

Cape Coast mixed in! 

Hey good morning! Glad you got the pictures,  the WiFi wasn't working very well yesterday so I am glad that it worked! Yes most of them are from Swedru, I can’t remember sending any from Cape, but maybe there were some! As for the Skyping, yep it should work and should be no problem! We are going to borrow some of the members’ tablets and go use the church's WiFi so it will be both free and fast! The only fear is that Ghana will decide to be a 3rd world country that day and turn off the power...hopefully it will work out though! If not then I will call you guys! Sounds like you guys had fun at the Farmers Bonanza though, Farmers always does quality celebrations right? And baseball is going well by all indications so that is cool!

Well this week has been filled with ups and downs I guess you could say haha! Monday the Assistants spent the night and we had fun eating ice cream and playing a game called Phase 10. IDK if you have played it, but it’s a card game kind of like Uno. It’s really fun though, I had never played it before! The next day we had Presidents interviews for the other two districts in the zone. So we instructed again and watched Meet the Mormons again! They are painting our church and we told them not to touch the Relief Society room so we could use it only to show up in the morning to see they had painted it...so we had to use the chapel. But it was fine! Also, we were gonna use the TV and DVD player at the church but when we went into the library to grab the DVD player somebody had cut the power cord off...so that is interesting hahaha! But we were able to borrow one from a member so it all worked out! Such a good movie! We ended the meeting pretty late and right after we went and had Stake PEC in Winneba. It went well; it is really different than in Cape. The ones here are more casual and not very direct, so I liked the ones in Cape a lot better but it’s cool to see different ways to do it. I guess as long as everything gets accomplished it’s ok! But yeah, interesting to watch how different people do different things.

We have been trying all week to buy a pig! We were hoping that today we would be having a pig roast with the zone, but it has been pushed back to next week due to problems obtaining Wilbur. The pig party will be for the 28 of us in the zone! Yep we have some poly's in the zone so we are doing it the right way! We are also getting a goat hopefully too, so that will be cool! We went out and found a pig farm in no other place than the jail yard. The inmates actually do a pretty good job of raising a bunch of little hams, so we went and pulled a "Red Lobster." AKA we picked out the animal we wanted to dine upon. The guy told us we could come back on Saturday and take our little porky friend. So we went on Saturday and the guy wasn't there...so we will be pushing that back to this Saturday haha. But yeah, the inmates do a good job of raising meat products. We walked about 6 miles that day because we saw a signboard for a pig farm and we called the number and the lady assured us they were only like 200 meters down the road. I think she meant 2000 because it really was like 2 miles. And we got there and all the pigs were pregnant so they couldn't sell us any...so we walked back...good workout haha! This week has actually been really slow for teaching, partly because of the pig hunt. But not entirely actually. People have been in Winneba at a festival all week so it’s been hard to find people in the house. We did get to go on exchanges though. I went with E. Collins who is a great missionary. I have known him since I was in Akonfudi. He is a really powerful missionary and we went to his area. In the afternoon we ate some fufu and it was quite delicious and then we went to work! Their area is really good, it’s in Swedru town and we had fun. But around 5 my stomach really began to bother me. I just felt like somebody had punched me in the stomach. But we moved forward. A few hours later it felt worse and we were walking to go back to the apartment at the end of the day when my stomach decided it was gonna throw in the towel. We were just on a darkened street, but there were people around and I knew I was going to vomit. So I meandered over to a dark corner near a shack and proceeded to purge the fufu from my system. There were some old Twi women in the hut who came out and asked what I was doing whilst in the act of vomiting. I calmly looked up at them and asked, "Et te sein?" Then I continued. E. Collins bought me some water though so that was nice of him. I felt about a million times better after that though haha! We took a taxi back to the apt, I picked up my stuff, and then we went back to my apt. I got in bed and slept! I slept until like 9:30 the next morning. I felt a lot better after that so we went and cleaned our chapel, came back and showered and taught a couple lessons. I feel 100% now though! So that is a fun story I have to tell forever. I threw up in Ghana in the street! Luckily nobody saw except 2 old women! Oh and no I have not received a package yet, but I think I will get it Wednesday at MLC. So we will see! I have not gotten the rings out yet but those are easy to hand out. I feel kind of weird handing out bracelets to be perfectly honest. Probably because they are so dang nice and it just feels kind of weird to give bracelets to the young women here....IDK haha. But CTR rings I will hand out like candy. They are also very easy to carry around! [I send him the little brightly colored rubber CTR rings to give out. The kids love them!] As for the Liberia and SL rumors, I can say they are true! But from what I understand, yes a Mission President will be called and sent out but for now that is it. He will go and organize everything again with the aid of local leaders and missionaries and slowly foreign missionaries will be brought back. That’s what I have heard  though. 

On a more spiritual side, during sacrament I was pondering upon the atonement and how wonderful it is and I read through the words of hymn 169, a hymn I have never sung in Ghana yet is just beautiful and so great. It is definitely one of my favorite sacrament hymns. I love all 3 verses so much but I just love the 3rd verse: As now we praise thy name with song; The blessings of this day; Will linger in our thankful hearts; And silently we pray; For courage to accept thy will; To listen and obey: We love thee Lord; Our hearts are full; We'll walk thy chosen way. That is just soooo great to me! I love it. How great is the Lord, how wonderful is His love and how endless is His mercy! Truly my heart is full when I think of how much He has done for me. I will walk His chosen way. It is my chosen way. The way to eternal life is only through Him and it is by following Him that we are able to attain it. It is to keep His  commandments and to love all around us. It is to lift those in need and love the Father. That is His chosen way. How can it not be our chosen way? We must have the courage to accept His will, to listen and obey. Those words in addition to the reverence in which they are sung express emotions that cannot be expressed in any other way. I love the Lord. He is there. He is always with us. He wants us to be happy always. That is why He does everything He does. Some ask why terrible things then happen in this life and the answer is the same as why you let a child fall when learning to ride a bike. Because they are learning! They are becoming more by falling and being hurt than they could by sitting in a cozy chair. This life is not the end. The eternities are before us all and as we courageously submit our will to that of the Father's we are preparing for bigger blessings than we can comprehend.

And that is what is going on with me! I am now healthy ;), I am happy, and doing well! We are working hard, though we are always busy haha! But I love this work, it is the Lords work and it is the greatest honor to be a part of it. I love you, you are the BEST! HAPPY ALMOST MOTHERS DAY!