The kids love the colorful rubber CTR rings, 

and Elder Hack loves to hand them out!

President Stevenson prepared a "Title of Liberty" and each of the missionaries signed it in token of their commitment to each other.  It's pretty cool!

June, August and September 2014

Departing Missionaries

Hey Happy Tuesday to you all! Sorry, yesterday myldsmail was down for some odd reason so virtually none of us could email...odd! But today it is up and runnin so that is good! Happy to hear all is well and everyone is doing good! Sounds like you have some fun stuff coming up with the camp that should be awesome! Gotta love it when Kartchner does some demos with the kids!  And sounds like Brady will have a good time in Cali, should be pretty cool! All is well here in sleepy Swedru. Rainy season has officially started I think. It’s been raining all day today and started last night. Pretty nice not to be dying in the sun, but still kind of too bad since it makes everything all muddy! Guess I just can’t be pleased haha. But this week has been a good week, we have found more success this week than last, the work is moving forward and we just set a new baptism goal for June and set a goal of 5! We are pretty sure we will be able to accomplish it; we have a lot of well prepared people we are working with. It is true; we did indeed have a wonderful baptism on Sunday. The baptism was at 7:30 am, so the night before we had to sit at the church until 10 to wait for the font to fill...Pretty fun! But all went well and Bishop was able to baptize his mom. There were a good number of people who came for it and everyone was very supportive and happy! I will send some pics, maybe tonight when we will be at the church. I will have my face in these ones ;)  But yeah, it went well and this week we are having 3 more for the woman Ruth and her daughter Vera and son Precious. So that is exciting! This week I had the opportunity to do a baptismal interview for a girl named Angela who is like 10 for the other elders and it was a really cool experience. Usually when you interview children they are pretty nervous and don’t really know what to say, but this girl was so ready and knew everything so well! It was a cool spiritual experience and she was baptized on Saturday. We were able to go watch it and it was awesome! She will be a powerful little member. Oh also, we did indeed have a very wonderful seminar on Friday! It was awesome! There were so many missionaries there and it was awesome to get to visit with people I have not seen in so long and talk to good friends. I spent a long time talking to Elder Mckeon. He is definitely one of my favorite companions I have had, it is kind of a shame we were only together for 6 weeks, but it was nice to talk to him. He gave me updates on how all those awesome people in Cape are doing and everyone is doing good! That woman named Selina who had the debt issue that ended up getting baptized, her 10 year old son got baptized on Friday so that was really exciting to hear! I was pretty happy about that! But yeah, President did a great job instructing on the importance of serving the Lord out of love. Love for Him and love for the people we are teaching. It was awesome. He taught using D&C 88:83-85 and we went through it one by one. I encourage you to go read it, it has a lot more meaning as a missionary I guess, but still pretty cool! But we talked about how much better everything is when you are serving out of love for the Lord as opposed to selfish desires or out of fear. It was awesome and I loved it. Signing the shirt was pretty awesome too I must say. But yeah, we had a great meeting, we got to the station to get a car back and oh no! There were no more cars going to Swedru! Honestly I was not too upset, I was fine to spend a night in Cape, but we did have 4 other missionaries and so we couldn’t sleep there. The Assistants went to get the van because they were going to drive us back to Swedru themselves. After about 30 mins of waiting for them a tro tro pulled up that was going to Swedru so we got in and sailed off. We got home late, but we did get home! So that was a fun little adventure I guess. But yeah, that’s what’s been going on for the most part. We have continued our planning for the activities and Elder Dube is coming, along with the Church News from Accra. Oh and Bishop wants to stick E. Kaiser and I on the radio to do some advertising because he knows a guy or two who will allow us to do that....so yeah we are going on the air apparently haha. This is a pretty intense activity I must say! We are doing a parade around Swedru on the 19th with all the wards to promote it and we are going to hand out flyers to the onlookers.

Well, yesterday was a good p-day other than the lack of emailing. We went to Winneba and went to the beach where everyone played games and hung out. It was pretty fun. Then we went for a FHE with the other elders in our apt to one of their members and got fed fufu and so that was a bonus. So it’s been nice! Tonight we have an activity with the YSA's and we are watching Meet the Mormons and then tomorrow is MLC. Thursday we are going on exchanges and we have a YM/YW soccer game/ward council and then Saturday we have the baptisms! So there are a lot of cool things going on this week, should be sweet! You asked about the things I like getting in packages, well kitkats and twix is a personal favorite. I like the socks and ties. One elder in our apt gets Velveeta and that is AWESOME because every morning now we eat omelets with cheese. I mean, there really isn’t anything I have not liked that you have sent. It’s all great, but those are some of the favorites. And the CTR rings everyone loves! My pants are doing good, they are holding on. I have not bought any clothes in Ghana I don’t think, it’s kind of slim pickins. I needed shoe laces once and looked everywhere and couldn’t find any. I had to ask a member in Cape to get me some and she couldn’t find them either. I asked her to try again and finally she got some and they were pretty terrible. So maybe that is another good word of advice to other missionary moms haha, send shoe laces! I am ok with them now BTW haha. Thanks for everything though, you are the BEST! Talk to you later!!!!!

Last Week’s Letter

Hey Happy Memorial Day (apparently)!!! Haha I forgot that was today, pretty cool though! I am happy to report that both packages made it safe and sound into my hands this week, so THANK YOU!!! You are the absolute best! The shirts are perfect, a little baggy for West Africa fashion, but they look fine for back home fashion so I am gonna wear them with some American Pride rather than tailoring them like most would. Thank you so much for them and for the shoes, which are awesome, and for everything else! We made the no bake peanut butter thing last night and it is gone now...so it was delicious! Oh and thanks for sending the pics, Adam is getting big indeed, pretty crazy! I totally spaced on emailing him last week, so I will attempt to do that today. We were at another internet cafe and I was about to start typing up my email to you and the power went out...so we have moved to a better location. But yeah, the week has been a lot better than last week! We have found, we are teaching, we are continuing to find! Oh and we have 1 baptism for this Sunday! It will be the easiest baptism I have ever had out here! It’s the Bishops mom and he has taught her everything! All the lessons, so we have reviewed with her a bit and that’s it! She is prepared though and has a strong support system in her awesome Bishop son so we are pretty excited for her. Oh and her other family members are members as well so that is a plus. So she is going to be on for the weekend! The family of 3 we were hoping for had to be pushed back to the 6th because we have not been able to see them very much this week and we still have a bit more to teach them. Although they are ready, we still need to teach them before baptism. That’s a good thing though in my opinion, it strengthens people so they will remain strong forever. So we are workin on them! I went on exchanges with a great missionary named Elder Day this week. He is from Delta and has been out for 9 months now. We had a good day, he is a nice guy and we get along well. He is a big hunter and promised to take me hunting when he gets back, so I got that to look forward to! But we had a good day, we taught a Muslim woman who came to church a few months ago, but I don’t think she will really go anywhere right now, she said she wants to be a Muslim but wants to visit our church sometimes. So we will keep working on her to see what happens, but her husband banned her from coming so...but you never know what could happen! We did have a nice day though, and all week we have had nice days. I have enjoyed the week; it has really sped on by! I couldn’t believe it was Monday again! We have been planning some activities for June with the ward as well; they want to make June a
missionary month. So we have made plans for 2 activities a week during the month with the grand activity an open house on the 20th and then a big sacrament meeting on the 28th with President Stevenson and Elder Dube of the Seventy. Yeah so as you can see it’s gonna be pretty serious! We are poppin out general authorities and mission presidents for cryin' out loud! Haha pretty sweet, we will see how it all comes together! The bishop is really taking the lead on most everything which is so cool! He is getting everything coordinated and is doing a fantastic job! We are going to watch Meet the Mormons on the 2nd. Elder Kaiser got it sent to him so we are going to take advantage of it! Then on the 6th we are going to have a day of outdoor games at the church. They have repainted the interior and exterior of the chapel recently so it looks brand new. I hope it all works out and we are able to do a lot of good missionary work from it all. It will be a community event! Fun for all! Oh did I mention that this Friday we are going to Cape? President has started doing devotionals for the missionaries who are preparing to go home to keep them motivated so ours is this Friday. It will be sweet! I am pretty excited about that! It will be cool and also nice to see some people again I have not seen in a long time.

But I am doing good, gotta love the crazy things that happen because they make for good stories later right? ;) Sadly I did not get any meal pics of the pig roast, sorry! But we ate it with boiled casava, tomato stew and coke!  So it was a feast! It was really tasty I must say! Thanks for all you do and say though, you truly are the BEST! I love you so much! I feel bad because my emails I fear are getting a bit shorter, but know that I know this work is the Lord's very work. Nothing is more important than having and living the Gospel. That is what this life is about! How blessed we are to have it in our possession. It is Life. Love you! Have an AWESOME DAY!!!

Happy Monday! Hey there! How’s it going?! I am doing good. Yeah things are going on good here. It’s been a bit of a hectic week, but it’s been good. We finally were able to watch conference yesterday, it was awesome and we saw it in English too so that’s always a plus!  Elder Holland gave such an awesome talk on the atonement, I loved it so much! The Lord is there to make all things right. We do live in a fallen world, but through the Savior there will be order and peace in the world to come. All things will be made right and all will stand to feel His loving arms around them. How wonderful it will be! On the note of Elder Larsen being the new Assistant, yeah isn't that awesome! I have gotten to know him a bit out here and yeah he is a great missionary. He will do a great job and it will be nice to see him more. I was pretty excited to hear it was him! And man that is so crazy that those people are getting married and serving missions and stuff, life is moving forward eh? So strange but cool! I am doing good though, the week has been crazy but good. A little long but still nice! We gave our report from MLC and one thing we talked about was budgeting our money. Well when we told the zone that Pres wants people to budget better, there were a few who didn't like that. And I guess they thought it was my idea or something. People got kind of angry at me haha. On Wednesday almost all day we did transfers. A lot easier than in Cape but took more time. We just had to send one person off ourselves and then let the district leaders deal with their own districts so that was nice. We then went to Winneba to pick up the new people since the District leader in Winneba got transferred out. Got them on their way and went back to Swedru! It was funny because there were some new sisters and we put them in a taxi to go to their apartment and the taxi driver’s battery died. So, bare handed he undid the battery from the car, used another cars live battery to jumpstart it only using the wires and then reconnected the battery bare handed. We saw that and tried to switch cars, but he wouldn't let us. Well, 10 seconds later it died again so we switched cars and got a lower price because they wasted our time. Gotta love the crazy things you see! But yeah, the last few weeks we have been so busy with other things that teaching investigators has been kind of 2nd priority...but this week we FINALLY had time to proselyte most of the week and we found out that we have lost a lot of investigators! So we spent a lot of the days finding and working with members to find people. It was kind of stressful, but we found a lot of promising people to work with! So that is great! This week we will be seeing most of them! We have 3 baptisms planned for the 30th, a mom and 2 of her kids! So that is exciting! The rest of the family will hopefully be baptized later! But the three of them are ready now so we will move forward! She fed us fufu yesterday after church and it was great! On that subject, the worst food I have had is probably some fufu. We had some this week and it was just terrible, the soup was just garbage! There is a lot of fufu that is just nasty, usually made by people and not chop bars. Most of the time fufu is good, but sadly sometimes it is just horrible! It’s my favorite food in Ghana and my least favorite ;)

But yeah, it’s been a good week. We spent some time visiting members, making them smile and want to help us, seeking out new people and all that good stuff! It’s nice!  And no, the packages have not made it into my hands yet...though one is just sitting at the mission home! The AP's forgot to bring it, so I will probably have to wait until the 29th when we go to Cape. But thanks in advance! ;) As for school, maybe you should switch that class for me; I am thinking the Communications/public speaking class sounds a bit better and more useful. That’s what education is about right? Using what you learn? I don’t want to waste my time going to plays haha... Hmmm. [Mom and Brady are trying to plan his college schedule for him, hopefully he’ll be happy with it and won’t hate us for the choices we make haha!] Well I think that’s about it from Ghana! I am doing good, happy, healthy, working hard! So all is well! Thanks for everything, you are de BEST!!!!!! Medo wo! (Love you!)

Some pictures arrived just in time for Mother's Day! Elder Hack is not in any of them, but it's fun to see his surroundings, his zone and 

President and Sister Stevenson!

Skype Pictures!

Hello again! Its been soooo long! Haha but yeah it was awesome to get to see and talk to you guys. Indeed it was a bit frustrating, but all in all it was successful! I am glad that after the difficult Skype I just called though haha! I am happy you were able to have a happy Mother's Day and that everyone took good care of ya! Sounds like it was a fun day and that you had lots of fun stuff going on. 

We had a fun time with the pig roast! We killed the little guy at 4 am and fired him up. We had a member prepare us boiled cassava and stew to eat it with and we bought a bunch of cokes and sprites to enjoy with Wilbur. So it  was successful! Yeah I guess I really don't have too much to say, but again I do love you so much! Thanks for the encouragement and all the support. I will definitely continue to work hard, this is the best work! Its kind of hard to talk about over Skype I guess, but really I do love this work and the people. I cherish it all. I will be sad to leave...Ghana is such a peaceful and wonderful place with such wonderful people. I will work hard to do the work! But yeah It's a new transfer here so we will be working hard to do all we can to help others! I love you and am grateful for you! You're the best! [He is staying put in Swedru this transfer and so is his companion as well as the other companionship in his apartment.  He was very happy about that since they all get along really well and he is LOVING Swedru!]

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!

Me pa wo kyo, maayke Madame. Be biaa boko-" Please, good morning Madame. Everything is going great!" There is the translation for you haha! Take that Google! But that same greeting works for this week as well so there ya go! I am indeed doing great! Things here in Swedru are on fire! We had 5 baptisms on Saturday and it was great! We were able to help some families be united and so that was awesome! 3 of the 5 were referrals from members and two were part member families so it was great! We baptized a girl named Faustina Donkor, Selina Korankye, Mabel Korankye, George Williams, and George Williams. No seriously, they both have the same name. They are brothers, 4 months separate. They have the same father but different moms and they live with their grandma who is a member and their sister who is a member. We call them by their Fante names which are Kojo and Kweku, so that makes it a lot easier haha. Oh and FYI my Fante name is Kwame Mensah. Names in Fante are determined by your birth. Kwame is for those born on Saturday and Mensah means the 3rd born of boys. So there ya go! But yeah the baptism was awesome. They all were there on time and it was a great experience. The next day they were all at church early which is rather remarkable and they were confirmed! So what a successful week! We are hoping to have 4 baptisms at least in May, we have lots of promising people we need to work with, the only problem is we have been SO BUSY!!!!!! I swear we don’t ever have a regular day to proselyte. It would be so nice to just have a week of regular proselyting. But that’s ok; we are doing other things that are important also.

We had to go do baptismal interviews on Wednesday all over the zone. First we went to Winneba to do some and well, I made a 10 year old boy cry...yeah I interviewed him and he literally did not know anything at all that the missionaries taught him. So as much as I wanted to say it’s ok and he will learn later, I just couldn’t pass him. I very tenderly told him that the missionaries were gonna come back and teach him some things and then in a few weeks he would get baptized, but after we closed he started crying a bit. So I felt like a bad man for that...Then we rode the 30 mins back to Swedru to get in a car to go 1 hr to Odoben to do an interview. I interviewed another 10 year old which made me nervous haha, but this girl actually knew everything dang well! So that was nice! When we finished it was dark and we were scared we wouldn’t be able to get a car back to Swedru but we were blessed to get the last chopper out of Nam. I went on exchanges this week to the town of Winneba. Fun fact for you, Winneba was originally called Windy Bay by the British but the Ghanaians back then couldn’t pronounce that so it just became Winneba. But it’s a nice place. I went with an elder named E. Obia who is actually from the same branch as E. Odongo oddly enough. But it was a rather interesting day haha. Firstly, I had to do another interview for ANOTHER kid and we went to his house and he was not there. Then we walked to his friend’s house and he was not there. So we walked back to his house and found him! But there was a pastor there who tried to argue with us for 20 minutes so we had to get away from him and then I was able to sit down and interview him. E. Obia assured me he spoke English. But I started the interview and quickly discovered he in fact did not haha....So then we had to walk BACK to his friend’s house where an RM also lives and have him translate. The boy did good though and passed the interview. As you can see, I walked the same path about 10 times that day hahaha. Also, we started teaching this really awesome lady from Nigeria this week. She came to Ghana to live with a friend, but when she got to Accra she lost all contact with the friend and had nowhere to go. She was found by one of the High Councilors who lives in our ward and he brought her to his house so now she is living with his family. She has a 3 year old boy and a 1 year old daughter. Her name is Grace and it would appear the Lord has brought her here to learn the Gospel. She has been prepared. We taught her L.1 about the Apostasy and Restoration yesterday and it went GREAT! She came to church yesterday too and really enjoyed it and she committed to be baptized. So that is exciting! Always so interesting to see how the Lord does His work! Happy to be here in Swedru! Yesterday Bishop Acheampong proselyted with us and we visited some less active members and he helped sort out some disagreements between some of the members. He is such an awesome guy though. He is finishing his PhD right now; he is a really smart guy! We had fun going with him because he is just a cool guy. He was comparing the village we were in to Price and Kumasi to Provo because one of the guys we visited moved from Kumasi to that village. He was like, “Why would he do that? That’s like leaving Provo to go to Price! That place is a joke! If you are not a miner or a janitor your life is gonna be terrible!" It was pretty funny. Did I mention he graduated from USU and Weber?

As for music, I have not really been listening to any lately from the pen drive because others in the apt. usually have something playing so there has been no need really. Sounds like your girls camp thing is coming along nicely! Sounds like a good idea and it will go great I am sure! As for the snail video, [I told him I was watching a video I had taken of him at girls camp before he left on his mission, when he ate a snail as a dare.  He was there as a Priesthood leader] yes I have eaten a lot of worse things such as giant snail, goat ear, goat eye, cat liver, cat intestine, cat heart, dog intestine etc...Sooooo...yeah haha.

 
That is just nuts that Hadyn went to prom...what the heck. And what’s up with Adam driving?! He is 13! That is just wrong! Well, just wait til dad gives him a little bit of fire for something and he won’t want to drive for a while hahaha! [Hadyn is his cousin who is a sophomore, time flies! I told him we let Adam drive around the church parking lot :) ] Tomorrow is when we will watch Meet the Mormons again, I am excited it will be cool! This week should be pretty good though, probably busy as usual! But I am trying to take more pics, I will try and send them tomorrow maybe if I get a chance! Thanks for everything you do for me and thanks for breaking through UVU security to get me registered! Make sure I get a sweet schedule k? If not I will just not come back home. Haha but seriously...

This work is true, it is God’s work and how great it is to know where His truth lies. He has a prophet, He has apostles. He has given us the way that leads to Eternal Life. The simplicity of the road depends on our willingness to follow. Thanks again, LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Picture from the mission blog :)

Winneba Zone - Half of it anyway

Me pa wo kyo, maayke Madame. Be biaa boko! Haha yep so good luck with that one ;) I am doing great! Sounds like you are doing great as well! That is cool you got to go to E. Larsen’s homecoming and that you were able to meet those guys! They are great guys for sure, miss them! That’s awesome Lelea and Cavvy did that song, I remember they sang it once for a mission meeting and it was awesome! Those two can really sing. Wow you are pretty far in the BoM now! You have passed me actually haha! I am in Helaman 4 right now I do believe. That is awesome though that you have noticed the blessings that have come! Good job!

Man this has been a pretty busy week to be perfectly honest haha! Where to start!? Well I guess on Tuesday we had a combined district meeting. That was the first time I have seen the whole zone together actually so that was nice. There really are not too many elders from Utah actually but there are a number from the US. But yeah we instructed and reported on our MLC visit from the previous week. It was good! I really enjoyed the meeting and getting to chat with everyone a bit. It was nice! And the rainy season is on its way for sure because afterwards we went and got food at a chop bar and got stuck in there because of the rain for like 30 minutes! But no problem! We were actually supposed to go on exchanges that day but the elder we were gonna exchange with had a fever so that had to get axed. So hopefully in the coming weeks we will. Wednesday was the day we put on our family counselor hats (or socks or whatever article of clothing it may be) and took care of problems. There is a recent convert who promised two girls he would marry them and obviously that is causing some problems haha. Who would have thought! So we went to visit him and one of those girls was at his house and took that opportunity to complain to us. So we had to tell her not everyone is perfect, that what he did wasn't right, but we can’t force him to do anything and he needs to take care of it. We also met a less active woman who hasn't come to church since she was baptized. She wouldn't open up to us but after a few minutes of talking she opened up and told us exactly her problem. Apparently she is offended by a girl who is a member who is not keeping the commandments but still goes to church. So I guess in her mind that is a good reason for her not to keep the commandments. That one I don’t understand. Somebody else has a problem so you’re gonna let that create a problem for you? Ok! But Thursday we had to travel to deliver some supplies to the elders who we couldn't go on exchanges with and it is FAR. We took an hour and a half tro tro ride to their area. It was a lot like the Indiana Jones ride! Good old roads in the bush! Yeah it’s a place called Odoben and it’s pretty remote. But we made it there alive! They took us to a chop bar then we came back and met POURING rain again. We got there just as it finished actually and all the 5 foot deep 3 foot wide gutters were just full. The streets were flooded in some places. Further evidence that rainy season is knocking on the door. Or here haha. And then we have Friday! Friday we had about 5 different things going on. We of course had Presidents interviews, we had to give an instruction, we had to have our people interviewed for baptism and we had to teach institute. So that was a fun day to prepare for haha. But the interviews were just awesome. The assistants gave a great instruction on working with members then we gave a nice instruction on working with recent converts and less active members. It went well! We were able to tie it in nicely to the AP's instruction so it was interesting for people. Sis. Stevenson instructed on adjusting to the challenges of missionary life and then we ate lunch and watched Meet the Mormons! It was awesome! I missed the beginning because I was being interviewed, but I came in during the US Naval coaches part and saw the rest! Man that is a POWERFUL movie! I really enjoyed it! We get to see it again next week because, as you pointed out, our zone was not complete! Only one district got interviewed then, the other two are next Tuesday. So that will be good! I am excited to see the whole thing! I had a nice interview with President though. We were supposed to share with him things we  learned from personal study so it was nice to talk to him about what I have been studying. I am of course studying in Helaman right now but also I have been going through Preach My Gospel as well. I just went through all the commitments we are to extend to people and thought of the blessings that come from keeping those commitments and now I am finding those blessings in the scriptures. So that is nice! This weekend has been stake conference as well so the past two days that’s what we have been doing. The power was out Friday night and our battery died as well! The apartment is not in a breezy place so it was about 500000000000000000000 degrees during the night. I woke up just sweating like crazy. I ended up using a Plan of Salvation pamphlet to fan myself. Oh man everyone slept for a cumulative of 1.5 hours that night. So Saturday stake conference was a bit hard to pay attention to haha. But it was actually really good. President was there and spoke and he did awesome. I always like listening to him speak. So on the agenda for today is we are going to Takoradi actually....E. Kaiser needs Sis. Julander to cut his hair as he is balding and only she can cut it well. So we are going from one corner of the mission to the other! Haha that will be sweet though! Oh and as for Mothers Day which is quickly  approaching I am 90% sure Skyping will happen! The church has WiFi and a computer then Bishop has a laptop so we will more than likely do that! So prepare! Prepare accordingly for the day is not far removed! As for the pic of me in the suit, when I was packing for transfers in Cape I put it on. The whole story about it sitting in the mission home is the biggest hoax in the world. I have had it at the bottom of my bag for the past 20 months. So I took it out, ironed it, and decided to put it on haha. I do look good don’t I! Um no I have not yet handed any of the bracelets out yet. I will get on that one....sorry. I have not yet videoed myself either to be perfectly honest. I moved around more than Obama this past week so hopefully this week will be less hectic and I will be able to! The work moves forward. 5 baptisms this week, referrals are coming in steadily, Swedru is awesome. This is God’s work to save His children. He is in control of everything. I am so thankful to be able to witness His hand in all things here at this time. I know He lives. I know it is true. Nobody is exempt from being able to know that. He invites all to "come and see." If we seek we shall truly find. That I know is true. You are the BEST mom in the whole world! Thank you for everything you do for me! I love you so much! Talk to you soon!