Morning!!!!

I am doing just fantastic! Yes this has honestly been a terrific week! The Lord has helped and blessed us soooo much! The Pres is stepping up his game! He apparently HAS had a change of heart. Yesterday went great, he was happy and actually gave some members callings! Things are looking on the up!  Hopefully he will keep it up! He gave some members callings and organized a temple prep class and Seminary, so that’s good. We had 5 of our investigators come to church yesterday too so that was sweet! This guy named E came who we met because he started coming to church on his own. He doesn’t speak english or have a phone so we had a hard time finding where he lives, but this week we found it and wow the guy has been prepared by the Lord for sure. He is from Ivory Coast and was Muslim, but felt there was something wrong with the church so he started looking for a new church. He didn’t like how all the other churches play drums and stuff and so he saw the sign one day and decided to come and says he felt something different when he came!!!! So we sat down with him on Wednesday for the first time and gave him a baptismal date for March 16th! We have taught him about the Restoration and Book of Mormon and he understands it sooo well and asked such great questions it is amazing! Yesterday he brought his wife and kids to church so that was awesome!!! I am excited to keep teaching him! Another guy named R came and he is similar, came to the church on his own a few weeks ago. He is a teacher in the next town called Nsein and we went and visited him once for just a few minutes and he asked such great questions and understood so well. We are really gonna try to go see him more this week! I am excited to see what the next few weeks bring though! Things are really going really well. I have been feeling so grateful to the Lord for all the blessings He has given me! He helps me so much! I am so happy He called me here! This is an amazing place even though it is pretty weird at times!!! I wish you could come and see it, but idk if you could survive here ;) But seriously, there is no Diet Coke.

That’s cool I have made it onto the mission blog two weeks in a row, I would go look but we are not supposed to go onto it... Yeah I am glad you liked the pics last week! There were some gems in there haha! Me and Elder Larsen are doing good and the 4 man apartment is awesome! We have the best apartment in the mission I think!  We do play Jenga sometimes and I forgot about the bop it, but I played it once and it was fun haha! I am glad the Timbermine was sweet for my bday celebration, I had some top ramen for my bday dinner, just saying haha. That is really weird that 7th grade orientation for Adam is coming, wow. Yeah it does feel like mine was just the other day. Is he excited? Yeah wow that is pretty dang weird. Glad the Olympics were good, too bad we tanked in hockey though! Old Putin is probably not smiling, but I am sure he is pretty happy on the inside.

Hey just a quick thought. If you are ever sending a flat rate or a package, could you send one or two of those ward missionary flyer things? Those would be kinda cool to look at. And maybe some guitar tabs for church music or nice country music? I’m sure you could just google lds guitar tabs or something like that. But yeah that would be sweet! We are going into week 4 of our 6 week transfer, so the next one will be in a few weeks. I honestly think I could go, but then again with the clerk thing and whatnot maybe I will stay. Only time will tell I suppose! Thank you for everything you do for me! I love you soo much!  HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!! YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!

Huge Spider in the big garbage can.  About the size of my fist!

 

Takoradi Zone

Hello!!!

Thank you soo much for the birthday wishes! So you’re gonna dine in my honor eh? Well can’t you find some fufu haha?! If that isn’t a possibility then go to the Timbermine. That sounds good, yeah I think I'll have that. I will be sure to take a picture with the ding dongs and candles you sent though!  We are in Takoradi today because we had combined district meeting and Pres. Shulz came to do interviews so we decided to email today instead of yesterday! It’s been a sweet day today though. I bought a guitar here for 160 cedis, so that’s sweet haha! It’s made in the US apparently. Elder Julander helped me pick it out, he owned a music shop back home. It’s an acoustic. Happy b-day right?! It was great having interviews too. President Shulz is an amazing man and he helped me feel better about the situation in the branch. Oh on to the branch, President Nokoe is staying, so we will just roll with it I guess... Hopefully he will be better. President Shulz talked to him for a while so we will see! I have a feeling nothing will change, but you gotta sustain your leaders.  The stress I get from the branch is not too fun haha. I have to say, all week I am so happy then Sundays roll around and I just feel exhausted, that’s not how Sundays should be! Oh well though. We are working on it.

But nothing special happens here for birthdays, so that’s too bad haha! But Elder and Sister Julander got me a gift, I have not gotten it yet so we will see what it is!  And I got grandmas package today too so double bonus!  Elder Cavaness is sweet though, we get along really well. He had double hernia surgery that’s why he had to go. He has a sweet story about some miracles that happened while he was home and stuff, I will have to type it out sometime, but today we only bought 1 hour of email :) He is a really good missionary though. Wow I didn’t know Courtney Scott was going to serve a mission! That’s sweet!!! Tell her congrats and good luck, the 9th will be here before she knows it!

There are lots of bats here! In Axim they all come out when the sun is setting and they fly from an island onto the mainland. I forgot to tell you about that! I meant to! Yeah there are TONS at night it’s really cool to see them all flying in the sky. There are GIANT bats in Cape Coast and Accra apparently.

The past few weeks have been stretching me, which hurts at the time, but in the end you grow so much and are so thankful for the trials that God has given you. I know He is constantly teaching us, we just have to be meek and willing to learn, which can be difficult at times. But I am thankful for the difficulties that have come! I will have to look up that scripture tonight, my favorite is Philippians 4:13, I’m sure I have shared that with you before but still!  We had a baptism on Saturday for a man named Daniel. He is married to Elizabeth who was baptized a few weeks ago! So that is awesome, we will be encouraging them to go to the temple. There is a new family history booklet and stuff we are going to be introducing to recent converts to help them do family history so we will have to share that with them! I got to baptize him though! Only like 5 members of the branch came to see his baptism, so that was frustrating. If ever a convert gets baptized in the ward, be sure to go because it can make all the difference for them! The work here in Axim is going pretty well though. We are finding new people who I am excited about. The other day we were contacting people in some spare time and I had the prompting to go down this alleyway and so we went and walked for a bit until we ran into this man sitting on his steps that we started talking to. He is named Samuel and is a Jehovah's Witness, and is so humble and willing to learn. We were just talking to him but we ended up teaching him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and he is excited. Always follow the Spirit and you will be ok!

It will please you to know that we get fed just about every night! This lady named Cecelia who is the aunt of our recent convert Paul always calls around 6 and tells us she has food ready. So we go and she loads it into a picnic basket and sends us on our way! Sweet lady! Sadly she won’t leave her church, we taught her for some time but she won’t let go! She loves to feed us though! Every Sunday the Primary president prepares us fufu or rice balls with soup, so we are fed well here in Axim! Axim is so sweet! 

I love you sooooo much! President Shulz said in my interview that I must come from a good family, and I had to agree, you are the BEST mom EVER! And you are the best dad in the world! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in my case haha!!! LOVE YOU! Thank you for everything you do and thanks for always helping me!!! LOVE YOU!!!

 In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the elders trek today!

 This was a really cute baby we saw the other day. Don't mind the creepy cartoon in the background...

Me and Daniel! This guy is powerful!!!

Elder Larsen, Daniel, and yours truly!

Me and Elder Moleme. Not sure if this is appropriate but he insisted haha!

The guys working at the beach had a box full of kittens for some reason. They were feeding them fufu.

Got this chicken salad sandwich at Axim Beach on monday. We had a district p day there and played soccer and stuff. It was sweet!

 Some birds chillin at the church

Walking to Church - Elders Moleme, Hack, Cavaness and Larsen

Awesome Missionaries!!

Hello from Ghana! Sounds like everyone is doing good. I got the packages yesterday...THANK YOU!!! They are awesome, thank you soo much for everything! They say I have another one in the mission office so I guess that’s the one from Grandma! Hopefully it will be here in the coming week. I will try not to get too fat off of everything in there!

This week has had its ups and downs. The beginning of the week was…rough. Probably one of the roughest few days of my life. The pressure here started getting to me and it was not fun. Between the branch, transfers, the lack of serious investigators, things were hard. But just like those quotes you shared, the Lord gives us things to strengthen us. I realized that a few days ago while I was reading a talk by Neal A Maxwell. It was good and I figured that the Lord has been refining me, He knows what He wants us to become even when sometimes we don’t.  

We will be having another baptism on Saturday for Daniel, so we are excited about that! He chose me to baptize him so I am grateful for that opportunity. Hopefully he will pass the interview and all will be well! After he baptizes I don’t know exactly who we will focus on. With all the drama in the branch, getting referrals is a problem, and there are no serious investigators at the moment. We will figure it out though. The Lord will bless us if we are doing what is right and are obedient.

Elder Caveness is in our apartment now and he is awesome. I really like him and he also brought a washer, a toaster, a weight set, and others, so we are living luxurious now! Last transfer went so quick, this coming transfer I don’t know if I will stay or go. I am not sure what I want to do either. Because I feel like Axim can be so tough at times haha. But it really is a sweet place too and has so much potential. I’m not sure. But I know that wherever I go in 5 weeks is for the best, the Lord knows us better than we know us. Sunday was a pretty good day I suppose. The Julanders came. The branch president wanted to sit in the congregation until he found out they were coming then he changed the whole agenda and directed the meeting himself.

Thank you for the pics as well haha they made me smile. We are here in Takoradi so I will send some pics now, they say more than words right? Oh and on Wednesday we went to an island so there are some sweet pics! We took a boat there at 9 am and it was sweet to be on a boat! I miss boating now.  There were kids "tubing" by holding onto a rope in the boat and sitting on a piece of wood. They were going about 5 mph and thought it was awesome, so I can imagine what they would think of real boating haha! But we were on the island from 9 to 1 because the boat left us there haha. It was just us 4 missionaries and the guy who watches the lighthouse located on the island. But I will send the pics and let you behold! I love you sooooooo much! Thank you for the prayers and all you do, it helps! The Lord is refining me at the moment, but I know that through Him I can be better than I am!  Love you soo much!

Axim Beach again! Last Sunday we explored a bit more 

and it's amazing!

Paradise in Ghana

I promise not all of Ghana is like this haha!

We walked through the tide pools and threw rocks at crabs

 Me, Larsen and Cavaness

This is not on that island, but is on a peninsula that I told you about a few weeks ago. Observe!

 Axim is beautiful for sure!

Another pic from the peninsula!

Gaze upon the Gulf of Guinea 

Us on the boat. That's Bro Armoo, the 1st counselor. He took us to the island then left haha.

Land Ho!

Me, Elder Larsen and Grace, that was a great day!

Us with Grace and her family

The baptism the other week! Me, Grace, Samuel, Agnes, Kofi, 

and Elder Kalahiki

Well this one needs some explaining, right? Me and Larsen were going to teach a lesson and we are walking past this shack and Larsen says, "Are those poptarts?" I look over and inside I see a GIANT box of poptarts so I walk in. There is poptarts, Kraft mac n cheese, Juicy Juice, Cheetos, Doritos, BBQ Sauce, all sorts of stuff! We came back the next day with the other elders and cash and we bought that stuff. I bought grape juice, mac n cheese and some toothpaste! It was pricey but sooo good! I had the 5 cedi mac n cheese last night and it was amazing! The lady gave us everything in the wal mart bags so i guess wal mart ships stuff that they don't sell to Africa? The juice expired in November so I guess that's why they sent it, it was still good though. I had some doritos and they were stale. The giant poptarts were already sold so we couldn't get them! But maybe next time!

Morning!

I am glad that everything is good there at home and that you made it home safely!

This has been a pretty good week. On Tuesday we had our district meeting in Tarkwa, which is pretty far. But Elder Moleme actually opened that area up when he was new on his mission so it was cool for him to go there. We had a nice meeting and got pizza at a hotel called Hotel de Hilda after and it was soooo good! After, we walked around and visited people he knew. It was me, Larsen, Kalahiki, Keetch, and Williams all following Moleme for like 3 hours as he visited people haha. But we left around 4:30, which was kinda late and I was a little nervous because you can’t go directly from Tarkwa to Axim, you have to stop in Agona for a "connecting flight" and they stop around 6. We got to Agona and lo and behold, there were no tros to Axim left. So yeah, we were stuck. Luckily we were able to hitch a ride with a truck to the junction of Axim. Haha it was interesting. There were 5 people crammed in the back seat and then us 4 elders crammed into the front seats. Elder Moleme had to sit on Kalahikis lap for the 2 hour ride hahaha!  But we made it to the junction of Axim around 7:30 and had to walk for an hour into the town through the pitch black. It was pretty fun honestly hahaha! Then on Wednesday Elder Larsen was sick. We taught 1 lesson to Elizabeth who just got baptized. We taught her about the temple and sealings and she was so excited it was sweet. She wants to do family history and go and get sealed in a year. Her husband Daniel will be baptized on the 15th too, so that’s awesome! After that lesson a member prepared all 4 of us banku and "peppe" as it is called, which is like really really hot salsa. It was really good! But Larsen was feeling sick that morning and the banku put the nail in the coffin. We went home and it was like 12. He had a fever and was just not feeling well so we stayed in all day. So that day was kinda boring. The next day he was still not feeling the best, but we went out and proselyted. The zone leaders, Elder Ndah and Caveness came on splits that day with the other elders and then Friday Elder Caveness came with us. He is from Alta and he is sweet. We had a fun day with him and we went to a peninsula in the area and got some sweet pics so I will have to send them next time I am in Takoradi. But on Saturday we had our baptism and yeah Grace got baptized. It was sweet!! I got to baptize her and it was awesome! We had 4 people baptized that day and so it was sweet!  We also got transfer news on Saturday evening. We were expecting to have a Ghanaian come and be branch president, but it turns out it’s Elder Caveness that is coming to Axim, which is strange. He was our zone leader and had only been one for 1 transfer, so for him to get put here in the same zone is an interesting move, but I’m sure it is inspired. So who will be the branch president here I don’t know. Yesterday was really not a good Sunday. The Julanders came to our branch which was sweet, and when Pres Nokoe found out he decided to come as well. The 1st time he has come to church in a month. He didn’t even sit on the stand he sat in the crowd. There is a girl in the branch wanting to serve a mission and has done all her papers, she just needs Nokoe to interview her. Her father is a nonmember and said that if she doesn’t get things going soon, she won’t be able to go and will go to school instead. So yeah, after sacrament I went and asked Nokoe if he would interview her and he refused saying he had "personal reasons" for not and that the next president could do it. I told him that she needs to be interviewed or else she won’t be able to go and he said he wouldn’t do it. I was sooooo mad, I had to walk away right there or else I was gonna give it to him. But luckily I just walked away. Moleme was with me and was my witness as to what happened. During 2nd hour we were doing the tithing and Nokoe came in and yelled at us because the other elders were trying to give our recent converts the priesthood and he didn’t agree or something and he yelled at all of us and he yelled at me especially because I was apparently trying to tell him what to do and he talked about how he sacrifices so much to be branch president and how there is no consistency in the church or something. It was so hard not to dig into him but I restrained and just shook my head at him. I can’t believe he would yell at us like that, it was ridiculous. I love how he told 4 missionaries about what sacrifice is too. He doesn’t even do anything, that’s the thing. He doesn’t do any branch business at all. Ahhhh....haha I'll let that one go though.

We took the Julanders to Axim Beach after church to visit and man we explored a bit more than I have before and found some amazingly beautiful areas. If you ever want to visit Ghana, that is the place to go! Wow I got some nice pics there as well! But the Julanders gave us free haircuts so I am nice and groomed haha! When they left they took Elder Kalahiki with them so it’s just the three of us til Wednesday when Caveness comes! I hope this week will be sweet, we need to find new people to teach since we have been baptizing everyone :) So I think we will focus a lot of time on finding people this week.

Oh the packages made it here in record time!!! I got a text on Friday that they are in the office, now I’m just waiting for someone to bring them out to me! Hopefully this week I will get them so thank you sooo much for sending them! You are awesome! I hope everything goes well this week for you back home! I love you sooo much and will talk to you next week! Love you!! 

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