Aloha!

I am doing pretty good! Glad you have had some time in the sun before you head back into a Rocky Mountain winter. The ocean here is doing pretty good. Its full of garbage as usual, but looks good from afar :) No whales have been seen, but hopefully at some point they will return! I enjoyed the pictures! Haha Adam looks so thrilled to be in all of them. The pic of the bats killed me! He looks ready to run! Sounds like a good little trip though. The Chargers won, Disneyland is always a hit, Animal Park is probably pretty cool it sounds like! Did you get any clam chowder from that little place on the sea?

I have not yet received any packages, but maybe tomorrow because that is when we get supplies and such. I sent my letter to you about a week or so ago so hopefully it will be there soon! How many are on the way?! It sounds like I have Fresh Market in the mail hahaha. Thank you sooo much! Tell Grandma thanks as well, I will enjoy that money on some pizza! If you convert it, a pizza costs about 7 dollars so yeah! That $50 will go a long way :) Haha ohh why do I have to know the conversion? It justifies so much spending. Is my account doing ok btw? Hope so! Yeah transfers are coming. To be perfectly honest, I have always hated transfers. They just depress me. Getting a new companion or moving areas is always a process and adjustment. This time I get to help out getting everyone everywhere so yeah it is a bonus haha! But it will all be good. Yeah I am getting a new companion though. Elder Ntsie is going to open a new zone in Tarkwa. That will be cool for him! The zone includes Axim also so that is sweet. But my new companion is named Elder Odongo. He is from Uganda. That means I have had 2 American companions, 2 Ghanaian companions, 2 Ugandan companions, and 1 South African. I will need to get one more South African to balance this bad boy out! He goes home in February so I will probably be his last companion. I’m gonna be in Cape a long time, which is ok with me! But yeah, Saturday we went to the AP's apartment and we were given transfer news and ice cream! Then we called all in the zone and told them the news. After, we went into the office and I typed up the "logistics" in excel. It’s a sheet showing where everyone is coming from and where everyone is going. Wednesday we will be manning the two tro tro stations and getting everyone where they need to go so the paper shows where all will go. It’s the system we have used for a long time, this time I got to type it up so that is cool!

So for this week it has been good! On Monday we had the worst Family Home Evening ever haha! It was with our investigator Ben who will get baptized next month. He has a wife and 3 kids. The wife has not sat with us so we wanted to have fun with them and the kids. We tried to come up with a game we could play with them. I thought of a simple but fun game I had played with some friends one time. You fill a cup with flour and put a coin inside as well. Compact the flour and flip it over on a plate and it will make a sandcastle. You then take turns cutting into it with a knife until it falls. Whoever makes it fall has to dig the coin out with their nose. We thought it would be fun, so we bought a cup of flour, took a plastic cup and knife. Well, it didn’t go well haha. The cup was too big, the flour wouldn’t compact so when it turned over it would just collapse. Ben got some water and decided to pour it into the flour to make it stick. Let’s just say it turned into a big mess haha. The wife asked him in Fante, "what are they doing?" He responded, "Even me, I don’t know." Haha it was like we were making cakes or something! We got flour on their floor, Ben got his hands covered in dough, and no game was played. It was so embarrassing. The wife probably thought we were putting a curse on the family or something. "Why did they put a coin in the flour and make dough?" Haha oh well, they are still friendly to us and the teaching is going well so no problem! What else? Well we took a sister named Sister Okorie to get her wisdom tooth pulled out! We spent hours in a pretty nice dentist’s office. We went two mornings in a row. The reason being is because after them checking the tooth they needed an x ray. Well their x ray machine was broken so they sent us to a different office like 15 minutes away. We went there and they didn’t have one. They directed us to the hospital. We went there and they didn’t have one. They directed us to another office 30 more minutes away. We went there. They told us they had the machine, but not the x ray film. That film is bought at the hospital we just left from.... So the next morning the sisters bought the film and got the x ray. They then met us at the original office where they pulled the tooth. Oh I am thankful for medical facilities back home haha!  It was really cheap though, it only cost 70 cedis. That’s like what, $20? Wow! In other news our investigator named S. showed back up. We saw her and she tearfully told us how she was being forced out of cape coast by a neighbor because of her situation with the court case. She said they were forcing her back to Takoradi and was so sad because she would have to live with her Catholic family who would not let her join the church. She was soo sad because she says she knows the Church is true. We said goodbye. Then two days later we went to the house and in joy she told us she worked things out and wants to be baptized as soon as possible! We were thrilled and gave her a date for the 13th December! We taught her a great lesson on the Restoration. We had Stake Conference this Sunday which I will talk about in a moment, but she came and she LOVED it! She said she felt the Spirit and cried during the meeting. She asked why she had to wait all until the 13th for her baptism, couldn’t we just do it now? She said it feels like she has found something she lost. She feels complete. That was so powerful. We gave her the Book of Mormon last time and she read the introduction so we taught about the Book of Mormon and she was so excited and loves the Gospel! She has been prepared by the Lord! Very cool!

We had Stake Conference on Saturday and Sunday and they were both wonderful. Sunday the stake center was PACKED!!!! People were sitting in the halls! Wall to wall people. It was a satellite broadcast from SLC though for all African stakes. Elder Bednar, Sister Stevens, and President Uchtdorf talked. They talked a lot about gospel culture and eliminating parts of culture that are not in line with what the Savior teaches. They both specifically spoke about no more bride prices. That and no extravagant funerals and weddings. The reason being is people go into debt. That was seen this last week when a recent convert was having a family party. He can’t even feed all the members of his family each day yet he borrowed a ton of money from a relative in the US to get speakers and canopies for his party. People go way too far with these things. So it was interesting to hear about from the Brethren.

I am doing good though. I have a good quote I found again in the Bishops office. Watch your thoughts they become words. Watch your words they become actions. Watch your actions they become habits. Watch your habits they become character. Watch your character it becomes your destiny. It all starts with thoughts eh? Very true!  I hope you will have a great Thanksgiving though! I am so thankful for my wonderful family back home; you guys really are the best! I am so thankful for this wonderful time I have to serve the Lord. I am so thankful for the Church. I am so thankful for the Gospel. I am so thankful for the Savior. I love you sooo much! You really are the best!  This will be a stressful week, but it’s all good! I am thankful for the time I have to learn and grow! Have a great week!!!