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!