Christmas!

Best Christmas present EVER!!! He is doing so good and it was so good to hear his voice and the little bit of an accent that he has already picked up! He loves Ghana, loves the people, and loves being a missionary!  We love him and LOVE seeing him so happy!  

Transfers Dec. 18, 2017

Hey Ma, I've tried to send my email twice but it won't work, We're on the worst computers I've ever seen and I only have about 20 seconds to type and send before it deletes it. Sorry there's no long email this week but we had two baptisms. One was a 14 year old boy and one was a fisherman.  Elder Hess will be transferred this week and my new companion is Elder Nick Phiri (pronounced Fury like nick Fury on the Avengers ha ha) from Zimbabwe.  Elder Hess was in the MTC with him and says he is a cool guy.  No pictures this week again, I think I have a virus on my card because I can't get anything to open up.  Welcome to Africa! ha

The Polar Express Dec. 11, 2017

Well this was a pretty exciting week. We went to the mission home and had our Christmas Zone Conference. It was just some small instruction and then we ate bow tie noodles with chicken and pea alfredo sauce. It was sooo good. We also watched the polar express and lots of the Africans thought it was a little strange because they don't know who santa was but it was fun. This is the last week of the transfer so Elder Hess might be gone. Other than that its been a normal week.

 Tarkwa Zone

 We had discussions about the Savior.  Our first mission purpose is to "seek the love of the Lord".

the entire mission got to be part of the Hillam Family Christmas Pageant. I am a Shephard.

"Holy Ghost Fire!" Dec. 3, 2017

Well, this was a pretty good week. We had 8 new investigators, and now have 10 investigators with a baptismal dates, but since everyone decided to travel all at once we had a big fat 0 for inv. at church Sunday when we usually have like 5 or 6, at least. We did get to play some volleyball at Axim beach hotel today right on the beach. They have really good American food there and one of our church members is in charge of it and a few others work there. It was really nice to acually do somthing on p-day other than wash clothes and clean the apartment. This week has gotten really really hot and we get 20 yards away from the apartment and we're already soaked in sweat. There's been lots of Church Crusades, which is just a really loud all night church program which will usally last about a week. We have a few close to the apartment and all we can hear all night is preachers yelling "Holy Ghost Fire" and then speak in tongues, which is usually just the pastor yelling one word over and over like "walawalawalawala".  
 Missions are really sweet you just have to stop worrying about anything but the work, when we're set apart we're literally set apart from the world. We dont have to worry about getting a job or money, you don't have to worry about friends, you don't have to worry about yourself, you do your part and the Lord will take care of everything else, for all that God has done for me, Two years of 100% is the least I can give back, and God will bless me and my family and the mission isn't just for God but it has already truly converted me and will give me skills that I can use my entire life. I have probably tripled my testimony in the 3 months (on Wednesday) that I've been out. And that's everything new for this week!

Dirty Font Nov. 27, 2017

Hey! There wasn't tons new that happened this week. It's hard to believe it's almost December and there's no snow on the ground at home. I've been out in the field for 2 months as of yesterday and I can't believe it. It still feels like I just got here. We celebrated Thanksgiving with instant potatoes and meat from the meat stand and there was no football, so not quite the same as at home haha. 

And something I forgot to mention last week, when we started filling up the font, we went to sunday school and when we went to check on it the water was nasty. Turns out that the pump for the well at the chapel broke and it filled with city water but we went through with the baptism anyway. But thanks to the Clemets ( our elderly couple for Axim) it was fixed the nexy day haha. Other than that its been a pretty normal week.

 Dirty Font

Interview with the President this week

 

African Antelope

African Bee

Baptism! Nov. 20, 2017

Well, I finally got my first baptism this week. It was the Elders quorum president's wife and their family is super excited cause now the whole family are members. Her name is Sister Yankey and she was the 2nd person I ever taught and she didn't make it easy but after 8 weeks we finally got it done. It was a little slow when i got here but now if everything goes as planned by the end of December we should have 5 more baptisms. 

I'm loving Ghana but there's a joke that your body doesn't get used to the food, your body just gets used to diarrhea haha. The food here is still super good though. Other than that it's been a pretty normal week, and as always, it's been getting hotter and hotter everyday.

Sister Yankey

   

How many Members can you Cram in a Van! Nov. 13, 2017

This week was pretty exciting. We had our district conference ( a district is a small stake like a branch compared to a ward). We had to travel to Takoradi for it and so the church got 3 15 passenger vans. Well we fit 33 in each van and it was super crammed and way hot and we had to travel 2 hours there and another 2 hours back. It was a super good conference though. It's been getting hotter and hotter then just randomly rain crazy hard for an hour then back to hot and twice as humid cause of the water evaporating, but what I hear this is nothing compared to how hot and humid it'll get in January. We also got 2 new Elders in our apartment straight from the MTC. Both of them are from the DR Congo and speak French but they've gotten pretty good at english. We're finally going to have a baptism this week for a lady named Sister Yankey. Her husband is the Elders Quorum pres. and was one of the original members in Ghana.  The church has only been here for 40 years. So it's super exciting to their family because their whole family will finally be members. 
Because of the dry season there has been a ton of roaches. We usually have 2 in the apartment a day that we kill. They're all around 3 in long and can fly. Elder Hess even had one in his shoe once. We were getting ready to exercise and he was putting on his tennis shoes, and because its so hot we usually don't wear socks when we work out cause we sweat too much if we do, but he put his whole bare foot in and realized there was something in his shoe and  ripped it off and a huge roach fell out haha. We now check all of our shoes before we put them on. Other than that Ghana is still awesome, the mission is still awesome, and I'm still loving it.

 Elder Owens (elder hess' trainer), Elder Hess (my trainer), Elder Brown (elder Owens is training and my mtc buddy) & Me