It's my Birthday! May 7, 2018

First of all, Thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes.  It was awesome to get a whole bunch of emails.  It's been a good day! It also marks my 8 months exactly.  I have grown a lot, it's hard to describe how but I've grown and I know the mission is really helping me.  I know the scriptures so much more and I have really learned a lot about being self reliant.  How do I keep going day to day?  I don't know I just get up and go do it.  I really do enjoy proselyting. 

Not a lot of different things happened this week, just the usual. I really like Elder Aluse, my new comp. He is really a cool guy.  The area is picking up again.  We have 7 new investigators. I hope everyone is doing good back home.  

I just got a hair cut and it is really short.

New Comp- Elder Aluse April 30, 2018

Hey! this was a good week. I got my new companion Elder Aluse from Kenya. He's a super cool guy and turns out he is one of the best rugby players in Kenya. He played for Kenya's national team. He's been out about 17 months.  He speaks great English but his native language is the Lion king language, hakuna matata language ha ha, it's called Swahili. He is a convert of 2013. 
We got Collins confirmed this week so he's officially a member and is super exited. We also had our branch conference this week and President Hillam, our mission president, gave a good talk on applying ministering in our branches. Other then that it's been a normal week of walking a lot in the heat.

Little Collins and a little golf April 23, 2018

 I can't believe it but its been another transfer. Piutau has  been transfered which is what we were hoping wouldn't happen but it's the Lord that chooses. So I'm excited to get a new comp and Piutau’s exited to go to a new area. This morning me, Jeppson, and Brown all went golfing and it was alot of fun. Never did I ever think I'd be golfing in Africa surrounded by jungle on my mission haha.

 We also had a baptism yesterday. He's a young boy named Collins. Collins is 10 and we’ve taught him since the 1st day I was here in Tarkwa and we never took him serious because he's small and no one in his family are members so no support but he came to church 17 weeks in a row so we decided to baptize him. He's funny and likes black panther. 

He's super excited and loves the church. He was happy he finally got baptized. Other then that its been a good week and I'm doing great. 

A little under the weather! April 14, 2018

Well, this week started out with me feeling sick from some unsanitary food. So Tuesday we didn't get tons done. Wednesday was better but still not feeling great. Thursday we had a combined 3 zone zone conference in Takoradi. I ate for the 1st time since Sunday there and that night I had the worse runny tummy of my life. I felt a little better on friday but still didn't eat. On saturday we had the adult and priesthood sessions of our Tarkwa District conference. After Me, Piutau, Brown, and Tupola went to a the golf clubhouse restaurant again and ate some really good food. I luckily was feeling better. On Sunday we went right back down to Takoradi for the general session of our District conference. So it was a lot of traveling. I'm feeling better now though. Not to scare you Mom, but it's crazy to be a missionary and not get worms.  Everything out here is prepared unsanitary!

strike a pose

 me and Elder Massaquoi

 Elder Piutua, that is a popsicle stick not a cigar ha

Elder massaquoi napping on the couch

Conference April 3, 2018

Well I can't believe it but I've already had my second  General Conference on my mission. We watched the Saturday morning session Saturday night just the missionaries at the internet cafe. When they did the solemn assembly all of us stood up in the cafe and raised our hands it was kinda funny. Then on Sunday we watched the Saturday afternoon Priesthood session, and Sunday morning back to back, so it was along 6 hours. It was cool to see things changed up but it was weird not to see Pres Monson. Easter here has been crazy. In Ghana they celebrate Easter for 4 days straight. And it celebrated by going to church in the morning for like 7 hours then getting drunk all night. All night we can here all the churches dancing and speaking in tongues haha. So it was a pretty good week. 

This is Elder Brown .. his mom sent my mom part of his email this week and my mom wanted to save it for me..... 

I wanted to share part of  Matthew’s (Elder Brown’s) letter this week with you. He couldn’t say enough about how much he and Elder Harris get along. He sees them being life long friends. 😊

 What an awesome week we had here in Tarkwa!!! The week started off on Wednesday when E. Harris and I were on exchange. Since E. Tupola is the DL he likes to go on exchanges everyweek. Let me tell you a little about E. Harris. So E. Harris and I came to Ghana together from the states. We didnt really know each other all that much when we were in the MTC. It wasn't until we were taking the bus from Accra to Cape Coast that we became really good friends. E. Harris is a farm boy from Idaho and is such a nice guy! He loves to hunt and  spend time out doors. On Wednesday he came to my area and I still didn't know it all that well and didn't really know were any of the investigators lived yet. So we spent the day just mostly walking in the rain and just laughing and having a good time. We did teach a lesson though to one of our investigators. His name was Timothy and we taught him about Prophets. He refused to pray about Russel M. Nelson being a prophet. He just wanted us to tell him who a false prophet was and who wasn't. I was a little worried about E. Harris and I teaching because I was unsure how it would go. It turned out that E. Harris and I can teach really well together. We knew exactly when to switch off and when the other one was ending. We were able to have the spirit there (the spirit was so strong) and we were able to resolve Timothy's concerns. That was easily the best lesson that I sat in since being here in Ghana because the Spirit that was felt there was so intense. I hope Timothy will pray and find out the truth. And I hope me and E. Harris will be companions at some point.

This is a make shift bridge to walk over a swampy area

Here’s our chapel when we were getting ready to watch conference.

Fish Hatchery Service Project March 26, 2018

Well it's been a good week. We still haven't got our water fixed but the work is moving on. On Saturday we went to do a service project for a man named Brother French. We went to his fish hatchery where he grows catfish and tilapia. He's a super rich guy and owns like 200 acres and calls it Zion's Camp. Well we spent all day building a lookout over one of his ponds. It was a lot of fun and after we ate some really good rice that his wife made. Other then that its been a normal week. 
                             

 Elder Howard, Me and Elder Brown

 Elder Howard (from Utah), Elder Tupala (from Utah)D.L., and me

 Elder Piutua

Broken pump = Bucket showers in dirty water! March 19, 2018

Well this week was a good week but we didn't get to see as many people as we wanted to. Mostly because of crazy rain all day and people just not being home but we still got to see the people we needed to. 
Our water pump broke so we've had no water since last Monday so we've been pulling water from a well.  This means bucket showers but I'm used to that, I think I've had more bucket showers than regular. The problem is the water from the well is super nasty so I hope we can get a new pump soon. We don't drink this water though so we can go a while like this if we need to.  All our drinking water is in little sachets that the mission supplies and delivers whenever we run out.  We can buy cold ones almost anywhere so we don't have to pack them with us. They cost 20 pesways or you can buy them for 3 cedis for 30.  That is less than $1 american money for 30.  I had fufu yesterday for the first time since I left Axim.  In Axim people are always pounding fufu, you can always hear the pounding and its everywhere but here in Tarkwa yesterday is the first I've seen it.  Here they eat a lot of banku and my favorite emo tuo which is like a rice ball and both are served with soup.  A lady in our branch feeds us every Sunday and this is where we get to eat all the good cultural food.  She is the Relief Society President, she's single and is raising her 7 year old nephew.  This is a very typical situation here in Ghana. 

This is our water sachet.  It is pretty much the only clean water in the whole country.

 This is a picture of Banku.  It is served with soup.

If we're not eating with a member then we cook eggs or indomie which is kinda like ramen noodles but we cook them and then fry them with veggies, like a ramen noodle stir fry.  Other than that I can't think of anything else exciting that happened this week but I'm still doing good and pressing on.