"Rock of Ages, still a' rollin" - Def Leppard

No photos again this week, but one of Elder Peters former companions posted this image on Facebook that we'd never seen before.  

Dear Family, 

This week we ate some pretty giant balls of fufu, taught the gospel, spoke some small Twi, it was a good week, but kind of a hard week. 

So I made some cool connections with my name this last week. Peter comes from the Greek word "Petros" which means stone,
or rock. My Ghana name is Yaw and I have added Obotemtim which means "big stubborn stone" It always makes people laugh to hear my name when I tell them Yaw Obotentim, but I was thinking about it and thought about Peter, Jesus Christ's Apostle and how often the Lord chastened him because he loved Peter.

This week I have fought with a lot of thoughts of home, trying to keep focused on the work. Things like scrunching my toes in soft carpet, drinking chocolate milk, eating a 1/4 pound cheeseburger. I know its not bad to think about this stuff but, if it becomes to talked about, to thought about, it will distract me from my purpose, and i saw that happening a little bit earlier this week. I felt the spirit telling me, "You will have all that stuff for the rest of your life, but your mission only comes once, and its almost over, make the best of it Elder!"

We were blessed this week to hear some really awesome testimonies from some members of our branch who are progressing in the gospel. Kate Twumasi, who we baptized last month, shared her awesome conversion experience with us as we went to teach her this past week. She is so excited about the Gospel right now, and will be a HUGE blessing to Kade Branch. She has unintentionally taken over teaching the Relief Society Class because she can speak and read English, so she can read the teachers manual and teach lessons to the relief society sisters in our branch. I think there are maybe two other sisters in our branch that can read. Also a member named Ofosu who is a farmer, is preparing to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and we went to his house and read through D&C 84:33-44, the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood and coupled it with the Family: A Proclamation to the World and he ended up sharing his testimony with us. It was really cool because i got to see how it wasn't us that was doing the teaching, but the spirit. These people's testimonies grew because they shared them. Effective teaching as a missionary comes so much from learning how to simply create circumstances where people can learn for themselves, then the spirit will testify to them that what they have learned is true.

We got bikes this week, Elder Munro is my man! I told him that we don't have bikes and he got them to me in 4 days! incredible timing from the office to the bush! Also with the bikes I got my conference Liahona! It was like Christmas! I have been waiting for that for so long, and my nights have been filled with reading it, cuz we only got to see 2 sessions of conference here live. There are some pretty amazing messages in there.

I tried something that I wish I would have figured out about 23 months ago: Slice Mango's, Banana's, Apples with a cheese grater and mix it with cold water, coconut powdered milk, and enjoy! It makes a great breakfast! Also I thought I would tell you guys, our fruit lady sells those funky looking star fruit things that I have always wanted to try anytime I go to Smiths for 50 peswes. They are OK, really acidic, but good.

We have had some good times teaching people and finding people this week. This 14 year old girl contacted me and asked us to come to her house this week so we went to find her place when we ran out of stuff to do. We have started teaching her and her sister and mom, they are a really nice family. The Mother is a strong Presbyterian, but we will see what we can do, I've never baptized someone on my mission who didn't all ready go to another church, so you never know!

I love you guys! Mission Rocks!

Love, Elder Peters

P.S. I got a call from Elder Herrod that he went to the same guy who is making my suit and said that my suit is, "looking nice!" hopefully I will have it Thursday.