So we did find out that Elder Peters is serving in the Kasoa 2nd Ward in an area known as "Top Town" He's doing a lot of biking and trying hard to find new people to teach and baptize. Unfortunately he could not get his camera to talk to the computer in the Café where he was, so no Photos again this week. :(
Dear
Family & Friends,
It
feels like only yesterday I stepped off the plane here into Ghana for the first
time. Mission goes FAST! So I’m doing my best to make the most of it. Apparently
the mission is changing a lot right now; there are plenty of missionaries that
are going home, and a lot of new missionaries that are coming.
I
have learned that having the skill of a super good memory will benefit you so
much on a mission. This transfer, being the first time I have been transferred,
I have realized that every 6 weeks to 18 weeks you will have to memorize
several miles of a new area, an entire new ward, all new investigators, contact
about 5 new people every day and remember their names, and everything about
them, find new places to eat, figure out how to bargain with a different shop
lady who doesn’t know you yet. A lot of memorizing. Oh ya and you’re supposed
to continue to try learning 2 or so new languages. Asemole! (It’s no small
thing in Twi)
I
have an awesome district right now and elder Varo is an awesome companion and
leader for our district. I will be honest before I came a lot of missionaries
told me that Varo was “apostate”, that he wasn’t very serious about the work,
but so far he has proved that entirely wrong to me. We had our district meeting
on Wednesday and he sat us all down and told us, "Mission is about working
hard, if you’re not baptizing every month in Kasoa you’re not serving to your
fullest capacity. Also if you aren't enjoying you mission your not doing
mission right. We work as a team, in Fiji we are all brothers it is the same
with this district." We work hard to fellowship with the members really
well, because getting referrals from members is much more common if they have
close relationships with the missionaries. Last month our district had 7
baptisms, most of them referrals from members. Also in district meeting we took
10 minutes to share about how our families from home are doing, and to plan our
P-day activities. This week we are going to ShopRite to buy ingredients for our
Fijian dinner on Sunday. Fijian's can COOK DANG GOOD FOOD!!! As elder Varo and I
are biking to appointments we talk about Fiji and I want to go there someday
really bad because it sounds really cool. Elder Varo played rugby on the Fijian
National Team and gave up a full-ride scholarship to some big rugby school in New
Zealand to come on a mission. He chose to serve instead of becoming a pro rugby
player. I think that someday he will be though. Right now he thinks that he
will try to go to BYU to play on their rugby team. I can’t get the SD card to
work in this computer otherwise I would send pictures, but he’s ripped.
Elder
Paddon is from California and is from my MTC group. He played water polo in
high school and is going to become a Navy SEAL when he goes home from his mission.
He has become one of my very close friends through the MTC and through service
with him. last night we got to bed kinda late because we were up just talking
about SEALs, goofy things we did in high school, what we want to do when we get
home, how cool it is that we are in Ghana, the types of missionaries we want to
be, and the type of men it will turn us into. It was a good little chat.
Elder
Friday is a goofy Nigerian who can rip nasty farts on command. He is really
good at dancing and playing soccer. He is a little quiet but I like him.
So
this week we were riding our bikes and it was super sunny and hot. We rolled up
to an investigators door and knocked on the door. She answered and looked at
the sky, we turned around and also took a look and then we heard the beat of
the rain drums. We yelled OCHINA! (Tomorrow) as we sprinted for our bikes and
she slammed her door. Then the heavens opened and it RAINED like there was no tomorrow.
It’s weird because its aramadan (the dry season) right now so it shouldn't be
raining like this. Also one day we were biking and we rounded a corner and
there was a heard of like 30 cows romping their way up the road toward us. It
was a bit of a tight squeeze but we made it through unscathed by an angry cow
or two. Kasoa feels a lot more like West Africa. Mamponse felt a lot more like
how I would envision Mexico City slum would look. There’s a lot more bush here,
and it is considered a pretty dry area so it makes me wonder how it will feel
to go to the real bush. Our apartment is a lot smaller than Mamponse, but it’s
nice. Kasoa has a lot of Muslims so there is a bit of a different culture here.
There weren’t as many Muslims in Mamponse. We are teaching this guy named Abdul
who is a Muslim. he welcomed me and said " yes yes, you are welcome to
anything here in my home, if you want to eat here, eat my food, if you need to
bath, come use my shower (as he points to his outdoor shower stall with a popo
tree over it), what’s mine is yours. once again you are welcome!" its
funny to teach him because if you ask him if he is ok, or if there is anything
we can to do help him, he will always say "oh no, by His grace, I am fine,
once again you are welcome" and then he will shake our hands. One time
when we were teaching him he shook our hands 7 times in a single lesson. I
think that he has potential to progress to baptism, but it may take some time. I
feel like that missionary that is just kinda planting seeds for him right now.
Who knows? Maybe one day.
I
have slacked off in my scripture memorization because I have been trying to
memorize a new area and a ton of new faces.
We
were teaching this lady from Nigeria whose name is Vitalis and I had run out of
restoration pamphlets for the day so I gave her a gospel of Jesus Christ one. She
read it and we followed up and she asked a question that really made me think
and kinda scramble to find scriptures to explain because I hadn't introduced
the Book of Mormon yet so I had to work solely from the Bible. A lot of the
time people here won’t accept something unless it comes from the Bible. I try
really hard not to Bible bash. The question that she asked was where does it
say that you need the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Ghost? I tried to
explain to her that there is a difference between receiving the Holy Ghost and receiving
the gift of the Holy Ghost. She wasn't having it. I used 2 Timmothy1:6-7 that
talks about the gift of God being received by the laying on of hands, that God
gives us the spirit of power and a sound mind. I think the confusion comes from
other churches here in Ghana. Most other churches here believe that when you
"receive the Holy Ghost" means that you are speaking in tongues and
acting like a wild animal. There is a church right behind our apartment and
they go all night long on Saturday night "HOLY GHOST FIRE! HOLY GHOST
FIRE! You’d think they'd get bored at some point but nope, all night the same 3
words occasionally ended with a JESUS! So people believe that receiving the Holy
Ghost is that. I was kicking myself that I didn't have a restoration pamphlet
to give her because if she new about the Book of Mormon, and about Joseph Smith,
and how prophets work and the godhead then it would have been SO much easier to
explain. The Book of Mormon is so simple and clear, I have really strengthened
my testimony of the Book of Mormon here on my mission. Once I have introduced
the Book of Mormon to investigators I try to use it as much as I can to help
them gain a testimony of it because people really struggle to read here. Once
in Mamponse, we were teaching a lady who refused to accept the message of the restoration
because it didn't specifically say in the Bible that Joseph Smith would restore
Christ’s church and bring forth another book of scripture called the Book of Mormon.
We had been visiting with this lady for a while so I asked her; ok it doesn't
say these things specifically in the Bible. But how do you know the Bible is
true? She couldn't really answer. I said, I know the Bible is true because I
have prayed about it and God has let me know that it is. It’s the same with
these things that we are sharing with you; you have to ask God to know if his
words are true otherwise you are just blindly following.
BTW
there are probably plenty of spelling errors and missing letters because the
keyboard I’m using really sucks…(so DAD fixed the letter before sending it
out.)
There
is a kid a lot like George in this area too accept for his name is Francis, but
he goes and proselytes with Paddon and Friday. I will meet him every now and
again but it was his birthday this past Saturday and he invited us over to his
house for fufu. It was so good. He’s a really cool kid, I like him a lot.
Send
me the hammock ASAP, that one is gonna be nice to have, especially when it’s
super hot. I will sleep outside under our mango tree
I
love you guys a ton!
-Love
Elder Peters
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