"I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one hundred percent!" -Horton Hears a Who

Hello from Ghana!!!

Dear Friends & Family, 

 

This week has gone well. This morning I just got back from the beach and I have my SD card reader so I am uploading a ton of pictures, if you have any questions about them, just ask I will do my best to explain. The beach is super cool. 

 

On and island in the sun, we'll be playing and having fun - Weezer

Dear Friends & Family,

 Today we went to Kokrobite (the beach). It was super cool. Though we couldn't swim, it was still super cool to walk on a beach in Africa. It was like the beach they wash up on in the movie “Madagascar”. Palm trees strait out to the white sand. We got some cool sea shells and hung out with some Rasta guys. They all smelled like weed, but were really cool. We saw some fishermen pulling in a net. It’s pretty cool how they fish. They sail a boat out that is basically a giant canoe and throw the net in the water and start to paddle it back to shore, then when they get about 100 meters or so away they get out and there’s like 30 people on the beach pulling the net in a big line and people trying to swim the net in from the sea. I took a video but it is so cool to watch. It was fun to have a fun day in the sun and try give some Book of Mormons to some Rasta dudes. 

Fishing Boats on the beach of Kokrobite and the palm trees in the background.

"The battle is won, with all these things that I've done" -The Killers

Dear Family,

"I do not boast in my own strength but in the strength of the lord." - Ammon in Alma 26. Scriptures are just way more dope when you see them as actual people, not just verses.

A lot has happened this week. Simon Nortey and Abell Osei will be baptized this coming Sunday. Which I am really excited about. Abell is 14, which I usually am not very keen on baptizing very young kids but he has several friends in the church and is very committed and basically runs his family. His mom doesn't speak English very well so she doesn't like coming to LDS church because it’s mostly in English

Simon Nortey was sick so he didn't come to church but he also is doing really well. His story finally came full circle this week. So he works at Savior Foundation School/orphanage as a teacher. His boss, this dude named Patrick, is starting a one man church based around that we should worship on Saturday not Sunday. One man churches are very aggressive because the pastor is basically starting a business and at first only has a few people that follow him (Simon being one of them, playing the guitar for them) and so now that he wants to leave and be baptized they are doing everything they can to keep him from going. It’s hard for him because Patrick is his boss where he works, and he is also his pastor. So he sees him all the time and therefore gets crap from him all the time. He is determined to join and be baptized, but he is getting a lot of negative pressure from this guy. We happened to meet with one of Patrick’s small pastors this week, and he basically told us that we are going to hell, that we have been deceived by Satan. He got all flustered and wanted to argue about some stuff in the bible. We just listened very closely, bore a simple testimony and forgot about it. It’s easy to let stuff like that get you all flustered for the rest of the day, you will be thinking about all the verses you could have quoted, all the stupid stuff he said, and it will distract you from teaching those who are ready and willing to listen. The "spirit of contention"(3 Nephi 11:29) can stew within your mind and heart all day if you let it. That’s something I’ve learned is to be careful to just forget about it after some pastor fights with you. During the lesson when it happens just try to leave as soon as possible, don't waste time arguing.

I asked a bunch of little kids what they want to be when they grew up and the overwhelming majority of answers from them was, "a pastor" religion is the pop-culture here. I'm learning that it’s not enough to help people understand that the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints is true; they have to know that it is the ONLY true church. There’s this common belief that all churches are true, it’s just kinda your choice what one you want to be entertained by, because that’s what religion is entertainment. Sometimes you feel like you have to say, "I know that the church of Jesus Christ is true, which means that all the others are not." 

Congrats to Jared Ward! That’s super cool. 

On Tuesday this week we went to the savior foundation school and pained bookshelves there. Those kids are super fun to be around. 

Nothing super out of the ordinary this week, we just had lesson after lesson after lesson. My mission rocks, I love it!

Love, Elder Peters

P.S. sorry I forgot my camera but I didn't really take any pictures anyway. Next week I should have some super cool ones from the Konkon wildlife park. 

Well...thanks to Elder Herrod...we do have a couple of photos to share...

Just two missionaries in Ghana doing the work of the Lord.

Here is Elder Herrod with Abell and his drawing of Joseph Smith.

"When I say go, we go. But don't let Frank catch yeh. Go!" - Cars



Dear Family & Friends,



Elder Peters and Elder Herrod goofing around with the kids at an elementary school.

This week was super cool. It started off with a conference held by the Church for all the missionaries in the whole world. I learned some good things from it and it helped me gain some insights on how I can better work with ward members. After bishop gets done calling the rest of our ward counsel (our ward was split so half of them are now in another ward) we will start to organize having ward counsel meeting with them. The title of the conference was "Preach Repentance, Baptize Converts", and when I first heard that I thought, "Well no duh, what do you think I do all day?"

"We got no food, we got no water, our pets heads are fallin off!" -Dumb and Dumber

Dear Family,

This week was an adventure. Elder Herrod and I are both working very hard to try to grow and strengthen our area. The mission has not contacted us about the splitting of our area by two wards yet, so we are still waiting for the go ahead to proselyte in Amamfro (but we have gone there a few times anyway). We got a referral from Sister Oware and it is a family but they live in the new ward, which we were told not to go to church there but to just keep working in our current ward, even though our proselyting area now covers two wards. The good news is that Bawjiase is now a branch; the bad news is that our district of 4 missionaries now has to try to cover 4 wards/branches so Amafrom will be without missionaries for a little while. We basically need 2 more companionship because each ward/branch should have a companionship of missionaries proselyting in them. 

Elder Peters hand drawn map of their area