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.
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| Elder Peters hand drawn map of their area |
Simon went to his church this
past Sunday to tell them that he can't come play the guitar for them anymore. He
also ran into some info about blacks and the priesthood online which is been an
interesting one to answer. I read him the scripture in 2 Nephi 26:33 about how Christ
wont deny any who come unto him, "black and white" so I think that
helped him. He has a lot of faith and he has even defended the truth of the Book
of Mormon to one of his friends last week. He is progressing really well and we
will hope to baptize him sometime in February. He is a stud. I took a video of
him playing his 5 stringed guitar that actually sounds really cool.
On Tuesday we ran out of water in
our poly tanks. So that night we bought a bag of pure waters to shower. The
next day still no water so we did the same thing. The next day still no
water... on Friday morning we decided to fetch water in our wash buckets like
most families here do. So we went to the lady up the road and filled our 6
gallon washbasin worth of water and carried it into trash cans and filled them
with water and it took most of our morning on Friday. I didn't take any
pictures but it was really fun. It’s hard. Water weighs a lot. Everyone was
laughing at the obruni's fetching water. They didn't think we could do it. The
lady at first didn't want to sell us water because she thought we would just
spill it all and then want to buy more and run her well dry, but we sure showed
her wrong! I had to use both of my hands to balance the bucket on my head; most
Africans can do it with no hands. On Sunday we came back from church and I just
felt like checking our poly tank and guess what? It was full of water. I fell
to my knees and said a prayer right there. And that’s where Elder Herrod found
me and then Friday came around the corner and started yelling, WATA! WATA! WE
HAVE WATA! It was a glorious day.
We started teaching this family
named the Okroah family. The man (Mr. Okrah) is unemployed and the first night
we contacted and taught them Benedicta (Sis. Okrah) made us fufu. Then the next
day when we came and taught them they wanted to feed us again. We told them we
were ok, but they kept on insisting that we eat. So we did. The next day we
taught them about Joseph Smith's first vision and the restoration of the
priesthood and they wanted to feed us again. So the next day we made a plan. We
would buy a bunch of cookies and a Coca Cola and take it to them. It was our
turn to feed them. We took Elder Fridays 20 min. restoration movie and they
kinda watched it because they were busy cooking for us to eat again. We have
tried to tell them, they don't need to feed us every time we come over, but
they insist that "you are men of the lord, so we must feed you." I
guess there’s verses in the bible that talk about that, so they don't really
want to argue. we brought Mr. Okrah a Twi Book of Mormon (he can't read English)
and we are praying hard that their hearts will be softened and they will come
to church this next week. Pray for them too. we are also praying that the Lord
will bless them so much for feeding us, and that they will realize that its not
a good financial practice for them to continue to share of their limited
resources with two obrunis that get an allowance to feed themselves every month
so its ok to not feed us everyday and to save your money to feed your children.
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| Elder Herrod 'borrowing' Elder Friday's Restoration DVD to show to the Okroah family |
I have been giving out the future
missionary name tag stickers that grandma sent me and our elders quorum
president in a meeting about the wards plan for improvement this year gave a
shout-out to my stickers: "Our primary kids go around wearing stickers
that say future missionary on them, what are we doing to make sure that they
are prepared for that?" I kinda laughed at that...not sure he realized
that I gave them to the kids but either way they have done their work in
proclaiming the gospel. Just thought I should tell grandma that her stickers
had an influence in our wards plan for the teaching of primary and youth this
year
Last week something happened that
I thought was super cool. We had about 4 appointments fall through right in a
row and therefore we didn't have anybody to teach. So I told elder Herrod to
follow me into an abandoned building. I told him that one time in my training
my father did this with me and it improved our day a ton. we said a prayer
asking God to please lead us, an help us to find somebody that we can share the
gospel with, we told him of those we had planned for, that they weren't around,
and as we were going out to find people to "be led by the spirit not
knowing before hand the things we should do." instantly after the prayer
ended one of our investigators called and said he was around, the rest of the
day was busy and we contacted a lot. Sometimes I think the lord is just waiting
for us to ask him to bless us, to show our faith by asking, then going to work.
I know it won't always happen that way, but I was really cool.
I love you all,
Love Elder Peters
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