"I just thought it would be good if you were baptized!" - Nacho Libre

Dear family & friends,

This week was a cool one. Thomas is right; the ward here in Lartebiokoshie is incredible. Our Elders Quorum President is awesome and the people here are really ready! We are working with a lot of families and had several investigators come to church this past week. They are all doing really well. Pascaline and Eva live really close to this member family, Koffi and Johanna. They help us a lot with Pascaline because she only speaks Twi. She has come to church nearly 5 times now and so baptism is becoming more and more a possibility for her. We just want her to be sure she understands the commitment that she is making and that she will continue to be active. So far she is doing really well. This area is a lot different from Kasoa. It is really close to some of the slums in Ghana and is almost slum status

itself in some places. It is really weird because there are probably some of the richest people in Ghana living in my area and also probably some of the most poor.

This past week we had a visit with the Ranford and the Mensah family. The Ranford family is part member and the rest are basically less active. They come from a very very humble situation and they are struggling with happiness. The Mensah family is also in just as humble a situation, yet as we had family night with them, we realized, they are happy. It is interesting because no matter what the situation people come from, the gospel makes them better. I thought a lot about this; this past week. Are my daily actions making me better? Is my discipleship helping me learn and progress? Am I making a constant effort by setting goals, giving myself commitments (just like I expect my investigators to do?) conversion isn't an event, but a mountain full of adventures, falls and climbs, that needs explored and will elevate us and take us back to our father in heaven. I was taking yesterday with a member who was explaining to one of our investigators about speaking tongues (a very common concern about the LDS church here) the member said something that really made me think. He talked about how he would go to his old church 2 times a week and they would sing and dance and speak in tongues and all this stuff the preacher would yell... then he said, "I realized that it wasn't making a difference in my life, my life was not improving." That really struck me because I thought about how often even in the church we do that. We think that just because we aren't studying deep doctrine, understanding the Kolob theorem, and the prophesies of Isaiah, we aren't as good or faithful as someone else. I thought about this and it is changing my personal study and a lot of my approach in doing things. Is what I’m reading about going to help my investigators? Or am I just studying this because I’m interested in it? Do I take the sacrament with the intent to make myself better through my actions this week, or am I just here to count how many investigators came to church? 

Elder Miller is an awesome companion and is from England. It’s been cool to serve with people from all over the world because you gain a really big perspective on how the gospel has influenced people’s lives all over the world, and also how the church is just a little bit different in different places. (For example missionaries in Utah cover one stake, here there's a district in each ward…just a little different)

I love you all a ton and will try to do better next week. Danny Tumblin, thank you for your email update on all the mission calls that have taken place, that’s super cool you guys are all going to be excellent missionaries!

-Love Elder Peters