"No matter what you do, you have to work hard to be successful" - Elder Ballsteadt

Modeling my sun hat.  

Dear Family & Friends, 

The sun has been hot like crazy this week! But it's been good. We started out our week with a lot of contacting at this town that is about 20 min (by taxi) from our area in Kade. It's called Boada we have 3 members that live there and we are trying to build up the area and I’m sure the hope is to one day make it a branch or a group. Elder Ofosu Hene and I decided to just try to talk to as many different people we could meet there and we found A LOT of Muslims. We discovered that most of Boada is a “zongo”
and so we decided to try to go to Akwatia and see what we could find there. At the end of the day we had taught a lot of different people really short lessons, but things were ok. We are praying for New investigators who want to progress there. 

On Wednesday, we had district meeting and the Asamankese senior couple came to deliver some chairs to our apartment and decided that they would sit in on our district meeting. It was cool to conduct a District meeting for the first time, to lead and instruct. I read in Preach my Gospel about district meeting and it suggested that district meetings are a great time for missionaries to share things they have learned in their study, and also testimonies of missionary work. I decided that I would ask one elder in my district to share something he learned from his study, and another to share an experience or testimony of something he learned on his mission from a companion, a lesson, exchange, etc. I thought it would be a good idea because so much of the things I have learned on my mission have been from getting a new companion and watching them teach something or in a certain way that I have never thought of before, or going on exchange and listening to a different missionary resolve a common concern in a way I had never heard before. so much can be learned from the experience of others and I wanted to make that a part of my District Meetings.

 I also gave a short instruction on something I learned from Laman and Nephi's adventure in getting the Brass Plates. We read through some scriptures and wrote down the qualities of Laman and Nephi and they were pretty obvious, everyone knows how they are different. But I wanted to point out that it never said, "Laman broke the law of Chastity" or "Laman lied to Nephi and blasphemed against God" It never says that Laman was committing "Big" sins, he was just SUPER negative about anything they were trying to do, but he did it. Our District has been struggling with some people who have progressed right up to their baptismal interviews but are dodging the interviews for some reason, and I felt a sense of discouragement among all of us. I wanted them to know that if we start complaining, we will drive the Spirit away. Yes, sin drives the spirit away, but Laman wasn't getting any inspired ideas simply because of his negativity. Nephi was positive and it opened his mind. I think that perhaps the reason Lehi saw Laman and Lemeuel in the dark mist is because their minds were so clouded with negativity that they couldn't have the spirit with them to help them. 

Elder Ofusu Hene out in the bush.

The next day the Ballsteadts came and brought a new mattress to our apartment and also gave me and elder Ofosu Hene nature valley honey n' oats granola bars. It was awesome. 

Things are good, just trying to work hard! 

Love, Elder Peters