Ghana is nice
It rained just this morning, right after we hung up our wash so that was disappointing, but fun. I love the rain.
No wildlife other than stray dogs and cats and some cows and goats and chickens and all manner of insects.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
4-24-17
I'm gonna go get a free drink from rose...
The subject of this email is really so the person sitting next to me, Elder Wilcox (my Zone leader can see). Rose is a girl who sells drinks just outside the cafe we use for emailing . We really probably should give her a pamphlet, but she's kind of in the "dead zone" of the mission. It's a market area, so we don't send missionaries there. That reminds me, my companion downloaded A talk from Brad Wilcox about Grace and Brad Wilcox, it turns out is my Zone Leader's uncle. So that's really cool. I first heard that talk sophomore year of high school and it honestly just changed everything for me. I don't know why, but it did. :) (so listen to it) :)
old picture :)
i got fat
A recent convert took my camera
Sorry no pictures, but my hair is bad :) I'm alive-- don't worry
--
-Elder Ellsworth
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
4/17/17
So, it’s been a week and we are
back again. This week was good. We spent
a lot more time going out and working than last week. Unfortunately, we only had one of our
investigators come to church. But that guy has a cool story! His name is Isaac and he
is now staying with a member in our ward because the member was at work and
wanted to buy a coconut (they sell coconuts in wheel barrels. I’ll take a picture one day) but she called
this guy over and he starts to chop it up with a cutlass(a sword (a machete))
like they normally do, but he messed up and cut his hand! He had no money to go
to the hospital so the sister, with her boss, paid for him to get cleaned up. Then the member went to go take him to his
family, but it turns out they all have passed away except for his super old
grandfather, so she took him in with what little she had and now he stays with
them and comes to church every week. :) He also doesn't speak English so we
need a translator to teach him, but we are going to start to send him to the
gospel literature class. It’s just a
cool story of how he became an investigator and hopefully a member all because
the members here love to help and their influence and means help others to
receive this great blessing of the gospel.
I was reading today in Alma 59
and I love the chapter heading because it brings me peace to know that we can
still all be as captain Moroni :) hopefully you understand what I’m saying.
My thought for the week is that
this church is literally separate from the world because we follow God's
Prophet. We do not do what the world
does. It’s very apparent here in Ghana, just by the way church services go. In
other churches they sing, they dance, and many speak in tongues. (they yell
random things I don’t understand that isn’t Twi). This is bold and Imp NOT
saying these churches are bad. They all (most all) want to follow Jesus Christ
and want to be saved. What I’m saying is this church, The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church.
The only true church! The one
that is like the Church at the time when Christ first established His church. It has a true and living prophet that leads
and guides us. We are Very separate from the world. I’m spending 2 years of my
life (my "prime life" as some would say it) away from home and away from
school and away from the worlds standard of fun so I can come and share with
people the message of The Restored Gospel. I know it’s true and I know it’s
good.
Funny story time. We were teaching someone on Saturday as usual
at a bar. that’s where she works--don’t worry we know the word of wisdom and we
follow it. But there was this other man sitting at a table and he talked
with the investigator (she owns the bar) and he bought us malts (nonalcoholic
barley drink) (beer with no alcohol) and then he came over and sat in on the
lesson and so we started and he stops us and says "I’m a member but I’m
apostate". So at this point elder Lundquist
looks over and sees an empty bottle of Club (Beer with the alcohol) so were
like well he’s drunk (it’s a big bottle) but, it turns out he was baptized in
1997 and he said "I need to be redeemed" so I look at him and say
"here is a simple way for you to be redeemed. Come to church and partake
of the sacrament worthily". Update
for yesterday he didn’t come. But its okay because by the end of the lesson he
thought we were filming him! He was thoroughly convinced that my broken watch
that I keep as a reminder of mom and dad was a hidden camera. This guy--I just felt for him and I really
wanted him to come back and be "redeemed". I’m just not good at
telling stories but oh well.
This week was great Hope you all had a Happy Easter!
-Elder Ellsworth
yep
this is the mango tree in our compound it looks pretty cool
when you look up
Im becoming more like spencer
seriously i am
its a sweet shirt
i love clouds
my camera is water proof so looking up during the rain :)
Thats Africa rain:)
Pac man im still me don't worry
love you all:)
--
--
-Elder Ellsworth
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
4/10/17
I don’t remember what happened. All I remember is I fell asleep yesterday at an investigators house (we were stuck for a while inside because of a huge rainfall) It was actually kind of cold. It was nice!
The worst part about the rain (other than we cannot see people) is the showers are SO COLD afterwards because our water is held in a big above ground tank that is always cold but when it rains, it’s worse. If it wasn't Africa, it probably would freeze :) That reminds me, my egg this morning was frozen! It was weird taking it out of its shell to cook it. (that doesn't relate to anything but it came to my mind so that means you all need to know it.) Breakfast was good! :)
This week was good. We spent a lot of time with our zone leaders
for reasons that aren’t the best reasons.
It wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t the most effective use of our time. Some nights it rained and we didn't go to our
apartment until we had to so we could wait out the rain. People here act like
witches when it rains(meaning they think rain will melt you)! Now I know from experience it won’t but They don’t
accept it so no work will progress during rain or maybe that’s just what they
tell you so they can sleep--they being people who want to sleep :).
I should just send you
my companion’s weekly email because his is funny and mine is weird :). But we had some pretty cool people that we
saw. One of them was a media referral. Yes! People in Ghana can use the internet.
We did service on Friday. We went to a member’s house that just broke
her door that day. It was pretty cool
how we got there. We were riding to an
investigator’s house and I just had the thought to go to this member’s home, so
we went and she had locked herself out of her house. She kicked the door in and the lock broke so Elder
Lundquist and I fixed it. That was so
cool to see the spirit at work. While we
were there another sister texted us and asked us to come and help to dedicate
her new place, but me being dyslexic (or something) read “decorate”. So we invited the Zone Leaders, but I told
them it was to decorate, so they came in p-day clothes ready to decorate a
house. you see the problem? YeaH, so it was a fun night of making fun of
me :). Don’t worry I don’t get offended.
This week I also read
about charity and I’m coming to understand it a bit better. Next week I’ll give you as simple version of
it. As I ponder it in my heart and mind I
know I will eventually understand it and that is a promise from the Lord, so it
will work for you as well :)
Love you all! I forgot
my camera but I’ll send the pictures Elder Lundquist took :) We slept at the Zone Leaders apartment, so I
slept on their extra table. It was
raining hard-hard!
From Brandon’s
Companion:
Anyways, this week it
rained a lot! The roads in Ghana are basically all made of sand so that causes
a problem for those of us that ride bikes around all day every day. However, we
love doing it and it makes it pretty funny to look at our shirts every night
because they get SO DIRTY. All I can say is that I am supremely thankful for
whoever put the mud guards on the bike that I am using.
We met with a new man
this week by the name of Augustus Amoah, who found the church through it's
online services. We hadn't been able to meet with him in a few weeks, but he
was really persistent. He even called Salt Lake City to make sure we were
coming, which resulted in a really friendly phone call from a Sister serving in
Salt Lake City mission asking if we had set an appointment with him. This man
REALLY wanted his Book of Mormon which is AWESOME.
One problem, Elder
Ellsworth and I are actually out of Book of Mormons (Totally our fault, but all
is well.) Luckily, we were able to find the Book of Mormon I had purchased in
the MTC to place on the airplane over here (Which, as you can tell, never quite
happened) but it was awesome that I didn't place it because now Augustus has a
nice, fresh, hard cover Book of Mormon delivered all the way from America. He
was super happy about it sooo, I am too. We had an awesome, spiritual lesson
with him about the Book of Mormon and he understood it well the first time we
taught it which was sweet! That doesn't happen often here.
Also because it rained
this week, one night it rained so hard we actually had to sleep over at the
Zone Leaders Apartment. I chose the floor with the extra mattress, and Elder
Ellsworth chose the table. When asked why he chose the table, he simply said
"Why not?" which is why I love Elder Ellsworth.
Another reason I love
Elder Ellsworth is that yesterday, we were sitting in Big Man Town at a Recent
Converts house (Those recent converts being the 4 boys, we are now teaching
their mother) but their mother was not available. They were making Jollof for
Palm Sunday so since it looked like it was coming to rain me and Elder
Ellsworth decided that we would stay and help them cook dinner. I took up a
fan, and starting to fan the coal pot (Basically a charcoal grill) and kept
fanning until (Guess What!) it started to rain. We took the coal pot inside,
and I continued to fan the coal pot for another 2 hours. We ate the jollof by
candle light, to which Elder Ellsworth exclaimed, "Wow, you're treating me
to a candle lit dinner you prepared yourself." Photos attached. (Somehow.
I tried to put them inline but instead if you want to look you'll have to
download them! Sorry! D:)
This week, we were
supposed to have a confirmation for Edmond but sadly however he was not able to
come to church on time so it will have to be pushed until next week. We are
also planning on baptizing Emmanuela this week and she is VERY excited for
that! She has been well prepared as she has been attending Sunday School for a
while, but we are excited that she has made the choice to be baptized.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
4/3/17
Well another week has
come and gone and I’m still here. I’ve
been away from home for almost 6 months and that is a crazy fact. I love It here and I want to stay and do this
work, but I do wish I was better at it. I’m
working to be perfect and unfortunately I cannot achieve such things, yet! I can get as close as possible though.
This week we did a lot
of work without a lot to show in the numbers.
We feel as a companionship that we brought a good spirit to the area
with our service and smiles (that’s weird to say). We had a fun week.
We were able to have a
baptism this week for our good friend Edmond. The funny part about it is only 3
people from the ward showed up (not even the Bishopric) so I had to preside
over the baptism (hopefully that is allowed).
It was a great service (at least I think it was, but then again that
might be a bit biased :)). Seriously I
was truly humbled by the sweet experience we had at that baptism. Plenty of things did go wrong, but Edmond knows
the Church is true and was willing to wait weeks to receive the blessings of
baptism.
Other than that we had a
great week of service--meaning someone actually let us do something for them!
"We" dug a hole for them as a district (meaning the African Elders
did all the work and made the Obronis wash dishes, weed and fetch water :))
(not our choice) :). Overall, that was
an amazing day. After that we watched
the Saturday Morning session of General Conference at 4 pm (which is live for
us :) Oh time zones!
We really had an amazing
week and it came by a lot of hard work and blessings of our Heavenly father. My
favorite thing from conference is that President Monson suggested we read the Book
of Mormon every day and we will be blessed.
Then later someone gave a talk about how the man came to the prophet and
was told to wash 7 times and he was like WHAAAAAAAAT?!? But MY problem! MY position!
I am magnanimous--why in
the world would doing something so simple, so dull, so relaxed heal me or fix MY
problem?? Well, can you see the
relation? A PROPHET OF THE LORD HAS TOLD US THE FIX TO EVERY PROBLEM IS TO
SIMPLY READ THE BOOK OF MORMON EVERYDAY AND ALL OUR
PROBLEMS CAN AND WILL BE SOLVED (in the Lord’s time of course). Please let us Follow the Prophet. Let us please do a simple act, just like
washing in the Jordan River. Only for us,
it is reading the Book of Mormon.
And that’s
my thoughts, madacee y (thank you, okay?)
Also I made a fried egg Sunday
morning for conference, in remembrance of dad’s breakfasts :)
love you all!
-Elder Ellsworth
-Elder Ellsworth
Looking out on the courtyard of our apartments
Looking in from the courtyard
:)
Eating, again!
Some barley drink (don't worry, no alcohol) .
Not really a fan, but when someone pays 3 cedis for it, and then offers it to you, you drink it!
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