Bike crashes and Baptismal dates!

Golfing in Ghana!

Tuesday. We had district council meeting to start off the day. Instead of instruction, Elder Uzoho likes to do different things to try and help all of us in our areas. This week it was making a list of things that we could do to help each other proselyte and how we could work with the ward better to improve our teaching. We came up with some pretty awesome ideas that I will tell to you as they get put into practice so that you don't laugh at the things we are trying to do. But we did come up with some pretty good ideas. Elder Ntumba also shared his testimony with us today because he is being emergency transferred. He and Elder Asumani haven't been getting along at all so it was decided that he would be leaving to get a new companion and Asumani would get a ward missionary for now. I can't say i'm too sad to see Ntumba leave because he would always steal all of our stuff. Nothing big but things that you would definitely notice missing and want back. That kind of stuff could always be found in his room and getting mad at him for it made no difference, he would just take it again. So he left and we went out to proselyte. We were able to teach a few lessons to a couple recent converts, with a couple recent converts, and to a referral or two. All in all it was a pretty good day and we actually did a little bit of work so that was good.

Wednesday. Taylor and Uzoho went to another district council meeting in Nsawam so I was with Martineau again for the day. Basically our day got totally screwed over. We don't have bikes because Taylor took Martineau's bike leaving us on foot all day. In our area, going on foot means that you won't get anything done at all just because of how far away all of our investigators are and what not. On top of that, after teaching just one lesson in the morning we had to come back and sit at the apartment and wait for the office elders to come bring us a few things. They were late as usual and we were stuck at the apartment for a couple hours. The one office elder is from Morgan, Utah and knows Skylar since he coaches at Morgan High. We got out again late in the afternoon and were finally able to work a little bit. All of our appointments fell through though and so we just had to contact for the rest of the day. Luckily coordination came at 6:00 otherwise we would have ran out of things to do really quickly. Either way I guess it was a pretty good day. 

Thursday. Thursday was interesting. We decided in district council meeting that we were going to try something new each Thursday. Basically we are going to take all 6 missionaries in the apartment and go do an open venue in one area each week. This week was in Uzoho and Martineau's area. All of us spent a couple hours just contacting a certain part of their area while a few members stood by a couple posters we had set up. I got to go contacting with Uzoho for the day which was totally cool. He can contact like none other. I learned a lot from being with him for the day. After our open venue we went to a baptism at the chapel. It was for the elders quorum president's daughter. She turned 8 so they were baptizing here on that day. It was super cool to see a baptism for a child of record here in Ghana. After the baptism they gave us refreshments which consisted of a meat pie and fanyogo or strawberry yogurt. Then it was just back to the apartment for the night to relax and get ready for bed. 

Friday. Once again I was with Martineau for the day. We decided to go out to my far area with Hayford for the day. Once out there all but one of our lessons fell through so we were stuck out there with nothing to do. We decided to go deep into the area and do a little contacting. That turned out really interesting as we contacted a few really weird people and got into a Bible bash with a Rasta man. He was super confused and it wasn't much of a bash so Martineau decided he wouldn't just roast the guy. We just left and made our way back towards the apartment. All of our appointments fell through there too. We spent the evening just contacting and following up on all of our contacts from Wednesday. We found success teaching a sister of a recent convert. She is going to be baptized this next week so we just went over a few things with her. After we saw her we went on a hunt for some food but were disappointed so it was back to the apartment to make something. 

Saturday.  We were able to take a recent convert, Stephen, to go see a lot of people. He is really helping us out with member present lessons. We ended up with 11 member present lessons this week and 8 of them were with him. We were able to set some baptismal dates with a couple of our investigators which now puts us at 5 with dates. While it was an exciting day of teaching and we had an awesome successful day, the real highlight came in the evening. While we were riding to see an investigator at 7:00, my bike broke and I ended up wrecking hard on a rocky dirt road. I didn't get too hurt but my arms did end up a little scraped up and my body was fairly battered. I was moving really fast when it happened and I slid a good 10
ft after hitting the ground. Not the funnest thing in the world but it happens to the best of us so no worries. 

Sunday. It was a very successful day for us at church. We ended up with 8 investigators that showed up. During investigators class all of them had a lot of questions and wanted to know more and more. It was so amazing to see people that i'm teaching want to know more about the church and want to progress in the church. After the meetings ended we were able to grab a few members and teach quick lessons to the investigators we had there. Martineau and I taught a group lesson to a few of them and they seemed to love the church and everything about it. Later we went out and taught one investigator and then ate dinner at a member's house. It was some awesome food and I wasn't mad because I didn't have food to cook at home. After eating there we just went home and hung out with the other missionaries for the rest of the evening.

Monday. Today we got up ridiculously early so that we could be to the temple site before anyone else. It's a good thing we got there first too because we couldn't find the things needed to lower the basketball hoops. After looking for an hour we were finally able to find them and get the hoops down. We played basketball for a couple hours and then all went to the area office cafeteria for lunch. Martineau got the most amazing beans and rice and then sat in an air conditioned building and just enjoyed for a long time. After a while we finally decided it was time to leave so we headed off back to our area. Now we are here at the internet cafe doing our emailing.