Tuesday, July 26, 2016

One Year!!

Elder Goodrich, Chemuru & Wallin - July 22, 2016
July 19-25

What a week!  I've been out for one year now and I can hardly believe it. We celebrated by burning shirts on Friday. Since Wallin, Chemhuru, and I are all the same MTC group it turned into more of a bonfire. All three of us burned shirts and had a blast! Not only that but we made pancakes and syrup as well as steak for our celebration. It doesn't get much better than that. And then to top things off, we had a baptism on Saturday. Murphy was able to get baptized and confirmed on Sunday. It was so awesome to see him take that step in his life. When we met him for the first time, all four of us were together at a members house eating dinner and none of us wanted to talk to him or teach him since we were busy and eating. Finally I gave in and taught him the first little bit of the restoration. Soon Chemhuru joined in and then Wallin and before I knew it we had taught the whole first lesson to him. It strengthened my testimony that even though I was tired and didn't want to talk to him, that by putting forth a little effort I was able to bless the life of this man. Since that day I've watched him grow and prepare for his baptism. I can think of no greater way to celebrate my year mark than by seeing Murphy receive ordinances required for his salvation. So yes it was my one year and I had fun burning a shirt and celebrating, but the real highlight, the real joy came from helping someone make a change in their life and seeing them be baptized by proper priesthood authority. I know this church is true and I love it with all my heart. 

I share these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Baptisms!!

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Interviews

Family Home Evening
July 12-18

Well coming off a rough week last week, this week was an improvement.
We still had a tough time with some of our appointments but we made
things work for the most part. Mercy's mom finally came home from
working in Tema so we were excited to start teaching her again.
Unfortunately she left to go back in Saturday so we were disappointed.
On the bright side we got Murphy interviewed and all ready for his
baptism this coming Saturday. It was quite the adventure to get to
that point. We found out on Friday evening that he was in need of a
special interview done by President Simpson. When we gave him a call
he said he was going to be in Kasoa on Saturday and could do it then.
Wallin had an investigator that needed an interview from president as
well so we made it a group trip. Unfortunately we went to the wrong
chapel. Our investigators both said that we should just walk to the
other chapel when we told them where it was. However when we stopped
to ask for directions halfway there, both were shocked that it was so far 
and said we should just take a car the last part of the way. We had only 
walked for an hour in like a thousand degrees and 10,000% humidity. 
Oh and the dust! I think I looked like a fair, black guy for a while because
 I had so much dirt on me. We made it though and we got them interviewed. 
Afterwards, President Simpson pulled Wallin and I aside and told us that these
were two of the most prepared candidates for baptism he's ever seen.
He told us we were doing a fantastic job teaching them and to keep up
the good work. Talk about a confidence booster. I have so much respect
for President and Sister Simpson. They're such great people. Oh also
just a funny story. We were stopped by a former investigator wanting
us to come back and teach her. I don't know how viable that request is
because she was holding two different one liter bottles of alcohol.
One was empty and the other was mostly empty. In fact I think I got a
little buzz off of her fumes. The sad thing is that she was once our best
investigator. She was almost there but she couldn't give some things up. 
It was just another testimony to me that changing to become a member 
of this church is hard and I respect those who do it so much more now.
 One great example is Murphy, the man being baptized this Saturday. 
Talk about a tough life. That man was the equivalent of a green beret in 
the Liberian military during the civil war. He told us that he was basically 
drunk or high the entire war which lasted quite a few years. But here he is now
making these incredible changes in his life and now ready to enter
into the covenants of baptism. It's things like seeing this transformation that 
make all the pain and struggles of a mission worth it.
Ward Mission Correlation Meeting
The Church

Monday, July 11, 2016

Exchanges with Burt....

July 5-11

It was a little bit of a slow week for us. Almost every appointment we
had this week fell through. So we spent a lot of time with members and
a lot of time just walking from place to place. I guess it was some
good exercise. The highlight of my week was an exchange with Elder
Burt. I had to go spend Friday night as his apartment and then we
spent Saturday together. Packing things for the night and next day is
a pain because you have to carry it all, however it's necessary.
Saturday was a great day. Burt and I hardly saw anyone and mainly just
walked around all day due to more failed appointments, but it was
still a great day. The few people we saw were amazing. We extended a
few baptismal dates and everyone we extended them to accepted. It was
fun. As we went around we just had fun, joked, and got to know each
other better. We spent the day with Jackson Appiah too. He's a member
in the first ward that served as a ward missionary with Asumani when I
was in Amasaman. We closed the day but sitting down at Jackson's mothers

shop and drinking malt together. It was Burt's first Magic Malt and my one millionth, 
kind of a big deal for us. I think it was a good break for Burt. He's been with Dy
for almost 4 transfers now and they've struggled recently. I was
glad I could help him and give him a break from the daily monotony.
Hopefully we can do it again sometime. Anyways, that was kind of my
shining moment this week, bringing a little joy into Burt's life.


Sister Appiah's shop


Tuesday, July 5, 2016

America

June 28-July 4

Well to start, happy birthday America. Sorry I couldn't be there to
celebrate it with you by lighting stuff on fire and generally acting
like a pyromaniac. However, Wallin and I are doing the next best
thing. Hot dogs with Lays potato chips. Seems fairly American. Then
I'm going to drink a bunch of malt. This week has been somewhat
interesting. I hadn't seen anyone in our area in two weeks so I'm
pretty sure they all thought I was dead. Everyone was excited to see
me and I was even more excited to see them. This week we spent some
good time with Brother Christopher and his family. He's a Liberian
living in the camp. He gave us a ton of referrals (mostly his family)
and I'm positive they'll all be baptized in the near future. We also
spent some good time with Mercy this week. I've been in this area
since the end of March and this week I finally met Godwin's father.
Godwin is Mercy's son. We also got the chance to meet President and
Sister Simpson this week. They held a zone conference with us on 

Thursday. I didn't get a chance to talk to him much personally but 
he seems like a really cool guy. He has a really thick Australian accent. 
My personal opinion is that he sounds like the pelican off of finding nemo. 
He's a sweet guy though, I'm excited to have him here as my mission 
president for the last half of my mission.