Christmas...

Merry Christmas!

Missionary Christmas in Ghana

Love from Home

December 20-26

Christmas! Oh it's Christmas and it's beautiful. There's no snow here in Africa but I don't care that much because it's Christmas. Ok I do care, I miss the snow. This week was a little bit rough because of the season. Everyone we know and work with was busy or had travels tied to the holidays. But we didn't let that stop is! We made no bake cookies and tried caroling and taking them around. I'm really emphasizing the try part here. We delivered to a few but the majority weren't around so we are going to try again when they all get home tomorrow or Wednesday. As for our actual Christmas Day it was pretty grand. We had sacrament meeting at 9:00 and then by 2:00 we had a baby party for a member in the branch presidency. He named and blessed his baby on Sunday. So we went to support him at that party. Then we had the evening to call home and visit with our families. It was great. It's been too long since I last got to do that. But that's one more call home down and one left to go. Time just seems to be going by so fast and I can't help feeling like I'm lost in it. I'm not ready for the end to come but it's coming faster than I want. Anyways, enough of that. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and I love you all. Have a wonderful week.

No bake cookies Ghana Style!

Love from Home!

Elections....

Dec 7-12

Well it hasn't been too long since you last heard from me. Things have changed though. Wednesday was voting day here in Ghana. Elections are now over and a president has been chosen. John Dramani Mahama, the current president, has lost. The new president of Ghana will be Nana Akufo Addo. Elections happened peacefully, or at least they've been peaceful so far. They announced the new president Friday evening. We weren't allowed to proselyte on Thursday. Things were a bit tense the day after voting and the mission president decided it was in our best interest to stay indoors. So to make use of our time, all missionaries weekly planned and then deep cleaned their apartments. We spent 8 hours cleaning ours but now it's spotless. As far as teaching and our investigators go, we didn't have much luck this week. We are in a tough spot right now. No one we are teaching wants to see us. They never seem happy when we come and it's tough. We are working to remedy that though. We thought we would have a good turnout at church on Sunday but we didn't. It started pouring rain around 8:00. The rain stopped around 9:00 but by then the damage had been done. None of our investigators came. In fact, we had so few people in our gospel principles class that it got combined with the Sunday school. My apologizes if this email gives off sort of a negative vibe. I didn't mean to send that message. I want you to know that I love this work, I love these people, and I love this gospel and my savior Jesus Christ. Hope you all have a wonderful week.

It's Tuesday....

Nov 29-Dec 6
It's been a very long week for me. It was a good one though. We spent most of our time running around and visiting members. We are showing everyone the Light The World video in preparation for this Christmas season. We also decided to be a little adventurous. We have contacted people that stay in parts of our area we have never been before. We went to a little fishing village called Nyanyano. It was really cool and also kind of sketchy. I don't think many white people have ever been there. But we saw the ocean so that was sweet! We also found another beach with a really nice resort next to it in this remote part of our area. Like there is nothing around it except bush and then there's this sweet hotel and stuff and a nice beach. Yeah it was weird. But we got to see parts of the area. 

Oh we also had transfers yesterday. We got transfer news on Saturday and it appears as though Elder Jackson and I will be spending another 6 weeks together. I'm pretty excited about it. We'll have a great time. Transfers were yesterday and pday today, Tuesday. It's because of elections. Tomorrow is voting day and Thursday we get the results of the election. So today, tomorrow, and Thursday are going to be pretty sketchy days. Sketchy enough that we aren't allowed to go out on Thursday. Tomorrow is a tread with caution kind of day as well. Yeah well hopefully we have a peaceful election. I've heard too many horror stories from the Liberian civil war. This next week we are hoping to see a lot of the people we've contacted recently. We haven't had much time to see everyone we want so now we are trying to squeeze everyone in. Should be a good week. 

I hope you all had a great week and that you're getting into the Christmas spirit.
Love you all.

Mercy, Godwin & Elder Goodrich at Stake Conference

Thanksgiving...

The Inter Faith Choral Festival

Nov 22-28

Well it's been quite the week. To kick things off we had a multi-zone conference on Tuesday morning. We were given the wrong time by our zone leaders and ended up a little late but we didn't miss much. President Simpson and the APs instructed us. They told us to study in Preach My Gospel about Christlike attributes and the Plan of Salvation but we ended up just talking about the Book of Mormon the whole time. It was really good though. We also were shown the Light the World video the church has made for this Christmas season. I don't know if you guys have seen it or not but it's really good. We were shown it and instructed to show it to all the members and pass out to them the 25 Ways in 25 Days calendar. I'm super excited for all of it. So basically that's all we've done all week is show that video to members. Wednesday was also full of meetings for us. We had District Meeting in the morning and then we went about our day. It was a pretty normal day, just biking like crazy. Then it was Thanksgiving. What better way to celebrate it than by getting 5 Americans and a Nigerian together for a big dinner. We all met at the Kasoa 1 missionaries', Paulson and Evans, apartment. Jolley and Udo met us there as well. We had quite the meal. We roasted 2 chickens, had mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, stuffing, mixed fruit, apple drinks, bread, and pies for dessert. It was a masterpiece of a meal that we prepared together. The only downside to the day was I tweaked my bad knee again and almost couldn't get home. Luckily we were taking a taxi. But that meant the next day was completely shot. We ended up using it to pay off our light bill. However that quickly turned south as we found out that it had never been paid and was now a GHC3000 bill. So now we have to deal with that which sucks. Besides that we've just been going around showing everyone we can the Light the World video. If you haven't seen it you need to look it up right now. It's fantastic. Just to end I want to share something small for Thanksgiving. My favorite scripture is Alma 30:44. I read it on Thursday and it talks about how everything denotes there is a God. Not only does everything denote there is a God, but I want to take it one step further. How many people look at all of God's creations and are thankful for them all? Down to the last blade of grass or speck of dust? Nothing is too small or insignificant to be forgotten or pushed aside. All of it was created for a purpose. All of it was created for us. Don't take it for granted, revel in the beauty that is this mortal existence and recognize the hand of God in all of it and you'll find life to be much more beautiful. I make that promise to you because I've experienced it myself. Well that's all I have for this week.

Elder Jackson & Goodrich and someone's little hand!

How did you cook your Thanksgiving dinner?

Thanksgiving 2016

When a white boy needs a haircut....

Nov 15-21

Well it was another slow week but definitely better than last week. Things started to pick up and we started finding more people to teach. One person we found was Abigail. She's living with a member and we contacted her when we went to the members house. She really wants to learn and accepted a baptismal date. Unfortunately she just left to go live at spintex for a few months. We were pretty upset about that but hopefully she will get in touch with the missionaries there. Other than her not too much exciting. Oh I guess I had a huge change. I cut my hair off. It was starting to get ridiculously long so I figured it was time. The problem is the lack of people that can cut a white persons hair. I have to go to other missionaries and even then the best I get is a butch job. It's rough. We also went on an exchange this week too. I brought Elder Paulson to my area. It was super fun. Took me back to my days when I was training Beall. Paulson has been out just a transfer and a half so he's still pretty fresh. I felt bad for him. I worked him hard on Thursday. We biked a solid 10+ miles. It was good for him though. He's only experienced walking so he needed to see what it's like to bike. I know that's not a whole lot but that's about my week. I'd let you know who we're working with but we basically just dropped everyone so there isn't anyone. That'll change though and I'll give you a better report next week. Love you all.

Ebenezer...

Nov 8-14

It was quite a rough week for us. With my companion being a district leader he also has to be available to help those in the district. Usually that's not a problem, they rarely ever need us, but this week it was ridiculous. We seemed to be needed at the most inopportune times. Oh top of that, our bikes keep breaking and we have to get them fixed, and on top of that we had weather issues a few days this week. To sum up our week I would say it was long and exhausting. 

We did have a baptism this Sunday though which was awesome! It was for the son of one of the members. His name is Ebenezer. His dad, Brother Simpson, was a less active that has recently started coming back to church. He wanted us to teach and baptize his son too so we did. It was pretty sweet. Ebenezer was so excited for his baptism too. I had the opportunity to perform the ordinance for him too. Definitely the highlight of my week. Today we went to play basketball too which was sweet. I saw a lot of my friends there. I still can't play basketball at all but I have fun. Anyways, that was basically my week.

Ebenezer

Rudolf's haircut...

In honor of election day!  

November 1-7

Well this week was a definite improvement on last week. We actually got to teach some people which was nice. We are still having problems expanding our teaching pool but the people we do have are starting to progress. We extended 4 more baptismal dates this week. That got me excited so we'll see how things pan out. We also had a bunch of crazy and funny stuff happen this week.

First was Rudolf. We went over to Kingsford's house on Tuesday night and decided to give Rudolf a call to come over. A few minutes later we heard a knock on the door. Assuming it was Rudolf, Kingsford called for him to come in. Sure enough it was him, but he was missing something. Rudolf had cut off his dreadlocks. Just completely shaved them off. I was so surprised and excited for him. He had made a deal with one of the members, Sister Brown, that if he cut his dreads off she would teach him how to make bead ties. So now Rudolf is clean cut and learning a trade that could provide a large sum of money that he currently lacks.

Second is that Kingsford is moving. His landlord is kicking him out because Kingsford caught him trying to steal money from all of the tenants. It's pretty stupid. The guy wouldn't even give Kingsford the mandatory 3 months to find a new place to stay. He gave him a week. So today Kingsford is moving out and into the Kasoa 5th ward. I'm pretty sad about it. I'll miss him and his family. Rudolf is pretty upset too. He keeps saying how much he's going to miss Kingsford once he's gone. Basically that was really sad.

Also we finally set a baptismal date with Eunice! She's a members wife. He's a returned missionary and the ward clerk but she isn't a member. She's been learning with the missionaries for months now but keeps saying she's not ready. She says she knows it's true but isn't ready to be baptized. Well last night I tried again and she said she's ready. She asked if she could choose the date though so we let her. She said January next year! I almost fell out of my chair. But hey at least it's a step! I'm just glad she accepted a date haha.

Anyways that's about all to my week. Tonight we are going for cooking lessons from a member. Going to learn to make garden egg stew tonight! Also going to cook ampesy. Probably my favorite food in Ghana, ampesy with garden egg stew. So freaking good. Anyways that's all for me so next week.

The resident baby wall gecko

Monitor Lizard for dinner!