Do I really care?

Feb 28-March 13

Well this is for two weeks I guess. They've been done pretty darn good weeks too. We now have 3 people that will be baptized on the 1st of April. No that's not an April fools joke either. It also won't be general conference for us. General conference will be a month later. We don't get to watch it live here. Therefore, the 1st is a perfect day for a baptism. President Simpson has asked us to focus on the age group of 15-25 recently in our teaching efforts. He says those are the ones who will go on missions and get married in the temple and raise children in the church. Seems good to me. We've kept pretty well with that. 2 of those baptisms are Mary and Emmanuel. Both are 18 years old and have a lot of friends in the church. Mary's sister is a member in the ward too. Our other baptism, Peace, doesn't fit the 15-25 criteria though. She's more like 65-75, only 50 years off but we were close! She's super sweet. Her daughter is a member and has been bringing her to church. Last Sunday she asked us when she can be baptized. It's was funny. It was in the middle of gospel principles class. We have others we are working with but they aren't progressing as quickly. We are super worried about one. His name is Nana. He has kidney failure and so he's dying. Since his kidneys don't work he has to go in for dialysis 3 times a week. It's ridiculously expensive and some one helps him pay for it. He can't find anyone to support his kidney transplant surgery though. His wife is ready to donate but no one will pay. It's sad. We hope he doesn't die before his baptism but he can't even come to church because he's so sick. Our last 2 weeks have been pretty good. Lots of running back and forth trying to get everything done that we needed. We had an open house and dedicated our chapel last week. That brought a lot of stress on us to get things organized. We had 18 missionaries at our open house to go around and talk to people and show them the chapel. We got a ton of phone numbers out of it but no one actually interested in the church. Just the fake interest that everyone out here will show. That was disappointing but it was good to try something new. Other than that there isn't much new going on here. Just living in Ghana and doing my thing. Hope you all have a great week. Love you guys.

March 14-20

Another fantastic week here in the Mamponse 1st Ward. Actually it was also a great week in the Mamponse 2nd Ward too. I had the opportunity to proselyte in their area with Elder Bigler on Saturday. It was super cool to see all of their investigators and how much Bigler cares about them. I know Jorgenson does too but I saw Bigler not him. There is one man that we saw that we played guitar with. He owns two guitars and wanted us to play with him. So, to show that he cares about this man as a person instead of as a number, Bigler sat down and showed interest in something that this man loves. That's what being a missionary is all about, caring for people. I know I love the people here but do others look at me and think that? Do I show that love or just "feel" it. It made me reflect on the rest of my week. Do I show love to those in my area? I believe I do. Could I do better? Yeah I know I could. Could we all do better? Yes. But that's what this life is for right? So as I go around and see the people we work with I'm going to try harder to show them I care. Show Mary, Emmanuel, Peace, Nana, Gabriel, Bridgette, and all the others I care. It'll take effort but everything worth doing does. Hopefully a few of these people afore mentioned will be baptized here in the next few weeks. And those who aren't? Well they won't be far behind. Everything is good with me and my companion and those we are working with and it'll only get better. Hope y'all have a great week.

Pictures....

The Dump

Elder Gurr

Knife and a baby doll?!

Bike Ride.....

2 Decades.....

Missionaries in action!! Kaden's uncles comment was, "who took the picture?
The guy who stole his camera and was running away?!" 

Feb 21-27

Hey everyone. Another week down here in Mamponse which completes my first transfer here. That leaves me with 3 left to go but we don't need to talk about that. Transfers are tomorrow and as such we received transfer news on Saturday. My apartment is staying the same. Elder Bigler, Elder Jorgenson, Elder Gurr and I. However, the other companionship is being moved out completely and replaced with sisters. We will miss them dearly. As for the rest of our week it was tough but rewarding. We had a few tough days, Thursday especially, but we taught a lot of good lessons and made what we thought were major breakthroughs with some people. Turns out they weren't a major as we thought. We didn't get anyone that showed up to church. It was a disappointing ending to what I felt was a great week. Also in other news I guess I turned 2 decades old today. Everyone acts like its a big deal but it feels the same as yesterday did and tomorrow will and I'm still in Africa. Gurr and I are going to make big pushes in our area to boost things and see if we can't get a few people baptized before long. Hopefully all goes well with that. A big thanks to all of you for your support and unfailing faith in me, it makes a huge difference and I love all of you for it. Hope you have a good week and what not.

This women was scraping a piece of cow hide she will boil with some chicken to make a soup.  

Mamponse 1st Ward.....

Blessing and her daughter

Feb 14-20

Another week down here in the Mamponse 1st ward. Things went well for Elder Gurr and I. Since we have recently been struggling with having people to teach, we were on the lookout for new investigators and searched out some less active members. We ended up taking 3 different members around with us to show us where the less actives stay. We took Martin, Samuel, and Theo. I met Theo back when he was companions with Elder Kamisese when I first came on mission. Now he's in my ward and it's so much fun to see him. We got a lot done with those 3 and should be busy for a while to come. We are also trying to work with the ward leaders more. They are newer leaders because the ward is new and so we want to help things run smoothly and be of as much service as we can. We ran into a few obstacles there but we are figuring it out and what not. We had a fun day today at basketball. I still struggle but one day I'll be able to play half decently again. Nothing too exciting, hopefully next week will bring more news since we find out about transfers on Saturday. Until then that's about all I have. I love you all, have a nice week.

How did the chicken cross the road?!!

Exchanges....

Francis's baptism

Feb 7-13 

Well it's been a pretty good week I guess. Went on 3 exchanges and had a multi zone conference so I really haven't been in my own area much this week. It's sad but I had a good time with what I did. My first exchange was with Elder Bigler. He's in my apartment and he's from Idaho. We were in his area for the day. It was a little bit of a rough day but we taught one investigator that was sweet. Her name is Elizabeth and she is so ready for the gospel. I'm jealous of their investigators. For some reason we can hardly get anyone to listen to us but all of their investigators are super ready for the gospel. Oh well, we will figure it out. My next exchange was with Elder McFarland in my area. We were having a rough day with people just not listening and so we ended up getting after one investigator really bad. But we saw Bridgette, our one serious investigator. Then I went on another exchange with Elder Bigler. This time we had to travel to the area office to see the doctor because Bigler has a really bad ingrown toenail. He got it cut out but it got infected so we had to fix that. On the way back we got pizza to celebrate his one year mark and the fact that he is getting his injuries attended too. We also had a multi zone conference this week. There were 3 zones there. It was great. Elder Martineau gave a great instruction as did President Simpson. All in all it was a very edifying meeting. Saturday was Francis' baptism. It was sweet. He was so ready to be baptized. The baptismal service went off without a hitch thanks to our awesome ward clerk. He helped us a ton with the font and other details. He's the real MVP. It was a good week this week. I thoroughly enjoyed myself over the last few days. Well that's about all for this week.

Now those are serious pizzas!

Demonic Horns in your Family?!

Basketball and KFC....

Jan 31-Feb 6

Well it's been a decent week. We had some trouble with seeing and teaching people though. On Sunday afternoon we were completely overbooked and had 5 appointments for 2:00 and 3:00. Well every single one fell through. We went to everyone's house and they all said the same thing. Guess they're too busy to hear the Gospel. So we went to find others who did want to hear it. The rest of our week was pretty similar. Lots of us scrambling for people to teach. It's getting better though and we are building our teaching pool. Also we got our investigator Francis interviewed for his baptism this Saturday. We are pretty stoked about it. So he's all set for the baptism on Saturday. We had a fun day today. Got to play some basketball and eat kfc. We totally killed it at basketball too. My team only lost twice and we played 10 or more games. It was so sweet. We won 5 in a row our first 5 games. It was fun. Anyways not a ton going on. Hopefully more next week. Love you all.