Most Stressful and Spiritual Week

Hi everyone,

I thought I would start my email this week a little differently. This week was absolutely amazing. We had the privilege of gathering the whole mission together in Kumasi (all 180 of us) which never happens. This is the first time in two years that the whole Kumasi mission has been together. Our mission is so big and spread out it makes it super expensive and nearly impossible. But, we also had the sweetest experience of having two apostles (Elder Anderson and Elder Soares) and a member of the Presiding Bishopric (Bishop Waddell). The spirit in the room was remarkable, and as soon as they entered the room, I gained a testimony that they were both chosen by God to be apostles. Both men seriously talked by the spirit because the majority of the things that they talked about really impacted and touched me. Elder Soares talked about how we can know if we are successful missionaries and it is not just by the number of baptisms we have but many other things. The one that I loved is we can know we are successful missionaries if we see the gospel of Jesus Christ and the spirit impacting people's lives through us. That is such a powerful thing. We know we are effective and successful if we are helping people come unto Jesus Christ and to change their lives. Elder Anderson talked about life after the mission and gave some seriously powerful advice on making important decisions in life. It is all about the spirit.

FM at Ma Konadu's House

As Elder Anderson was talking, he also prophesied about a lot of things pertaining to missionary work in Ghana. He said that Ghana is a very important country in relation to missionary work because the people are very believing and love Jesus Christ. And then he said that Ghana will have many temples coming very soon and that Kumasi will have a temple in the next five years which was seriously so cool to hear! There are many faithful and prepared members of the church here in Kumasi wanting to perform their temple work. The Accra Temple is just super far for many people. Having a temple here would be such a huge blessing.

I am so grateful for this past week that I have had to feel the spirit and be inspired and uplifted by God's chosen servants here on the Earth. I am grateful also to be serving in this part of the world and to be in the middle of the Lord's work here in Ghana. The church out here is a lot like how it was during pioneer days, and it is so sweet to see the church grow and more and more people receiving the knowledge of the gospel. It seems like a new branch opens every month out here which is crazy.

Love,
Elder Ordyna

 Lake Bosomtwe

 Daban District with our sweet district jerseys

Tro ride back from the lake with the whole zone

Lake Bosomtwe again. We went again which was super sweet.

Eating lunch at Sister Veronica's with Elder Amaechi, Elder Moak

Visiting Sister Jessica with Elder Moak and Elder Schmidt

YOU DEY DO YOURSELF

The family that we have been teaching came to church last Sunday. We are still working on the husband though. But, the wife is serious and really wants to be baptized. 

Dear family and friends,

It wasn't super busy with office things, so we were able to go out and visit a lot of our investigators which was sweet. 

FHE 

We have this one family that was referred to us by Brother Francis (a member). I have loved meeting with them. They are all really smart and very eager to learn more. The wife even asked us last time when the next baptism date was. She has only come to church once but has really been touched by what she has seen and felt while visiting the church. And she has also become really good friends with a lot of the other members which has been really great to see. Daban is such a loving and inclusive ward. The husband still hasn't come to church. The first time he was really worried that he would have to pay collection and he didn't have any money, so that was why he didn't come. But, we talked about tithing and got everything resolved with him. He then told us that he would come to church, but he still didn't show up. We will continue to try and discern his problem, and hopefully, we will be able to work everything out. It would be such a special day to see both of them baptized. 

The girl is Sister Jessica, she is one of my recent converts, and it was her birthday

We have some other investigators that haven't been able to make it to church for a couple of weeks now because of some various personal things they had to do but overall our area continues to progress pretty well. We have a lot of people to teach, and the members are really helping us in our work.

The whole mission has been seriously preparing to hear from two apostles this upcoming Sunday. I am so grateful for the opportunity that we have to hear from them. I am grateful for the inspiring men that God has given us to guide us and help us to know the will of the Lord.

Love,
Elder Ordyna

 The elder in the middle next to me was a brother in our ward that came home early from mission for health reasons. He was cleared to go back to mission this past week, so we took him to the airport and bid him farewell. We also picked up a missionary coming home from the mission this week. It was interesting to see the difference between the two of them.

Buy quality or else YOU DEY DO YOURSELF, and you just don't want to DEY DO YOURSELF

Chick fil a sign Ghana version

Calling Day

Happy Mother's Day

Hi everyone!!!

This week was a busy one but went by seriously fast. We had a lot of little final things to finish up before the big calling day. We had to run out and fix some credit and give some new phones to people because theirs broke. But, the big calling day went seriously well. After we fixed all of the minor things, there weren't any problems. Along with the other 180 something missionaries in this mission, I was also able to call my family. It was such a great experience and so great to see and talk to each one of them. I am so grateful for such a wonderful family!

Over 5,000 cedis that we used to pay for all of the phone credit for the missionaries to call home on Mother's day

We have been teaching a lot of people recently that have really been progressing well recently, like a family we met a couple of weeks ago. They are all progressing well towards baptism hopefully at the beginning of next month. As a mission as a whole, we have definitely been seeing some serious negative results recently. Baptisms have been down this whole year, and there has definitely been a halt in the work recently. President Cosgrave asked the entire mission to have a mission-wide fast last Sunday.  It has only been a couple of days, but I and other missionaries have already seen the results of the fast. In the mission baptisms and other key indicators are up, and in my area, we have found two new people that are serious about the gospel and are planning to come to church this Sunday. God is aware of his servants and I know that this is work and He is guiding it.

One of the security guards at the mission home named Bukari coming out to open the gate during a thunderstorm.

Picture of the massive flooding that has been happening because of the rain. Dry places are literally turning into swamps.

To end, I will tell another story about how Ghanaians hate the rain. It is like everything shuts down inside them or something. The whole town shuts down as well. It is seriously like they are robots and as soon as they get wet, they shut off. On Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of rain. And instantly thought oh-no!!!! We were running a little late to the chapel, and when we got there, only 15 members were there at 9 and at the end of sacrament meeting the number remained the same. Noone wanted to come to church because of the rain and the rain even stopped at 8:30, thirty minutes before church even started!

Elder Ordyna

Hurricane Daban

May 1-7, 2018

Baptism picture (Mary, Phillipa, Kenneth, Jessica) with Elders Ordyna, Ellett, Momotimi, Moak and Schmidt plus member Elvis

Dear family and friends,

This week was definitely another sweet one out here in glorious Daban. The members are still so motivated to do missionary work and helping us in so many ways. Daban is the newest ward in Ghana, but it is still the most powerful one in all of Ghana. We had a four-person baptism this last week, and all of them were referrals from ward members. I have seriously learned how important members are to missionary work. The work goes a lot easier, and the investigators progress a lot better and quicker when members are fully involved. 

Kenneth with his sweet Kente scripture bag that my companion and I gave him. This guy was one of the people baptized last Saturday. And seriously powerful and will definitely serve a mission in a few years.

Investigators at Church

This past week we had a crazy powerful storm. It was another hurricane-like storm. Sorry.. do not get alarmed at my title. We did not have a hurricane hit here we are too far from the ocean, just a huge hurricane-like storm. I have seen plenty of storms here in Ghana. It rains every day here and when it rains it rains non stop for like three hours. But, the storms have seriously gotten worse and worse. I have never seen a storm flood before out here. But, in this last storm, it flooded absolutely everywhere! There were feet of water. A lot of roads closed because the water was extremely high, cars couldn't drive through, and all of the gutters and things overflowed. There were even thousands of houses that got flooded. This past Sunday only like a quarter of the members of the ward were at church yesterday because the majority of their house's flooded and were cleaning up afterward. So, we have been going around and doing a lot of service for people. It was the craziest rain storm and the most water I have ever seen. I absolutely love the feeling that I get when serving.

A house literally built on a rock

My companionship at a members house while we were helping them clean up after the rainstorm

Mission life is amazing, and I am enjoying every minute of it. In a month I will be at my one year mark!!

Love,

Elder Ordyna

Great Warrior 

Cars in the Mission Home parking lot 

Don't Bribe the Police

Have you read your Bible today? Every Tro-Tro or taxi in Kumasi you will see inspirational and religion
quotes on the back.