Great Things Are Happening

My wonderful Family and friends,

Well.... basically this is part 2 or should I say chapter 2 of The Great Adventures of Kwamo that began last week. It was another great and adventure filled week.

We started it off by planning a sweet zone activity last Monday night before Zone Conference. Because our zone is so spread out it is very difficult to have zone activities. But, everyone was coming down to Kumasi anyways for zone conference so we decided to use that to our advantage and plan a sweet zone activity to really boost the morale of our troops. We played a sweet game of football (of course) and then had some great fried rice and played a super fun Book of Mormon Jeopardy game that my companion and I put together. It was seriously cool being with all of our zone members and it sure had a lasting impression on our zone members. To make things even sweeter our whole zone slept in our apartment that night as well. It was one huge zone sleep-over. We managed to fit 10 other missionaries in our already small and full apartment so that was an adventure.

The next day, on Tuesday, we all headed out to the Asokwa Stake Center at Tech which is about 30 minutes away from Kwamo for a powerful zone conference. Man, President Webster is so spiritual. We spent the whole day talking about the Book of Mormon and how we can better use it to bring more people to the restored gospel. It really opened my eyes to different ways we can go about sharing the gospel through the Book of Mormon. My companion and I made some serious goals to share the Book of Mormon and give it out to as many people as we can. It is Elder Smith's last transfer and he basically has two more weeks left so our goal is to hand out a box of Books of Mormon each week until he goes home. Which will be about 4 a day which is super doable out here. We will lead the mission in copies of the Books of Mormon placed!! After zone conference, we basically stayed for an extra five hours so that President Webster could interview our zone. There were six members of another zone that had to go and then fourteen of us and of course, the zone leaders are the last ones. We didn't get out of there until like 8 pm and then we had a 30-minute drive back to our apartment so zero proselyting got done last Tuesday. 

Wednesday was a great day because one of the less-actives we have been working super hard on came to Mid-week. His name is Joseph and he hasn't come to church for three years. He once was a super powerful member but he had many doubts and questions about the Temple so he fell less active. We have met with him to strengthen his faith as well as his knowledge about the Temple. He told us that he would come to Mid-week first and then to church. We were so happy to see him there when we showed up at the chapel. He is really feeling the spirit again and even seeing that he needs to come back which is super cool. It is amazing to bring people to the restored gospel but is also super sweet helping people back to the path. I love mission.

 Sister Precious baptism with her friends, recent convert Beantu and Blessing

We baptized a recent converts family Brother Ikwiee (wife:Ma Olivia, kids Lord and Lily) and then also Angela on the far left living with a member family 

On Saturday we had our seriously powerful baptism of five people. The service was seriously spiritual and everything eventually went well in the end. But, we had some serious opposition in the preparation for the baptism. We got to the chapel super early to prepare but within like two minutes of us being there I accidentally dropped our phone down like a ten foot drain so we couldn't call any of the members or the people coming to baptize so we just had to rely on faith that they would show up and everything would be ok. 

This is the drain where I dropped our phone while I was trying to close the drain for the baptismal font. It fell right out of my shirt pocket. Luckily, the phone still works but it is certainly on its last leg.

The next thing that happened was the power went out while we were filling the baptismal font. And in order to fill the font the water has to be pumped from the poly tank and of course, in order for it to work, we needed electricity. At this point, it seemed like everything was going wrong. But, we relied on faith and before we knew it the baptismal font was filled, members showed up and all of our investigators were there ready to go. It was a fantastic baptism and everything worked out in the end as we relied on faith and Heavenly Father. 

The Assistants, my companionship and the Effiduasi Elders taken before the exchange (Elder Wetsel, Elder Smith, Elder Blanchard, Elder Banta, Elder Surtees and then me)

Later that day we went on an emergency exchange out to Effiduasi to help and strengthen a missionary out there. It was a very effective exchange and we were able to really help their companionship out. During the exchange, I also went to a place that takes the definition of the bush to a whole new level. It was a village called Sanaja and barely even 50 people lived there. It was a small town surrounded by some seriously dense jungle. When we first got there a man asked if we wanted to buy some machetes because we might need them. The missionary that I was with said it would be ok, the place that we were going wasn't that thick. We basically just stayed in the town area. On a powerful note, the place even had a group where like 2/3 of the members in the village were members which was seriously surprising but cool at the same time. We went there to visit with the group leader and just to see how everything was doing out there. My own nickname for the Kwamo Zone is now Bush Central. Majority of our zone is made up of small villages and straight bush. 

Things in the area have been going very well. We honestly didn't have a lot of time to focus on Kwamo but this week will be a lot better. We are even planning a seriously powerful activity this week to get more people interested in the restored gospel and that is an open house. Our Bishop is so excited about it. He is telling everyone and even put a couple announcements on the towns PA system. Everyone in Kwamo will come to this thing it will be absolutely amazing. I continue to have a great time out here in Ghana and hope all of you have an amazing week!!!

Love your American Bush Master (a name in the village someone gave to us) ELDER ORDYNA

Bishop Prosper Mensah's family