THE TOWN aka Nkawkaw - Feb. 12-18, 2019

Feb. 12-18, 2019

Family and Friends!!!

Hey all! Hope everything is going well for each one of you. Hope you are especially enjoying this long weekend.

 The work continues out here in The Town (aka Nkawkaw). I wanted a cool nickname for my area and instantly thought about the Warriors slogan The City and thought it would be perfect for Nkawkaw. But then I realized that this place is more like a town than a city so I had to settle with The Town. Haha sorry, I am really missing basketball right now. All they watch and play out here is soccer. Anyways things have been really progressing out here and my area is getting a lot better. We are finding people to teach and are even seeing some small progress with the members. 

The week started off with the one and only transfer day. We got the tro all ready to go and embarked on the great journey through the wild bush of Eastern Region to Kumasi. I said goodbye to my old companion Elder George and was ready to receive my new companion when President Webster said that I would be staying at the mission home that night and would be going with my new companion to the hospital the next day. I was completely not expecting that news. I had to send off the new missionaries to the zone with their companions in the tro without us. That night I was able to chill and enjoy in the mission home as well as eat nice American food at Aboude's. The next day I found out that my companion had a sprained ACL and had to stay off his feet for 7-10 days. So, I headed back to The Town with a temporary companion (Elder Musudi from DR Congo) until my assigned companion is cleared and able to get back to work. Last night President Webster called me and said that hopefully this Thursday we will be traveling to the mission home to pick up my assigned companion. 

A lot of surprises and unexpected events occurred this last week but did not hinder the Lord's work at all out here. We have been seriously working on the members so much these days with barely any progress. A lot of the members don't want anything to do with us or missionary work. With the help of the Branch President and the Elders Quorum President, we have been able to implement a program where we meet with a family from the branch every Monday night for FHE where we train them in missionary work. Tonight is our first visit. We will see how it goes. Hopefully little by little we are able to get these members pumped up and excited about missionary work. It is like waking up an elephant. A lot of hard work but very doable.

Now that the other Elder's area is shut down and the areas are merged, we are starting to see a lot of progress. We currently have about three investigators that are preparing to be baptized in the coming weeks. But each one has their own problems and concerns that we are trying our best to help them overcome. The first is Doris, she is coming to church off and on. She won't read the Book of Mormon or pray about it. She doesn't have a testimony of these things but is just coming to church because her brother is. She has told us many times that she wants to be baptized and join the church, but we are continuing to help her increase her faith in Jesus Christ and build her testimony of the Restored Gospel. Secondly, we have Charles who has a very big drinking problem. I have been working with him since I have been serving here, and we are seeing some serious improvements. He is drinking less and I am praying for him every day. He is really willing and committed to stopping. It is just a matter of time. Lastly, we have Sister Owusuwa. Right now, she is cohabitating with her husband who is a member. That is one of the biggest problems we see out here. In order to get married here in Ghana the man has to pay a "bride price" to the family of the bride. Most of the time it is really big and basically impossible to pay so instead of paying many couples just stay together without ever actually marrying. The branch president and the other leaders are doing all that they can to help the couple to pay the bride price and be legally married so she can be baptized. 

This week we also had a super amazing and special miracle. A couple of weeks ago in my letters, I wrote about the story of the man we found sharpening his cutlass. Well, we have been able to go over to his house and teach him a couple of times. He has really been loving what we are sharing and has really felt the spirit during our discussions. And yesterday he brought his whole family to church! Him, his wife and his three little children. After church, he met with the branch president and some other branch leaders and told them that he really loved the church and wants his whole family to be members of such a wonderful church. We will continue to go and share with him and help him to prepare for his baptism! It was such a wonderful day and an absolutely amazing end to such a crazy week! I know that God directed and guided us to Kofi 100%. Trust me we would never have found him otherwise, we walked a long time and plus we were out in the middle of nowhere. I also know that we found Kofi at the time best for him. He was prepared by God to receive us and the Gospel of Jesus Christ right now. He had a lot of questions about churches in the world and didn't have any church to go. It was at this time of confusion in his life that we, the missionaries, came and helped him to understand and feel the right way to go. I love this work so much and am so grateful to be a missionary especially out here in The Town.

Love you all so much! Enjoy the week!

Elder Ordyna

Sadly, I don't have any pictures this week. I promise I wlll have plenty next time!