We Didn't Do Anything JK We Did Everything April 29-May 5, 2019

It was a pretty slow week. We travelled a lot and didn't have much time in the area. We also didn't teach a lot of our people but of course we still received the full Ghana HD experience as always.

 

Our district leader told us on Monday out of nowhere that Elder Skiba and I were supposed to cook the next day for District Council. We have a tradition out here in Konongo that after every district council a companionship cooks lunch for all of the companionships. And after five weeks it finally came to us. I didn’t really put any thought into what I would prepare for everyone when it finally happened. Surprisingly all of the Africans are super picky, If the rice is too soft or too salty, they won't eat. So, I was super nervous that everyone would hate the food. Well, let me just say I put my African cooking skills to the ultimate test. I made THE perfect rice and THE perfect Egg Stew. I had everyone on their knees begging for more. I even had the Ghanaian sister that has been cooking this food her whole life ask me how I prepared it. You could have called me Iron Chef Ghana at that point. It was a super great moment. Now Skiba and I have some serious street cred in the district which is a plus.

 

On a serious not after the district council we headed out to a new investigator named Exmond. He is about 21 and came up to us while we were walking to a members. He told us that he was super interested in the church. When I asked him why he said that he just wants a simple and quiet church where he can feel God's love for Him. I instantly told him that the Church of Jesus Christ is the church for him. Like 95% of the churches in Ghana are basically rock concerts and people yelling ""Holy Ghost Fire"" followed by some random noises (look up apostate churches and gift of tongues in Ghana to get the full experience). It is practically for entertainment and just getting people rich quick. Some of the Ghanaian pastors are among the richest men in the world. We had a great first lesson with Exmond where we answered a lot of his questions and even invited him to come to Stake Conference with us the very next Sunday. At first, he told us that he wouldn't be able to make it that week that we should expect him next week. But I guess the spirit really worked on him and he softened his heart because we received a call from him early Sunday morning asking us what time church was and that he would be coming with us to the stake conference. That sure was an epic blessing and miracle.

 

In the night we also had an epic lesson with some two guys that we contacted at a member’s place named Nathan and Shadrack. They are two young guys that are looking for the truth but just don't know it. They basically only let us come over because their sister told them to have us. They weren't super interested about everything at first. We called them and they reluctantly said yes to have us over. We planned to meet them around 6 pm. As we were getting ready to head over to their house the rain started to come small small. We both felt like we needed to get there immediately even though the rain was coming down pretty seriously. So, we decided to trek there in the mud and rain. When we got there, we found both of the young boys talking to each other. We found out that they were both preparing to go home for the night, but the rain kept them inside for the moment. So, we took that opportunity to teach them. They started out not interested at all and not super focused on us but as we continued, they both began to feel the spirit and loved everything that we were sharing with them. The rain started to fall so loudly that Skiba and I had to yell to teach them but no matter how loud it was around us they still remained completely fixed on us and super interested in the message. It was one of the coolest lessons I have ever taught out here. Even though it seemed like a hurricane around us everything seemed so peaceful and quiet as I testified about Jesus Christ and taught people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. The young boys then became super interested in what we were saying and even accepted a baptismal date and a Book of Mormon. The Spirit works wonders in the heart of all men!

 

At the end of the week we had Stake Conference in Kumasi. We travelled two hours to Kumasi with four of our investigators to hear from the leaders of our stake. It was a seriously uplifting and inspiring conference that one is for sure. It even made me so happy to see that two investigators that have never come to church before were able to make it as well. The first was Exmond the boy I talked about earlier and then the classic JENNIFER YSA. For her she started off completely not serious. We met her through one of our members. She started off completely not serious. She always told Skiba and I that she wanted to marry us and would just joke with us and everything she was never really serious. Until recently we went there, and she told us that she was going through some serious hard times and read from the Book of Mormon to help her. Since that moment she has been super serious about everything we have shared with her. She even came to church for the first time yesterday. I gave her a baptismal date for the end of the month of May, but she said that it is way too far for her. She wants to be baptized as soon as possible!! We have so many people right now that are truly having a change of heart and doing all that they can to prepare for baptism. Elder Skiba and I will have five on this Saturday with more to come. My major goal that we are working towards is to have 10 baptisms out here in Konongo before I go home which at this point should be more like 15 or 20 the work is going so well.

 

LASTLY

Today was definitely a P-day for the record books. We woke up and cleaned the apartment as usual and everything seemed super fine until Elder Carlson (our district leader) started to not feel super well. He progressively got worse and worse until he was physically weak enough that he couldn't stand up. Everyone in the mission knows exactly what to do if those symptoms start to show: CALL PRESIDENT WEBSTER IMMEDIATELY MALARIA IS NEAR. He called President and he got authorized to go to the hospital immediately for testing. And then this is where the craziness begins. The threesome in the apartment (Elder Dago, Elder Keti and Elder VAai) got broken up when the two Samoan elders left behind their third wheel and went to the internet cafe. And then Elder Dago and Elder Carlson’s companion didn’t want anything to do with going to the hospital. They believe that just by going inside they automatically get sick. All I am gonna say about that one is that out here in Ghana there is a lot of truth in that because as you will see from the picture below the hospitals are more like torture chambers or dungeons from the medieval times than anything else. Anyways that meant that Elder Skiba and I were stuck going to the hospital with our faithful District Leader by default. The hospitals out here are a straight maze of going back and forth to different windows talking to different people and then waiting hours until they call your name. We brought UNO and provisions for the long hospital stay. As we were following Elder Carlson around the hospital, we met these two guys that came up to us and said that they were interested in the church but no idea how to come or to even join the church. We collected their phone number and gave them both a one-minute testimony of the restoration and set a time to go and see them on Saturday. About ten minutes later we struck up with another guy that is going to school to become a lawyer that lives in our area. We also gave him a Restoration pamphlet and collected his number. In the end of it I am so grateful that we were led to the hospital today because we were able to find some sweet new people to teach and to follow up on. The Lord works in mysterious ways to bring to pass the salvation of many souls.

 

I love you all

Elder Ordyna

Elder Skiba and I took Elder Carlson to the hospital to get tested for malaria- he ended up being positive

Atobrah (member in Kwamo) and I

Solomon (recent convert in Kwamo) and I

Konogo Story Time - April 22, 2019

Happy Easter All!!

Hope all of you had a wonderful Easter being with family and celebrating our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. My companion and I certainly had an event filled week full of stories, miracles, and other shenanigans. We did some serious teaching and helping people come unto Christ with some crazy things happening on a side. Every day was action filled and super exciting. 

On Tuesday we went and met with Brother Dacosta who is now one of our recent converts. He was baptized two weeks ago and we met with him to just see how he is doing and to help prepare him to receive the Aaronic Priesthood. He told us an amazing testimony about the church and even his baptism. He was praying before his baptism asking Heavenly Father to help him to have the urge to do any of the bad things that he used to do after he came out of the water. He told us that he knows that this is the true church because he felt something so unique at his baptism. And his prayer that he offered at his baptism was answered. He has completely left behind all of the old stuff he was doing and has no urge to go back to them. It has been seeing not only Dacosta but many of my other converts completely have life-changing moments during their baptisms. This gospel is real and this is truly Jesus Christ's church! That same day we also went and visited with the previous missionaries recent convert named Isaac. He is super cool and really smart and has such a great testimony of the church. But, we were hearing a lot of stories from some of the members that he was a crazy guy and he shouldn't have been baptized, to begin with. We were sick of hearing rumors and things of him so we decided to go out and meet with him to truly see what he is all about. We had a great lesson with him about the priesthood and then at the end of the lesson right after we finished the prayer we got into a conversation about his cardboard that he tapes to his face. On both sides of his face, he has a piece of cardboard taped to his face with packing tape. We asked him about it and we got a full-blown absolutely crazy story one-hour long story about it. He was in the UK army for two years and then got radiation poisoning while he was there. It caused some serious pains in his eyes and the only thing that helps is putting the cardboard there. Seems normal right?  Well, there is a lot more to the story. To cut to the chase he believes that he now controls the stars in the sky and bad things are happening to him because of the radiation poisoning in the fact that he can only wear one pair of clothes because if he isn't careful people will come and take it away from him. Because of this, he has everything he owns in his backpack that he always carries with him and he can never wash his clothes or they will disappear as well. It sure was one of the craziest things I have ever witnessed but we did get a referral in the process so everything worked out quite well with that one. Isaac is now one of our best friends and told us that we are the only ones who he trusts with his deepest darkest secrets and basically wants us to come around every day now.

Wednesday we focused on a lot of our progressing investigators and the stories and shenanigans just continued. We headed to one old man named Nana who is really enjoying the church and is preparing to be baptized next week. We got to the part in Lesson 2 Plan of Salvation where we talk about the life on this Earth when he told us a testimony about the things we were teaching him. He said that he knew life was hard but God loves all of us so much and he always blesses us and helps us to have joy and happiness as we do what is right. To illustrate this point he then told us a story about his life. He said that one day when he was younger he and his friend needed some work to do. Then one day his friend came to him and said, 'Nana follow me out into the bush I found some work to do." Nana was so happy that they had found work and didn't think anything of it. Anyways when they get out there my investigator (Nana) found out that he was brought to a straight up JUJU man to be sacrificed to the Gods and then his friend would get a bunch of money from it. He ran as fast as he could through the jungle and then back to his house. The next day he turned his friend into the police and now he is in prison for the rest of his life. Moral of the story from the lips of my investigator is no matter what, God will always bless and save those that love him and obey him. Pretty sweet right? We then visited another one of our progressing investigators named Godfred who is also preparing himself to be baptized next week. He bore his testimony to us as well about the church and how the gospel is changing his life. He said that since he started coming to church he has seen some small small changes in his life. Things are lining up and going more in order. He was a complete drunkard and smoker and would bet all of his money away but now he has no urge to do any of those things ever again. He knows that it is truly God's church and has promised God in his prayers that he will never abandon His church at all no matter what happens. 

Thursday and Friday were pretty slow days in the fact that we taught some great lessons and talked with some members. But, it was very crazy in the INBETWEEN LESSON department. Both days we came across the same guy in the same exact place at the same exact time and he had the same exact thing to tell us. He said that he hated us because we were telling lies about Jesus Christ and deceiving the whole people of Ghana. I have had many people tell me things like that out here in Ghana. Many people have terrible false views about the church out here. Many of their pastors and church leaders tell them lies about the church which isn't true at all. The funny thing is many of the pastors and false prophets out here in Ghana have read the Book of Mormon before and even use it to teach and have come to know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the truth but they spread lies and fantasy tales about it to make sure that their church members never leave and join the actual church of Jesus Christ. There sure is a lot of opposition that we have to fight as missionaries out here in the Land of Big Time Apostasy but the truth always prevails and no matter what happens the spirit always tells the truth and people will always be drawn to the truth in one way or another. We also had the wonderful pleasure of seeing crazy drunk people everywhere we went. Every single holiday Ghanaians love to drink to the point where they are so out of it they do not have any idea what is going on and that was definitely the case this Easter Holiday. But, the one highlight of it all was we were walking down the street when this one big old guy walks up to us and said I love you guys a lot. And we were like yeah we love you too man. And then I was completely unprepared for what happened next he then gives both of us a huge bear hug. We came to find out later that he was the son of the chief of Konongo. Now we can say that we hugged the Prince of Konongo and basically have free invitations to the chief's palace whenever we want. Our goal is to be like Ammon and his brethren by converting the whole town of Konongo by converting the chief first. I will update you on our endeavors with that one in the future. 

Saturday we were able to proselyte with some members basically the whole day which was pretty sweet. We started the day at a YSA's named Tony. He is preparing for mission himself and called to tell us that he had a referral for us. We went there as fast as we could and met a guy named Oswald. He is super smart and knows a lot about the gospel. He even chastised us small for taking our shoes off before coming into his "PALACE". He likes to talk a lot and ask a lot of questions that is for sure. Not really sure how this guy will progress but at least we will try our best that is for sure. We then headed into the main town of Konongo to teach two kids that have been coming to church for the past three months with a member. We went with two young men and they taught the whole lesson in Twi with me and my companion paying attention to them the best we could. At this point, I can hear Twi very very well but speaking a lot of it is a problem while my companion is lost the whole time which is kind of funny. It was seeing how happy they were that we let them teach a whole lesson themselves. Both are preparing to go on mission pretty soon. In the evening we headed to the chapel for an Easter Activity with all of the youth in the branch and the ward. We watched the movie The Testaments and I had the wonderful privilege of giving a talk about The Atonement and How it relates to doing missionary work. I seriously love the gospel and was so pumped to inspire them to go on mission. I shared some experiences with them and realized how much I have learned and have loved every moment of my mission!

The last day of the week sure was the best day for last. It was Easter Sunday and my companion and I both woke up excited to be able to watch general conference. They had postponed the viewing of General Conference out here in Ghana till Easter Sunday for unknown reasons. So I was so happy to finally be uplifted and inspired by our wonderful church leaders. We left the apartment earlier than usual to get to the chapel to get a nice seat for the viewing. We were pretty early so we spent some time greeting and saying hi to members and our investigators. One of the biggest miracles this week was the fact that Michael came to church. He is one guy that we met a couple of weeks ago at our progressing investigator Godfred's house. He was super interested in our message but would not accept a Book of Mormon no matter how hard we tried. So, I didn't think anything of him. And then out of nowhere, he showed up to watch General Conference!! Everything was going so well until our Bishop announced over the pulpit that General Conference would be shown in TWI!!! I couldn't even believe it. Twi is the local language here in Ghana but isn't the mission language so they don't teach us anything. The only thing we learn is what we find out on our own, I can understand basic stuff but to sit in a full-on Twi meeting for two hours I would fall asleep before I received any great inspiration or anything. So, we basically just sat in the clerk's office watching it in English with it buffering every five seconds until 20 minutes in the internet connection just completely cut out. We then just hung out a little bit until all of the members were finished watching it in Twi and then we went in and watched it in English. While we there the patriarch invited us over to his house in the night and asked how many missionaries were in Konongo. We then walked to the house of a returned missionary named Stella. Before we went into her compound a young boy jumped off of a motorbike and ran to us. He said that he is interested in the church and wants to be a member. We gave him a pamphlet and told him to read it and we would come around later that week. We then went inside Stella's house and ate some sweet fufu with chicken and light soup a Ghana classic that I am really going to miss that is for sure!!! We then received two more new people to teach as well. We got introduced to two of her friends Nate and Mishak and now have plans to teach them tomorrow. Anytime we find a new place we find new people to teach which is sweet. We then received a call to go to another member's house. It is the first counselor in the bishopric and his son is our ward mission leader that just returned from his mission in Nigeria. He knew that we just came from an FM (free meal) and that we were then on our way to the patriarchs for one but he had no mercy on us. He then also made us eat. He locked the door and wouldn't let us out until we finished everything. IT was straight brutal that was for sure. And then after that, we were led to the patriarch's house. The first thing that he asks us is where are your companions? He wanted us to invite the other 7 missionaries in Konongo over to eat as well. We had no idea about that one and our jaws completely dropped. We did the best that we could to call them and get them over there but it was too late. He led us inside to his dining room and there was enough food for nine people!! My companion and I were already stuffed to the brim and didn't want to leave without eating anything so we forced ourselves to eat a mountain of food but we still didn't even take out a dent in all of it. We felt so bad but the patriarch just said don't worry about it next time. HE is such a powerful and spiritual guy. He has been a member of the church since the 1980s which is seriously a long time for a Ghanian. He was one of the pioneers of the church here in Kumasi. He was the first branch president in Konongo a year after he joined the church. He then became a counselor in the first stake presidency in Kumasi and then the second stake president and then he also served as mission president in South Africa with his wife and now he is the only patriarch in this part of Ghana. He is such a great guy. That Easter Sunday the members poured their thanks and appreciation out on us so much. We were stuffed to the point of vomiting as we walked back to our apartment.

It sure was such a great week filled with miracles around every corner and great things happening everywhere. Every day is such a new adventure waiting to be had and on mission every adventure is even sweeter because we are doing the Lord's work and doing all that we can to bring souls unto the Savior and Redeemer of the World.

Love you all,

Elder Ordyna

Elder Skiba and I enjoying a nice pizza at a place out here in Konongo called Gennex Pizza. Would definitely go to it again it was that good.

When general conference is broadcasted in English instead of Twi. Many members hate broadcasts because of the English. There are many people that are not educated and cant speak english that is one reason why they broadcasted general conference in Twi. Which I was actually pretty grateful about because we had some investigators there.

Me on the branch clerk's motobike nicknamed Gary

A glance at the four course meal for nine people my companion and I had to eat from the Patriarch and his family

Working Hard and Long and Free!! April 15-21, 2019

Another One!!

Some missionaries in my mission made a remix of the song Young Wild and Free by Wiz Khalifa and called it Working Hard and Long and Free. 

Elder Skiba and I have been talking to everyone in Konongo basically. We have named our companionship The Sticky Bandits because everyone that we see sticks to us and becomes members of the church. We have really been working hard and doing super well.

The week started off with a complete miracle which was pretty sweet. A couple of weeks ago my companion left his wallet in a taxi and we thought that we would never see that thing ever again. Konongo has thousands of taxis and seeing the same one twice is a longshot. Well, a couple of days passed and we pretty much just forgot about the whole thing until this last Tuesday. We were coming in from a long day in Nkawkaw. We went there for a zone council and then had a quick exchange with the zone leaders. When we reached the apartment the security guard at our compound had Elder Skiba's wallet. It was absolutely an amazing miracle and also a testimony that everyone knows exactly where the two white guys stay. It honestly isn't too hard for anyone to find our apartment honestly. You just ask any Ghanian where the two white guys stay and you will be able to pinpoint it directly. 

We were able to make some serious progress on a lot of our investigators and found some serious new people to work with. The members are basically running after us to help us out. One of the first areas where they have been willing to help us so much. At church members will just tell us "Yo missionaries I am free on Thursday, call me" or "I am free all week call me!!" Yesterday one of the counselors in the Freetown Bishopric caught me by surprise and was just like Elder we need you to fill in for us and give a 15-minute talk during sacrament week. If I at the beginning of my mission I would have probably peed my pants right then and there but now I have learned a lot about the gospel and can talk about anything at any time. I am always ready to share the gospel and invite everyone to come unto Christ. The talk was on Missionary Work and I really did my best to get the members going but honestly, it was the first time I have given a talk to members on a mission where I didn't feel like I was chastising just encouraging and helping. 

The week ended on a sweet note with Elder Skiba's first baptism!! It was an absolutely great day! We were planning for two Jennifer and Dacosta. Friday evening their interviews went completely well and we were pumped for Saturday morning when the baptisms would take place. Dacosta came super early and was seriously ready for his baptism. Minutes before we were about to begin we got a call from Jennifer saying she can't come because her brother won't let her get baptized. He saw that we gave her a Book of Mormon but angry that there was no Bible with it. He thinks that we don't use the Bible and he doesn't want his sister to baptize in a church that doesn't use the Bible. Quite frankly, the guy does not understand a lot of things about the church and we are planning to meet with him and our branch president to help to understand more about the church and at the same time hopefully, we can baptize him as well. There is a lot of opposition with the work out here. The adversary knows that we are absolutely doing so well in terms of success and really does all that he can to stop the work. But, this is the Lord's work and nothing can stop it. No matter what it will continue to move forward and people will continue to join the church. 

This week is Easter. It is the day Jesus Christ the Savior and Redeemer of the Lord resurrected from the dead so that all of us will also be resurrected and have the opportunity to live with Him and Heavenly Father again. I hope you all have a great week thinking about the Savior and remembering everything that He has done for each one of us! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Ordyna

Elder Skiba and I taking pics with a church sign after district council

Elder Skiba and I with investigator Jonas and member Derek

Baptism for Dakosta

The Thrills of Training April 8-13, 2019

Hey all!!

Whitewashing mixed with training is a full on blast. It has been a great opportunity to train another fellow American and welcome him to the beautiful wonderful land of Ghana. We have only been together now for two weeks but we have experienced so many things together it could fit pages and pages.

Our week started off pretty sweet last Sunday. A couple hours after church closed a random guy came into the compound and asked about the church. He was a Muslim but just recently had the desire to become a Christian. So, we instantly gave him a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment to meet with him the next day. We asked for a name that we could call him by and he just said Captain nothing else. And at the time I didn't realize that we probably should have gotten more from him. After we taught him the first lesson we called and called him over and over again. But, either it was a lady that picked and didn't know who captain was or it wouldn't go through. So, basically at this point we have completely lost contact with a super interested and serious guy which is pretty sad but hopefully he will show up sooner or later. The major thing is people can go missing in Ghana for years and never be found again. Hopefully the spirit will be able to direct him to the church again so we can meet with him

Wednesday we went and chatted with our Ward Mission Leader Derek for a little bit. We talked to him about the area and how everything was going so far with the whitewashing. He has basically been one of the main reasons that we have been able to get off to such a great start. He is super helpful and has directed us to places and even given us like three members that are totally free to proselyte and help us whenever we need it. The guy is also so funny and likes to brag about his mission a whole lot. He served his mission in Nigeria Enugu mission and was telling us some crazy stories about that place. Told us he baptized over 200 people out there and he had to outrun gangsters with knives basically everyday. And if the missionaries ever did anything disobedient they would be brought to the mission home and forced to sit in a room for hours called Carthage Jail. Don't know how much is made up but it sounds pretty crazy out there in Nigeria. Just happy I am living the dream out here in the most peaceful place in the world. 

My companion and I were in the serious spiritual lesson groove on Friday when during the middle of a lesson our zone leaders called like five times and then our district leader also called us as well. We didn't want to interrupt the lesson but I knew it was serious so I quietly went out of the lesson while my companion kept teaching and I found out that the sister missionaries here in Konongo had a serious emergency and both the zone leaders and the district leader wanted me and my companion to go out there and see what we could do. They didnt give us a lot of details so we had no idea what kind of deal we were getting ourselves into but we went over there as fast as possible. We found out that 1) the padlock to the compound wouldn't open so they were locked inside and 2) as they were climbing over the fence to go out and proselyte one of the sisters stepped on the main water pipe from the city to the apartment and completely snapped it in half so water was spraying up like a geyser 20 feet high flooding the whole place. So basically the whole situation was so much worse than we originally thought. The rest of our day was completely wasted as we sat at the sisters and made sure that a plumber came and everything was under control. The highlight of the whole situation is that we got some free mangoes as well as some nice jollof rice with chicken. We definitely scored with that one. 

The week ended with a sweet day at church. We were totally expecting to watch General Conference but we completely suprised when we found out that the whole Africa West Area postponed the showing of general conference until Easter Sunday in a couple of weeks. Their thought is that it will make it a lot easier for members to invite their friends to watch it with them but really i dont think it will really make a difference. 1) majority of our members didnt even know that general conference was this last weekend and 2) anything english usually drives away the average ghanaian so we will see what happens. I was bummed that I wasn't able to watch it with the rest of the world but, we did have a pretty sweet fast and testimony meeting filled with a lot of great and spiritual testimonies. We even had three new people show up to church and two of which we contacted just this last week and they showed up. It was seriously the best closure to a great week. Our ward mission leader even helped us to get them all a baptismal date which was sweet. Hoping to baptize two this coming week with four more to follow in the coming weeks. The days have been filled with teaching and helping everyone come unto Christ and at the same time I have the wonderful blessing of helping someone adjust to missionary life. We are doing all that we can to be exactly obedient and work as hard as we can and we are definitely seeing the results. We are experiencing serious blessings and miracles in every aspect of our lives. 

Love,

Elder Ordyna

The pics will probably show up in a random order. But there are some assorted pics of the waterfall, konongo and with some members for your viewing pleasure. I have more but the internet is not cooperating so maybe next week.

Me on a bridge in Konongo

Ahyiem Branch and Freetown Ward Chapel

Elder Skiba and I with member Jessie

Ward Mission Coordination Meeting with Ward Mission Leader Derek aka Post Malone and Assistant Ward Mission Leader Bernard

Me, Elder Skiba and Elder Carlson on the way to a waterfall

The Konongo District at the Waterfall

Flight Plans

FLIGHT PLAN FROM ACCRA TO HOME!!!!

The Sweet and Amazing Area - March 26-April 1, 2019

Hey, all it is Elder Ordyna once again!!

Wow!! I had an amazing week filled with so many wonderful things. 

The ultimate peak of the week was picking up my new companion from the mission home on Wednesday. I traveled to Kumasi the night before and we hit up the mall as well as KFC. It was probably my last time eating at KFC in Ghana before I come home and eat the real thing. We completely chilled that night and then in the morning, I went super early to the mission home. 

I am training a guy from Spanish Fork, Utah which is pretty dope. It has certainly been a lot of fun showing him the ropes of missionary work and showing him how to survive in Ghana. It has been filled with a lot of laughter and plenty of jokes. It is a real blessing to train a missionary straight from the MTC. Elder Skiba has plenty of spirit and is helping me to continue my last couple of weeks. We have been working so hard and having so much success as well.

I have now been transferred to Konongo which is basically The Town 2. It is directly inbetween Nkawkaw and Kumasi. All I can say is that this place is absolutely amazing. The missionary work out here is going so well. The place is way smaller than Nkawkaw and basically a straight village compared to Kumasi but there are 6 units of the church here. 3 wards and 3 branches. There are three companionships of missionaries here and each of us are over a branch and a ward. And we are the most special companionship out of all of them because we get the amazing pleasure to worship at the church building that was actually built by the church. People around call it the Beautiful Temple. Plus, this is the first area that I have served in here in Ghana where there aren't any main negative things about the church going around. Basically everyone loves it so much. We are having a lot of success finding people and helping them come to church. Plus, random people come to church all of the time. Sunday we had one lady come for the first time and then about an hour after church another guy came by just randomly asking when church is. WE talked with him and now have an appointment to meet with him tonight which is way cool. We have only been in the area for 4 days but already have a baptism lined up for this Saturday as well as next week with many more to come.

The members are also some of the coolest ones I have met my whole time in Ghana. Like three of them came up to us and said that they want to help us so much because they never got a chance to serve mission. They are so active in missionary work it is absolutely crazy. This last week we had 10 new investigators taught with 7 baptismal dates places. It was an absolutely great week. It is an absolute blessing to be able to end my mission in such an amazing place!! I will certainly live up every single second I have left!! Next week I will share more about the area and the investigators that we have been working on. Right now we are experiencing some serious success and miracles around every corner.

Love you all and hope you all have a great week! Till next time!!

Love,

Elder Ordyna

Farewell to the Town (Nkawkaw)

KFC with Elder Neilson before transfers

Stopped in Kwamo to get a haircut and visited with Atobrah on the way to the mission home

My posterity on mission (from left to right: Elder Bamba (my first son), Elder Afa (my grandson trained by Elder Bamba), Elder Skiba (my second son) and then me)

Me and my second son (Elder Skiba) at transfers

Chillin in a malaria tent that we made. The power was out so it was super hot inside the apartment so we slept outside in this so we didn't get bitten by killer malaria mosquitoes. It was pretty sweet. Reminded me of my emergency preparedness days in Boy Scouts.

Elder Buhler and I