Rainy Days and Unexpected Adventures - May 27-Jun 1, 2019

Another week all!!! Which means only three more to go!

It was another great week for Elder Skiba and I. We are really grinding out the work and are finding and teaching new people each day. Elder Skiba and I whitewashed which means that both of us were new to the area. And when we first came to Konongo the work was super slow and wasn't going so well. We really had to kickstart the area and now it has gone from a small little snowball rolling down the mountain to a full-on avalanche these days. People are coming out of the woodwork to be members of the church and to meet with us to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Monday evening we had a district activity in which the Samoan brethren in our district cooked and grilled a whole pig. We had the thing running around one room of our apartment and then sadly drowned it in a tub of water so the Islanders could then gut it and cook it over hot rocks. It was seriously awesome to watch them do it. The district activity wasn't even the most interesting part of the day it was after the district activity when the real party got started. Once the activity ended my companion and I went to drop off the keys to the chapel at our branch president's place while the rest of the district walked to town. We took a taxi and arrived home before anyone else which was strange because they left before us. We started to get worried when even after an hour they still weren't coming back. Then around 9 pm our district leader came back and said that one of the Samoan guys punched a guy twice and got thrown in jail!! It was seriously crazy. After being in the cell for three hours his bishop and the stake president went and bailed the guy out. He has to pay over 1000 cedis which is like 200 bucks. Konongo is just filled with crazy stories everywhere. 

Later in the week, we were sitting at our chapel waiting for one of our investigators to meet us for a lesson. It started to pour rain and of course, the guy never came. The one thing that Ghanaians are afraid of the most is rain. Anytime it rains the whole town shuts down and is turned into a complete ghost town. No one goes anywhere. We are now getting into the thick rainy season which means that a lot of our days are getting interrupted and a lot of our plans are getting canceled. But, no matter what opposition we go through we always come out on top. We were waiting for the rain to stop for like two hours and we got to the conversation about how we haven't really been finding a lot of serious people these days and then not even a couple of minutes later President Sarpong came into the chapel compound with a couple that is getting married here in a couple of weeks. They were meeting to plan for the wedding. After they were meeting for only a couple of minutes our branch president comes out and say elders I have a huge task for you guys. He and the husband want us to teach and baptize the woman before her wedding. Apparently, she had been meeting with missionaries a couple of years ago and was even preparing to be baptized but then she moved away. So now we are doing the best that we can to get her prepared by this upcoming Saturday for her baptism. We have even received some other referrals from the bride and groom already as well and hope to receive a lot more at the wedding in a couple of weeks. It sure was so unexpected and came out of nowhere but it was also such a huge miracle!!

And then finally on Sunday during church, a random guy showed up to the church. He said that he had seen us walk by his place in town a lot and always wondered what we were doing. He found out that we were missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and felt inspired to come and see how everything at the church was. After church, we walked with him to his house and was able to answer some of his questions and he seems super interested. Time will tell if he will be another baptism.

Things are still going on so well out here. I thought by now I would have seen everything out here but Ghana still surprises me each and every day!

Love you all,

Elder Ordyna 

A bunch of assorted pics. Some of a crazy storm, one with the little boy of our member and then me in a public toilet out here in Konongo 

Huge Massive Thunderstorm rolling in

Outside our member's hardware store- the shop next to it makes crazy shaped coffins (the one pictured is a book)

Visiting Johanna's family (Elder Skiba and I with Kwame)

Had to pee super badly but there were tons of people around so I had to use the "public restroom"

The Baptism Chronicles - May 14-22, 2019

Long Time Folks!

This week sure was another for the record books or should I just say Elder Ordyna's amazing mission experiences.

At the end of the week, we baptized and confirmed four amazing and super happy Ghanaians. But, the journey to get all of them ready and baptized was not that simple. There sure was a lot of miracles and help from Heavenly Father along the way that is for sure. 

We baptized four this last week. Three for the branch (Ahyiem) and then one for the ward (Freetown). They were Jennifer Konadu, Esther and Richard Sarpong and then Nana Akesse. Each of them has fantastic conversion stories about how they each came to know that the church is true and to make the decision to be baptized.

Nana Akessee- He is a 70-year-old man that reminds me of Grandpa Ordyna. He is always so happy and super jolly and just is super great to be around. On our first Sunday in the area we were walking with a member named Jessie from his house when Nana called to us. He was sitting on the front porch of his house and wanted to speak with us. He told us to come inside and sit down. We started talking with him and found out that he had been invited to a member's funeral some weeks back and loved everything about the church but especially the feeling that he had when he was there. He completely wanted to come and become a member of the church but he didn't know the procedures or the steps and felt uncomfortable just showing up one day. We taught him a powerful Lesson 1 (Restoration) and then committed him to come to church. We couldn't get in contact with him again the whole week and whenever we called his line it always said it was switched off so our hopes with getting a hold of him kind of went down the tubes. But, then to our complete suprise, he was at church the very next Sunday like he promised. From that day it took Nana almost two months to be baptized because the guy would come to church but was almost impossible to meet with. It was a complete miracle if we could even meet with him at least once during the week. He was either at work or too tired at night to listen to us. But, over the weeks we have been teaching him and he has been coming to church and he told us last week that he knows with all of his heart the church is true and will not go to any other church his whole life.

Jennifer Konadu- She is a 22-year-old YSA. She works at one of our members' shops and is super talkative and kind of boy crazy ok like super boy crazy. When we first went to teach her she wasn't serious about the gospel at all. She just wanted to flirt with us and laugh the whole lesson. It was getting so bad that Skiba and I were even thinking about dropping her for a time. But, then she had the ONE WEEK SPIRITUAL REVIVAL EXPERIENCE as she calls it. She wanted a week break from meeting with us. She was going through a lot of personal things and didn't want us to come around for a while. We told her to make sure that she prays and reads the Book of Mormon every day during that period. And she said that she would. Well... apparently she read it every day and prayed every day and received an answer to her prays and the very next Sunday to our complete surprise she showed up for church. Luckily, it was Stake Conference so we boarded sprinters and headed out to Kumasi for it. The next Tuesday afterward she called us and told us that she wants us to come to her shop as soon as possible. She shared with us her whole spiritual experience. She felt something amazing while reading the Book of Mormon which propelled her to come to church. And she said while at church we felt so much love and joy in her heart that she instantly knew that everything was true and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true church on this earth. She told us that she wanted to get baptized as soon as possible!

Esther and Richard Sarpong- They are brother and sister that are 11 and 9 respectively. They have been coming to church now for a couple of months but never baptized. So Skiba and I took on the challenge to baptize them. It was not easy getting a translator out there each day to help the children understand a lot of things. We even had their baptismal interviews a couple of weeks but there were some things that the district leader thought they should know so he didn't pass them. So we continued to do the best that we could to help them learn more about Joseph Smith and the restoration of the church. We were pulling out movies and videos and everything. They were finally able to pass and were baptized this last weekend.

Every time I baptize someone I get so inspired by their conversion stories and it just strengthens my testimony so much. But, I also love looking at the small and simple things that happen along the way to their baptism that is also so inspiring and miraculous. The whole week things just worked out perfectly and fit in place so well.

Throughout the week we had absolutely no problems meeting with our baptismal candidates. No matter which day we needed to meet with them they were always around and ready for us. And the miraculous part about that is that we were able to meet with Nana three times this last week!! Before that, it was a miracle if we could even meet with him once a week but in one week we met with him three times to get everything ready for the baptism. Then on Saturday Skiba and I went super early to go clean and fill the font. But of course, the power was out and the font couldn't be filled. We were super worried that there wouldn't be any baptism at all. We kept praying and hoping that the power would come back so that we could have baptism. And then right at the perfect moment, the power came back! The font filled right at the perfect level as soon as it was time for the baptism to start. We baptized him in the morning and the other three candidates in the evening. The other baptism in the evening also had some serious miracles happen as well. At 5 pm (the time the baptism was supposed to start) we arrived at the chapel and realized that only Esther the 11-year-old was in and she completely forgot her brother at the house! So we had to walk all the way back to their house which was like a 30-minute walk one way and then bring him back to the chapel. But, luckily everything else worked out perfectly and everything was perfect for the confirmations the next day.

Many times baptisms can be the most stressful thing about missionary work. Organizing and making sure everything goes as planned can be a real headache. But nothing in this world compares to the joy and happiness that you receive when one child of God enters the waters of baptism. It truly is the best moment out here for sure! 

Love you all so much!

Elder Ordyna

Assorted pictures of the baptisms and then also the crazy experience of cooking a pig with our two Samoan brethren in our apartment. Quite an experience. I have so much more pictures but the internet is too slow to contain them all. Sorry

Elder Skiba and I Cooking a pig with the Samoan Elders in our apartment (Elder Vaai and Keti)

Jennifer, Kofi and Esther's Baptism

Nana's Baptism

Last Transfer (Less Eventful Week) - May 13-19, 2019

Hey all!!

Not a whole lot of crazy things happened this last week. Just the typical missionary work things: teaching and talking to people. The highlight of the week was that it was also my last first week of the transfer as well as the last transfer day I will ever be a part of!! A little sad that is for sure but also so sweet because it means that the end is in sight. 

As we were closing our week last Sunday I was talking with my companion about the upcoming week and about our investigators. We talked about how we had such a huge teaching pool but only a small portion of them was actually progressing by keeping all of their commitments. And one of the big things that we talked about was how we didn't have anyone that we haven't taught before which meant we would do a  whole lot of finding during the week. But, as the week started going on the miracles started to happen all around us. We would walk down the street and people would just come up to us and we received a lot of referrals from members as well. Every morning during companionship prayer right before we went out we prayed to find new people to teach and of course, we were blessed by the Lord to find people each and every day.

At the beginning of the week, we met with one such person named Sosu. He is a project manager from Kumasi that just recently moved to Konongo for work. He contacted us at one of our member's houses and said that he is super interested in joining the church. He is currently super busy with his work right now. He is building a three-story classroom building for the Konongo Odumasi Senior High School. He gave us a one hour window to come and to teach him real quick. So we did the best to make the best of it. When we got to the school we went inside the main gate and got instantly stopped by the security guard. I guess two white guys walking into a Ghana SHS is pretty suspicious. We just called up Sosu and the security guard let us through no problem. We had a super spiritual lesson with Sosu. He is such a smart guy and knows a lot about the Bible. So we were definitely on our toes the whole lesson to see what he would say to us next. He is a super level minded guy and doesn't believe in any of the random miracles and other crap the one man churches do here in Ghana. He truly wants to know the truth. We bore our testimony to him and gave him a Book of Mormon and helped him to understand that it was the key to him knowing for himself the truth. 

We made some no bake cookies for one of our members and her kids this week. They are by far our favorite family in the area. The mother is Joanna and just the funniest lady you will ever meet. And her kids are even more so. They are a fantastic family that is for sure. We wanted to do something super nice for them so we decided to make some sweet cookies for them. They were super curious to try some. But, the best part is that Ghanaians hate sugar. They don't have any sweet food here so they are all not used to super sweet foods. The mother Joanna ate a small little peck of one and spit it out. She said it had TOO much sugar. On the other hand, the kids basically ate the whole box. We made twelve and by the time we left they were basically gone. The next day at church the kids complained to us that their mom threw the rest of the cookies away because they had too much sugar! Haha!!

We are still preparing a lot of our people for baptism. We have one sister named Jennifer that is planned for baptism this week. She was being taught by the previous missionaries before but was totally unserious. Even when we began teaching her she wasn't even paying attention would laugh at anything we said. We basically gave up on her. We were so close to dropping her and then she shocked us by coming to Stake Conference. The next time we went to visit her after that she was a completely different person. She remembered everything we shared with her. She read the Book of Mormon and constantly asked us when her baptism was. She had a change of heart! We asked her what happened and she said that she felt so much joy and happiness at Stake Conference she knew the church was true. We are now preparing her for her baptism this Saturday. We have a saying in our mission that is so true: Missionaries don't give up they follow up. People change!! We just have to give them time and invite them to do things and you never know when they receive their answer and know everything is true. It has been so great to see how the spirit can change someone's heart for the better. The gospel of Jesus Christ can do so much good for every single one of us only if we let it!!! I invite each of you to do all that you can to always be in the right place and doing the right thing so the spirit can be with you!! The gospel changes lives!

Love,

Elder Ordyna

Konongo Scenery

Me and Kwame (member's son) on the back of a motobike

Konongo District

T-6 Weeks - Get the Work Done - May 6-12, 2019

Greetings from Africa!!!

Today I begin my last transfer ever out here in Ghana! Only six more weeks until I am back on American soil! Crazy to think that I have survived almost two years out here. I count myself blessed that I am able to email to all of you today. At this point in my mission, I have probably almost died or gotten seriously hurt like over 10 times by now. The motto that I have been telling myself since I hit 18 months is "It's not over yet! Get the work done!" And every day since then I have been doing all that I can to finish as strong as possible and get the work done!!

We had another fantastic week out here in Konongo. The Sticky Bandits are still killin it and people are coming out of the woodworks to find us. Konongo is just so fertile and rich right now. The Spirit is really working in a lot of people in this place. We can't even walk somewhere without someone asking us who we are or how they can join the church. This last week we probably met at least ten new people that seem super interested in the church. That is the one thing that I love so much about Ghanaians. They are the kindest people in the whole world. You can walk up to one and they will start having a conversation with you on the spot. They love the gospel so much so it isn't really about helping them know that the gospel is true but more about helping them to know which church is true.

When it came to baptisms this week we had a couple of disappointments actually a lot of disappointments. We were planning to baptize five last week. At the last second one traveled to his hometown because his dad died, another one told us that he needed more time and then the other two we were unable to get the permission of their parents to baptize them. But, through all of those disappointments, we were able to rise above and beyond them and baptized the happiest old man alive Godfred Yeboah!! He has come to church now for two or three months. The coolest part is that he is the father of one of my recent converts from Kwamo. He was referred to us after he heard that I was headed to Konongo. It has been absolutely amazing teaching Godfred and seeing him change as he has practiced the gospel in his life. He always tells us that he was one of the drunkards until we shared the gospel with him and it made him change his ways. He is so happy all of the time now and bore a powerful testimony yesterday that he knows the church is true. Definitely one of my favorite recent converts ever! 

One of the highlights of the week was getting confronted by the same crazy man three times all in the same place. In Ghana, they just have crazy people running around the streets. They don't take them away to an asylum or anything they just leave them just like that on the streets to find their own way to survive. I always feel so bad whenever I see one but most of the time it can also be super interesting whenever you see them. They are so unpredictable and you have no idea what could happen next. Some just run around naked all day while others stand in the middle of the road pretending to direct traffic and almost getting hit by every car that passes by. But, when they see two white guys coming their way that is when it is basically game over for us. The same guy came to us like three times this last week. The first time we were passing by and he wouldn't let Skiba around him so I yelled at him to go away. The next time the guy followed us for like ten minutes to our investigator's house. When we got to the house a huge "mommy" (an old lady) came to our rescue and yelled at the guy to leave us alone. And then lastly he was waiting for us around a corner and as soon as we rounded the corner he came and clasped as hard as he could to my arm. I tried to release my arm but the guy had like a death grip on it. Our member tried to drag him away but the guy came right back. It took three times for our member to finally drag him away. Just some normal daily stuff.

 COOL STORIES- 

Saturday we went out to one of our member's houses in the evening for some food and a lesson. She is the branch's relief society president so we also chatted with her about the women and to coordinate the work better. As we were leaving her house to go home we came across a guy that had gotten his tro-tro stuck in a ditch. We came up and helped him to push his car out. Afterwards, he offered to give us a ride to our apartment. It was such a blessing because we were even out of cash and our zone leaders also didn't have any money to reimburse us for the week's travel. So the guy gave us a free drive that would usually cost 6 cedis. We started to talk to him and even gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet to read. The very next day we got a call from him saying that he read our books and want us to come to his place this week to answer some of his questions. A pretty sweet miracle. We will see where it leads to. Out here in Ghana, we don't have a problem with teaching lessons or finding new people to teach. Those are no problems. The biggest deal is finding someone that is super serious and willing and ready to leave behind their church and normal lifestyle to change and join the true Chruch of Jesus Christ on the earth. As Elder Skiba and I go out each day and do all that we can to do the work of the Lord we are blessed in all things. We are guided and directed to people that will receive us and even we have people come to us. 

About an hour after church yesterday we received a call from a man named Osmond. He was expecting us to call him but we never did. Neither my companion nor myself knew who he was. We set up an appointment to meet with him at the chapel. He was there right at 1:30 pm and was so eager to meet with us. He said that he had met us walking down the street a couple of weeks ago and we gave him a pamphlet but we didn't call him or do anything else with him. My comp and I both felt so bad and apologized to the guy. I had no idea when or where we met him. He started asking questions from what he read in the book and then we even went on and gave him a Book of Mormon. He was super excited about that Book and promised to read it. He says that he wants to do all that he can to join us and be a member of the church. 

All in all I can say that this was a fantastic great week. The work is going so well. Our area is beginning to explode with success and we are so busy all day teaching that sometimes we forget about appointments we had planned for (like yesterday). When the time comes for me to go home I will wish that I could have another six weeks here. I am doing all that I can to make every second count and especially to soak in these last six weeks out here!!

Love you all so much,

Elder Ordyna

See you all real soon. Get ready to party!!

Sister Johanna's seamstress shop. Her family is so awesome. We come and visit her and the other workers alot because they are all members. We have been trying to not go there as much these days just because it is a black hole of time everytime we go there. Her family is so much fun that we always lose track of time.

Elder Skiba and I chilling underneath a mango tree waiting for one of our investigators to meet us

View from Johanna's shop of sweet Konongo

Me pointing at a Ghana school. I have taken a lot of pics of the crappy schools out here so I can pull them out whenever my kids say they hate school. I will just show them the pics of the schools in Ghana and then tell them that I can send them to stay there for a couple of weeks with one of my members or recent converts.

Teaching Richard and Esther with Bro Jesse

At church with one of Johanna's kids named Kwame. The guy is a straight crazy dude

Last time we will see Sister Stella because she is going back to school. I will be home before she comes back for summer break. Crazy to think about that.

Skiba and I chilling by a school waiting for our food to digest from one FM right before we were about to go to another members house for some more food. Yesterday we ate at three different members houses back to back to back.

FM with Brother Justice at Brother Clement's house. Fufu with light soup and chicken of course!!

Me sweeping at Johanna's shop with a Ghana local broom. They are actually super useful outside but can give you some serious back pains.

Walking through the Jungle on our way to Domeabra for exchanges

Jennifer and Exmond at Church (investigators that will soon be members). We will baptize them both in two or three weeks

GODFRED'S BAPTISM