Anything for GKM

July 31-Aug. 9, 2018

Album cover- ANYTHING FOR GKM

Hey people!

Hope everyone has had a great and exciting week. My week sure was a mixture of exciting and busy. I have learned many wonderful things and have experienced so many great memories while I have been here in the office. In three weeks will be my six-month mark here. I have officially come up with the catchphrase "Anything for GKM!!" When we have to go and do something hard or super time consuming here in the office, we just say anything for GKM, and it helps us to go and do. It is going around the whole mission now which is pretty sweet. 

Elder Aye and I are eating enchiladas made by Sister Webster. Her and President Webster were away for the weekend at Sunyani District Conference, and we received a text that they needed us to go in and eat the food or it would spoil by the time they got there. They are the nicest people. And it wasn't just enchiladas it was an array of items that I hadn't had for over a year. It was amazing.

How many missionaries can you fit inside the mission van? You can't see them all, but we managed to fit 15 of us in there!

I am proud to say that this week was my last MLC in the office. MLC is when all of the zone leaders around the mission come to the mission home for a meeting with the assistants and President Webster. And we office elders are in charge of getting all of the supplies and distribution items ready for them. So beginning even the day before we are rushing to get all of the supplies prepared and separated out to their various zones. It is a madhouse after MLC as well. Basically, a bunch of zone leaders with their heads cut off. We are always relieved and grateful when it is all said and done. 

Typical evening Kumasi traffic

On Saturday I had the opportunity to leave my area and head out to Bantama for an exchange with my zone leader Elder Dhlamini. He is a great guy from South Africa. The day was a lot of fun. We got along very well, and it was great getting to know him better. But, overall the day was pretty hard. We had a bunch of lessons planned, but all of them fell through. So, our backup was to contact basically all day. I really do not like contacting at all, but it was very enjoyable this time because we were also with a great member. Bantama is the heart of Kumasi. The area has the huge market called Kejetia. Before we knew it, we had contacted all the way down into the deep market. That place is basically like a black hole. Once you go in it is seriously hard to come back out. 

Kejetia Market

We were in heavy people traffic and then we were finally able to find a "yellow-yellow" or "praggia." Type auto rickshaw into Google to see a picture. That was an ultimate mistake. I would honestly have to say it was one of the scariest drives of my life. We were in a small tricycle basically with huge trucks and cars everywhere. 

We finally made it out and continued on our way. We then got a call from Nkoransa one of the areas in the zone, and the missionaries there were asking for reimbursement and some supplies. So we had to take an hour tro ride out there and then give them the supplies and then another hour back to Bantama. We didn't get home from the exchange till 10 pm. It sure was one of my more memorable and adventure filled exchanges. 

We went to the Brobbey's house after church on Sunday to celebrate their one year wedding anniversary. He is the 1st counselor in the Bishopric, and she served her mission here in Kumasi.

Sunday was absolutely amazing as well. It was fast, and testimony Sunday and the room was absolutely packed full of chairs. We will need to get a new chapel because Daban Ward is growing so much! The members are full of energy and spirit to do missionary work and to bring their friends to church which is amazing. Very soon we will have more than one ward here in Daban! One of our investigators went up and bore his testimony about how he was driving his "motoking" (also look this one up on google to see what it looks like) and transporting a huge fridge in the back of it when he hit a pothole and the whole bike tipped over and the fridge landed on his leg. At that very moment, he prayed to God and asked Him to help heal his leg and make sure everything would be ok because he really wanted to make it out to church the next day. And God heard his prayer, and his leg was healed, and some men came over and helped get the fridge off of him and the next day he was up bearing his testimony about it at church. His name is Morfrid, and he is progressing super well. He doesn't do well with English, but he says that when he reads the Book of Mormon the Spirit really helps him to understand what he is reading about and because of that he now has a testimony of this gospel and the Book of Mormon. We have even received another referral from one of our members named Felix. He is 18 years old and said that he wanted to find another church because every time he went to his old church, he had a bad feeling. The member invited him to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and then we asked him how he felt afterward and he said amazing and knew it to be the church of God. He is also progressing very well and has gained a testimony for himself that the Book of Mormon is true.

Us with Brother Elvis and his family at KFC. His wife Eunice just recently graduated from Teacher's Training University, so we took her and the family to KFC to celebrate.

I know the Lord is blessing us for our diligence in trying to proselyte despite all of the many office tasks that we have. There have been so many miracles occur in this area even though we only have limited time to go out and see our investigators. We are planning to have five baptisms my last week in this area which would be absolutely incredible. I know this is God's work and he is mindful of our efforts and knows the sacrifice and desire we make to serve Him.

Picture of Daban (my proselyting area). At the time of this picture, we were teaching a man named Jonah on the top of his house.

For all of you going back to school hope it is a great first week!!

Elder Ordyna