Mon, January 17, 2011

The Adams Family,Well another week down here in Atonsu and everything seems to be going well, pretty similar to last week. How are things there? Good I presume. Well this week we had a lot more time on our hands and were able to pretty much have a normal week. Tuesday we saw the Kiffer’s (missionary couple from Alaska) for the last time. I'm really going to miss them they were really really helpful to us. Anytime we needed something like more chairs or sacrament clothes, all we had to do was call them and in no time they would bring it to us. I hope we got everything that we need, because now we have to go and do it ourselves. The entire rest of the week all we did was contact and try and build a teaching pool so that we can get a few progressing investigators and have a baptism here in the near future. The days were long. We contacted and taught a few lessons in between each day. Our days are running from about 9:30 in the morning to about 7:00 or7:30 in the evening, and we never stop for lunch we just pick something up on the street while we are out working. It makes the days go by faster if we just stay engaged the entire time. I haven't ever gone home for lunch my entire mission and I don't plan on ever doing it. We’re more effective that way. So we get between 9 and 10 hours in each day. I will say that contacting is not the way to go. It is member referrals. We have contacted dozens of people this week and maybe only a handful we are still teaching. It's not easy, so we are going to kind of redirect our focus for the next few weeks towards the members and gain some trust by serving them and see if that brings some more referrals. Right now we are working with about 4 referrals or so and 2 or looking pretty good. Umm we were able to meet a less active family this week that was actually a referral from sister Anab. They are a whole family and they were all baptized, but now attend a different church. The fell less active because the Bishop who brought them into the church was their landlord, and then they say he kicked them out of the house. Probably because he wasn’t paying. So of course they did what all other Ghanaians do they go to other churches for money, and then join whatever church will give them money. And so now it's a money battle. Man these ones are tough battles to fight, because if they left for the money they didn't have a very strong testimony in the first place. So we'll see what happens there.

Saturday we had a sweet experience, but it totally has nothing to do with missionary life. We were out contacting and we walked through a guy’s farm and then crossed over a river by jumping rocks. One of the big boulders had a bunch of crazy marks on it that were about two feet long and one foot wide. They looked like giant footprints from some crazy dinosaur or something. They farmer told us that they all believe that is what it is, some really old fossil of a dinosaur foot. They look pretty legit but I am not sure. So we will send you the picture soon and you can decide for yourself if it could be.

Elder Smith and I also came up with a new goal to baptize a pastor of another church. Then maybe he can convert his followers. We call it the Abinadi goal. Random. Okay, now to Sunday. Sunday was good, a little down on numbers from the first week, but we had lots of visitors the first week. So I conducted this week and it was a little stressful just because the people that we assigned to speak in church didn't all show up on time. We had a youth speaker, Sis Gifty Anab who gave a wonderful 5 min talk on repentance. She is a solid beehive. Then we had a return missionary talk and he talked for about 30 min. Elder Smith was about to give the backup talk when the lady we assigned to speak walked in very late. So I announced that she would be our concluding speaker and she kinda looked at me with a "what?" look on her face acting like she wasn't ready. But After 10 sec. of staring at each other she pulled out her talk and gave a good talk on charity and love. She really thought she was going to get out of speaking haha, but she did very well. So sacrament meeting started on time and ended on time and everything went along very good with that being the only small hiccup this week. I never actually realized the things that you can see and observe while sitting up on the stand. It amazed me! You’ve got 40 year olds picking their noses like there is money inside it, laying back with their eyes closed like they are listening but really sleeping, talking about the week with the person next to them, playing with their phones, and all kinds of stuff. Haha it was really funny to see just how much people pay attention. I feel for you all serving in the Bishopric haha. Anyway we had about 15 members there for sacrament and about 25 for the whole of church, and 7 investigators, 4 of which we contacted or are teaching. Random people show up every week which is cool. So the rest of church went on smoothly. Our priesthood teacher didn't show so we had to fill in for that one but it went okay. I actually ended up teaching young women’s. Don't ask me how but there were 3 of them and they didn't want to go to relief society, and nobody wanted to teach the class, so I did what I could. It was weird, ya know just being a male haha and talking about young women. Anyway it was funny and we just went through their personal progress. Another successful Sunday, but just not quite as exciting as last week. And still no group leader so we are still in charge.

Well my companion is awesome. He is from Morgan, Utah and he knows what it means to work hard so we are enjoying and just doing work. He played football in high school and was really good so we have quite a bit in common. It makes things a lot of fun. So that is cool. Oh yeah I just wanted to add something small to end. I sat in on primary to see how it went at church and Sister Dina was teaching. Holy crap can that woman teach! She is so good with kids it is crazy. I have never in my whole life seen someone teach with such power and enthusiasm. It’s like taking Elder Holland and having him teach primary. She gets the kids to listen, to participate, and everything,. It was awesome to see. The members here really get the gospel and understand it. It is so true that the church is the same all over the world, and just seeing that passion that she had was a powerful testimony builder. Her testimony was so strong like a fire you could warm your hands over.

Great week, love you all so much and can't wait to tell you about what crazy things happen this week. Take care and know that I love you.Love Elder Adams

Answers to moms questions.....
1. How do you get around the area? We walk a lot, but our area is big so almost everyday we have to take a trotro to some farther away places in our area. 2. Do you have an oven/microwave? No we don't have anything different such as an oven. It's all the same stuff. We have a propane stove and that's it. 3. Do you have a variety of foods? Food variety is about the same. You can get cheese and stuff, but only if you spend half your monthly sub on one block of cheese. That kind of stuff is expensive, so I just eat pretty much the same things and buy the same things. And fufu is the staple food of Ghana, it’s everywhere. No changes really there. 4. Are things less or more expensive? The basics might be more expensive, but for the most part if you’re not buying the American things and stick to the Ghanaian food it’s about the same. 5. How many missionaries are in the Kumasi area? There about 30 or 35 I think but I am not really sure in 2 Zones. Hope that helps if you have anymore let me know. Love your favorite son Elder Adams