May 16, 2011

We had a pretty good week in Kumasi. We waited one week for Degraft's baptism so that we could join the UST elders and have two other candidates ready for this coming Sunday, the 22nd. So we will baptize Degraft, Cosmos, and Miller. Cosmos is so tight. He really wants to know the truth. Every lesson he asks deep deep questions like what it really means to repent, listens to our answers, studies the scriptures, goes and prays about them, and always comes back knowing it’s true. It has been awesome teaching him. Can't wait to see him baptized and at work helping the Kwamo Branch to be established and grow. They finally started the tiling inside the chapel this week; there is a possibility we could move in by the week’s end. Probably still won't have services there for at least a little while longer, hopefully the tilers make quick work though.

Last Monday we had a sweet sweet lesson at the B's house. We got to their house around 7 or so for the lesson, and we started teaching Charles first because Josephine was busy cooking. Charles is a recent convert, just moved here with his family from Accra. He is a really busy businessman. We were able to answer some questions, and then it transitioned perfectly into our planned lesson with Josephine, his wife. We discussed more about the Restoration and The Book of Mormon, and it could not have gone more perfect. She has read quite a bit in the Book of Mormon already, and is loving it. We taught her again this week, read 3 Nephi 11 with her, and she committed to baptism for the 5 June. She has come to church with Charles a couple of times, and is really enjoying church as well. She even cooked us some nice fufu on Monday, and then some delicious rice and stew when we came again Saturday. We are going back tonight to have FHE with them, we are bringing "The Testaments" to watch with them. Hopefully it goes well!

We had some crazy lessons with Clifford this week, man that guy has been prepared for the gospel. Like I said, he came to Stake Conference last week and loved it. We taught him on Tuesday, finished lesson 2, he said that he can't wait for his baptism. Then we taught him on Thursday, and he said he literally couldn't wait for his baptism, that he wanted it to be even right then if we could. The guidelines in our mission is that someone has to come to church 3 times at least before they can be baptized, and since he had only been once, we told him we weren't sure... He was pretty distraught, saying that he can't wait. We taught him The Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity that night, it was crazy because he already knew them, literally he knew. He told us all these stories about how he got a new job a while back, and when he got there there were posters on the walls that were pretty risque, and he took them all down, and he said "you could just feel the Spirit more there after that, and everyone I worked with knew it, too". So that was pretty cool.

I got to be a tro-tro mate Thursday night coming home! The mate is the guy who sits in the tro, hangs out the window yelling where the car is going trying to get people to enter the car, and is the one who collects money from the people on the tro-tro. We got in our tro-tro going home, and the driver didn't have a mate, he was trying to drive, call people, and collect money all at once. I asked if he needed help, and he said sure! So I hopped in the mate's seat, hung out the window yelling "Kejetia-Adum! Kejetia-Adum!Kejetia Adum!" and collected money from all the people on the tro-tro. It was pretty awesome haha. Everyone was laughing at the oboruni acting as the trotro mate. I did an ok job I think, maybe my calling is to stay in Kumasi and be a trotro mate!!!! :)

Everything else is going great, can't really complain! I played pretty well in our football matches today. Had a couple of assists and two goals, so I was quite the scoring machine :) Haha, I am getting better small small. No other big news really, zone conference is tomorrow (YES!!!!), it will be President Sabey's last (weird). I hope maybe we will have a big mission conference before he goes or something, that would be sweet. I was laying in bed last night and I was just thinking "I love my mission". Mission is not easy, to be honest. But I can honestly say that as of last night that, that switch really turned to where I literally love my mission. I thought it again this morning when I woke up, when I was washing my clothes. I wake up and I just think, wow, I love everything about this right now. It’s not easy koraa, but I have really gotten to a point where I am loving every second. Really, every second. Even the hard times, I am just loving it. So life is good :) Have fun in Ireland mom, have fun in Tejas to the rest of the crew, do work at the spring game H, and just keep loving life!!!! I love you guys more than you know!!!! Thanks for everything :) Me do mo paa, na minnim se asore no ye nokore, na me do ma ebusua papaapa!!!!!

Love from the hills of Asante region,

-Elder Brown Kwesi Poku