June 20, 2011

Yoooooo what’s up?? Big news from Kumasi - we are in Kwamo now! Prosper - the mission employee in charge of fixing all the apartments - called us Thursday morning and said to pack our things up, we were moving to Kwamo in a few hours! Haha so we had to get in a hurry to do that. The move took the whole day, it is great to finally be there. They are putting the finishing touches inside the chapel, and they announced at church at UST on Sunday that we will open Kwamo on 3 July. So we will seriously pray for that! Haha. So we live in Kwamo now, pretty crazy. I live inside a chapel... very weird to think. And plus, my whole mission I have lived in an apartment outside of my area, my whole first year I had to travel a solid 30 minutes in the morning and at night to get to my area, but now I just walk out the door of the apartment and I am there. It is pretty nice. We can stop by the apartment for a snack or a drink or if we forget something or whatever. It is just me and Elder Timothy there, so it’s a little different just being us 24/7. We come from completely different worlds with completely different concepts of living, but it is so cool to see how it all works out, we are learning a lot from each other.

The week was very very nice. Just plugging along with the usual. Tuesday we had sweet lesson with Cliff - he is going as strong as ever. We also had a good learning experience on Tuesday. We were walking through Kwamo and were passing a house we had contacted a long time ago. We had contacted an older guy there, made another appointment, but were never able to meet him again in the house (we met him like 3 months ago). We saw him sitting outside his house on Tuesday though, so we went up to talk to him. When we got near to him, he got really mad at us, telling us not to bother come and talking to him, that we weren't sincere at all, and that we didn't need to come to see him anymore. We felt really bad, and we could see he was just really lonely and sad, so we did our best to apologize and keep talking to him. We promised him that we would like to come back and visit him again if he would give us one more chance. At first he said no, but after a little more talking and apologizing, he said we could come back the next few days. We went back a few times through the week, teaching him small small, ended up giving him a copy of the Book of Mormon by the end of the week. So we shall see where that goes! He seems to be happy just to have visitors to talk to, so hopefully the Spirit will work within him to help have a desire to learn more.

Wednesday we had a great lesson with the family who came to church last week. It was a great lesson. They came to church again on Sunday.

Thursday was move day, pretty sweet. Like I said... we live in the chapel - how weird is that! And not to brag, but I am fairly certain I live in the only missionary apartment on the face of the earth that has a baptismal font inside!!!!! Pretty sweet huh?! I shall put it to great use! We will have a baptism on the first day Kwamo opens, just like a story book huh?! Planning on at least 4 people - the family we’re teaching, Eric (sweet news with him later in the email), Gilbert (found out he will come back from Volta region this week!), and Elizabeth. So should be sweet!

So now the sweet story about Eric. Man this dude is legit! We couldn't meet him all week because his car broke down and he had to go to Suame Magazine - a GIANT auto shop in Kumasi, it’s like... the size of... like umm, I’m not sure, but its like its own city, just a giant auto repair place - and was there all week. But Saturday we were walking through Kwamo New Site, the far side of Kwamo and we saw his car parked outside a house. We had never been to his house before, we always just met him at the chapel. So we see the car and look at each other both with a "hmmm... I think we should look for Eric" look on our face. And a few steps later, we see Eric sitting outside his house reading his Book of Mormon and Bible. So we go up and talk to him, he was very happy to see us. We sit down to meet, and his wife comes out of the house. She greets us warmly, and we expected to go back and into the house, but without even being invited, she came and sat down for the lesson! Then, their son came back from playing with his friends and sat down for the lesson too. We were pretty anxious to teach a powerful lesson, and think we did pretty well! We did the whole Restoration lesson and were able to help her see the need for a Restoration. We also talked about families and how important those are in the church and to God. Well actually I should say Eric talked about that. So we committed them to read from the Book of Mormon with Eric, and also invited them to come to church with him tomorrow. We weren't too sure if she would come, and when church started on Sunday, Eric and his son were there, but not her. We were bummed, but at least Eric brought his son along. BUT THEN.... just as we were singing the Sacrament hymn, guess who walks in the door?! You guessed it! She did! She wanted to surprise even Eric that she was coming, so she didn't get ready in the morning until after they left in Eric's car. Then she got ready and took a tro-tro to church. It was sweeeet! And they had some sweet discussions in investigator's class. The Relief Society sisters fellowshipped her perfectly, so it was awesome! I had never had a husband-wife family come to church my whole mission, but yesterday, TWO came! It was so cool. And Eric is just there in Elder's Quorum bearing testimony the whole time. It was legit. They were talking about the Word of Wisdom, and he stood up during the lesson and bore serious testimony about how he didn't even know this specific commandment until just then, but he had known it deep inside him his whole life and was so thankful that God let him understand that even before learning the gospel. So his baptism will be 3 July, and if his wife and son progress and keep coming to church, theirs can be then as well!

Cosmos is doing great. You should hear the questions he asks. It’s like God has given him a giant book of questions to ask us, he asks them, then writes down the answer and believes it 100%, and does everything he can to learn more about it himself and apply it in his life. On Saturday we had like an hour and a half discussion about the Plan of Salvation. It was deeeeeeeeeeep-ohhhhhhhhhh. Haha, he knows more about the Plan of Salvation than probably 90% of church members now. And he is just eating it up. He has been seriously studying Gospel Principles as well. He wanted to go to the temple last week to do baptism for the dead - he has gathered info on a bunch of his ancestors - but the ward going didn't have room for him to tag along with their trip. It will probably be good for him to go with Kwamo members.

Well, that’s the sweet news from the week. I am stoked Rory McIlroy won! I told my fellow golfer missionaries this morning that he would win fo sho!
Oh yeah, we had a mini zone conference today. A good-bye to President and Sister Sabey. Pretty weird they are leaving next Wednesday. It was nice. We sang the GCCM song at the end... touching :) I played the piano for it. Messed up a little haha. I am getting rusty. Then we played a full pitch match with President reffing for the last time. It was fun, no score for me, but I am getting better.

Welp.... you guys. You are da BEST! Seriously I love ya love ya love ya! Tell everybody else I love them and that they are great and that I am sorry I can't email them every week, but I am trying to be a good missionary and only email for an hour! That was a bad sentence grammatically I think. Oh well. I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Elder Brown