Griffin with some newly baptized members
Yoo!!! Ette sen! Paakyew eye wo ha na me anigye paa sisia. Kofra se me e-mail dapen akyire twa kakra, nanso nne email beye dadaada paa. Typing Twi is weird.... they don't really ever write it, it’s pretty much only spoken; I have only met one person who doesn't speak English that can read Twi. Anyway, my Twi is coming along kakrakakra. Elder Nathan thinks I am fluent but ennnye nokore koraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. The big news I meant to tell you in the second email last week was pretty sweet. I played golf last Monday!!! That was our p-day activity. It was so legit! The course was amazingly nice. Honestly it was better than something like Lake Park. With the exception of the greens (which were maybe the quality of TWU) it was comparable to Oakmont. Pretty crazy huh?! I didn't think it would be that good, but it really was. My first tee shot in Africa was a beaut too. I was way nervous, I was the first to tee off; no range, haven't swung a club in well, you know how long, and everybody watching. But I striped it right down that Ghanaian fairway and finished up with a solid par on my first hole in Africa. Pretty cool huh?! I played pretty decent, maybe 7 over or so on 9 holes - not too shabby when you haven't played in well, you know how long. Pretty much bogey golf - no birds. I played with Elder Mortensen and Elder Alba. Alba is legit - he birdied the first hole. Mortensen is pretty good, about like me, and Vancherie had never played before. Elder Nathan played in the group behind me with Elder Zoll and some other guys.
So that was the sweetest part about last P-Day. That’s why my email maybe seemed a little all over the place, I was way anxious to go golf!!! So if H sees Coach Adams around he can tell him I played in Africa! I felt so weird playing, esp bc the course was so legit, felt like I wasn't on mission anymore. I had a burning desire to get super good when I go home, maybe to go to like one of those golf academy things in Arizona for a summer. It’d be nice to be able to shoot 75 no problem on a regular basis.
Then after P-Day we had a great week. Tuesday we had a combined district meeting with the whole zone because a ton of guys just finished their missions. Pretty insane. Remember Elder Keller? Elder Bahme? Elder Jackson? Elder Wiah? Yep, they are all on their ways home. 19 missionaries going home tomorrow. Pretty crazy. These guys were about 10 months out when I first came. So we had a big zone meeting so we could see everyone one last time. It was nice, all of the departing elders bore their testimonies, always a good experience. I think there are 5 from our zone that left. Then we had a good day of teaching after that. Lots of sweet new people to teach. Like one family, think I talked about them last week - Oppong and Comfort. Oppong is a radio announcer and Comfort is a nurse. We contacted Oppong ourself, but luckily he lives really close to a member family. So we have been taking their 18 year old son, Emmanual to go and help us teach. Oppong committed to be baptized 17 Sept. We had GREAT success with another Comfort this week though. We went throughout the week to visit, since her son Sammy was just confirmed last week and he was preparing to pass the Sacrament for the first time. On Saturday we had a great lesson with Eric and Comfort together, and at the end, we invited Comfort to come to church to see her son pass the Sacrament for the first time. She came! She also made us ampesi - the best Ghanaian dish - twice this week! Anyway back to the first family, last night we taught all of the Restoration lesson, finished by giving him a Book of Mormon. We will be back this week to make sure all is progressing well.
We are teaching this really sweet guy named Blatta. Elder Timothy and I contacted him a long time ago. We were at his house, we started talking to him, and he started asking about the Book of Mormon. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and booked another appointment, but didn't see him again for a few weeks. We finally pinned him down and taught him after Elder Nathan had gotten here. There is definitely a seed within him or he wouldn't keep inviting us back. AND he came to church yesterday. Sweet story regarding that. Saturday night we had a lesson with him, we sat down planning to start talking about the Plan of Salvation and reading the Book of Mormon with him but we felt we should maybe just watch the First Vision video with him. So we popped it in, and we had a great time watching it. After we just discussed about what he understands about what we have taught him. I think the Spirit really hit him hard at that point as we just stated the truth and testified of it. All we asked him to do was to pray and ask God to know it is true. He admitted to us that he had never prayed to ask God if He really had appeared to Joseph Smith and to know that the Book of Mormon was true, and we told him that there was no way he could ever hope to know our message is true until he asks for himself!!! He realized that was true, and committed to pray that very night. Then, to make it as meaningful as possible, we asked him to commit that when he received his answer from God that what he have taught is true, that he would come to church. And he said "ok, if I receive an answer, I will come tomorrow". We promised him again that he would receive an answer and went on our way to our next appointment. You can imagine how happy I was when I saw him walk through those doors at Kwamo Junction 9 o’clock yesterday!!! So I guess he received an answer ;)
Yesterday at church was awesome. 8:15 yesterday, Degraft rolls up in his fresh white shirt and tie, twenty minutes later Eric is there with Comfort, then Thomas comes in, then Cliff, all in 5 minute intervals. On top of that, Blatta came, and Teddy came as well. So all of the recent converts were there yesterday, plus 9 investigators, plus the two who were baptized. Oh yeah the baptism! Haha almost forgot about how I fulfilled my purpose as a missionary this week. Daniel was baptized - by his friend Alex - as was Emmanual, Anarfi's friend. It went great. Daniel is the guy who heard about the church from his aunt in Ohio. And then of course Mensah!
After the baptism yesterday we had to take Elder Newbold to Bantama chapel to meet up with the assistants who were taking the guys who had finished down to Cape Coast. Crazy seeing all those guys go!!! We got transfer news Saturday night (we usually get it on Mondays) - no changes for me. Me and Elder Nathan still together in Kwamo, Elder McFarland is going to train here in Kwamo. A lot of changes throughout the mish with 19 guys going and 12 coming, but I am happy to stay the same! Elder Adams told me Elder Nzuki is training - still in Moree!! He will be a great trainer.
Hmm... what else. We farmed with a guy named Joe on Friday. We offered to help him out. He liked it a lot, I think it showed him and the people that saw us helping what we are all about. We ran into him Thursday coming back from his farm, and offered our help planting the corn. So we had fun with that, hopefully he gets to eat lots of banku because of it!!! Taught a preacher on Wednesday of The Church of Christ. What’s that one scripture that said the people were astonished because "Jesus taught with authority, not as the scribes"? Well I felt like that teaching this guy. It was a cool experience. He was a little humble by the end and said he would start to read the Book of Mormon and pray, so hopefully (for his sake) he does that. We will go see him tomorrow.
Well, the time is far spent. We had quite a week!!! Love you guys so much, you are the best. Love you all!!!
-Elder Brown
So that was the sweetest part about last P-Day. That’s why my email maybe seemed a little all over the place, I was way anxious to go golf!!! So if H sees Coach Adams around he can tell him I played in Africa! I felt so weird playing, esp bc the course was so legit, felt like I wasn't on mission anymore. I had a burning desire to get super good when I go home, maybe to go to like one of those golf academy things in Arizona for a summer. It’d be nice to be able to shoot 75 no problem on a regular basis.
Then after P-Day we had a great week. Tuesday we had a combined district meeting with the whole zone because a ton of guys just finished their missions. Pretty insane. Remember Elder Keller? Elder Bahme? Elder Jackson? Elder Wiah? Yep, they are all on their ways home. 19 missionaries going home tomorrow. Pretty crazy. These guys were about 10 months out when I first came. So we had a big zone meeting so we could see everyone one last time. It was nice, all of the departing elders bore their testimonies, always a good experience. I think there are 5 from our zone that left. Then we had a good day of teaching after that. Lots of sweet new people to teach. Like one family, think I talked about them last week - Oppong and Comfort. Oppong is a radio announcer and Comfort is a nurse. We contacted Oppong ourself, but luckily he lives really close to a member family. So we have been taking their 18 year old son, Emmanual to go and help us teach. Oppong committed to be baptized 17 Sept. We had GREAT success with another Comfort this week though. We went throughout the week to visit, since her son Sammy was just confirmed last week and he was preparing to pass the Sacrament for the first time. On Saturday we had a great lesson with Eric and Comfort together, and at the end, we invited Comfort to come to church to see her son pass the Sacrament for the first time. She came! She also made us ampesi - the best Ghanaian dish - twice this week! Anyway back to the first family, last night we taught all of the Restoration lesson, finished by giving him a Book of Mormon. We will be back this week to make sure all is progressing well.
We are teaching this really sweet guy named Blatta. Elder Timothy and I contacted him a long time ago. We were at his house, we started talking to him, and he started asking about the Book of Mormon. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and booked another appointment, but didn't see him again for a few weeks. We finally pinned him down and taught him after Elder Nathan had gotten here. There is definitely a seed within him or he wouldn't keep inviting us back. AND he came to church yesterday. Sweet story regarding that. Saturday night we had a lesson with him, we sat down planning to start talking about the Plan of Salvation and reading the Book of Mormon with him but we felt we should maybe just watch the First Vision video with him. So we popped it in, and we had a great time watching it. After we just discussed about what he understands about what we have taught him. I think the Spirit really hit him hard at that point as we just stated the truth and testified of it. All we asked him to do was to pray and ask God to know it is true. He admitted to us that he had never prayed to ask God if He really had appeared to Joseph Smith and to know that the Book of Mormon was true, and we told him that there was no way he could ever hope to know our message is true until he asks for himself!!! He realized that was true, and committed to pray that very night. Then, to make it as meaningful as possible, we asked him to commit that when he received his answer from God that what he have taught is true, that he would come to church. And he said "ok, if I receive an answer, I will come tomorrow". We promised him again that he would receive an answer and went on our way to our next appointment. You can imagine how happy I was when I saw him walk through those doors at Kwamo Junction 9 o’clock yesterday!!! So I guess he received an answer ;)
Yesterday at church was awesome. 8:15 yesterday, Degraft rolls up in his fresh white shirt and tie, twenty minutes later Eric is there with Comfort, then Thomas comes in, then Cliff, all in 5 minute intervals. On top of that, Blatta came, and Teddy came as well. So all of the recent converts were there yesterday, plus 9 investigators, plus the two who were baptized. Oh yeah the baptism! Haha almost forgot about how I fulfilled my purpose as a missionary this week. Daniel was baptized - by his friend Alex - as was Emmanual, Anarfi's friend. It went great. Daniel is the guy who heard about the church from his aunt in Ohio. And then of course Mensah!
After the baptism yesterday we had to take Elder Newbold to Bantama chapel to meet up with the assistants who were taking the guys who had finished down to Cape Coast. Crazy seeing all those guys go!!! We got transfer news Saturday night (we usually get it on Mondays) - no changes for me. Me and Elder Nathan still together in Kwamo, Elder McFarland is going to train here in Kwamo. A lot of changes throughout the mish with 19 guys going and 12 coming, but I am happy to stay the same! Elder Adams told me Elder Nzuki is training - still in Moree!! He will be a great trainer.
Hmm... what else. We farmed with a guy named Joe on Friday. We offered to help him out. He liked it a lot, I think it showed him and the people that saw us helping what we are all about. We ran into him Thursday coming back from his farm, and offered our help planting the corn. So we had fun with that, hopefully he gets to eat lots of banku because of it!!! Taught a preacher on Wednesday of The Church of Christ. What’s that one scripture that said the people were astonished because "Jesus taught with authority, not as the scribes"? Well I felt like that teaching this guy. It was a cool experience. He was a little humble by the end and said he would start to read the Book of Mormon and pray, so hopefully (for his sake) he does that. We will go see him tomorrow.
Well, the time is far spent. We had quite a week!!! Love you guys so much, you are the best. Love you all!!!
-Elder Brown
Accra Time
As always, it is really great to read about your adventures! We certainly never would have guessed that golf would be one of them! How awesome!! Continue your good work; we are so proud of you!
ReplyDeleteLove Greg, Mindy, Geoff & Allie