September 12, 2011

Morning morning morning. Its morning there right? Yeah I guess so... it’s like 2 here so it’s what.... 8 there? Idk really haha. Anyway, life is going on well in Ghana land. Played a nice full pitch football match this morning out in Bantama. Transportation in Kumasi is RIDONKULOUS. ABSOLUTELY RI-DONK-U-LOUS. Left the apartment at 7:50.... arrive at Bantama 9:20. Kwamo to Bantama is about the distance equivalent of maybe.... our house to the square. Maybe a little longer, but still. Holy guacomole. Our whole p-days are just wasted on tro tros. So when you get frustrated with traffic on loop 288 (is that still there) just think about Elder Brown, sweaty and packed into a van with 15 other people with the sun beating down, trying to make it safely to the other end of town :) Haha. But it’s all good though. Tro tro rides are fun. I hope I get to see you guys take a tro tro some day.... would be quite an adventure ;) Welp, the week was pretty legit. Nothing too special happened, just solid missionary work. The best part of the week was the progression of one of our investigators, the one who got up and bore his testimony last week. We told him we would come help him out at his farm this week, so we grabbed our cutlasses and trekked out to his corn field early Wednesday. Turned out he needed a lot of help. He hadn't been able to plant the corn at the right time because of some complications, so he planted it as fast as he could without spraying the field with pesticide to get rid of the weeds. So we had to go and rip out all of the giant weeds on the corn field. We did it for like 5 hours on Wednesday, then another 5 hours on Friday, and we have probably only gotten about 25% done. So we have got more work to do this week! Farming is really cool though. Just relaxing to be out there, doing something that doesn't really require much brain effort, and just work hard. We used pick-axes to rip out weeds.... ‘twas a serious work out. So we did that for him twice in the week, then taught him on Saturday night. We were on splits with some ward missionaries (well actually, recent converts ;) Anarfi and Mensah) and me and Mensah had a great lesson with him. Basically talked about how church has made him feel. Said that it is adding a lot of understanding to his life and that it makes him feel good. We were able to teach about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ will bring us Salvation, that The Bible and The Book of Mormon are testaments of that, and that it has been restored in its fullness to the earth through a prophet today, and the Spirit was able to teach him it was true. I told you about the first time he came to church right? That the night before we asked him to pray to know that what we taught him was true, and that we wouldn't expect to see him at church until he received an answer for himself. He was at church the next week. Pretty sweet! He brings his son, Ezekiel to church with him, so there is great potential there!!! Hmm.. what else from the week. Uh huhhhh, !!!! So Thursday, Elder Nathan and I were sitting in our weekly planning session, and we get to one of our families. We just sit there trying to figure out what to do. We had tried to call them either the night before, or that morning or something, and they hadn't picked up. So we are sitting there, and we are talking about them, and just come to the conclusion that they have to be our biggest focus right now. We were trying to figure out how we could help them the best, when at that very moment, the phone rings! Guess who it is? President Shulz telling me I am getting transferred to Burkina Faso! Just kidding. It was Josephine!! She told us that she wanted to meet that night. We invited the Zolls to come as well, bc they taught her with us that one time and loved her, so they tagged along. Luckily Charles was also there and we had a great discussion with them. First, Charles was wondering about tithing, so it was perfect to have Elder Zoll there with us, a fellow big business man, to talk about the blessings of tithing, how to pay it, why to pay it, all that, and Charles was convinced by the end. Then, for Josephine, we taught about the Sabbath Day. It is hard for her to come to church because Charles is always travelling, and coming to church on her own with three young kids is tough. But again, it was perfect that the Zolls were there, bc Sister Zoll could talk about how hard it is to go to church when the husband is travelling, but why it is so important, and how it will bless us so much. So all in all the lesson was perfect. And to end, the Zolls showed a Mormon messages video thingy from Neil L. Anderson, about how "You Know Enough". ‘Twas perfect. And then Josephine had made us stir fry with chow-mein noodles. Stir-fry? STIR-FRY?! Isn't that what I used to hate growing up?! Holy guacomole.... times have changed. Times have changed. Or I guess living in Ghana eating nothing but eggs and bread and rice and cassava does that to ya. Wowzers. Then we go to teach her again on Saturday. The Zolls came again. It had been forever since we had just simply read the Book of Mormon with her, so we read Alma 32, and again, it was great! Then at the end, the Zolls showed another Mormon Messages thing, this one about the temple. It was so sweet.... man.... the temple..... I love da temple. I haven't seen a temple in well, you know how long. The video was perfect, bc the Zolls explained about how right now her faith is small like the seed in Alma 32, that one day it will be knowledge as she understands the blessings that temple covenants provide for us. Pretty sweet. She promised to come to church on Sunday... and she did! Along with her 3 kids. Church yesterday was interesting. So Last Tuesday we had our first zone conference with President Shulz. It was sweet, talked a lot about how to train a new missionary. Because there are at least 45 new missionaries coming into our mission before 1 January. Wowzers. Our mission is going to be so much different. Elder Adams told me that there is another Elder Brown coming, this one from Florida. So we will have 3 Elder Brown's in GCCM. I will be the grandfather of them all! How sweet would it be if I got to train Elder Brown? Let me answer.... ummmm, so sweet???? I think it would be cool just to train for the rest of my mission. Every two transfers just get a fresh dude and train him up the right the way. That would be pretty cool. But we shall see what the Lord has in store! Anyway so we talked about that, but then at the end talked about our new mission goal. President Shulz wants all of the wards to develop a ward mission plan. Now the members are like WAY excited about missionary work, should be fun to see what happens with it. It’s going to be a cool goal. I got sick over the weekend, not fun koraaa!!! Some bad chicken I ate on Friday. But, was still able to proselyte, just not very fun! Glad the Cougs at least put up a good showing against Texas, too bad they lost, but oh well. Seems like the team should be ok. Hopefully I can hear the cheers all the way in Kumasi on Saturday :) My regards to everybody in D- Town. Love you guys!!!

 -Elder Brown Pics

Kwamo group (I got to take pictures during church a few weeks ago to send to the Apostles. Pretty sweet huh?)

Macbeth ad. I mean, farming… and eating raw plantain (not very good