December 12, 2011

Ayeekooooo. Man weeks just fly so fast here.... seems like every day is Monday and I am starting a new week! This past week was pretty crazy, just with going to Cape really. Left early Tuesday morning, made it to Kumasi around 10. Then waited with the Kumasi zone leaders for the STC bus. Our group of zone leaders up here is so tight: Elder Briggs (UT) and Elder Hernandez (UT) are the Bantama zone leaders. They are both really cool. Elder Alba (UT) and Elder Hailermariam (Ethiopia) are the Dichemso ZLs. Me and Elder Alba have been around each other our whole mission so we are pretty tight, and Elder Hailermariam is so tight. He knew Pres and Sis Andrus in Ethiopia, said he got an email from them last week. Then of course me and Elder Speechly. So we had a fun ride down. We had a super nice bus with these big leather seats that reclined super far, so it was pretty comfortable! Got to the mission home pretty early, like 5, and just got to chill the rest of the night with the assistants and Pres and Sis Shulz. Then we had ZL council in the morning. Talked about a lot of stuff, how we are coming along on our goals, how our efforts to have more gospel conversations with new people are going, and several other things. Then, headed back up to Kumasi. It took us fo eva to get back too because we took a different way, went through a gold mining town called Obuasi and ran into traffic. Didn't get back to Kumasi until like 7 so we had to stay the night at Bantama apartment. Slept on the floor in their living room. Also stopped by the Zoll's apartment to drop some stuff, love da Zolls!!!!!! They had a huge baptism this week for some people out in a tiny mission branch way far from Kumasi that hasn't had missionaries in like a decade. Some members there have been teaching people and finally got the ok to baptize them, so Elder Zoll was in charge of getting like 30 people out there baptized last Saturday. Finally got back to Sunyani Thursday morning. We are preparing two people for baptism this Friday. They were supposed to be baptized on Christmas, but they are both travelling for Christmas and want to be baptized before they go. The first is Johnson who I told you about last week, the other is a sweet lady that Joseph referred to us. She has really started to love the Gospel. She came to church like 3 weeks ago, and we have been teaching her since. Her daughter asked us for a copy of the children's hymnbook because she likes Primary so much. She is super super shy but is the cutest little girl ever, we should baptize her with her mom on Saturday as well. Saturday we were able to bust out a solid day. Had a few new investigators, met with the ones being baptized, and made a lot of new contacts. That’s like my favorite thing now, finding new people. Just talking to anyone and everyone to be able to let them know who we are. I never really contacted a lot my whole mission because we had people to teach and I would just go from appointment to appointment, but now we are way more focused on trying to talk to more people, it makes everything more exciting and fun. You never know who you might find! In the morning we fixed up the Bennet's old place because Pres and Sis Shulz were coming up, so they needed a place to sleep. They were coming up to check on Sunyani, do some temple and priesthood interviews, have a training meeting with the Branch Presidencies, and a meeting with the missionaries, oh and interview all the missionaries. Talk about a busy man...... I can't believe how much he goes through…there are 150 missionaries in our mission. So Sunday was cool, a lot of craziness with President being around, all of the members were excited. Our meeting was really really good. As I’ve said before, President is a very inspired man. He gave a sweet instruction about how important our message is, going deep deep into the plan of Salvation, about what it really is we are helping people to know, and then went into how we had to be the best we can to help people learn about that plan. After that instruction, I finally got to have an interview with President. It was really good. The work is not easy in Sunyani....and so it was just nice to sit down and talk about whatever and just know that you are appreciated by someone. He placed a lot of emphasis on my family and education. It was a sweet interview. Played basketball this morning with Elder Adams before he and his new comp - Elder Hair (Illinois) headed back to Cape, and now just enjoying my last moments of P-Day. Mission is sweet and great things are happening. I have gotten a lot of packages, one from Greg and Mindy and the Christmas box from you guys, and two envelopes from Grandma H. Crazy how close Christmas is. Love you guys, -Elder Brown