April 30, 2012

Holy moly another week!!!!!!!! Time is flying like a newborn
grasscutter in bolga!!!! But all’s is well. Life is good in Sunny town.
For my last transfer.... I will be in Sunyani with Elder McFarland!!
Glad to be staying put, finishing in a place I know and love with a
companion who works like crazy and has fun. I've really never
been happier on my mission, even though we're not having gobs of people
to teach. That is changing though - yesterday we went on splits with
members again and taught ten lessons and got a lot of new people. Doing
this every week will accelerate the work so fast. It’s exciting to
still be here and be a part of it.

This week was sweet; first let me tell a story from last week that I
forgot to tell. So, to introduce, you have to remember that EVERY
member in Sunyani has been a member for less than a year and a half,
so they all still have pretty tender testimonies. So
anyway, one day we were walking around trying to find somebody, and
for some reason we decided to go to visit a guy we contacted like a
month ago who seemed interested, but we never saw him again. As we
rounded the corner, we saw a member sitting at a little
provision store right across the street. She lives far away, so we
were pretty surpirised to see her, and she had a look of shock on her
face when she saw us. She was just in the area for something and was
stopping to buy her nephew a juice box. We chatted for a bit, then
chatted with the man who was working there. He wasn't very friendly,
not even talking to us until we bought something from him. We talked
for a few minutes, he said he knew a little about the church, but said
he was not interested, so we went on our way. The next day we were in
the town where she lives, and passed by to say hi. As we were
sitting down, she told us that the man that worked there did not like
the church at all, and that just before we came, he had launched into
an attack on the church that she didn't know how to deal with. I can
imagine what he felt like when he saw me and Elder McFarland, two - ok
one - big strong dude and his American companion round the corner in
white shirts and ties carrying scriptures and wearing name tags that
said "Jesus Christ" in big bold letters on it. Elder McFarland is an
intimidating dude, and me, well, you know :) Haha. Anyway, the guy
didn't say a word from there, and hasn't given her trouble since.
The funny thing is, we had absolutely no plan to go to that place, it
honestly randomly (well I guess not-so-randomly!) popped into our
heads as we passed that area, and after we talked with her and the man, we
turned right back around to go where we had been before. The Lord puts
us where He needs us!!!!

We did some good ol’ fashioned door knocking this week in a place we
had never gone too - airport residential. We met a university
professor who teaches courses on Religion and
Development. We had an hour long discussion about the Restoration, he
had known a little about Joseph Smith. He found it very interesting
and accepted to read from the Book of Mormon, and then we saw him
driving through Nkwabeng the next day. Hopefully the spirit works
within him to get something going!!

Oh yeah, guess who is the new Assistant!!!! Elder Nzuki!!! Pretty
tight huh?! I love that guy, he is so awesome. One of the hardest
workers and most faithful people I know.

Anyway, things continue to move on here. Trying to just keep my shoulder
to the wheel and not get in the way of the work going forth!!! Hope
all goes well with these last few weeks of school!!! Finish strong
H!!! I love all of you guys, thank you so much for everything. Life is
great :)

-Elder Brown

April 23, 2012

Well I hope you guys are having another good start to another good week! Things are going well out here, we had a good week in Nkwabeng, capped by a stellar day yesterday. We had a good day at church, several investigators came to church, including Kwabena, and Maxwell, a new referral from our recent convert Samuel. Then, after church, we talked to some members and got them to come out with us, so we split up and covered a lot more ground. I went with Effah, he did really well! He is so excited about the gospel, it was so good to take him out to proselyte yesterday, because it just boosted his spiritual energy even more. He referred to us 3 people just yesterday! He and I had a successful day together, taught several lessons and made several new contacts. Then Elder McFarland went with Wilson and also had a lot of success in Odumase. Ended up the day with over 10 lessons between the four of us and 23 new contacts. It was pretty sweet! And, on top of that, two other members - Alex and Douglas - found out we had gone out with Wilson and Effah, so they decided to go out and visit recent converts on their own!!!!! I found that out at night, and it just made the day even better!!!! So it was probably one of the most productive days of my mission, a lot of good things will come from it. If we can do this every Sunday, and maybe even Saturday, we will be able to get serious work done in Nkwabeng.

Outside of Sunday, the week was pretty good. I went on splits with Elder Obasi in Fiapre on Saturday. An awesome dude as always. Hmm what else.... no big news from this week. Transfers will be next week, hopefully I stay put in Sunyani for just a little while longer... but you never know I guess. Oh yeah - there are TWO more Elder Brown's coming!!! Haha - so there will be 4 Elder Browns here after I am gone. One is from Australia and the other from the US somewhere. Probably won't be able to get a pic with all three of the Elder Browns right now, unless they all came up to Kumasi for some reason!!

We did some good ol fashioned door knocking this week. We rarely do that here, we do most of our contacting on the street. But we are trying to find some more families and future leaders, so we headed to the SSNIT Flats - a pretty big apartment complex in our area. It’s the best place to find families together. Found a few solid people  - so hopefully it brings some fruit. Still trying to work with Kwaku, our Rasta man. I pray it works out!!!! Most of the recent converts are doing well, and with people like Alex and Douglas going out on their own to visit them, it should really help! Elder McFarland and I teach the Young Men at church on Sundays. There is only about 5 of them, but it’s going to be sweet to have the chance to teach them. There just aren't enough priesthood holders to have a YM prez yet, so we are the interim ones!! They take things pretty seriously, so it will be sweet to help them become powerful Priesthood holders and one day serve missions!!! The first missionaries to come from Sunyani!!!!

Well, things are going really well in Nkwabeng. Everyone is happy and working hard, members are excited about the work, and the Thaynes are helping out a ton. We aren't baptizing a ton in the zone right now, but I can feel big big things getting ready to happen in the next few months, as long as we keep having faith it will happen. I love you all, thanks for all the support!!!!

-Elder Brown

April 16, 2012

Alrighty - well I will be sure to make sure this thing saves so that I can send it successfully this time!!!!! Haha. Well we had ZL Council this week, so it was a party as usual!!! Haha. There are four zones in Kumasi now, so we were 10 traveling down to Cape, plus the two elders that drove us. We had a pretty epic "alphabet game" in the car on the way coming home. Narrowly lost to Elder Hernandez. Darn that letter X!!!!!!! It was a nice little trip and pretty pain free, because we went to and fro in the mission van, with all of the other ZLs. We even got to play a little American football in the morning for our exercise - Elder McFarland would make a killer tight end for BYU. Seriously - he made a sweet one handed catch for a TD - reminded me of Dennis Pitta or Johnny Harline!!!!!! Haha. How are things shaping up for BYU football next season? We made it back from Cape on Wednesday night, and got right back to work on Thursday. The big thing for the week was Gabriel's baptism. It was quite a success! We had been emphasizing to him the importance of having his family there, and they all came! They all seemed to enjoy it!!! Now we just gotta teach them!!!! So the baptism was on Saturday, and then we confirmed him and Samuel on Sunday. It all went pretty well! Some other guys in the zone also had baptisms, so we combined at Penkwase for the baptism. We are still having success having people come to church - we had 11 last week, 8 this week - but the difficulty is teaching them. They are all very busy and most of the appointments we make don't work out. But small small!!!! We are just trying to go about doing good and hope that we are able to find some powerful people through that. We helped a lady dig an irrigation stream on Saturday, we pound fufu every chance we get, and we are just trying to keep things cool and show people we are here to serve them. Oh before I forget!!!!!! KWAMO IS A WARD!!!!!! How sweet is that?? We got word that they were organized into a ward on Sunday - Bro. Timothy as bishop. They had 108 people at church on Sunday. Elder McFarland and I were very very excited to hear that. And of course, my Birthday was as awesome as it could be in Ghana. The Thaynes took us out to get pizza - that was pretty sweet :) Thanks to the Thaynes!!!!!! There is a place in Sunyani with legit pizza, so we had a good time there! They also gave us some big news, that Sunyani is going to be organized into a mission district. That is going to be soooooooooo big for the church up here. And thank you thank you thank you for all of the B-Day wishes from everyone!!!! Sorry I can't email everyone back!!!! But I love all you guys!!!!! So, mission is moving along in Sunyani. I have been thinking a lot about this work, how it is difficult, but it truly is going forth just as prophesied by Joseph Smith when he said "no unhallowed can stop the work.... it will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent...." Just think... 18 months ago, there were less than 5 members in Sunyani. Now there are 4 units of the church organized into a district with over 150 members. 9 months ago Kwamo opened as a group with about 50 members.... now they are a ward with over 100. It’s pretty incredible to see the growth, just since I have been here. The work is true!!! I love you guys, thanks for everything!!!!!!! -Elder Brown

April 9, 2012

Griffin is doing well this week, but his whole email didn't go through, so no post this week!

April 2, 2012

So anyway, life is cool out here. The week was good as normal... can't say I have really ever had a "bad week" on mission. Yeah maybe there has been some rough times, but honestly at the end of every day and every week I've been able to lie in bed and say "yep.... today was good" and then I immediately go into hibernation.... until 6:00 the next morning. That is one good thing that I have had out here - the best sleep ever!!!!! I don't think I have laid in bed for more than a minute without falling asleep in the past 12+ months, and I am out like a rock until the alarm goes off in the morning. It would be interesting to see how long I could sleep w/o an alarm if I didn't have an alarm waking me up.... I bet at least 12 or 1. So anyway, things are going along well!

We don't have a ton of investigators still, and we are not teaching as many lessons as we would like to, but we are out all day from 10 until 9 and doing the best we can. We do have a baptism planned for this weekend though, for two guys who have been coming to church for awhile. The first is Gabriel, a bus driver who me and Elder Speechly contacted a long long time ago. He works with a member, so he was able to talk about the church a lot with him, and after a few weeks of teaching, he was at church and wanting to be baptized. Finally two weeks ago, we were able to buckle down and pin down a solid baptismal date, so we will pray all works for this Saturday. He is a really lovable guy and just absolutely loves the church. He is married with three kids, but we have had difficulty meeting them all together. That’s gotta be our focus though!!!

The second is Samuel. I think I told you about him before - the guy who knows the Bible like the back of his hand. He is doing well too, and all should be good for the baptism on Saturday. Outside of those guys though, our teaching pool is pretty slim!!!! I guess we have several investigators, but all of them are just really busy and can't meet that often. Which is ok... but it leaves us with not much to do during the days some times. So we've been doing a lot of contacting and a lot of walking!!!! Two cool guys we do have are Dunstan and Anthony. I contacted Dunstan several weeks ago while I was on splits with Elder Kitchen. It was funny when I contacted him, because he was just chillin outside his house, I went up to him and said "maaha, ette sen" and he just looked at me and said "please, I don't speak Twi". I was pretty surprised because I have never contacted someone who doesn't speak Twi before. But it was a good conversation because we got to ask him why he was in Sunyani and not able to speak Twi. He said he was from the Upper East Region - near to Bolgatanga, the farthest north city in Ghana - and that he had been in Sunyani for the past few years as a student at the Catholic university. We were surprised that he hadn't learned Twi in that time, but he said it just wasn't necessary - all of the classes are in English, and everyone he stays with only speaks English, even if they know Twi. He said we could come back later and teach, so we came back to meet him and his friend Anthony there. We had some good lessons, got up through the Restoration, and gave them The Restoration DVD to watch on their own. When we came back to teach after they had watched it, they were super interested and had a lot of questions and then at the end they asked us all (Wilson, my rasta man, came with us to teach them as well) what the Church and the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith had done for us. It was a pretty sweet opportunity to bear our testimonies and let him know what the Gospel is all about!!!! At the end, we gave them copies of the Book of Mormon, and they were excited to read. They are going back up to Bolgatanga for a week, so we won't see them for two weeks, but we will be praying hard that they have time to read and ponder and pray before we meet again!!!! They could be powerful guys for the church in Nkwabeng.

On Friday I had quite the musical day. Wilson wants me to come and jam with him sometimes, so we usually go to his place and play reggae hymns for an hour or so. This week we practiced our First Noel, because Wilson wants to record that, then a song Wilson wrote - "We Thank Jah (For a Prophet)" - which is some lyrics Wilson wrote, with me singing the verses of We Thank Thee o God for a Prophet. Then the last song we did was "Keep the Commandments" - also set in a reggae style with extra words written by Wilson. He wants to go and record them... so I guess I will have to get the OK for that!!!!! The next musical thing was that we went to see an investigator named Michael. He was sick with Malaria, so he said he couldn't meet, but that he wanted to talk to us for a few minutes. We passed by his church while we walked with him, and I noticed there was a legit drum set inside. Somehow under my breath, I said that I wanted to play the drums, but since it was inside his church, I didn't really ask him. But, Elder McFarland told him I wanted to, so he said no problem, let’s go! So I went inside and started playing the drums for a few minutes - I am not that good at the drums...... So then he turns on the keyboard and starts playing a little bit - he knew some basic chords. He asked me to play a reggae beat on the drums, and I said I didn't know reggae that well, so he said he would show me. He sits down and starts playing the drums like a pro!!!! Seriously he was so good. I sat down on the keyboard and we just jammed for a few minutes... it was way tight. It was just weird that he was so good, and I had no idea he could play! So now we are like best friends, maybe some potential! But he is the drummer for his church... so …

Lastly, we taught Effah that night. I mentioned how we had jammed with Wilson earlier in the day, and he said that he had recorded some music too! It was fun, it was Ghanaian rap/gospel/high life music. It was just funny to hear a recording of him singing..... Effah is the coolest, nicest, funniest guy ever. He just kept saying that he wants to know everything about the Gospel and he wants us to keep teaching him more and more. No wahala!!! Yebekyere no dodo!!!!!!

So… that is all really from the week! Things are going along great and me and Elder McFarland are doing great together. Well, thanks for everything again, you guys are the best!!!!!

Love,

Elder Brown