All In All A Good Week

Hello friends and family!

This email is going out later then usual due to technical difficulties in the office so it pushed everyone's emailing time to a later time.

Everything this last week went pretty good! It had its challenges but I am still alive and "what does not kill you makes you stronger". There was many things that kept us busy and on our toes so it made for a week that went by very quick. Due to my exhaustion I will talk small about events from the week.

Mugabe and Benjamin whom are 2 young men in the ward. These 2 help so much. They do not like to smile though.. 

Monday-- P-Day. In the evening Elder Simpson and I had a great family home evening with a family in the ward, the Quartzens. We shared a message about sacrifice and as part of that we watched the video about John Moyle the stone cutter. It was a great message and why we felt to share it I did not know because the Quartzen family sacrifices and serves so much in the church. From comments given I am happy that Elder Simpson and I felt it would be a good message for the day. 

Meshack. He is a wood worker next to the chapel and we usually go over to talk with him.

Tuesday-- Office. District meeting was held 10:30am at poop hill chapel.. sorry I mean Green Hill.. There is so much goat poop on the stairs up to the chapel it confuses me why it is called Green Hill. The instruction was not really an instruction it was more of a learning activity I planned to do and it is a good thing because some people were in a not good mood so having them sit there while I talk would not have been very good. Met with Sylvester (former investigator), Mary, Millicent, and James (Mary's boyfriend).

Selfie with Elder Adams and Elder Simpson brushing their teeth before going to our zone activity today

Wednesday-- Slow day. Met with the people mentioned above again.Had a powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon. After teaching them we were fed Ghari soakings.  There was too much.. My stomach was going to explode.
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Ghari soakings. Dried cassava, ground nuts, milk (not really), water, and sugar. 

Thursday-- Elder Simpson and Elder Jager went on their Takoradi trip to renew their non citizen cards so Elder Adams and I spent the day together. We mixed meeting with my investigators and his investigators. It made for a busy day. That evening we had PEC then after met with a guy named Delali who is Elder Adams and Elder Jagers progressing investigator, he had a baptism date set in 2 weeks and then Saturday they found he went back to Kumasi for school. He did not tell the missionaries anything haha.

Extent of my photography skills..

Friday-- Office. Another lesson with Sylvester, Millicent, and James. Mary was running away when we came so.. ya.. sad. Millicent was actually reading the chapters in the Book of Mormon we asked for them to read. She MARKED THE SCRIPTURES YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW HAPPY THAT MADE US. Followed by more Ghari soakings...

Saturday-- A day of disappointment. Then we met with Millicent that evening and found she read AGAIN and marked AGAIN so that lifted my mood. We had a good gospel conversation with a man named Francis. He is from the north part of Ghana but is travelling around for school, we gave him a copy of The Book Of Mormon and invited him to church.

Sylvester. Our stubborn investigator who has been taught on and off for over a year

Sunday-- Elder Jager had a really bad stomach infection so we got permission for Elder Simpson and Elder Adams to attend church and  to tend to our investigators. I studied most of the day. Cooked a little. Not much to do on a Sunday at home as a missionary. But found out that FRANCIS CAME TO CHURCH AND IT MADE ME HAPPY BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT USUALLY COME WHEN WE INVITE THEM ON THE STREET!!!! :) :) :)

All in all a good week. I look forward to the coming week to see what is in store for the Nkanfoa Elders :)

-- Elder Johnson

I Think I Have Hit The Best Part Of My Mission

Hello friends and family!!

Most important part of my email-- I am alive and doing great!!! I think I have hit the best part of my mission.

Elder Simpson and I are doing great work together.  I am really happy to have him as a companion. We get along really really well, which is good because I have a 24 week term in the office and will spend 18 of those weeks with him.  We are on the 10th week together.  Everything is rolling well and gets better each week :)

Our focus this week was to find more investigators and improve our hours (we have hourly totals, one of the fake key indicators that we have in the mission). And Elder Simpson and I have done really good on both parts of those goals. A lot of time this week was spent talking to everyone on the street and contacting each potential investigator. To try to be like any other mission we plan this week knocking on some doors on a apartment complex.  But so far we have 3 solid new investigators from our conversations on the street.  If I had a favorite new investigator it would be Sabarah.  He is 22 years old and is really awesome. Most of his family lives in America and we could tell when we walked into a bigger house that was like a house in America. Elder Simpson and I sat in awe most of the time. Oh, and his mom is the mayor of Cape Coast...makes us a little nervous.

Other than finding new investigators we spent time in the truck driving around to buy supplies. We spent so much we ran out of money and had to go back to the office and beg Elder Durrant for more money. I love being a supply elder but it will be nice when I go back to teaching all day.

I really can not think of much more to say, but that's the summary of what happened this week :)

Until next week,

Elder Johnson

There Is A Bright Future For The Nkanfoa Area!

Hello all once again :)

Last night while Elder Simpson and I were closing our week and planning for the events that would be happening today, Elder Simpson brought up a very good idea! We each made a list in our planner about things to talk about in our email since we both forget what happened the moment we log on to email home. I am very happy to be sitting in this comfortable office chair alive and well. I have had a pretty interesting week and not in the fun way, but I will come to why in a paragraph or two :P

On Tuesday was our office day/district meeting day. Tuesday was the first district meeting with the new district after transfers just a short time ago.  All of the Elders are the same just 2 sisters left. What I am really happy about is that one of the sisters that is now in the district lived in America (BYUI) for 3 years before coming on her mission. So while we did our welcome/questions to get to know them, each of us Elders were asking her things about America like.. TACO BELL. You all may not understand how awesome it is.. but to us Elders it was so cool. For the instruction I felt to prepare and talk about having effective studies in the morning.

Wednesday was the day of Mission Leadership Council.  On request of President Stevenson, Elder Simpson and I spoke about supply elder things.  Being up in front of zone leaders, Assistants, and President/Sister Stevenson.. I was nervous.  But all went over well and a lot of questions/comments from the council.  We finished the meeting at 3 o'clock and headed back to the office since we have fallen behind on office duties.  Also I started feeling kind of sick to my stomach because I believe I got the bad rice at the council meeting.  So to be short, we did not do much teaching the rest of the week.  I was sitting in the office or in the apartment near the bathroom from Wednesday evening- Sunday morning.  Not fun at all.  Did not get much sleep at nights either so my exhaustion level was pretty high.

top row, 5th from the left side

Other than that we are doing good!  We have continued to teach our investigator Obed (the 16 year old referral from 2 YM brothers). He has struggled with coming to church each week and we found it is just because he is nervous. To help out at church yesterday I made sure his friends are sitting next to him through church. Obed is participating in church activities so this week he and the twins we use to translate are off for 1 week on a youth trip.  We plan to give him an actual date for baptism (agreed to baptism but can not give a date until we talk to President).

We have recently been starting to teach a girl named Rita. Elder Simpson and Elder Jager met her on the street next to the phone credit stand she works at. Rita has not come to church but we have taught her a few times. On Friday my stomach settled for some time (thankfully) so we went in the late afternoon to teach her. We planned to teach plan of salvation but the spirit directed otherwise. We ended up speaking on baptism and going over the great apostasy and restoration again. She was planning on being baptized in her church yesterday (did not know til the end of the lesson) and she still ended up being "baptized" in her church yesterday. But we are not done yet! :)

Last people I will talk about is a 13 year old named Emmanuel. He is the son of a in active member named, Elizabeth.  When we met her for the first time he threw crazy doctrine on us from the old testament.  Telling us that her new church is the true church AND ours is true. What came of it though is teaching her son (she is fine with him being taught and part of the church). He is a really smart young boy and knows most things we teach already. And he has a sister that is 11 that joined us in our last lesson.

There is a bright future for the Nkanfoa area!

I am alive and well :)

-- Elder Johnson

So That Explains Why

Hello friends and family,

I hope all of you had a great week last week and if not then that is okay because this week will be better then the last!

For my companion and I the week was pretty good. We had our usual office duties happen this week but some other things happened.  On Tuesday we had combined district meeting because there was a good portion of people in the Yamoransa zone getting transferred and 2 were heading back to their homes.  Elder Makoti our zone leader, who also went home to Botswanna on Thursday, prepared a game for us at the meeting. It was in the form of jeopardy but more missionary style. On Wednesday we had transfers and for those in the office that means a good amount of driving. We were lucky and got to drive the AP's truck, her name is Abena.

Abena

Also on Wednesday evening was the final Fufu for those going home. This time around I made the mistake of asking Sister Theresa (the mission caterer) for extra Fufu. And she gave me a really big bowl of Fufu and light soup. That was not fun to finish but it was funny because I was next to the newer senior couple who were having a difficult of a time finishing their smaller bowl. I think the couples may have been amazed at how much my comp and I ate that night. Even after Fufu I had some ice cream and small cookie (yes I am getting fat but that is why we have the resurrection).  The testimony meeting for the going home missionaries was so powerful. Especially from the former AP's,  Elders Stulce and Hannemann.  Left me in awe of how much more I need to do.

 

My companion and I were able to teach a older lady named Mercy (I do not know if I mentioned her in my email last week). We met her as we were about to head in the office direction to close the day, Mercy and her daughter called us over. The day prior we gave a pamphlet to her daughter ( 8 years) named Sheka.  Usually kids ask for pamphlets so we hand them out and something came of this one! Mercy had questions about things she read in the Restoration Pamphlet (someone just reading the pamphlet is rare). Sad thing is she is from Accra and when we taught her on Sunday she told us she was going back to Accra on Tuesday so we planned to meet with her again Monday night. Then Tuesday came and she called us and told us to come over because she had not left. The same pattern went on all week until she left to Accra yesterday. We were able to teach Mercy Lesson 1-3. Teaching her was so great! Mercy wants to know the truth and showed it in lessons. Now we are sending her information for a referral and hope that she will receive her answer and be baptized soon.

Also, you may or may not remember a investigator of ours that I have mentioned named Mary. We resolved an issue pretty fast yesterday.. actually funny to Elder Simpson and I. She comes to church every week and has been for the last 6 weeks, but we were never able to meet her at what we thought was her home. Yesterday we met her on the street and asked where she was going,  Mary told us she is going home. The direction she was heading was the opposite way of her supposed home, so we followed her and she showed us where she actually lives. The place we were going was Regina's house (her friend) and thought they stayed together, so that explains her never being around ha. Bonus is a former investigator named Sylvester stays in the same compound.

No investigators came to church yesterday. Really disappointing but that's how it is sometimes. We have some other investigators, all our doing good. Mary (if we can find her to teach) and Obed our the most progressing investigators in the area right now. We are still helping the others come to church.

Everything is going great and sorry if I did not email back to any of you today, butmy time is short!!

Enjoy,

Elder Johnson

We Are Winning!

Yellowww friends and family!

I do not mean to be cliche at the beginning of my emails but THE WEEK WENT BY QUICK! *cliche moment ended.

You would think that I would b at the point I should remember to jot down some events before writing the group email so I remember the real good stuff, buut that may take a little longer to learn. Anyways, everything is going great in this part of the world!  First thing that comes to my mind is that I did two baptism interviews on Tuesday and one more on Sunday (yesterday). After district meeting my companion and I walked with the sister missionaries to their baptism candidate.  Her name is Nshira,17, her mom is Nigerian and her dad is from Ghana.  She spoke clear English!!! Interviews would be hard with a translator I imagine so it was good to speak with her in "Ghana" English.  The next one was that evening with the same sister missionaries,  Her name is Efuah, 14, and is from Accra, so she also spoke English.  The last one was yesterday.  The sister missionaries called me at church and asked me to do one more interview before the baptisms that were happening at 12:30.  The Bishop wanted it to happen and I did it..  She met the requirements and has a good understanding.  So, its all good.

The Nkanfoa area is doing pretty good right now. At this moment there is three people that are progressing more then the others.  First is a boy named Obed.  Real cool kid (16 yrs) and is a referral from the young men in the ward.  Only problem is every time we go to teach him it turns into a goose chase!  He works at his grandma's shop so we go there.  Then she says he is at the house.  So we walk 10 minutes.  People say he went out and it turns into a mess.  He is coming to church and is really interested, so the chase is worth it :)  Second one is, Mary, whom was a referral from a member back when I first got into the area.  She is coming to church and even participating in church activities. Problem is she is not around to ever teach her.  Last one is Regina, who is Mary's friend that we knew before Mary.  Regina is around to teach her, but she does not come to church.  As Bishop Ewudzie says, "We are winning!!  And why are we winning?! (stares into our eyes) Because the CHURCH IS TRUE!"

This week is the first week of the new transfer. On transfer #10.. GAHHHHH WHERE IS TIME GOING?!  It is August. School is starting soon. Oh my. Also, Elder Simpson and I planned and executed the #1 transfer news party for eighteen people (APs, surrounding zone leaders, and President and Sister Stevenson). It may not be a big deal to all of you, but we had breakfast burritos. Tortillas do not exist here so we spent three hours on Saturday evening making all the food.  Tortillas from scratch. My companion made really really good ones! Then I put the stuff on the tortillas and wrapped forty of them.

All in all I am happy, alive, and my testimony/ conversion grows more and more everyday.

I am about 10 months late on this but I started the Ponderize stuff. Alma 7:23 was my scripture from the past week

"And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive."

Have a great week!!!

Elder Johnson