august 6

MOther!!!

Your favorite missionary is doing really well.  I also had another really good week. Everything is going well. I hope everyone doesn’t think I am like dying in Africa. I am really loving my time here and everything is going well. It’s just that sometimes times get hard. So about my rash I don’t think it is going to go away. I will just have to treat it the best I can. It’s just something I will have to deal with and hope it doesn’t get any worse. But for the water it is always dirty. That is what we wash our clothes and bathe in. It’s funny cause we were thinking of having our baptism this week in the river out here, and president said the water is to dirty. Then one of the elders was like do you see what we bathe and wash our clothes in? it is the same thing. Anyway we drink clean water but we don’t wash in clean but that is okay it gets us clean enough. Yeah mission has its ups and downs but overall the good definitely outweighs the bad and I love to be here. That is awesome I am so happy that all of you fasted for me this week. I really love all of you and your support and your care for me. It really means so much to me. The zone conference is this Wednesday, so I am still preparing my talk. The mission president will be there and probably around 40 missionaries. So that will be a sweet experience. I am learning to love this area, the mission president told the mission this is the hardest area but things are going great. I didn’t love the area so much at first but I am really learning to love it. I heard that the girl was baptized in my last area; I also found out that two sweet people we contacted are getting baptized on the 22nd of this month too. It’s awesome!!! We again had ten investigators come to church it was powerful. I will tell you two cool experiences that happened this week. So I think I told you a while ago there are these little kids that come with us to church each week. One of them is twelve years old and his name is Joel. He is such a smart and nice and sweet kid. He loves the church and loves the missionaries. Well we gave him a book of Mormon and we haven’t taught him anything just because he is so young and it’s not good to baptize little kids just cause if they grow up and don’t come its better they weren’t baptized. But on Sunday he came with his Book of Mormon, and I was kinda just joking and was like so Joel how far you are on your reading the book of Mormon. He turns the pages open and opens to page 50. I thought there was no way so I asked him to explain it to me, he understands it and told me so many things about what happened in the first 50 pages, it was so awesome. He told us he loves the Book of Mormon and loves reading it. So I think we will start teaching him small and help him keep coming to church. I think if we will continue overtime he will come a strong member of the church someday and will likely go on a mission if we continue to help him. He is so sweet. The next is we are teaching this family we contacted and we contacted the wife. We later found out she has a husband who is paralyzed from the waist down. He doesn’t have a wheel chair or anything so he can never leave the house he just sits there all day every day; I would probably say he hasn’t left his house for many years. But anyways he is looking for a church that will care for him and take him to church. The wife has come to church 3 weeks in a row. So this week we were determined to get this man who loves God to come to church. He just can’t do it himself. So me and Elder Sagers went to his house early in the morning and we got him and we picked him up and carried him up to the church. We took him in a taxi but the taxi can’t get to our church cause the road is so crappy and it’s up on the mountain so we carried him. It was a sweet experience and the members really loved it too and were so warm and welcoming to him. They all saw the example we set and kinda saw they can help out others too. Right now they are doing well and helping with the missionary work. So we took him home and he just loved church. He showed so much gratitude towards us. He was so happy; I have never seen him smile like that before. He asked us if we would come and do it again next week. So now we have a new responsibility to carry this man to church. His name is Akwasi. Anyway that is what missionary work is all about, knowing that what you are doing can change a man and his life, plus many others lives. I know that this is exactly what God wants me to do. This guy bore a powerful testimony this week, he is a returned missionary. He talked about how he can doubt that he was borne from his mother but he can’t know for sure because he doesn’t physically remember it, but he said one thing he has no doubt that this is the lord’s church. This is the church that Jesus Christ will come down and build. It’s true I don’t know many things and I can doubt many things in life. But one thing I can’t doubt in life is that the church is true!! Why can’t I doubt it cause I have gotten on my knees and I have prayed and asked God. He has helped me to know many times that this is his church. I bear testimony that this is Gods church and Jesus Christ is the head of the church. He directs the church through revelation and that when he comes again he will come and help this true church forward. I love you all and thank you for all you do. If I didn’t answer the questions sorry!!!!By the way got the mail well I am getting it tonight so I think it is okay to send the scriptures.