August 20

Mother,

Mom how are you doing? How are school preparations going? How is traveling the world without me? I am doing well, things are going good.   I always play Come Thou Fount on my music player Sue sent me, I love that song. I am happy that you were able to go to Elder Briggs homecoming, He is a sweet guy. It was funny Elder Smith emailed me this week. He sent two pictures. One was with him hugging a white girl, the other one was of a plate with steak and mash potatoes and stuff. I was laughing pretty hard. Elder Hernandez is definitely the funniest guy on my mission. He didn’t tell you any of the funny stories we had together? My area is about 2 to 2 and half hours away from the mission home. It’s the second farthest area away.  So I am training a Ghanaian. He is awesome his name is Elder Appiah. He is a nice and humble guy.  It’s funny he lives like 2 hours from the area we are in now. He has already seen one of his friends and he saw his mother. She was riding away in a car but he got to say hi to her. So I got the packages from you and Cindy! They were all really nice and loved them and appreciate them. Tell Cindy thanks.   So things are still going, some are tough some are sweet. One thing I know that is very true though, is when you are going through trials and hard times it’s when you are closest to our Heavenly Father. He doesn’t just leave me alone. All though sometimes I just have to get through things by myself to test my faith, but at the end it strengthens me and helps me to grow. One other thing I was thinking about a lot this week too is, in order to be extra ordinary in anything you do, you have to do something extra ordinary. When you see missionaries come back home some have changed a lot and some changed small and some not at all. I thought when I came that mission was just going to change me and my life. But as a song says, change doesn’t start with the letter C it starts with me. Anyway in order for me to grow up and be extra ordinary it starts with me to do something extra ordinary. I have to work at it all I can to change, change just won’t happen. Anyway I am working on becoming the best missionary, man, and future father I can be. It’s going to be me, and how dedicated I am will be what I am. I thank you for everything. I love you mom. Have an awesome week!!!

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more pictures

Zone conference 

Carrying the water to the font

August 13

Mother,

I am doing really fine. We had another successful and hard week.  That is awesome about the baby. I can’t wait to see her. She is so dang cute. It was funny this week this girl in the branch she is like 13 years old she has been begging me to see the family, she is so funny. She always asks about you guys. She wants to be my sister, well anyways I finally brought her the pictures after her asking me forever, and then she wanted one she said if I gave her a picture she would give me something. So I gave her one and then she gave me this teddy bear that says I love you on it. It was funny the Bolls were at our church this Sunday so I hurried and hid it in my back pack so they didn’t think I was having a girlfriend in Ghana hahaha. Any way wow what a wonderful experience I had this week that I will share with you. So anyway nothing goes right in Ghana if you didn’t know that already. So they built a font at our branch and got it all done. But then they didn’t realize we didn’t have a water to fill it up our branch is up on the hill far up so the wale they dug, when they got like 60 feet down there still wasn’t water. So yeah, it was Saturday the day before the baptism still no water they promised we would have water, but nothing works out here. So me, Elder Lemor, two of our investigators that I paid to work with us, and the branch president bucketed water in for 4 hours. This bucketing water in was not easy either. I’ll try and let you picture it. So I would say maybe down by the Perkins we were getting this water which is far, I’m carrying like I would say 8 gallons of water in this bucket on top of my head I have pics of it but anyway, we would have to come all the way up the hill just like our street it really is just  like it but instead there is rocks and dirt and a bunch of black people laughing at you cause they think it’s funny obruni (Whiteman) can carry a bucket of water on their head like them. So we did this for 4 hours in the morning. I was dead, it was like trying to fill up Laura's sweeeeeeeet swimming pool by bucketing it from Perkins it toooook forever!!!!!!! But after 4 hours we were really about 1/4 of the way done, but at twelve this guy came and was like we will have pipes up to the font so you guys need to stop. So we did, then it came about 7 at night. Still nothing happened, no water so then me and Sagers decided we needed to fetch water again, so this time we were walking up the hill in the dark tripping over rocks cause you can’t see at all. By the time I got my bucket to the font at least half of the water was spilled on me.  My shoes are still not dry, but anyway we were doing this till midnight!!!! I spent 8 hours bucketing water for our baptism the funny part about it was we only got it half full. Sunday came what a sweet day on my mission it honestly was probably happiest moment I felt in my life. Beating Bingham when down by 8 in the state playoffs was pretty sweet, but  seeing 8 people enter the waters of baptism and make a covenant with God, there is nothing like it. Living the Gospel and doing exactly what our heavenly father would want me to do brings true happiness. Seeing all the hard work pay off and seeing the happiness all of those 8 people felt that day was an experience I won’t ever forget. The Zolls came up for it all and I videoed a lot of it, they said they were going to put it all on facebook so you will have to look. It is sweet to hear that everyone back at home is doing well.  Zone conference went well; the spirit really helped me out in my talk. I think it really went well. The zone conference was awesome. It was the best one I have been too. This new president is awesome and so is his wife. Every couple missionary here is just awesome. The Zolls especially, they come out to Obuasi quite a bit and help us out. Elder Zoll knows how hard this area is so he is always helping us out. They are going to split the branch in 2 weeks so that will be sweet. I am still applying the cream. I will be for the rest of my mission. Elder smith will be calling you hopefully one Wednesday or Thursday. I hope you can go to elder Briggs and elder Smiths farewell. Make sure that you talk to them after and introduce yourself to them. I love them both.  O yah I got the packages this week!!!! Thank you so much mom they were so sweet. I loved them so much!!!!! YOu are the best; I thank you for all you do. thank you mother talk to the Zolls on face book they have been with us a lot they are awesome you will have to go to their homecoming when they get home!! Love you so much!!!

The Font

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.

July 9

Mother, 

I am doing really well this week. I had a pretty good week. It sounds like you are doing good too!! That is so sweet about Shawn. When Shawn gave me a blessing before I came on mission it was probably the most powerful blessing I have ever heard. Shawn is awesome. You need to send me some pictures of it that would be awesome. So we met the president this week. It went really well they are really new to being in mission and you can tell that but I think he will change a lot of things up which needs to happen.   It also sounds like he is going to let us meet more often then every three months for p  days which will be sweet. What I like about him is he is taking charge he just is doing what he thinks is best. We were riding around with the mission president and wife and she is so cultured shocked it is so funny!!! I told her that i remember exactly how she feels. She says she always wanted to serve a mission cause they are both converts and then she was like now they got here how is she going to do it. She is worried a lot about the food and stuff. She is so funny and so nice. There was this dead cow being carried along the road they were selling the meat. And she was like you don’t eat that right? We said yeah. She is so worried about what we eat its funny. So we were supposed to have three baptisms this week. Well the old missionaries have been teaching them and stuff then i got transferred in and taught them a little but i knew they weren’t ready and i told my companion that. But he disagreed and wanted to baptize them bad. He  has been in this area a while so he has the say. So we arranged it all and stuff, so Sunday morning we are waiting for them to come. Guess how many came to be baptized 00000000000000000000!!! I wasn’t to disappointed cause I think it is best for them they don’t know exactly all the need to know so hopefully if we find them we can teach them more and prepare them for a month or so. We have been calling them and trying to find them but we can’t. So elder Zoll is now gonna be over are area which is sweet cause this area is so big. So they are going to split it and make a new branch which will help out the missionaries a lot!!! So he is coming down this week on wednesday and taking us to get pizza then we are going to look for buildings and he is going to meet with the branch pres to discuss what needs to happen. So I think maybe soon this area should be getting a little better. President Shulz told the mission by far this is the hardest area. I didn’t really believe when I came but now I know what he is talking about. Not to complain but it will really make me strong and help my mission out a lot. I can tell you I have never prayed so hard in my life and relied on God. God is here though I know that!! he is with me. So when ever I need comfort and am in need he always helps me through everything. I have developed a strong testimony of prayer. Prayer is so important. We need to pray day morning day and night to give our heavenly father thanks. He wants to hear from us and is ready to bless us we just have to use our agency to pray for it cause that is what he doesn’t have from us. For food I am okay anything is good.I don’t need the ensign or anything we get that. Thank you mom!! HOw is your book of mormon reading going? Love you mom have a good week!!

July 2

Mother,

Happy MOnday! MOndays are good days for missionaries. Today is a holiday in Ghana I guess ,which they close down everything ,I am down to 1 cedis, and Elder  Lemor and my companion have no money. We tried to go withdraw money but every atm in this city is closed!!! So we will have to go and get it tomorrow. We didn’t find any wild animals on our hike so it was okay.  Our apartment is like 5 minutes away from the chapel, so we are really close. I think the new area we are teaching in will be a lot more successful. The old area they didn’t have like any success. Yeah the church is the same just a lot of Twi. This branch is actually a lot more helpful and more official then my last branch. Like last Saturday they did a big activity and played soccer and also played like musical chairs and stuff so that was fun. I love this area but I made a lot of close friendships in my last area and maybe it will just take time. There is this woman in our branch who is like 52 she is awesome , a really nice lady.   I am trying to set her up with bempa owusu cause he is also not married it was funny. She told me that she will let me know when she decides, she reminded me of you!!! But you can’t really do anything on p day especially out here cause it’s so far. Mother I am in Africa do you want me to go golfing or bowling or something like that? You have any suggestions what we should do? Cause I don’t have any!!!  (  Ryan said this because I was teasing him about his hike last P Day.  I said, “ Isn’t that what you do everyday, can’t you play basketball or something?”  )   Elder Lemors new companion is Elder Sagers. He is fromTwin Falls, Idaho. He is a cool guy. WE are meeting the new president on Wednesday so we will go to Kumasi then.  Yeah I think I got all of the packages that everyone sent me they were awesome. I love everything that everyone sends there is nothing that I don’t like!!! I like the protein powder. I also like the one that grandma sent too!! We are having a baptism this week. We are baptizing this mother and daughter, they are both so sweet. I love them so much and am so excited for them and the decision that they are making!! It’s so funny every Sunday there are these three kids that come to church. One day we invited them into our gate to play soccer and they loved it and we invited them to come to church again.   Little did we know they knocked at the gate at 8 in the morning ready to go. It is so funny they love the church. I will have to take a picture with them soon. There is one boy named Joel he is 11,  Pastor he is 11, and one that is 7. Yeah the money withdrawal is right. I have been spending a lot of money here its tough because travel was a lot and my companion ran out of money last week so I have been using my money to pay for his food too. I think I will be okay with the conference dvds. But thank you. Well mother I love you so much and have a great time up in Washington!!

june 25

Mother Dear!!

So I am doing well. Everything is going good here in Obuasi. Today we hiked up the mountains in Obuasi we got like 5 members to come with us I am pretty sure they’re probably some of the biggest mountains in Ghana. It was really sweet it was pretty scary tho cause there were no trails or anything. So who knows what is by you. By the way back in my old area we were weeding Brother Owusus farm and we found a viper snake. I guess it’s really dangerous and it would kill you if it bit you cause of its venom but brother owusu killed it with a knife it was pretty sweet!!! So Obuausi is like a big town it’s almost like Kumasi. Ok I want to make an example now, this is kinda like how I was feeling those first two weeks. So the church is in Centerville and we have to proselyte in Layton. It costs a lot of money to get there and that is the one thing these people don’t have. To top it all off I swear this is true it’s almost like you are trying to teach a lesson on the strip of Las Vegas in our area, obviously it’s nothing like Vegas but there are just so many people walking around and just music blasting everywhere. It didn’t make too much sense to me why we were proselyting there. So we talked to president cause there is a lot of area that the other missionaries don’t go that you can walk to the church from. So we did and he told us that that is where we’re supposed to be. For some reason the last missionaries liked proselyting in town and having no success but we switched things up so it’s getting better. I don’t mean to complain but it’s more just like the truth. So now we are just trying to find people to teach. I almost have the card filled up. I am pretty sure I am going to send it with Elder Smith I really want the family to go to his homecoming he is such an awesome guy. He is one of my favorites on mission and he is a powerful man you will really enjoy his talk. So let me know if you can cause I want to send some stuff with him. He lives in Morgan and gets home the 15th of August. So obuasi is probably the farthest away from the new mission president. It’s like a two hour drive to Kumasi. So we are just on our own out here. We will only go into town in Kumasi maybe once a month so we don’t get to see really any other missionaries which is hard but it’s somehow nice I guess. Obuasi is probably one of the nicest places in the mission as far as living conditions wise. Cause a lot of foreigners are here so they make everything expensive. The apartment is new cause they just opened this area, I would think it is probably the nicest home in the mission. We even have a water heater which is nice cause the water is freezing cold, I don’t know how cause it’s so hot. But we have a nice place to stay and stuff so I can’t complain about that. I really love my companion me and him get along so well. I think we will have a really good relationship while we serve together. Its funny me and him are the most alike out of any companion I have had. He makes me want to be better and I think I do the same for him at least he says so. So I have a challenge for you mom maybe you can get Laura to join or any of the family! It will be sweet. Okay so I am starting the book of Mormon again and I want you to start it to if you are willing. I really want you to study and understand it. I think if you just take it slow and really try and understand it and pray you will understand it well. That is what I am trying to do at least. One thing that has really helped me is writing down a summary of every chapter or I write down things I really like in the chapter. It helps a lot. So I think you should try it with me. Read 2 chapters a day that is not too much time to give to God a day. So I know you will be willing. So Mom right now we have 3 people that are planning on getting baptized June 8th. They are pretty sweet. We have this one woman her name is Elizabeth she is so humble. So we will pray and hope they will continue to progress so they can make an awesome decision by making a sacred covenant with God.

People don’t recognize the whiteman too much in this town cause there are a lot which is pretty nice. Well mother thank you,  I think we should start writing letters to so I will send you one this week. LLove you!!!!!