Too Many Languages

Hello, everyone! 

I am writing early today, because we have 3 FM's that we are invited to go to today! hahah i might die from an overload of Ghana food. it should be a good time tho!

This week was great! we have been working hard to help people to be ready for their baptism! we now have 12 people with baptismal dates. we pray that most of them will be baptized either in April, or May. we will have to see tho. right now we have one who looks like for sure she will be baptized on the 9th of April. her husband has been a member since 2003, and they are just recently married. they are from ivory coast, so they speak french. i am so glad i have been studying the Book of Mormon in French, because i was able to listen and understand everything they were saying, even i was able to teach some of the principles of the lesson! hahah it was so scary, but i did it. obviously it was very very simple french, and i had to think really hard about what i was saying, but i did it, and she understood the things i was saying. so it worked ;) hahaha too many languages in this place... it might kill me hahaha

Transfers were this week, and me and my companion are staying together. one of the elders in my apartment is leaving, and another elder from DRC is coming to take his place. so now there will be 3 Congolese in my apartment with me hahah

People have been in the mood to feed us lately haha i dont know why. almost every day this week we have had a free meal given to us. some days we had two meals. definitely a blessing when your cooking is as bad as mine hahaha one of the food that we ate this week is called tuo zafi. it was the first time i ate it. it is a food that is made more in the north, but it was so good! it looks awful, but it tastes amazing! it is made out of corn and casava, and then we ate it with four different soups mixed together. it was nice!

Anyway, this week was pretty normal. we didn't get to go to the temple this week, because the Ivorians came to do a temple trip so the temple was booked. but this week they are planning to go on Saturday! i am so excited to go and do some baptisms.

Everything is going fine tho! my doctors visit went well. i am just so stressed out that my body was starting to shut down, but it is all okay now :) plus i think i had a worm or a parasite or something, but all is well. just another week in paradise.

Sorry this is kind of a boring email, but the week went by so fast that it is like a blur.. i cant even remember the things that happened. This week i will be 6 months!! wow, that is weird. time goes fast.. before we know it i will be coming home hahaha. someday.

sounds like you had a good week! and Easter was fun! Easter was normal here haha we just went to church and someone gave a talk that was supposed to be about the atonement, but went very far off track haahah luckily the only investigator we had there doesn't speak English lol ;)

i will try to send as many pictures as i can! Have a great week! i love you all so much!

love, ELDER BEN

p.s. also i forgot to answer mom's question of how i am getting my laundry done. hahah i do it all by myself.. not fun, but it makes me so grateful to have a washing machine and dryer back home. Can't wait to never wash my clothes by hand again.

tuo zafi

Blur

Hello fam,

Wow, this week went by so fast. i am just trying to think of what happened this week, but it was like one big blur..

Sorry this is getting to you so late, today we got to the cafe around 3 and then it started to rain super hard and the light went out.. so we waited for about an hour and a half until it let up and they tried to use a generator, but for some reason it didn't work. so instead we walked across town to a different cafe. it is a super nice place, but it is also expensive.. oh well, what can you do haha

this week has been great! we have stayed super busy and sometimes i have to rethink what day it is. it honestly feels like as soon as you wake up in the morning, you are already getting home and going back to bed.. haha it is like a sick game or something. but i love it ;)

we have kept a lot of the same people in our teaching pool, and they are all doing super well. it is nice to do weekly planning on Friday and after you are done, you are completely booked! every 30 minutes we have another person we need to see. i don't know how you all did it in Europe lol i would have such a hard time not having so many people to teach.

We found a girl while walking down the street a couple of weeks ago. we were just walking down the street, and she called to us. haha it is nice, half the time the people will contact you, instead of the other way around ;) but anyway, she just moved to Dansoman for work, and the place she came from she was being taught by the missionaries there. when we first talked to her it didn't seem like she had been too interested, but we talked with her on Thursday, and it was more of an unplanned lesson. one of our investigators told us to go and come, and she popped up into my head. so we went and just had to trust that the Lord would guide us through the lesson and that we would know what to say. i started the lesson and practiced my 'how to begin teaching' skills.. they definitely need work, but as i was talking to her, i just knew exactly what i should say. it was for sure 100 % by the Spirit. long story short, we didn't teach her a lesson or anything, and she now has a baptismal date, and we filled out the baptismal record with her right there. miracles happen. God is alive.

Sounds like the Provo temple dedication was awesome! i can't wait to see it when i get home. on Wednesday, we had to go to the temple site again because elder Lokutshu had to pick something up from someone there. when we got there, he was in a session, so we got to just sit in the temple and look around for a while. it was soooo nice! i wish we could go to the temple more as missionaries. the Spirit is so strong there it is incredible. and the Ghana temple is so beautiful! you feel almost like you are in the most peaceful jungle in the world. i love it so much. temples really are the best place to be, especially when you are there with people you love.

On Sunday, we woke up and left to go to church early so that we could pick up some of our investigators and drag them along with us. haha i was determined to get someone at church. we attempted to pick up three people but each of them weren't around... so we just went to church. i was so sad while we were walking there i just wanted to give up. AND THEN WE GOT TO CHURCH AND SIS. R---------- WAS THERE!!!! yes, the same one who told us that she was a prophetess came to church!!! and an hour early at that! i wanted to cry when i saw her i was so happy! she enjoyed too, haha the relief society celebrated and gave everyone cake and biscuits and drinks haha she came on the right Sunday.

Anyway, it was a good week. the weather isn't too bad as we are starting to move closer to the rainy season, so it is nice.

Ghana is great, and Elder Ben is great.

I love you all! i will try to send pictures, but i don't know how many. they are loading super slow.

have a great week!!!

Love, Elder Ben

Our bishop is a head-master at a school. and he let us come over today to play ping pong and football at the school. good times.

my team won in football, of course ;)

In Africa, we live by the grace of God

This week has been such a blessing! we definitely experienced some miracles throughout this week! one miracle was rain! haha the weather was so great this week! everyday was pretty windy and overcast. and last night it rained so hard all night! i couldn't even sleep from the noise of the rain hitting our tin roof. it was loud, but i was so happy to wake up this morning to a rain storm. and it rained for quite a while during the day.

Another miracle from this week is a guy named George. we were just walking down the street when one of our investigators called us over. she just said, "preach to this guy" haha so we started to talk and talk. long story short, we gave him a baptismal date right then and there, and we also started to fill out the baptismal record with him. sadly he didn't come to church, but we are praying for next week :)

We currently have 7 investigators with a baptismal date, but how many of them came to church? zero.. lol so we are praying that they will all be able to make it to church this week. please i beg keep them in your prayers.

My companion is getting better and better at speaking English. i am trying my best to teach him. well help him improve. i am the last person who should be teaching anyone English haha. but he is doing great. none of his companions have done language study with him since he came in Ghana, so he has basically taught himself haha. it is sad really. i don't know why they didn't do any language study with him. so we are going to start  doing language study as much as we can.

This morning was great! we had a wonderful privilege to be able to listen to Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. he came to speak to us at our combined mission conference. he talked a lot about how a missionary is called, and how we are called by divine revelation. he asked how many of us had hopes of going somewhere else other than Ghana. haha i am not going to lie, i raised my hand. he said, "don't worry, i felt the same way before i received my mission call. but i can promise you that this is exactly where you are supposed to be." and it is true. i know without a doubt that this is the perfect mission for me. i love Ghana! haha  it was great to be able to receive council from him.

After he talked, i was able to see some of my friends from the mtc! i was so happy to be able to talk to and see all of them from my mission and from the Accra mission. it is crazy how much i love them even though i was with them for just 12 days. i consider them some of my best friends.

I feel great in my new area. the members are all so nice and willing to help us. and i have made so many new friends. Dansoman is a great town. we don't have bikes, we just walk a ton haha our area is pretty big and we have to go all over the place, so my legs are getting a good work out. it is good tho, they need it. i don't know why, but working out just has seemed like an awful idea since i came on mission. maybe it is because i don't want to sweat more than i already do, or what, but i need to get over it. everyone from my MTC was saying how big i was hahahaha it was funny. first they looked at my tag and said why?.. and then they said, "dang you are big" lololol

Also there is someone in my MTC who's name is Elder Jamison. It was cool i took his tag and put my tags together and it was my full name haha ELDER BEN, ELDER JAMISON, ELDER ELDREDGE. sorry i didn't take a picture..

Well that is about it for this week. thank you all for the emails! i love you and you are in my prayers! have a great week!

love, ELDER BEN 

my shop

Elder Ferrin and I. it is crazy that he is going home in just 6 months! i remember being at his farewell like it was just yesterday.

Toy Yo Ten?

Hello, everyone! 

I hope everyone i didn't hear from had a good week! my week was great! we have been working hard and having fun! plus, this week the Lord blessed us with RAIN! hahaha it rained twice this week! once on Tuesday, and then again on Friday. each time it was for like four hours straight. it was so nice to feel cold. the storm on Friday was a little more intense. it started to rain around 5. i looked up and saw the biggest wall of black moving directly at us haha. me and my companion just looked at each other and said, "we gotta get out of here" it was great. we sat and talked to our land lord and her husband. she has been a member of the church for 29 years. all of her children and grandchildren are members, and sealed in the temple. and finally after 29 years, her husband baptized into the church. it really is quite the story. it was so nice to talk to them and hear their story. i felt so much love from them, and i know that it came straight from the gospel. they are now planning for when they will be sealed together as one big family in about a year. their story makes me so happy!

On Wednesday i met President Snow for the first time since he has been here haha, but he is such a good guy. he is very spiritual and loving. you can tell he really cares about his missionaries and all the people that we are working with. he also gave me my new name tag. (ill send a pic) 

our teaching pool is building and building. the work is moving along. i really love the people here. they just need to come to church and feel the spirit there. 

I don't know if you remember the prophetess woman i spoke of a few weeks ago, but she is doing so well. we taught her about the book of Mormon yesterday, and the spirit was so strong. she has so much potential to be a strong member of the church. she also has a beautiful family of two sons and a husband. she hasn't even been baptized, but you can already see the big difference in her life, even just from the small truths that we have taught her about. the gospel is amazing. miracles happen everyday. 

We have this recent convert named S-------. he is from Nigeria. we taught him about missionary work the other day, and already he has given us more referrals than the rest of the ward combined. you can see how much the gospel has impacted him and how much he loves it, because he has a desire to share it. 

I love that you talk about what you learned at church on Sunday at dinner, but i challenge you all to talk as a family about what you did during that week to share the gospel with someone. i was reading a Liahona and it was a talk from Pres. Thomas S. Monson. it was titled, "have i done any good in the world today?" i love that talk. try to focus on being a true disciple of Jesus Christ. small or big, it could change someones life. but you will never know if you don't act.

The woman i was teaching in Winneba stays in the area next to me, so i gave the referral to the elders in that area. i hope and pray that they can find her and she will get baptized.

i love you all with all my heart. have a wonderful week! stay safe

love,

 ELDER BEN

my new tag... the font is absolutely ridiculous, but oh well. at least people can pronounce this one :)

before it rained there was a big dust storm haha it was nuts. i could even open my eyes. i had to dig a ton of dirt out of my eyes after.

after coordination on tuesday, my companion and i got the munchies... so we started to eat these small bugs that were on the wall.. hahaha i ate only one, but my companion was loving life lol. there were a ton of them flying around a light in the parking lot, and elder lokutshu tried to jump in the air and catch one... he slipped as he tried to jump and squealed like a small girl and fell so hard on the ground! hahaha oh my goodness i was laughing so hard. not quite the injury you would expect from trying to eat bugs... 

i got my package from grandma and grandpa Eldredge! my companion and i have been enjoying!