Contact?

Happy Monday, everyone!

This week just flew by! Most of our week consisted of finding new people to teach, which i am not going to lie, is hard for me to get excited for. Contacting at least. But for some odd reason, i had such a great time finding new people and knocking on doors and talking to people. The best is when you go up to someone and you start to introduce yourself to them, and they just say men nti ooohhh haha or men nti brofo.. which means I don't hear, or i don't hear English. And the only thing you can say in response is also... me su men nti ooohhh hahaha which means me too i don't hear! lol sometimes you get a good laugh out of it.

Half way through the day one day, we prayed as a companionship for help to find new investigators, and that day, we went to our ward mission leaders house, and he referred his entire house to us! haha it was like 6 people. I would love to see that whole house become members :) Such a blessing from the Lord. Prayer is a powerful thing.

We attended a funeral this Saturday for our bishop's younger sister. It was very sad. It was a bit of a reality check even for me. We need to make the most of our mortal lives while we can. I am glad to have the knowledge of the plan of salvation, and i am sure that bishop and his family are as well.

I felt the Spirit so much as i sat there and thought about the plan of salvation. Our Heavenly Father truly truly loves each and every one of us personally.

I was reading in the Liahona about trusting in God's time. I love that talk by Elder Bednar. He gave a story about a man who was diagnosed with cancer just three weeks after he and his wife were married. The couple had so much faith that he would make it through his illness, and when Elder Bednar came to give him a blessing he asked him if he had the faith no to be healed.. Personally if i was in that situation, i don't know what i would say in response. But he was still faithful knowing that no matter what happened, it was all part of God's plan. I thought this story was amazing. Such a great example to all of us. It is so important to constantly build our faith and never stop.

This gospel is without a doubt true. It is the way for all of us to find true happiness. If you haven't found this out for yourself, please don't give up, keep searching.

I love you all so much, have a great week and be safe.

Love ELDER BEN

All-African Service Project

Hello everyone,

Sorry for not explaining 'dead cat soup' last week. last week one of the elders in my apartment got a cat from a member and killed and we ate it. haha he burned like a marshmallow on our kitchen floor.. he didn't taste that good tho. oh well

This week was great! We have some great investigators that are really starting to progress! Hopefully we will be having some baptisms coming up in the beginning of September.We had a really nice zone training meeting this Friday and Elder Broadhead and I gave an instruction on How to Begin Teaching. I was pretty nervous, but it went well. President and Sister Simpson gave some really inspiring discussions and we had a lot of fun. They also challenged us to finish reading the Book of Mormon before Christmas, and i challenge you all to do the same. i know you will be blessed. They are really great people. We are blessed as a mission to have them as our leaders.

On Saturday, we have the All-African service project. We helped fill pot holes in the road, clean out gutters, and cleaned up the station here in Swedru. it was a lot of fun, and it was good to help out the community.

This week i was thinking about John 14:27 again, and i realized something that i have wondered for so long. I have always wondered why people who live in such difficult circumstances, and struggle to have basic needs, can still be so happy. How is it possible? But this scripture helped me understand probably the biggest reason why. It talks about how the Savior leaves His peace with us. The part where it says "not as the world giveth, give I unto you," answers everything. I realized that at home, we have so many "comforts" that come from the world. Sometimes we forget that we need the comfort from the Savior. We get caught up doing other things and honestly life at home is easy. Some people have no choice but to rely on another source of peace other than those that come from this world. That is why (for the majority) these people are still happy no matter what their condition is.

I have a testimony that the peace that comes from the Savior, is far greater than any comfort that comes from this world. Rely on Him. He will never disappoint. I love this gospel so much. I am so happy for this blessing to be a missionary.

Thank you for your prayers! I love you all so much! have a great week!

Love ELDER BEN

All African service project

Beautiful Swedru in the background

Here is a pic of our chapel (for now)

Dead Cat Soup

[No idea where that title came from but I'm dying to find out! ed.]

Hello, friends and family.

This week was awesome! Life as a missionary is great and it is so unpredictable. it is important to always be willing to do whatever the Lord wants us to do.

Zone Leader duties are different from what i thought it would be, but it is cool i guess. we didn't get to teach as much as i wanted to, but we were able to do our best with what we had. We had to help some missionaries who were sick and needed to go to the hospital. malaria is really starting to affect people during the rainy season.

This week i was reading in Mosiah about Abinadi and his story. That man had a lot of faith. I tried to liken it to me and to my situation and try to figure out ways of getting more faith and being more diligent. Abinadi knew that he was going to die, but he had the faith to keep proclaiming the truth. He had true love for the people he was teaching. He knew that happiness didn't come from iniquity, but that if they repented and followed the commandments that they could have true, eternal happiness.

I realized that none of us have any excuse to not share the gospel. We can be like Abinadi and forget ourselves and serve the Lord. Following His plan is the greatest thing we can do. Sometimes things don't go the way we may want, but if we put our trust in the Lord, we can have peace even through the toughest of times.

One day this week we went to pick up a member to help us teach and he told us to come in and sit down for a bit while he got ready. He put in some Mormon messages to watch and one of them talked about a girl who's mother had passed away. She said that her favorite scripture is John 14:27 and she talked about how grateful she was to have the Holy Spirit as her constant companion.

It truly is such a great sign of love from our Heavenly Father. He is always there for us no matter what we are going through to help us to get through it. He helps us eat up all the gray so that it will fade all away.

I am so thankful for my mission and for this everlasting gospel. I love it so much. I am so grateful for all the support it have gotten from all of you and most especially from my Father in Heaven. If He loves me, i know for sure He loves you too.

I hope you all have a great week! Odo babraa (lots of love) from Ghana

ELDER BEN

small child in time out ;) she likes to insult too much 

hammock hangin

dad, i know how much you and mom love canes and this crazy store has a cool cane with a sword inside! plus the guy who has a ton of wood carvings has some cool canes too!

Swedru

Happy Monday everyone!

This week was a lot of fun! The first part was pretty crazy, but then we got to do a lot of teaching the last half of the week.

On Tuesday, i left Achimota with five other missionaries and started our journey to our new areas. i brought two other elders with me to Winneba zone and getting here was crazy! we had to take like four different tro tro's and carried our luggage around for what seemed to be years haha but finally we all made it here after four and a half hours of traveling.

On Wednesday, we got to proselyte for about a half day which we just contacted a taught people the whole time. we found a super sweet investigator named A-----------. During the opening prayer of our lesson, i wanted to mention her name to thank Heavenly Father for helping us find her, and i totally forgot her name.. i just had to think for a sec and then say whatever name came to my head, which for some odd reason was Lilly.. lolol i said amen and turned my head away from her so she couldn't see me laugh, but she didn't say anything about it.

We spent Wednesday night at President's house, and Sister Simpson made rice with green curry and beef with french fries, french bread with real butter and we had ice cream and fruit for dinner. It was sooo good. We slept in ac and woke up and took a nice hot shower for the first time in 10 months. it felt like heaven!

My father, Elder Yao was also there to stay the night with my former companion Elder Sakala. It was a lot of fun!

MLC was a lot of fun. We talked a lot about how we can help our mission progress and help our zones progress. President Simpson is an inspired man who leads by example and with love. At MLC, elder Broadhead and i did a role play of a baptismal interview, and what to do when someone tells you that they had an abortion. it was awkward to say the least. we just sat up there while everyone watched us trying not to laugh. luckily i had the easy part of being the one who was interviewed. it was a lot of fun tho.

Swedru is a cool place! it is a small market town, but everyone is so congested it makes it seem like there are a ton of people. my area basically just borders Swedru's "down town" and it reminds me a lot of Kasoa. We have one shopping center thing called melcom, but because it is far from a big city, it takes a while before they get re-stocked. Other than that it is just a bunch of small chop bars and stuff. there is a lot of cool wood carvings here and there is a ju ju shop with some cool skulls and animal skins and what not. you can find some pretty random stuff here.

I am sorry i didn't take hardly any pictures this week. my camera was dead for most of the week. This week was great tho! I feel like this transfer is going to fly by and also next transfer and then i will send Elder Broadhead home!

I have loved my mission so much so far! everyday is a new adventure and i have seen so many miracles. I have felt so much love from my Heavenly Father, and from the Savior. This gospel is true and i love it with all my heart. keep sharing it :)

have a great week and be happy!

Love, 

ELDER BEN

Always Moving

Hello everyone,

This week was awesome, but it was also pretty hard. i found out on Tuesday that i would be leaving Achimota, and the whole week i was just sad to leave. WE ATE SO MUCH FOOD!! hahaha when some of the members found out that i was leaving, they all invited us over for a meal. We ate some banku, jollof, but mostly akbele. It was great, and it numbed my sadness a bit.

On Saturday, i found out where i was going tho, and it made me so happy!!! but also pretty nervous. I am going to Swedru to be with Elder Broadhead!! He was in my first apartment, and he is one of my best friends on mission! Plus, it is in Winneba zone! ah, i am so happy to go back there, and to be with Elder Broadhead, but the part that makes me nervous is that they want me to be a zone leader.. i was kind of hoping to just be a normal missionary for as long as possible, but it is okay. i am excited for a new adventure and excited to learn more. 

I am really going to miss Achimota. It has been a really fun 3 months with Elder Okereke and i am sad to leave. If i were to move to Ghana, i would definitely move to Achimota. 

Mission is crazy. You always have to be on your toes for whatever comes next. 

We have been really praying that we would be able to find some choice new investigators, and this Tuesday we went for our first appointment, which is with our strongest investigators, and one of their brothers and just moved from the upper west region to find a job here in Accra! He is just as golden as his sister! It was such a blessing. They all came to church yesterday, and now they are a nice, small family together in the true church. It made me so happy. I just pray that they will be able to find a new place to stay soon and hopefully they will all get baptized within the next two months.

This Saturday, we had a great day. The Ofankor stake center was dedicated, and in the morning we went out with a ton of the youth in the area to contact people and bring them to the church for the dedication. it was awesome to see so many young men and women so excited to talk to people and bring them to the church. We even had an opportunity to do some unplanned service. There were these two men trying to knock over a tree, so all the kids rushed to grab onto the rope and pull it down as i and some others pushed from the trunk. it almost fell on someone's house, but luckily it missed by inches. Then, the two men that we helped got swarmed by the youth and they contacted the both of them. hahah they didn't come to the dedication... ;) 

Missionary work is sweet, but sometimes it isn't so sweet. I am happy to go, but sad to leave. The good news is that the work continues and the gospel is still being preached. i am so grateful for the time i have had to serve in Achimota.

The Church is true, and the Book of Mormon is blue.

Love 

ELDER BEN