Week 29

Hello Everyone,

Tuesday
We had Zone conference. The first part was two church Africa West Area security people teaching us how to be safer. We also learned about ways to bring more fun into lessons we teach with members and investigators. After we stayed at the stake center and watched President Nelson announce his two counselors, and the press conference that followed. I would like to bear my testimony that I know that President Nelson has been called of God to be the prophet and President of the church and that this is Jesus Christ's church restored on the earth in these latter days.

Wednesday
We started off by teaching a recent convert, Ebeneezer. We had a great lesson on the power of prayer and the importance of it. Then while going to our next appointment we pass a bar (why do all the fun times happen when we are around a bar) and this guy calls out “men of God come here!” I turn to my companion and he says this is going to be fun. So he takes us behind a bar under a tree to a bench to sit and talk. Well he starts going off about how Satan has him trapped in smoking and drinking. Meanwhile, in the background there is this drunk guy who is thinking he is a preacher walking around preaching/praying.  Back to the guy we were talking to, we tried to talk to him but he wanted to do all the talking, and sadly we were fresh out of word of wisdom pamphlets. So we let him talk and when it was time for us to go we shook hands and that other guy, the preacher guy, was like give me a blessing. As my companion went to shake his hand, this guy didn’t let go because he thought he was getting a blessing. He eventually let go and we went on our way.

Thursday
Today had a sweet start. We started by visiting Grandpa Vanderpall.  He was very concerned about nuclear weapons and how they reminded him of WWII. Then we visited grandpa Rodgers, who absolutely loves us. Whenever we come we just walk right in and he will always be sitting right there watching TV, but he loves to grow in the gospel with our teachings.

Friday
Today started out with a member wanting to give us lunch, which was rice and egg stew. After we had our meeting with the ward mission leader, which was great as normal. Then walking around to our other appointments we had like five people just stop us and ask questions about the gospel and the church.

Saturday
We found the most extreme version of GST (Ghanaian Standard time). Last night we ran out of water so we call the guy to come fill up our tank at 7:00AM. Around 10:00 we call again to see where he is at, he says 12:00PM. At 12:30, we call and he says 30-40 min and so on until he shows up at 4:30. So yeah, there goes the whole day.  However, we had a sweet lesson with Lawrence. He told us that his pastor asked him if he is learning with some missionary’s. He said yeah, the ones from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The pastor said that is good they will grow your faith a lot, which is really weird because most pastors tell people to stay away from us, even though a lot of them use the Book of Mormon in their teachings.

Sunday
It was a special stake conference because our stake is being split. The 20th stake in Ghana was created and the 95th in the Africa West Area. Elder Nash of the 70 was the one to preside at the conference. During his talk, wow you could feel the spirit so strong. Also, one of the two first stake presidents in Ghana bore his testimony about how the church is growing here.

Love
Elder Marcusen