Busy Times

Hey family. This week was a pretty cool week. We had lots of stuff that went on this week. I had to take the lead in all planning and teaching and everything this week. I thought it would be rough but it actually wasn't bad at all. We had the best numbers than we had all month. I Will find out if i get transferred on saturday or not. I do know that i will get a new companion because thats just how it works in this mission.

Tuesday we taught a 24 year old named millicent. She is a recent convert and lately she has been letting out major gas during the lessons. Its pretty funny haha. But she is doing well and we have been reading the book of mormon with her. We are now on chapter five of first nephi.

I have been jump roping for 20 mins every morning and i haven't been able to walk correctly for the past week because of that. I just don't want banku gut. (Its like a beer belly)  

So we committed this guy named Asante to be baptized in one month. It was the first time we met him too. The spirit is so strong and i know he has a desire to change his life. We also received a member referral and her name is Evelyn. she is 18 and very sweet and smart. We had great lessons with her and taught her three times last week. She came to church and will be working towards baptism for march 8th. We also extended to another girl named Esther. She accepted but we still have to work on getting her to church. Very sweet people and the spirit is so strong with all of them.

I found me a new washing lady. (the old one moved :()  But now my clothes will actually get clean and my knuckles wont get ruined anymore. Ghana lost the final match of the Africa Cup against Ivory Coast. I was hoping they would win so i could buy a jersey with five stars on it instead of four.

I have started the war chapters in alma. Ive never read the BOM all the way through before (on my own). I never thought of how much it can affect my life. I will hopefully finish soon so i can read it again haha.

Samuel yaboah got baptized last sunday. He was so happy that day and it was an amazing experience. My companion baptized him thankfully. I definitely would not be able to do it because he is a big man. He will be solid in the church and do many great things.

it took us about 2 months to get less active names from the branch. But we finally got three! Something cool about that is a couple days before, we contacted this man who is older and we thought he was going to be a normal investigator because our first meeting we had with him seemed like he knew nothing about the church. But then we found out he's on the list! so we saw him again and he told us he used to be in the church. He loves the church but he was kinda forced to leave because of him and his wife divorcing. But he wants to come back and we are going to work with him.

Mom i wish you were in my branch here. The family history consultant is kind of less active so its hard to get recent converts to have a temple experience. You'd help out so much.

Mom i hope that you know that i pray about you and your work every day and night. (I actually fasted for you last week about that...) I know that if you read Alma chapter something verse something, you will be comforted. Sorry i forgot which one it was. I'll send it to you next time.

So i only have time to send one email at the moment. I'm not in kwabeng. Kwabeng has no power at the moment. So hopefully i'll find time soon.

I love you all and i'll talk to you later. Just be happy and trust in The Lord. He will deliver us out of our afflictions. Thats what i have to remember every second while living in Ghana! LOl. 

Doing Well

So this week went by fast and i am having a hard time remembering what happened. Samuel will be baptized this sunday. I am looking forward to that. He will be solid. I got all of my clothes tailored for like one us dollar per item. We had an open venue about family history on tuesday. I contacted like ten people during that hour. Ghana will probably win the Africa cup. If they do, everything will be crazy and tons of parties. I killed a caught a lizard with my bare hands. I taught many lessons. I don't know what else to say...

I am doing good. There are lots of missionaries that are struggling that are the same mtc group as me. They are really homesick and are just having a rough time. But me? not homesick at all. I love my mission. I cant imagine how hard it would be to be homesick. I promise i'm still working hard and happy. I love you all.

Time Flying By

So this week i am doing good. Time flew by fast! it feels like i just emailed you yesterday haha. My investigators are cool. We met some really cool people this week. Usually when i am talking to anyone but my companion, i have to put on my ghanaian accent and sound like a complete idiot for them to understand me. but we met someone who is super smart and i can talk normal to him and he understands me perfectly. I forgot his name though. Samuel is in his 50s. He has now come to church for 3 sundays in a row! He is so solid and i wish i could just baptize him now but we only get to see him twice a week so he will be baptized on the 8th. We were having a hard time with Esther for the past couple of weeks. But This week she said she was ready to be baptized so we said okay and had the interview last saturday night. She was not baptized yesterday. Satan is working really hard mom. She has not attended her church for three months. Saturday morning those pastors came to her house because they heard she was joining the mormon church. I know those pastors were sent from satan. They said some things to her that kind of worried her. We had a great powerful lesson with her and we are planning on baptizing her on the first. On wednesday me and my comp are fasting for her. 

Mom there is no way that you can prepare any food like what i eat here. Your food is just too good. I eat sour banku with nothing but HOT peppers and zombie fish with all the guts and the head still there and have to eat all.

That makes me so sad that happened to my best friend at church... I will be praying for her. She does have a great spirit and it humbles me too. Cleaning the church here is a lot more work than at home. There is no carpet so we have to sweep and mop everything and it gets dirty very easily because there is so much dust. and there is nothing clean here in this town.

I kind of miss playing (french horn and trumpet). I wish i had an instrument to play though. Should i buy a guitar here?

He (Kyle) really needs to start reading them (scriptures) and studying them (scriptures). I am proud of him (Kyle) for that. I am now almost done with Alma. I have never read the BOM all the way through before and that is one of my biggest regrets. I had no idea The Book of Mormon was so powerful. My favorite time of the day is personal study. I look forward to reading it all the time. I now understand it and i get so much out of it. It helps me so much in my life. I know it is true.

I hope that you are staying patient. There is a scripture somewhere in the book of alma that talks about being patient and trusting the Lord. I think its in chapter 23.

I love you mom.

Elder Green

And he came to church!

Hello everyone! I will do my best to tell you everything that happened this week. All the days are starting to blur together and everything is just going by super fast.

Tuesday was challenging because me and my companion were supposed to go on splits in akrofufu but Ofori was busy working and our great friend Lord just got a teaching job. So we had no one to go and translate for us that day. We just stayed in Kwabeng and tried to find more people to teach there. We were super bummed out because we have so many serious investigators there and we only get to go there twice a week.

Wednesday we found someone to go teach in Akrofufu with us so we spent small time there visiting this wonderful family about Faith and Repentance. I know that they felt the spirit and will do their best to progress and find out what is true. I love teaching them because they are just always ready when we come and are excited to learn new things.

Thursday, the new elder from South Africa got to the apartment and his companion was in Accra so he stayed with me and my companion that day. I know that the Spirit is always with us when we are working hard and staying righteous. We were just walking around because all the appointments failed and i had a prompting to go a certain direction. We passed by this house and i immediately knew i needed to go up to it. There was a guy there that i know is ready to accept the gospel. He was taught a long time ago by missionaries but then just stopped teaching him for some reason. He told me the church is true and that he wants to join. Lets see what happens. 

An investigator actually came to church!!!!! That made me so happy. I got to sit with him during all the classes and he told me that he liked it and he should be coming again.  

Hey family: 05 January 2015

I have been living in 2015 longer than you guys have! I hope you had a nice break. So its pretty cold huh? Right now it is the dry season and here in the mountains it gets pretty cold during the night. It gets to about 70-75 degrees at night these days and I FREEZE at night! I put on my sweats and and get under all my blankets when i sleep. I can't imagine how cold you must be but i seriously get cold at nights and when i wake up in the morning. Thanks for sending me more stuff. I really appreciate it. I would appreciate it if you could send some international mailing stamps so i can send letters home. 

Tuesday we were not able to go on splits in Akrofufu again. It is really frustrating because we have so many people to see there it is impossible to visit everyone if we are not on splits. Jacob and his family are so awesome. I love to teach them. i know that he and his wife will be strong in the church. This drunk guy was interrupting us during the lesson and Jacob started to teach him what i taught him and then he testified that this church is true. It was really cool to see. 

Wednesday was very eventful. Our branch played another church in futbol in the morning. Of course i decided not to play because i'm lazy and i just had a bad feeling about playing. My companion played though. Five mins into the game, My companion got hurt. He kicked the ball at the same time as another player did and it sent him flying in the air. He landed very hard on the rocky, dirt field. His chin was the first thing to hit the ground. When he eventually got off the field i ran up to him so i could help him. His chin had a Huge hole in it and i immediately knew that he needed stitches. it was so bad that i felt very sick and i almost fainted. He took care of himself though and called the mission president. He told us to go to Accra to get it stitched up. So we went to accra and he got it fixed from the mission doctor. We had to stay there overnight because it was late when we got the chin fixed. So we got to go to a huge party that the Tesano stake was having. It was soooo much fun! there were SOOOO many people there. I liked it a lot mainly because i got to see my best friend here in ghana. Elder Broadhead and i got to talk and party together. He made my night and it was cool. All the missionaries had to leave at 9 because the mission president was there. So we stayed at the office elders and the APs apartment. There, we did not get any sleep because the apartment was right next to a church and they were soo loud and speaking in tongues all night. plus the fireworks were going off all freaking night. But yeah, fun times in Accra.

Thursday we just had to wake up in the morning and survive the three hour trotro ride back to Kwabeng. So bumpy and hot and long. a trotro should fit 10 people in it but somehow they fit 30. We got back and later that night the elders in my apartment cooked some rice and chicken and stuff for the ward missionaries and we had a party for them at the apartment. Because they help us so much and they sacrifice everything for us. It was fun. 

Friday was blahhh because it was hot and lots of people were too busy to teach. But we did do some contacting and found more cool people in Kwabeng. 

Saturday we couldn't go on splits again because Ofori had to stay at his shop and work. So it was pretty much like Tuesday. 

Sunday was a big let down because no one showed up for church. I felt like we taught many great powerful lessons during the week. But people have agency and decided to not act on what they know to be true. This was the first time i really was upset that no one came. Because i know that they will be lost if they don't come to church. I teared up a bit when sacrament meeting was over and i saw no investigators. Am i doing something wrong? ughhh

I love you all and hope that you adjust back to school okay. I cant wait for these kids to go back to school here. So i won't have to hear obroni being yelled from every direction during the day. Make sure that you are all studying the scriptures and that you learn together as a family. Families are great blessings and i love mine so much.

Love, Elder Green

Christmas Week 2014

Merry Christmas to everyone! This week was a lot of fun but we did not have many lessons because of everyone traveling. On tuesday, we were supposed to go on splits in Akrofufu but our friend Lord was not able to make it so me and my companion just stayed together. That day we taught 10 lessons in about five hours. Lots of great work is being done there. We are teaching this awesome sweet family. They live basically at the end of the town so its a long and tiring walk to get there. Jacob and Victoria are the parents and they have agreed to be baptized on january 25th. They have about four or five children and its fun to see them and how they listen to us very closely and pay attention well. We also teach this man named Francis. He believes everything is true but the main problem we have with him is we have to teach the same lesson like three times before he will remember what we taught. So that was a good day on tuesday.

Christmas was a lot of fun because we went to a baptismal service that the other elders near by had. so it was a white christmas. We then went over to elder and sister daltons house and they made our zone american food. spaghetti and cake! yummmm.

Thank you all for sending me cards and packages. it really made it feel somewhat like christmas here. In ghana, noone really celebrates it. they acknowledge it is christmas but they just go about their normal day haha.

On friday the Kwabeng branch played another branch in futbol. It was pretty fun. All these people here can play really well and it is very interesting to watch. I had the chance to play some but i decided not to because they all take the game way too seriously and it didnt seem worth getting into all the drama. another reason is because i am white. i have no skills at all haha but i really do enjoy watching. The game ended early because some people got into a big huge fight and both teams almost started to get at it. So yeah it was interesting. After the game, me and my companion got fed some kenke and it was absolutely disgusting. Then thirty mins later we got fed banku and that was alright. An hour after that we got fed fufu. man i was sooooo full!!!! I was full and i had to force myself to finish all the food because it is very very disrespectful to not finish something. I am going to be fat when i return home i promise.

None of the people we were working with showed up for church on sunday and that was so depressing. all throughout the week, our investigators promised us they would be at church. nope they totally lied. Idk what stops them from coming. If they show up once i know for a fact that theyll be converted and feel the spirit. Its so hard to see someone not make the decision to exercise their faith. ughh. During sacrament meeting a couple birds flew in the chapel and that caused a big commotion and the spirit left, then the whole congregation started to talk and laugh loudly while waiting for some one to walk up to the microphone for the prayer and the spirit left, then the branch pres. started to have a big huge discussion with the whole ward about something because it wasn't time to end sacrament meeting. idk what goes on at church because its all in a language i don't understand at all. oh well it is all cool though.

I am still learning and having a great time. It is way tough but i know that God is on my side helping me out. I know that i am nothing without God. The spirit is so necessary in everything we do. We all need to be worthy to have it with us. The spirit is what testifies to other people. I love and miss you all. Have a nice week.

Elder Green

Many Thanks

"Throughout our lives, we must deal with change. Some changes are welcome; some are not. There are changes in our lives which are sudden, such as the unexpected passing of a loved one, an unforeseen illness, the loss of a possession we treasure. But most of the changes take place subtly and slowly.

Day by day, minute by minute, second by second we went from where we were to where we are now. The lives of all of us, of course, go through similar alterations and changes. The difference between the changes in my life and the changes in yours is only in the details. Time never stands still; it must steadily march on, and with the marching come the changes.

This is our one and only chance at mortal life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now."--Thomas S. Monson.

Thanks for letting me call. I am not homesick and i could have been fine if i didnt get the chance to call this time. But i was happy we did talk. I have only been out one and a half months and i will soon be done with my training in six more weeks. I am so glad that you are doing good. I promise you that Heavenly Father is with you all. As i work hard i am always thinking about how you have helped me get to this point. I can do things that if i didnt have you guys teaching me, i wouldn't be able to do. I am grateful for my family and for all the support that i have.

This week we are focusing on these people. Esther, Mommy Adjua, Mommy Comfort, Francis, Samuel, Jacobs family, and Benedicta. They all need to come to church and keep their commitments. None of the people we are working with showed up at church yesterday. I am praying that they'll keep commitments and read what we give them. They seem to believe what we teach but they just won't do anything we ask them to do.

Tell all the family thanks for the cards and letters they sent. I really enjoyed them.

Be good this week and remember that i see the same moon and stars as you guys do. Except the mooon is oppisite over here.

Love, 

Elder Cameron Green