The Work is Progressing

Elder Shirley with some youth

Elder Shirley and his companion with the 5 youth who were baptized this week

The pig selected for the Tongan pig roast

Preparing the pig for the roast

Roasting the pig

** This week we didn’t hear from Elder Shirley until today (Tuesday). He said they didn’t have power yesterday so they were given permission today to email before they went out for the day. 

October 16, 2018

What a week!! This last week was a really good one! So last Sunday the stake president met with the missionaries in our stake which is about 18 and he told us that we needed to establish a new unit in an area! He told us that he would send us into the area on Tuesday and Friday for 2 weeks and then after those 4 times we would hold a baptism for all those who were ready to be baptized! Man this sounded crazy to me that we would convert people in 2 weeks and start a unit with those people!

So this last week we went into the town on Tuesday and Friday to start teaching those people in a town called Kuntanasi. These people have never heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints before but there was so many people just running up to us wanting to know what we were teaching! It was super cool! Just imagine a bunch of people in white shirts and name tags walking down a street that no one in that area has ever seen before, they all wanted to know what was going on. haha. We will continue to teach them this week and hopefully we can have some people ready to baptize this week or the next!!

Also this week we had our baptisms! We had 5 baptisms for me and my companion then the other missionaries that we stayed with had 2 baptisms and 1 other pair of missionaries that live close by had 1 baptism and I got to be the one who baptized them all!! Way cool! My first baptism I got to baptize 8 people!! Everyone that we baptized looked super excited and that was such a cool experience for me!!

Last cool thing that we did this week was yesterday for P-day we had a huge feast! We have 4 people in our district that come from Tonga and back home they do pig roasts over a fire where you spin a pig on a stick! Man that was a cool experience for me to watch them prepare a pig from it being a live to eating it! They killed it, gutted it, skinned it, seasoned it, and then cooked it over the fire! It was super good! We had a bunch of rice and stew and bread on the side and it was a really good meal!

Anyways that is it for me this week!! I hope everyone's week was great! Love you all!!
~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers:

Q. How did you get the opportunity to perform all 8 baptisms? Did they all chose you to baptize or did the other missionaries just give you that opportunity?
A. The other missionaries gave me the opportunity because they said that they have all baptized plenty

Q. Where do you baptize at... a font?
A. Yes, it was at a font.

Q. Do you anticipate that they will stay active in the Church?
A. I hope they all stay active and I think that they will! They are all kids but they are loving coming to church so they should keep coming .

Q. How many people do you have attending church? Do you and your companion do a lot of responsibilities each week? How do you like the bishop? Do you work closely with him? And do you have very strong relationships with the ward members?
A. We usually have around 35 people come to church but this last week we had a lot more like 90, I think it was because we had a baby blessing though so lots of visitors. The bishop is nice, pretty old but we do not work super close with him. Things are just a little different out here in Ghana haha. We have some members that we see but not like any super close members. We try to see some of them to get a stronger relationship. We haven’t had any dinners from members yet.

Q. Can you give us some more details about your work in this new area that you are opening up?
A. Ya so we went two days last week and we had to first get permission from the chief in that place at his palace so we had a big meeting with a bunch of members and the stake presidency and he gave us permission. We have not been able to teach much to them yet but we are going again today and Friday and we will see how it works. We have about 16 missionaries over there each time we go so there is a lot of help over there. We had like 12 people come to church from that area this last Sunday.

Loving the Work and Adjusting to the Heat

Birthday wishes from Elder Shirley to his mom

Watching General Conference

At a youth activity this week

October 8, 2018

Man, to me the weeks are flying by and I cannot believe that I have been out on my mission for 6 weeks already! This week was not as successful in teaching and finding new people, but this upcoming week should be a really good one. We have 5 baptisms that should all happen on Saturday afternoon and we are just hoping and praying that they all happen. They are all under the age of 20 so a lot of them have to have parent permission to be baptized. We are really hoping that their parents will let them be baptized!

Ghana is still really hot but I am learning to adjust and it is normal to always be constantly sweating. The weird thing is though that sometimes I get cold in the night from the 3 fans we have going in our room! haha. If it was not for the fans then I would be sweating the entire night. I cannot wait for the air conditioning once I get back home. Also, the other thing that I miss a lot while I am out here on my mission is the chance to take a hot shower in the morning. I am still adjusting to taking cold showers each morning. Sometimes I will wake up in the mornings feeling cold and a cold shower is hard to take. Another crazy thing about Ghana is the roads that people drive on here. The only reasons people have to drive slow after they get out of the cities is because there are pot holes everywhere in the road. Drivers have to slow down or else everyone would get thrown through the roof when they hit a pot hole haha.

There are many things that you can find joy in around here though and most of the time the people are super nice. Everything is a lot cheaper than it is back home which is weird because I start converting money back into US dollars and everything seems so cheap. It is bad to do that though because that is how you spend all of your money each week! haha. Anyways I am doing really good this week and the work is moving along well.

Love you all!!
~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers:

Q: What did you do for Pday this week?
A: We had a zone conference in a nearby town and we played soccer and ate fried rice, last night we slept in another missionary apartment so we could watch conference at their building since they did not broadcast it at our building.

Q: Are some of the foreign missionaries really good soccer players or are you one of the best ones?
A: Some of the missionaries around here have good skill but there is not an actual soccer field around here so soccer is a little different. More foot skill is required.

Q: Do you ever get to play basketball? If so, indoors or outdoors?
A: Ya there is an 8 foot hoop here outdoors that is pretty nice but it is not an actual height.

Q: In addition to the upcoming baptisms this next week, is there anything exciting coming up?
A: This next week the stake here wants us to go into a new area and try to establish a new unit in 2 weeks, so they are sending 10 missionaries into the city tomorrow and Friday and then again the next week for 2 days. We will hopefully be baptizing a bunch of people 2 weeks from last Saturday. So we have to prepare baptisms quickly and we have to extend a baptismal date on the first lesson! So we have to be intensely close to the Spirit so we can be guided to the right people in those 4 days there.

Q: Is it easy to stay close to the spirit just by being a missionary? Are there very many "disobedient missionaries" that you see in your district or zone?
A: I mean people can still get movies and music if they want to so some missionaries can still be disobedient but for me I want to be obedient because I only have 2 years to give back to Jesus Christ for everything he did for me.

Q: What has been your greatest adjustment? Food, water, the people, the environment, the schedule, or other?
A: My greatest adjustment has been living without technology and living in a new environment. I have also realized on my mission so far how important family is and how much more I will focus on our family when I get back home.

Q: Have you had hot water for washing your clothes and showers?
A: We just got a washing machine last week but it is a little different than a normal washing machine back home. We wash with cold water and we have to haul the water to fill the machine.

Find Joy in the Simple Things

Elder Shirley with five of the youth they are currently teaching

Elder Shirley's apartment in Odoben

The chapel in Odoben

A view of Odoben

Another view of the streets of Odoben

Goats everywhere!

Watermelons in trees?

October 1, 2018

Another week has gone by!!

This week went by super, super fast!! It is crazy to me to think that it has already been one week since I last emailed! I am learning here on the mission slowly but things are improving each day and I can feel Heavenly Father answering my prayers each and every day. This week we taught a bunch more people and lots of the people that are set for a baptismal date are progressing. There are 5 kids all from the same family that are from ages 10-13 that are loving to learn. They always want us to come and to teach them. I hope it is because it is because of the gospel and not just because they like seeing us every time, but we have built a great relationship with them already and they are loving it. They are always so happy and whenever they see us in town they run to us and make sure to say hi. Their names are Shirley, Emanwella, Ramsey, Nelly, and Henry.

We also extended baptism to two more people and they accepted, so now we have 8 baptismal dates set for the 13th of October. I am just praying that all of them really happen! On Saturday, the four of us missionaries in our apartment decided to hold a youth activity and we had a lot of fun. We, as missionaries, are assigned to clean the chapel here in Odoben once a week, so we used the youth to help us clean for about 30 minutes. We then bought them all ice cream and played different games outside. It was really cool to be able to see how happy the kids around here can be and the joy that they have in the simple, simple things in life. I have come to realize for myself that I can be happy and enjoy life in any situation. I also know that God does answer our prayers because he has already blessed my life in so many ways and my confidence in teaching has improved because of prayer.

Anyways, that is about it for this week!! Hope everyone had a great week and I miss and love you all!!

~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers:

Q: I bet you are great with the youth! Do you just love it?
A: Oh my goodness, the little kids and youth are so dang cute, it is a lot of fun. We in our apartment actually decided that we are going to hold a youth activity every Saturday for the youth at 4:00 in the afternoon because they do not have any youth activities. As missionaries, we have to clean the church every Saturday so we use the youths help. Last Saturday we bought everyone some of the ice cream that they have here and then we played basketball, soccer, and football.

Q: How's the language coming along? Are you able to teach in Twi or do you still have an interpreter?
A: No, I can only speak a couple of words so we have to use an interpreter every day.

Q: How is your companion? Do you like him a lot?
A: My companion is awesome! He teaches really well and is very encouraging to me and he can speak the language pretty well, enough to understand what people are saying on the streets but not enough to teach.

Q: Where do you write your emails from? A home, church, library?
A: We email at the church each week, but we have to buy credits so we can have wifi to use for internet. It usually lasts about 2 hours.