Guided By The Spirit

November 26, 2018

It has been a good week here in Odoben once again! As the missionaries in our apartment we are assigned to two different areas: the area that we stay in and the area called Kuntenase. Kuntenase is the area that we were given to start a new unit and the area is progressing slowly but surely.

Last Sunday we had our first sacrament meeting there with a very small group. My companion and one of the other companions from the apartment went to that sacrament meeting and me and Elder Villa stayed in Odoben so we could have an eye on both wards and so we could be able to check all 3 areas. In Kuntenase there were around 8 people there for the first week and I heard that it went good.

This Sunday we switched roles and me and Elder Villa went to Kuntenase while the other two missionaries stayed here in Odoben and it was really cool to experience a sacrament meeting that was just held outside in this little compound area. We had 14 people come so it was good to see an increase from the week before. Right before sacrament meeting started they asked me and my companion to each give a talk and I was kind of stressed out because they asked us to give a 10 minute talk right on the spot. This was a big testimony builder for me though of how much the spirit and the lord can work through a missionary because I was guided through that entire talk and I was able to give a 10 minute talk, which is something that I would never have been able to do back home without any preparation. The spirit was there throughout the whole meeting and it is really cool to see that area growing.

This last week we also enjoyed cocoa farming!! We did what they call weeding, which just means that we mowed the lawn with what they call cutlos. It is basically just a machete. Who would have guessed that I travel all the way around the world to be back in another farm! haha

As for me, I am doing really well and I am enjoying the opportunity to serve a mission! I cannot believe that Christmas is right around the corner either!! I am super super excited to be able to skype home!! I am looking forward to it big time!! I love love the peanut butter (we sent him a package recently) and I am trying to savor it, but you know I let the other missionaries eat some too so it will probably be gone here shortly in the next 2 weeks or so. I miss you and love you all!!

~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers:

Q. What did you do for p-day this week?
A. We had a zone activity and went to Swedru and played games, it was a lot of fun

Q. How is the boy doing that you were teaching?
A. He is not progressing but we will are still working with him.

Q. Did you ever get to roast that chicken in lieu of a Thanksgiving dinner?
A. We did roast some chicken and we had a good meal, nothing like back home but it was still nice.

Q. What is your spiritual moment for this last week?
A. My spiritual moment this last week was the talk I gave in sacrament and how much I recognized the Lord’s hand.

Q. What kind of animal and bugs do you see there?
A. We see plenty of goats, chickens and bats. Literally goats and chickens free roam the whole area!! haha The bugs here are nasty but we get used to them. They are not like the bugs back home.

It's All In Your Perspective

Preparing a dish called ampesi

Ampesi

November 19, 2018

Week by week, the time goes by!! Man, it is crazy to think that I have been gone for almost 3 months!! It feels like I just left yesterday but I have already learned so much and changed so much for the better! I am realizing what is really actually important in life and the things that I need to change to become a better person!

This last week nothing too exciting happened and the missionary work did not progress very much but the positive thing is that the work can only get better!! Some days will go by where we maybe only get one lesson in in a day or maybe even 0, but then I just look at my companion and say, "well at least we know now who we do not need to see" haha. It is all about your perspective, you can always makes positive things about things that might not seem good at all! Plus out here on misison just walking around and the people seeing us can have an impact on their lives, so I try to just stay positive about everything!!

I am still doing great and I am still healthy! This place is sweet, but always super hot. Hopefully I have more interesting things to talk about next week but ya this last week, not much happened other than just normal proselyting days. So as you know it there is not any fast food like they have in America or anything even close to it in the area that I am in right now so sometimes I just dream of what a nice hamburger would taste like or think about how nice Wendy's 4 for 4 would be.So everytime you eat something like that just think of me and take a bite for me! haha

Anyways, I hope you all have a good week!! Love you all!

~Elder Shirley

Opportunity to Attend the Accra Temple

Elder Shirley & companion Elder Piutau at Accra temple

Elder Shirley making fufu by pounding cassava and plantains

Eating fufu

Fufu

Pizza place in a mall in Accra

Sunrise in Ghana

November 12, 2018

This week was a pretty good week! The work is coming along but the highlight of this last week for me was I got the opportunity to go to the temple in Accra. The temple is about 3 hours or so from where I am in my area, so we asked the mission president if we could go and he told us that we could so we went. We left Friday evening after we finished our day proselyting and we went to an area called Kasoa. We got to Kasoa around 9 and slept there, woke up and left that area at 6:30. That night we slept on the hard tile floor with no blanket so it was kind of a rough night with lots of tossing and turning trying to somehow get comfortable on a hard tile floor but I do not think it is possible to get comfortable in a situation like that! Haha.

The next day we traveled to the temple and arrived there around 8:30. The session started at 10:30 so we stayed around the temple and then checked in at 9:30. The session was great and it was so peaceful in that room, it was good to be back in such a beautiful place after not being there for a couple months!

After the session we traveled to a nearby mall..... Yes I said mall. I was surprised about this place, it literally looked just like a mall in America. Air conditioning and everything! It surprised me so much but I guess there are nice places in the city areas!! We also ate pizza and that was the first time that I have eaten pizza since I left home so that was really nice to be able to eat pizza!! We traveled back the rest of the night and got home around 8 p.m.

My week overall though was good. We are still continuing to build a unit in Kuntenase and they even found a place to worship in their town which will help a lot so none of them have to travel. I am hoping that because of this that more people will be willing to show their faith and come to church!

Good luck to everyone and their weeks! Love you all!

~Elder Shirley

My Testimony and Teaching Ability Have Increased So Much

Baptisms this past weekend; Elder Shirley confirmed the 11-year-old boy standing next to his companion

Elder Shirley and his companion with two of the boys who were baptized

November 5, 2018

Short email this week because it has not been too long since the last time that I was on but this last weekend we had another baptism to an 11 year old boy who has been coming to church for about 6 weeks now and showing his faith very strong each week!! I got to do his confirmation on Sunday and that was my first time ever doing a confirmation and I could feel the spirit so strongly!! I have to say I was nervous but it went well!!

I have finished reading the Book of Mormon and I challenged myself to finish the book in a month and I achieved that goal. It is amazing to see how that has increased my testimony and my teaching ability. The Book of Mormon is a powerful book and the truth of it is so sincere!! Anyways my week has been good!! Love and miss you all!!

~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers:

Q. Do you have a new companion? If not, how is everything going with your companion?
A. I do not have a new companion because training lasts for 2 transfers. I should have a new comp. in December. We do have stuff in common, he is a good guy to be around.

Q. Does Ghana celebrate Halloween? What about Christmas? If not, what holidays do they celebrate?
A. They do not celebrate Halloween, but I am pretty sure they celebrate Christmas, not a white Christmas though.

Q. Will you get to video call home for Christmas?
A. I will be able to video call; the computer here has a camera on it.

Q. What is the funnest thing that you did this week?
A. This last week the most fun thing that we did was probably today going to Asikuma, but I think this Friday we will travel to Accra to go through a session at the temple which I am super excited for!!

Learning How To Survive With Little Things and Not a Lot of Light

A hot, sweaty P-day activity

Having fun on P-day

Elder Shirley walking with kids in Odoben

One of the church buildings

Elder Shirley's kitchen

Meat loaf made of canned corned beef

Elder Shirley with the missionaries from his district

Elder Shirley with his companion Elder Piutau

** Last week we didn’t get an email from Dan due to the ongoing power outages he is experiencing. It was good to get an email from him this week, although it was delayed a couple of days.

October 31, 2018

It has been a crazy last couple of weeks because of the light issues here in Ghana. For the last 3 weeks we have not had power on Mondays so we just email whenever we can, so I never know when I will get to email! It is all part of the adventure though and it makes for an exciting time! There has not been anything too exciting to report on though, just the normal proselyting everyday but lately we have also been traveling a lot to other places for different events so it has been pretty busy too.

The last 2 Mondays we have put together activities here at our chapel for our district and it has been a lot of fun to get to know everyone in our district a lot better! In our apartments we are not blessed with ovens but our chapel has an oven so the last two weeks during our activities we have used the oven. On the first week we made something called Pani Popo which is a Tongan dessert, it is basically the same thing as a cinnamon roll but instead of cinnamon they use coconut. It was so so good and reminded me of my favorite dessert back home which are cinnamon rolls. Also we played basketball for awhile and we played rugby for awhile so it was a lot of fun! Then this last week we got together again and made meatloaf! The meat loaf was super good and we also found potatoes in an area nearby and that was amazing because it reminded me of home and to me a potato has never tasted so good! haha! The meat loaf wasn't exactly made of the ground beef that you all are thinking of it would be made out of because we do not have that here in this area. We made the meat loaf out of canned corned beef, and it was still nice. I guess you just gotta do what you gotta do!

Yesterday was transfer day and so it was a busy day for all of those people getting transferred but I will probably be here for a little while so it will be awhile before I leave this area which is good! I am learning a lot here and I am learning how to survive with little things and not a lot of light!! Anyways I hope all is going well!! Love you all!

~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers:

Q. We are hearing that you are without power almost every other day. Is it really that often? If so, how do you cook with no power?
A. It really is that often but it is OK because we can still cook by using propane. In fact, that is like the only way we can cook anyways. We have a propane stove and a microwave, no oven which is super lame but there is an oven at the chapel.

Q. What is a typical day like for you as far as meals go?
A. Meals are usually, rice, eggs, bread and some type of sauce on the rice. We also bought a blender which is awesome because I make smoothies very often. They have yogurt that is a lot different from back home but it tastes good and we put that in the blender with pineapple and banana so it tastes super good. You can get 20 bananas for 1 dollar so everything is really cheap. 5 pineapples for 1 dollar as well, so money usually goes pretty far. I feel like I am eating enough, and I do not feel like I am losing that much weight so I still feel healthy, do not worry! I am actually happy if I am losing some weight! It is good for me!! haha.

Q. How do you get around when you go to neighboring towns?
A. So the way we get from town to town is by using something called a tro tro which is basically a van that they stuff full of people. They fit like 15 people in a typical van! haha Look up a picture of a tro tro and I bet you can find what it looks like. I use a bike sometimes but the roads we walk on would be impossible to ride a bike! In other areas they use a bike a lot so maybe later on in my mission I will use bike more.

Q. How is the attendance at your ward?
A. Our ward is not attending church well at all which is sad because they just do not want to come. This last week, we had 5 people that came to church on time so church started 20 minutes late and we still only had 10 people. We might talk with the stake president and ask him to combine the 2 wards here in our area because both wards have about 200 inactive members! It is ridiculous!

Q. How is the work progressing?
A. The work is progressing well, but we need to start finding more people in our area. I think we will have 1 or 2 baptisms this week if the mother will let her child be baptized, but he has come to church 5 weeks now and wants to be baptized.

Q. Do you exercise every day? If so, what do you do?
A. I do not exercise every day because we walk so much and walk many miles but some days I do push-ups and sit-ups and things like that in the apartment.

Q. About how many miles do you guys do of tracting every day?
A. I am not exactly sure how much we walk but it is quite a bit each day but it is nice so I can stay in shape!! haha.

Q. How is it going with your youth activities? What are some of the activities that you have done with them?
A. The activities are going pretty good, the last 2 weeks we had a baptism at our chapel so that has been our activity, but when that does not happen we just play games with them or show them Book of Mormon videos and they seem to enjoy it all.

Q. Tell us how the work is going in the new area where you are trying to establish a new unit.

A. We will continue to go there 2 times a week because it was not enough time to start a unit, but there are people progressing already and they are excited to hear about the gospel in that area.

** In our emails, we described to Dan how quiet things are around the house in the evenings with him gone and how we often are all reading books while sitting near the fireplace. Here is his response to that:
“I cannot even imagine how quiet the house is, I do not think I would enjoy such a quiet house, I would get bored!! I finished the Book of Mormon this week though and that was a big accomplishment for me to be able to finish the Book of Mormon in 1 month, I would have never thought that I could do that. Now my goal is to finish it one more time before the new year!”