Another Great Temple Trip

Elder Shirley with companion Elder Landu

Typical transportation in Ghana

In front of the temple in Accra

A couple of pictures of the Savior that Elder Shirley really likes

February 4, 2019

This week for me was super fun and a great week!! First of all this week we got to go to the temple again!! Crazy!! Basically, the branch here in Asuom has been planning for a trip to the temple and I moved here just at the perfect time!! At the temple I got to do all of the confirmations for them and it was just so cool to see all the youth doing baptisms for the dead, a lot of them for the first time. They did over 140 different names which is awesome!!

Also this week we had a big, big rain storm and I got soaked!! It was on the day of our baptism and so we did the baptism out in the rain and then after walked home in the rain and I got so wet it was as if I just got out of the shower!! haha. The baptism was so cool though and we were able to have 4 baptisms. One of the people we baptized was someone that the missionaries have been working with here in this area for a while now and she rejected a baptismal date 4 times before I came. While we were teaching her I just felt inspired to ask her and she accepted right away!! She is 18 years old and I am really hoping that she goes out and serves a mission!! Anyways the rain storm was wild and we just walked through the pouring rain but I loved it because it was still like 80 degrees during the rain storm. People out here are scared of the rain so it is funny, when it rains everyone hides and it is as if no one is around!!

Anyways I love you lots!! I hope this week is a good week for you!
~Elder Shirley

Questions and Answers

Q. How are your white shirts holding up? Are they still white? How do you like doing laundry?
A. My white shirts are doing fine for now!! There is a lot of dust but they are doing good! Wash is OK, we actually pay a lady to come and hand wash our shirts and she gets them really clean plus it is some money for her. We try to help people out in a way that they can get money but not to just give her money if that makes sense.

Q. Are you finding the food situation in your new area a bit better than your last area?
A. I am eating just fine so do not worry too much. We actually got fed on fast Sunday yesterday but man, fasting can be hard in this mission because you walk around sweating but you cannot drink water, but then we got fed a big meal so that was awesome! Also, you guys will not believe this but I ate dog today!! Our district had an activity and we roasted a dog, the meat was actually really good. Sorry to say that dad but it tasted pretty nice.

Q. What did you do for P-day this week?
A. This week we had a bunch of missionaries over in Asuom and we played a really fun game of basketball as well as soccer! Basketball was a lot of fun because we have a lot of people around in our district and zone that know how to play ball so we had a lot of fun today!!

Q. Tell us a spiritual experience that happened to you this week tracking?
A. This week we were able to find someone whose parents had both been members but they just divorced but this boy seems like he is really ready to make progress!!

Q. Please share with us a piece of your talk from church or what you did to help out the ward this week?
A. This week to help out the ward we went to the temple with them and had a super fun time at the temple doing baptisms. They just looked to us for a lot of help with getting the members ready and especially doing the baptisms and confirmations. I felt like I myself got a lot of their things running smoothly, maybe because I worked in the temple before but that was fun!

Q. You've always been a "silent" leader among your friends. They have always looked to your example. Do you find that you lead on your mission? In what ways?
A. Ya in a way I see it, I just try my best to be the missionary that others would want to be with.