Life Is Great When You Are a Missionary

December 9, 2019 

Hey! 

This week was a really great week, just as every other week is!! Haha life is great when you are a missionary! This week on Tuesday I went on an exchange with another missionary named Elder Cornell, from Blackfoot, Idaho, and that day was a super cool experience. As the day started we went to our first appointment and we had planned to extend a baptismal date and as the lesson went on we were prompted to do so, so we did and she accepted. The next lesson we also planned that if by the Spirit we were prompted to extend a baptismal date we would. Well the Spirit prompted us again and we extended again. That made 2 appointments for the day both with baptismal dates set. 

We then went to our next appointment having no intention to extend a baptismal date but when we got there we saw a miracle. The boy that we were going to see is in a part member family where his dad is a member of the church but is less active. Since I have gotten here in August I have never met him because he is always working in Accra and has not been to church. Well that day we met him in the house with his son that we are teaching and we had a wonderful lesson together and the boy asked us if he could be baptized. That made it 3 lessons in a row with baptismal dates set. Following that lesson we met with some other people that also came to church this week and then the last lesson we extended another baptismal date and she told us that she would pray about it to see if it was right for her. All in all it was a day of great success which I was so grateful for!! 

We were able to also extend to 2 other people in the week and we really feel like our area is exploding right now with so many wonderful people that we are teaching. We were busy with different meetings that we had to travel back and forth from Accra and back which took away some of our time but we were still able to see great things happen each day. The last experience I will share is with a couple that we found about 2 months ago. The couple is from Nigeria and are both members but at the time we found them in our area they had both been less active for over a year and had even started going to another church. We found them that day about 2 months ago and set a return appointment with them. We came back and have been teaching them once a week. The woman has been a member since she was around 10 and is now in her late 20s and the man has been a member for 4 years. Anyways this last week we were studying the Come Follow Me lesson for the week and we were going over about how God is light and love and he shared with us that he knows God is love because he said "if it was not for Elder Shirley and Elder Manakofua then we would still be lost. But because of the 2 of you we have found our way back again." Wow! This really hit both of us hard! They are now both active and are coming every week. They are set to do their official marriage with the bishop in January and have invited us to attend. We hope to take them to get sealed soon after.

Missionary work is so wonderful and the miracles are endless with those who serve God! 

Thank you for all the prayers! I love you! 

-Elder Shirley