Opportunity to Teach With Elder Nash of the Seventy

Four of the zones in our mission at our mission tour conference with Elder Nash

My "second mother" in Ghana with my "sister" at a ward temple trip

Elder Shirley with some of the people they are teaching who came to church this week. He says "we surely do love all of them!"

At the Ghana temple

Elder Shirley with Elder Muchonji who is finishing his mission

Elder Shirley and his companion with another missionary who is going home, Elder Hurley

Visiting with some members from his last area

At the Ghana temple

Elder Shirley and his companion with Elder Nash of the Seventy and President Sanders after a day of proselyting

December 16, 2019 

Wow what a spiritual and uplifting week it has been this week! 

This week was so so busy with everything but I had a such a nice week. The first great thing that happened was on Tuesday I was able to go on an exchange with an amazing elder, Elder Evans, and that day was a great day. We were able to help one of our people that we are teaching hopefully prepare for baptism. She is set for date on January 5th. We also were able to find 6 new people to teach that day which is probably almost a record setting day for new people that we are teaching in 1 day. God blesses his servants for sure! 

Wednesday was a really special day where we had our mission tour with Elder Nash and his main focus of the mission tour was about 3 topics. 

1. Centering and rooting ourselves in Jesus Christ through repentance 

2. Loving, serving, teaching members and leaders 

3. Creating refuges of faith 

We talked about how we need to apply these aspects into our mission more so that the whole mission can then change and become better. It was a really inspiring conference that gave me a lot of insight on what I need to better each day. After the conference Elder Nash then asked for a short small meeting with the zone leaders and the assistants. So we stayed after and had a meeting with the 10 of us. He basically showed us what we need to do to help the mission apply these principles. Because so many times we all go to conferences and are spiritually blessed then 1 week later we forget everything that we learned at the conference which is not good. 

After that meeting me and my companion got the wonderful privilege of going to teach an appointment to one of our people with Elder Nash and President Sanders, our mission president. We drove with the 2 of them in president's car to the appointment and when we got there Elder Nash and President chatted with him for a little bit while me and my comp were talking with someone else. Well, we ended up bringing that other person into the lesson with us too so we had a wonderful lesson on the importance of church. The way it went is that me and my companion taught the lesson and President Sanders and Elder Nash both testified of everything. You can really tell when Elder Nash testifies that he truly and deeply knows the church is true. He is so passionate about everything he does in the church. It is really inspiring. President Sanders too is such a powerful and great man. The other guy that we brought into the lesson asked about the Book of Mormon at the end of the lesson because we were using scriptures from that book and he didn’t not know what it was so Elder Nash taught him about the Book of Mormon and then we finished. 

That experience of teaching with a General Authority was such a cool experience that will probably never happen again. Elder Nash told us that in the time he has been a General Authority he had rarely been able to teach with missionaries and that we were very lucky. Haha it truly was a great experience! After the lesson when we got back to the car he looked at me and my companion and said "When I look at the two of you, I see true servants of God". He told us that he was very impressed with our teaching and that because of what he saw he has no worries of us not being able to keep this area strong. 

On Friday we then had a meeting with Elder Nash and all the zone leaders in the mission. He taught us how to apply the things that we learned at the conference and how to help the other missionaries also apply it. That meeting was from 9-1. 

The last special amazing thing that happened to me this week is that on Thursday night before the Friday morning conference I got to stay in my last area and to see some of my recent converts. I learned that one of the people I baptized is now 2nd counselor in the primary presidency and another one of the people that I baptized is also 2nd counselor in the young women's presidency. I could see great growth in the gospel in them from when I left that area 4 months ago. What a special night to see them and talk with them for a little bit. They were very happy to see me and I was happy to see them too! It really showed to me the joy that is in this work!! 

Well sorry for the long email this week but a lot of amazing things have happened and it was a fantastic week!! I cannot believe how close it is to Christmas. Just know that this Christmas will be better for me than it was last year. Transfer news came and me and my companion are staying together again for a 3rd transfer and the members here will really spoil us!! We have Christmas meals/parties planned every day from December 23rd to the 26th and then we have our stake end of year party on the 28th so it will be a fun time!! I am doing great!! Enjoy the last holiday seasons without me being there!! I am loving my mission, like I love this work!! 

Love you so much!! 

-Elder Shirley