Hello Family and Friends!

Wow, another week has passed. Can you believe it? I felt like I just wrote yesterday haha. ante phrase of the week is Me to ick wat tu. Which means “I am going to buy an orange”, which I say to sister Jennifer every time we get an orange.

SWEDRU

Okay so this week has been a pretty great week, and Ghana is great! I am hoping to have some pictures for you guys this week so I hope you enjoy them. :) So last week on Monday Elder Day and I went to Brother Frank's (Our Ward Mission Leader) house for Family Home Evening and I ate Bonku. It was really good,and I am getting better at eating it. So inside the soup for the Bonku there was the skin type of thing and I didn't know what it was, but Brother Frank told me to eat it, (and of course you don't say no) so I did, and it was very chewy. I asked Brother Frank what it was and he told me it was cow skin. Cool right? It was pretty interesting! The lesson for FHE was on Agency and it was good, and we got some Oreo type of cookies at Melcom's (Ghana's version of Walmart) and some Fan Pop's for the kids. They enjoyed that. On Wednesday night we had Mutual again, and that is going really well. More of the youth are showing up and are excited for all of the activities that we are planning. 

My Desk

The ward is great! It's definitely different from back home with just 20- 50 people for church whereas I was used to a couple hundred, but the people are nice and we are trying to get a ward activity and I think that will be so great. It's definitely different being here in Ghana but I am loving it, and am learning a lot. Elder Day actually wants me to teach Gospel Principles next time so we shall see how that goes but I can do it if I don't doubt myself. Okay so cool experience: last Sunday a guy showed up to church out of the blue and we were like, "wow, that's cool." I told him he could sit by us and we talked small and I tried to help him with the sacrament because he looked confused, which makes sense because he has no ideal what it is. So after church we got his address and number and asked if we could meet some time, and we set up a time for Thursday. We actually were able to meet with him on Thursday and he explained that he just decided to come and see what are church was like due to all of these people going there. He told us that if the church was of Christ, he would go there, but if it wasn't of Christ he wouldn't go back to that church. He really liked our meeting and said he would like to join our church. Elder Day and I were so impressed. In fact he came this last Sunday as well. We are hoping to extend him for a baptismal date for the 15th of August.

Friday, I was able to go on my first split. I was excited to go with Elder Nwatah and to the Swedru Third Ward. We were able to have 4 lessons! In fact Eric is getting baptized this next week, so that is so great for them! Saturday we were able to go to Sister Tina's baptism (I met her on the split, and reviewed the interview questions with her) and that was so cool! Then afterwards the other Elders and I went to Aboso for the huge stake youth activity and it was fun to see all the youth excited. This past Sunday was great and Paa Joe even came on time to the meeting (We were really working with him to be on time for the sacrament so he can practice taking it, as well as not working on Sunday) and he is doing well. So the Elders in our apartment and my trainer like to tease me: We were eating this thing that looked like Bonku but wasn't at all, and I asked them what was it and they said "Oh that's goat poop." I said cool, it doesn't even taste like that, and I kept eating because you don't say no to food even if it's questionable. And they kept it going for a couple of minutes, but they eventually told me it was Eba which is just pounded Cassava. Haha they are funny. Speaking of food, there is Plantain here and it looks like a banana but isn't sweet, and it is really good, especially fried Plantain. There is this lady named Sister Gifty who sells it every night by our apartment and it is so hard not to get some and I usually get some. Fried Plantain is the best. We actually invited her to church because we stop there so often and she likes us, so we are hoping for the next week she'll come.

My Bed, mosquitoes anyone?

Okay so as for Elder Day's and my investigators goes. They are doing well. We are shooting for 3 baptisms on the 15th of August with Brother Paa Joe, Sister Vida, and Brother Alex. They have all been doing really well and we actually talked with Sister Vida Sunday Night and we talked about her lessons and her baptisms. We are hoping that her soon to be husband, Theolopus, can baptize her and that would be really awesome. Alex is awesome and we will extend that baptismal date soon. As for Paa Joe we are a little concerned he won't make the 15th due to the fact of his marriage. He just needs to put a down payment on the bride price and then he will be all good, but his soon to be wife's family doesn't come back until the beginning of August. Also he is doing some festivals for his business, so he won't be in town for a while except for the weekends, so we are going to have to meet with him on Saturday and Sunday every week so he will keep progressing but he is great. Other than that we have been working with our less actives and recent converts a lot and are making sure they are doing well. Sister Jennifer (The lady who sells great oranges) is great and she is funny and laughs when I try to talk to people because I always say Good Evening (Et a Sane) and the people walking by will laugh or just not respond at all but it's all good, and some people respond, so that's nice. :) We have a lot of potential investigators on our board like Sister Gifty (The one who sells Killiwiillie, the fried plantain). and many others, so this week we are really excited and optimistic for what we can accomplish. The work here is great!

So Today is Monday and for P-Day we actually had a Zone Activity. We got to go to Winneba Beach. :) It was so cool and I even go my feet wet in the ocean and got to look at the cool waves. It was fun, and I liked talking with everyone and seeing how everyone was doing. We were going to get pizza (SO hard to find and is usually expensive) and sure enough, the place we went to was going to be too expensive for too little pizza, so I was a little sad about that, but we got fried rice and chicken and it was all good. :)

So Spiritual thought for the week, and this is kind of a shout out to all of my friends going into the MTC soon. These past weeks have been really hard, I'm not going to deny that, and I go throughout the day and I try to stay optimistic, but I just start to doubt myself by thinking I can't speak to [people], what if I can't answer their questions, am I even a good missionary? etc. And Elder Day has been talking to me a lot about that and he put it on our board to not doubt because it isn't from the Lord, and he wrote down the quote from Henry Ford which says "Whether you think you can, or think you can't--you're right." I love that quote, and it has really been helping me out. So I have just decided to not doubt and go forward with faith in my Savior and the more I am not doubting myself the more the lessons go well and the happier I feel. So to my fellow new missionaries: don't doubt yourself. The Lord has confidence in you and He will guide you and protect you. Look to Him and you will be okay. The gospel is so worth it. I am so excited for you guys as you go out and serve and you can do it. You will have been set apart to be as a missionary and because of that the Lord will help you and guide you as long as we remain worthy of that. This also applies to you, family and friends in your daily lives: go forward in faith and have that confidence because the Lord trusts you. He loves you so much and He will help you, if you continually turn towards Him. I know it's not easy but the Lord expects us to learn because if we didn't were would we be? As Nephi says (2nd Nephi chapter 2) “Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy" That is true and I hope to work on doubting myself and to just love and serve these people, and I hope that you all won't doubt yourself as well because you are great. :) I love you all SO much, and I hope you have a great week! Stay awesome, and I will talk to you soon.

Love,

Elder Harward