Monday August 10th

Hello Family and Friends! I hope you are all doing well! So first of all Twi phrase of the week is Kia-Kaha! It means Forever Strong. I found it at the back of our cook book and I asked Elder Day what it meant so I thought it was pretty cool.

This week has been a great week! On Wednesday Elder Day and I met with a 15 year old girl named Martha. We saw her at church a lot and we thought she was a member, but I guess she has been coming to church for 3 years and hasn't been taught by the missionaries. Her brother Kofi and Sister Akoua are members and they usually take her to church. So we went over there and we asked her what she learned from the pamphlet of the restoration, and she taught us everything from the pamphlet. It really blew us away! We extended a baptismal date to her for the 22nd of August, and she accepted! SO awesome! Then we headed to Brother Frank's house and picked him and headed to mutual. It was a lot of fun and we played a couple of small games like Book of Mormon names (Where we have to say a person from the Book of Mormon and can't repeat any names or you're out). Elder Tyson and his companion Elder Hekking, from California joined us. He is a cool guy, who played quarterback at his high school. He actually signed to play football with the University of Utah, so he is kind of a big deal and is a pretty cool guy.

On Thursday our whole apartment left at 5:00AM to go to the Winneba Stake Center to see the group going home. It was great to see the Elders that I knew my first transfer and to wish them luck and to see them off. It definitely brought up some feelings of home, but I thought of how lucky I am to serve and my feelings didn't last too long. After that we did some Weekly Planning and had some lessons and it was great. Friday thru Saturday we saw Brother Alex, Sister Anita, and Sister Martha a couple of times and they are doing really well. Sister Anita goes to Chosen Race for her church and is a teacher there (She is only 15) and is pretty active, so we have been trying small through Mutual and really focusing on The Restoration, and hopefully she will continue to learn and grow. Sunday was a great day, and also very intresting. Elder Day actually got to speak in church, and he did a great job (He only had less than 6 minutes to prepare it) , and it was powerful, and the spirit was really there with him. After church we went to Brother Frank's house and had Jollof and it was delicious! Then we went to Bishop's house and had more Jollof with goat. That was the first time I had goat, and it was good.

After we were at the bishop's house we decided to head home, and it's a good thing we did at the time because there is a Swedru Festival going on for 10 Days and it is crazy! I guess everyone wants to come here for the festival, so it is really packed with people. So as we were walking home we saw people dancing in the streets and people arguing looking like they might fight, so we tried to avoid any conflict at all possible. However I bumped into this guy on accident and he said, "Watch Your Step," and I said, "Oh Madasi" (thank you) but the way he looked at me and said that, I knew he had just threatened me, so I got a little nervous and just kept walking, hoping nothing would happen. Elder Day asked what the guy said and I told him, and he told me he would have beaten the guy up if he did anything, and that was really nice that he had my back. He really never beats me up haha, he just pretends to, and I pretend like I can beat him up.

SO Today is my Birthday! :) So great! The greatest birthday present ever is to be out serving here in Ghana. I love it so much! It's hard but really great! So this morning actually I got "Baptized." Elder Day was joking with me that there was going to be a baptism this week, but I was confused with what he meant. So after our apartment devotional they told me to come out side and to look for my birthday present in the weeds and I was like okay. And as I was looking Elder Day and Elder Tyson come up behind me and just dumped water on me. They said I got baptized for my birthday, and then they soaked me at least 4 more times-haha! It was great! :) Elder Hekking took a video of it and it is pretty funny. So other than my baptism everything is pretty normal around here--just a normal P-day worth of laundry and cleaning. I hope you are all doing well! The gospel is so true. Remember to be resilient, as my mom always explained to me, like a bouncy ball. Sometimes you have those hard times, but's it what you do with those hard times and how get back up that defines you. We just need to keep trying and have that faith. Stay strong! I hope you all have a good week and I will talk to you soon! :)

Love,

Elder Harward