Baptisms and the Small Things

 

Good morning everyone! This week was really great. It started out on Tuesday with zone council, which is basically a meeting with our whole zone where we receive instruction and share ideas about how to be better missionaries. It was really powerful, and we ate at KFC after. Like Kentucky Fried Chicken, with Colonel Sanders and stuff. I've been waiting to eat there since I got transferred here, and it was worth the wait. It's a lot different than the KFC at home (there's no biscuits or mashed potatoes or anything) but I had a chicken wrap thing with fries that was really nice. I'm definitely not going to eat there often because it's really expensive but it was fun to try it out. 

Another exciting thing about this week is that yesterday someone filled our water tank so now we have running water again! Takoradi is having some serious water shortages lately, so we haven't had running water for the past 3 weeks. Every morning we would go fetch water from a neighbour's house, but now we have running water. Life is good. Fetching was also kind of fun though. It definitely helped us bond as an apartment. And our companionship is more united than it used to be. Elder Bukasa and I would carry this big trash can sized bucket together and we got really good at it. Hopefully those days are behind us though, as fun as it was. 

We also had some big miracles this week with some of the people we are teaching. First of all, we found a list on area book planner (an app we use to keep teaching records and plan and stuff) of a bunch of people the sisters had been teaching before we got here! On Saturday we sat down and called all of them, one by one. They all seemed really cool and we have appointments to go see most of them. 

We've also received so, so many referrals through Facebook and other missionaries in this mission. I'm excited to see where those go. Referrals are so awesome, because they're people who have asked to be contacted and they're usually very enthusiastic about the gospel. We're hoping to see a lot of them this week also. 

We also had such an amazing, hopefully turning point lesson with one of our friends name Bernice. Bernice was one of the first people we met in Takoradi when we arrived. We've been teaching her forever, but her desire to learn and keep commitments kind of comes and goes. Her best friend is a member though, so she's been coming to church with her friend off and on and such. She has been dodging us hard lately. One day this week we came and saw her as she was running behind a house. Then we called and she said she was out of town! What the heck. 

However, on Saturday we were able to teach her, and it was awesome. We were supposed to go see someone else, but we both felt prompted to go and see Bernice. We got to her place, and she was there with her 2 year old daughter Princsta, who we'd never met. 

We had an awesome lesson. It started out with us being kind of frank and explaining that we want her to be happy and that if she wants to keep learning she needs to be putting effort in. Then we taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ in connection with the celestial kingdom and eternal families. We testified to her that the only way she could spend eternity with her daughter was by following the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we were here to help her do that. She committed to learn with us more regularly and came to church yesterday! It was a miracle. 

Also, our buddy Francis came to church for the 3rd straight week! It was so cool. He came late, but he still came. We're really excited for him. He really wants to change, and we're hoping we can baptize him next week. He's an awesome guy. We found him in such an interesting way, too. We came to teach his friend James, but James never showed up so we taught him and his 3 other buddies. He didn't seem all that interested, but then he showed up at church with James that Sunday, and proceeded to come for the next 2 weeks! He says he wants to join the church and change his life. 

Success and Rosina were also baptized on Sunday, which was awesome! They were so fun to teach, and it was so great to watch them make covenants on Sunday. Also, our ward is incredible. We didn't have anything to do with the program or baptismal clothes or anything. Our ward mission leader and Bishop took care of everything. It was so great. They also took us on visits again to less actives after church and we had two member meals in the same day, which was a new record. 

We also went out with brother John, an older guy in our ward. He's not in the bishopric anymore or anything, but he still goes and visits less active members and such every Sunday. He took us with him, and it was so cool. It was awesome to see how that small and simple act of just visiting a friend and saying hi can lead to great things. 

And that's what I've been learning this week. God doesn't expect us to go above and beyond. He just expects us to do the small and simple things that He makes very clear. If everyone in the church read the Book of Mormon for 5 minutes every day, how different would things be? If everyone in the church visited the families they're assigned to minister to regularly, how different would things be? If we were all willing to just open our mouths and talk about church with our friends, how different would things be? If we do what's expected of us, we'll be OK. God asks for everything, but when you compare that to what he's given us, it's not a whole lot. When we do the little stuff He's asked us to do, we're blessed in big ways. 

I love you all! Have a great week. 

Love, 

Elder Johnson 

1. Elder Bukasa, me, and Rosina at the baptism

2. Elder Bukasa, brother Paul, Rosina, Success, and me. 

3. The masterpiece I drew for our district. Every district had to submit a picture of our favorite scripture story, and this was mine. Don't worry: I also do contract work. Hit me up for details. 

4. The water fetching gang. We all made sure we looked our best for this picture, as you can tell.