Wet but Blessed

 

Good evening everyone! This week was nice. It started with district council on Tuesday that was super nice. Every week, we meet as a district and report some numbers for things like how many new people we taught, how many people came to church, and so on. We talk about challenges in our areas and celebrate successes and offer solutions and it's all really nice. And we meet every Tuesday morning. I feel like it was really nice this week. We just talked about conference and our experiences and insights and stuff. Our district of 6 powerful elders had a lot of good stuff to say. I really enjoyed it. 

I also got to spend a day in our neighbouring elder's areas for exchanges this week. It was fun, but hard! Their area is the rich, rich part of Takoradi where there's mansions and resorts and hotels and not very many people to teach. We had only two lessons the whole day and knocked on a lot of doors. I'm sure that's what it's like for missionaries in America, but I've been pretty spoiled here in the promised land and wasn't really sure what to do. It was still a good exchange though. I was with Elder Greer, who I really like. We had some good talks as we were walking. 

We've had some other excitement as well, the form of rain! I had heard that Ghana doesn't have a rainy season, but that is apparently not true. It rained several times this week and rained almost the whole day on Friday. In Ghana it is really hard to find people to talk to when it's raining, so when the rain started during our first lesson of the day, I wasn't really sure what to do. Almost all the lessons we had planned for the day were outside, and I knew the people we were going to see probably wouldn't be around.

However, we still went to town, literally and figuratively. After some strategizing about who would receive two soaked missionaries on a Friday afternoon, we decided to go visit a member not far from our Chapel. However as we were walking there we met our buddy Richard just hanging out under a canopy in front of his house! We'd taught him a few times before that and it had been ok but he had just never come to church. He always said he would be there, but then he'd never show up. We had kinda stopped teaching him before Friday. 

However, that day we had time! We sat down and just talked about life for awhile, and then shared a small lesson. Then, we invited him to church. He said he'd come. We asked if we could come and walk with him to church on Sunday. He said yes. We basically made him promise that he wouldn't stand us up again, and then went on our way. 

And then we were super blessed again! Repeatedly. For the rest of the day, we were able to find stuff to do and people to teach. We talked with a Jehovah's Witness lady for like an hour about what she believed, and taught a few other lessons as well. We helped our buddy Kwame close his shop for the day and pack up all his stuff for the night. We were busy until it was time to go home. 

That might seem like it was a small thing. Missionaries all over the place, including us, often can't find stuff to do every day. It's not an abnormal thing to not have a lesson every hour, or even in a whole day. But God gave us work to do, and I'm so glad he did. 

Especially since Richard came to church! After that lesson we just kind of forgot about it till Saturday when we were calling all our people for church. He was one of them, and he again said he would come for church. We made plans to pick him up in the morning at around 8:30, then ate dinner and went to bed. 

The next day, we got to his house around 8:45 to find him unloading big jugs of water he had fetched from a nearby tank. He told us that he wanted to shower and then he'd come. However, he said that once before and didn't come, so we told him we'd wait for him outside if that was OK. He said it was, so he rushed off to bathe and we helped them unload the rest of the water. Through that, we also met a lady named Phidalia who said we could come back and teach her this week! It was blessed. 

We waited for a long time. It was like 9:10, and our church starts at nine. I was thinking we should just go. Then 9:15 hit and I stood up to go tell Richard we were going. However, my wise the companion and the wise Spirit of God had other plans. We decided to wait, and at 9:20 Richard walked out looking fresh and ready to worship. We rushed to church, and didn't even miss the sacrament, even though we had to take it in the lobby. God is powerful and life is good. Our plans may derail, but his will never fail. 

Speaking of the goodness of God, we were also fed fufu twice this week. It was super nice. 

I love you all!

Love, 

Elder Johnson

1. FUFU. This is what it looks like. The white thing is a ball of pounded cassava, which is like a stretchy potato, and plantain, which is like a dense banana. The soup is called abenkwan and is made from oil extracted from palm tree nuts. There's also a piece of chicken and piece of fish inside. Our neighbour Mamme Esther, who is the best lady ever and always gives us food, gave it so us in honor of palm Sunday. It was super yummy. 

2-3. One of my friends asked me about Ghanaian sunsets and I realized that I haven't taken any sunset pictures since Cape Coast. So here are two. :)

4-5. Me and my very photogenic companion. He really loves pictures and said the lighting in our hall way is nice so we had a photo shoot..... in the hallway. 

6. Elder Bukasa in model mode. 

7. Probably my biggest life hack for not getting my white shirt dirty is wearing a t-shirt over it while I cook. I'm kind of a genius.