Apostolic Fante Teacher Gathers Israel

Good morning everyone! I hope you're all doing great. This week was really good. I got pretty sunburned but we also had some really amazing experiences. I want to share some of them with you in bullet form. 

Belly up in the gutter- This week while we were getting lunch my bike tipped over into Elder Hill's bike and they both fell into the 3 foot gutter. That would've been fine, except there was about 1 foot of sewage water in the gutter. Needless to say, we had kind of a stinky ride that day. 

No man knoweth the hour of (their) coming- There's only 3 of us and we have district council by ourselves in our apartment. It's always tempting to not take it very seriously, but we try to discipline ourselves. On Tuesday about halfway through district council someone knocked on our door. We opened it and were surprised to see the office elders! They were passing by to join our district council. We happily welcomed them in. It made me think how different that meeting would've been if we weren't doing what we were supposed to. Kind of like the second coming. We always have to be ready so that it'll be a joyful reunion instead of a terrifying one. 

Meaningful but stressful goals- As missionaries, every month we set a goal for how many of God's children we want to baptize. The purpose of the goal is to help us stretch and stay accountable. However, for me personally, the fear of under-actualizing has always kept us from setting bigger goals. This week though, we counseled together in our weekly planning and as a companionship to try and baptize three people this month. We're all pretty committed to it, and according to the agency of those we work with and God's will, we'll actualize. Pray for Andy, Helena, Elizabeth, and Sabina! 

Stake conference miracles- Speaking of Andy, Helena, and Elizabeth, they all came to stake conference this Sunday! It was so cool. We were catching a bus as a ward at the chapel and they were some of the first ones there. They're all doing super well. Elizabeth and Helena committed yesterday to be baptized this coming Saturday which we're so excited for. They're such cool people, and teaching them has been awesome. Helena is a single mom and Elizabeth is her 16 year old daughter and they've been coming to church for awhile. After church we taught her about the temple and it was so nice. The church is true! 

Non-member present lessons- Speaking of Helena, our experience teaching her on Saturday was one of the coolest parts of my mission. Helena doesn't speak much English, so we've teaching her with the help oCharlotte, one of the new members in our ward. We had planned with her to come with us Saturday evening, and she said yes, but in the afternoon we ran into her in town and she said she wouldn't be able to make it because of a school program. AHHH! So there we were. Helena on date for this Saturday, she's only free on Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday, and still needing to be taught a lot of stuff. We were on our way to see Andy, who is also doing great, but we stopped and called about 20 members, trying to get someone to help us translate. Nothing. We go teach Andy, and then call a bunch of other members. Nothing 2.0. We decided to go confirm that Helena was free. On the way there I remember praying that God would send us a translator. 

    When we got there, Helena was doing something but said we should wait for her because she would finish soon. As we stood at her house waiting without a translator, we started contemplating if we could teach her without a translator. That's how you know we were getting desperate. As we waited, we struck up a conversation with this old lady and her grown son. They were really nice, but not really interested in the gospel. The son, whose name was Kwame, told us he was a deacon in the apostolic church and that he was also a college student so he would be too busy to meet with us. He spoke great English though and seemed really nice As we talked with him, I had the crazy feeling to ask him if he could translate for our lesson. He said yes! We taught a fantastic lesson about prayer and scripture study and keeping the sabbath day holy and he translated the whole thing. We later found out while talking to him that he's an actual Fante teacher and that he's at college finishing a degree in Fante. What??? We asked God for translator and he sent us an actual teacher of the language we needed translated. It was amazing. We gave Kwame a Book of Mormon and our number and parted ways. It was crazy. 

Circular exchanges- I know this is getting long, but I also went on an exchange in the area I was trained in on Wednesday. It was amazing. I was with Elder Guymon, my zone leader, who I absolutely love and look up to, and we had a fantastic day. We were able to visit many of the people who chose to get baptized while I was serving there and we had an amazing lesson with a Catholic guy who said he's not satisfied with his sprinkling baptism and wants to be baptized again. It was incredible to see everyone, and a lot of the people we saw also came to stake conference on Sunday.

Anyway, God is real. I've felt that undeniably this week. He knows me. He knows my problems. And He knows yours as well. If you try to do what He says and strive to come close to Him, you'll feel his love. I know it's true cause I felt it this week. I love you all! 

Love, 

Elder Johnson

1-3. Mr. Small and the Bigs at stake conference. I told Elder Mposhi that Elder Hill and I look like his body guards with our matching ties and he laughed. He has a great laugh that he uses often, which I love. 

4. Zone conference pic that is late but still cool. 

5. Tragedy. On Wednesday while eating some fufu and abenkwan, I inadvertently dipped my tie in my soup. Abenkwan is made with red oil that's so hard to get out. My tie subsequently got my shirt dirty as well. It's OK though, they are both stain-free now. The moral of the story is, stay away from bad stuff because even being next to something unclean can make you dirty. 

6. Elder Guymon and me with pretty Cape C
oast in the background. This man is incredible. I want to be like him when I grow up. 

7. Pretty Cape minus me and Elder Guymon

8. BRETHREN

9. Pretty ataabadze sunset. 

10. BRETHREN and Belinda, one of the people we're teaching

11. From last week: happy boys eating chicken

12. Ghana coins are cool