25 October 2010

Howdy everyone from Alajo, Accra. I hope you guys are all doing great. I love you all so much. So this week was pretty interesting. First of all on tuesday morning President Smith called and told us that Elder Lemmneh was coming back, which we were happy to hear. Unfortunately I don't have any companion coming to me, meaning that we are now a trio were once we were a duo. And that's more than 1.5x more difficult. We are still over both areas and teaching pools. It's not easy. Anyway we were of course very busy as we had to be running all over trying to at least see our strongest investigators while at the same time finding our required new investigators. We struggled and strove, but in both areas there are a lot of people we didn't get the chance to see. We're hoping that the mission will find someone to call to be my companion before too long, but maybe they'll just wait til transfers. During the week we also had a zone meeting to get some training on some the new teaching principles they have for us: "receiving revelation through church attendance" and "teaching people not lessons". On saturday we had a sweet baptism for three people: Constance, Matilda, and Beatrice. Baptisms always make me cheerful. Elder Lemmneh was the baptist which was cool for him. So I though maybe you guys would find it interesting to know what I eat when my subsistence is run out (like last week) and no one is feeding us. First of all I eat a lot of Top Ramen. Except that it doesn't taste as nice and it's called indomie, and there are only 2 flavors (chicken and onion chicken). After that I eat a lot of rice and also a nigerian food called eba. You make eba by stirring gari(cassava powder) into hot water to make like a thick dough. Then I eat the rice or eba with a kind of tomato stew. Here is the recipe: Tin Tomato Stew Ingredients: Vegetable Oil Onions 1 can tin tomatoes (tomato paste) Maggi (a brand of spices they put in stews. it's like bouillon made from shrimp) pepper salt sardines First dice onions and fry in the vegetable oil. Mix the can of tomato paste with 2 cans of water and add to the onions. Add spices, pepper, and salt. Make sure the onions and tomatoes get well and fully cooked so that you don't get runny stomach. Add the sardines. Finished. Enjoy on top of rice or with eba. This costs me less than 3 cedis (2 dollars) to make and lasts approx. 1 week. Well I love you guys a ton and I've now been on my mission for 1 year. I'm going strong and pray for you all every day. Love, Elder Chambers

18 October 2010

Hey everyone. I hope you guys are all managing. I'm sure you all are having plenty of stress, but strive not to worry too much. I love you guys so much. Anyway we had quite the interesting week. On tuesday we found out about transfers. Elder Maloni and I stayed together. This was quite the surprise to everyone because everyone was convinced and certain that Elder Maloni would be leaving. It's pretty unusual to stay four transfers in your first area. Anyway, Elder Maganda has left the apartment for Ashiaman. So for the rest of tuesday Elder Maloni got to say un-goodbye to everyone he prematurely farewelled. We also had a lot of time wasted on tuesday by one of our investigators who goes to some church called Theocracy. We gave him a Book of Mormon which he loves. HE says it is a third witness to him that he's found the true religion (Theocracy that is, not LDS). Whenever we meet him he wants spend all day (literally ALL day) talking to us about Revelation, End times, antichrist, etc. He's not serious at all. On wednesday we got to meet Elder Nwachuku's new greenie, Elder Lemmneh. He's new to the church (like 17 months or so) and comes from Ethiopia. The church is pretty small there, and the missionary work sounds pretty tough. The dominant religions are ethiopian orthodox and Islam. He's a cool guy with a strong testimony of Joseph Smith. Well through out the week a few different plot arcs advanced: First, we worked to try and get our last hopes for accomplishing October's baptismal goal (4) to come to church this sunday. You see there is a rule in our mission that an investigator must come to church four times before being baptized. Well at the end of september both Felecia and Kwaku had come twice, but then both missed the first two weeks in october. So this week we really focused on them and on sunday we were happy to meet Felecia and very disappointed by Kwaku. So we still have a chance of meeting our goal this month, but we don't have any back ups. Second, we worked with Christiana and her family, preparing her and Jennifer (whose 11 years old) to be baptized on Saturday. Everything went smoothly, we finished the lessons, and they had a great baptism despite 2 year old Johnson aka "John Cena" usual performing. Third, it soon became pretty obvious that Elder Lemmneh didn't want to to continue his mission past the first week. He always was sweating and complaining about the heat, and after interviews with President Smith, splits with the APs, and tons of encouragement and advice he left for the mission home this morning. Because of this my companion, Elder Maloni, also left this morning on an emergency transfer to Mataheko. That leaves Elder Nwachuku and me as companions to cover all of Alajo. Just the two of us with a vast area with myriads of investigators, for at least the next 5 weeks. Well that was my week. I hope you all enjoy the rest of October. I'll be 1/2 of the way home on Saturday so see all of you soon. Love ya. Love, Elder Chambers

11 October 2010

Hey everyone. i'm sorry i wasn't able to send mail last week because the internet was hardly working. i was able to read everyone's messages though. Last week when i heard that grandmother had fallen down the stairs, i was kind of expecting to hear that she passed away. She'll certainly be missed. I have so many good memories of being with her. I can remember always wanting to spend the night at grandmother's house. I remember how when i wouldn't sleep grandpa and grandmother would pretend to be the sandman and come and throw wadded up newspaper at me to make me sleepy. I also remember how much I loved the soup that she would make with the little things (i think maybe rye or barley or something) in it. I also remember 'helping' when they were making the green bathroom. i remember the great sense of humor she had. And maybe my favorite memory is of always getting her to give me chocolate protein shakes. I hope everyone who loved her will be comforted knowing that one day we will all meet her again. i love you guys and hope the funeral arrangements all go smoothly. Anyway the last two weeks have been very hot for me. October, November, December the sun burns and burns. This last week we spent a lot of our time trying to work with people who have committed to baptism but can't manage attending church. As a result our finding efforts kind of suffered, and i don't even know if our efforts did any good with helping them. We also had a zone conference and a zone training. learning about the new principles of teaching that we are using with preach my gospel. this sunday we did get the chance to go to the stake center (at the temple site) to watch a session of conference. it was really nice except elder malone and i didn't get off at the right stop and went almost all the way to labodi. the reason being elder nwachuku told us that the car would go right past the temple. which was not true. i really enjoyed conference, i guess it was the sunday morning session. pres. monson talked on gratitude. we have a great family being baptized next week who are already becoming strong members in the ward. they got interviewed yesterday. well the only other thing i can think to add is that transfers are wednesday. probably i'll get a new companion, maybe a new area. send my greetings to everyone and have a great funeral for grandmother. love you all, elder chambers