28 February 2011

How is everyone doing? This week was pretty good. On tuesday we had our mission tour with Elder Dallin H. Oaks. It was nice. We heard testimonies from Pres. and Sis. Smith. Following them we had testimonies from Sis and Elder Cardon of the seventy. Then Sis. Oaks and Elder Oaks. They all gave nice testimonies about missionary work. Elder Cardon shared some scriptures and insights about the spirit of prophecy. Sis. Oaks gave us the advice to be praying for Elder Oaks that as he would speak to us he'd be able to share more with us. Elder Oaks gave us some good instruction on doing things in the Lord's way and connected that with teaching for commitment and preparing our investigators to make covenants. Then on wednesday we had a stake fireside with Elder Oaks and co. The reason they had come to Africa was to do meetings in Nigeria with the Stake Presidents and Bishops on the weekends. First we heard from Bishop Macmullan. He gave a message on how we as god's covenant people find peace while peace has been taken from the earth. We also heard from Elder Gonzalez of the presidents of the seventy. He spoke on how we can have gospel traditions to supercede all incorrect traditions. Then Elder Oaks spoke to us about how he was called to be an apostle and how he is a special witness of the name of christ. He focused on the meaning of "the name of christ". One of the meanings in the scriptures is the priesthood authority. Another meaning is the work and mission of christ. He also spoke on why ours is the only true church. He gave two premises of our faith: 1. Our unique true belief of the nature of god and 2. our relationship to god. The rest of the week went by normally. On saturday we had a baptism for Vinolia. She is the wife to a very strong member of the church and everyone was very happy for her on sunday as she was finally confirmed a member of the church. She has so many friends at the church and family members. We didn't have to do anything special to help her to be baptized the time was just finally right for her and she humbled herself teaching her was great. She feeds us just about every teaching appointment so we really love her a lot too ;). Well I hope you guys are doing great. Enjoy the end of winter. It's started raining a little now. I guess the rainy season will start in june. Love you all. Love, Elder Chambers

21 February 2011

Hey everybody. I hope you guys are all doing great. This week we had our transfers, but in the whole zone no one was transferred except one of the zone leaders. That means everyone in our apartment is still the same. It also means Elder Quinn and Elder Darko have broken the record for companion unity as they are now going to be SIX transfers together. That seems like forever to me. Coincidentally that's how many transfers I have left before coming home. This week we tried to focus on finding and extending baptismal dates, but we struggled to do both. Most of the dates we extended were turned down, and we struggled to find new people to teach as well. It was pretty discouraging. Other than that the week was ok. On Saturday we had a baptism for Koku Mensah. He's 20 years old and comes from Togo, so the only languages he speaks is French, Ewe, and English. We contacted him last month and he's really progressed fast. On sunday his little sisters followed him to the church. On saturday we also received a cool announcement. That we'll be having a mission tour with Elder Dallin H. Oaks tomorrow! I'll let you know all about it next week. Love you guys. Enjoy the winter weather. Love, Elder Chambers

14 February 2011

Hey everyone, sorry I didn't get to write last week. The power was off and we were only able to use the cafe for a few minutes so I just read your emails and went back to work. This week seemed a bit slow. We parked the bikes for a few days to do some trekking in order to help us find some new investigators to add in our teaching pool. We didn't have much luck, the new investigators we had for the week were not very serious. On THursday we finally had some rain for like the first time since december. It poured like for only one hour but it caused some flooding where we were at. We had to take off our shoes and roll up our pants in order to get back home. On Saturday we had a very nice baptism for one old lady, Gladys Ofeibea. She was someone who called us as we were passing and told us that she wanted to start investigating the church. She really loves the church now and was very happy to be baptized. Hopefully next month some of here children may also be baptized. This week our biggest challenge was that our teaching pool doesn't have too many serious people and we were not able to extend baptismal dates for almost anyone. And as I mentioned our efforts to find new people didn't yield much. Transfers is this week. Maybe I'll go to a new area or something. I've been here for 4 transfers so anything could happen. I'm not sure whether I want to go or to stay. I love you guys a lot. Love, Elder Chambers