24 October 2011

Hey everybody! This last week was great. Samuel said that he wanted to be baptized while I was still in Ghana. Since he's qualified we were very happy to have a baptismal service for him. I got to be the baptizer! That was great, it was a long time since I got to be the baptizer. Joe and Hannah are also doing great. They both came to church early yesterday. Man these last two years have been incredible. It'll be so strange to be back home. I'll miss a lot of things about being a missionary and about Ghana. Mostly I'll be missing all the great people and friends I've made. Hopefully one day I'll see them again. See you guys soon! I'm all packed up. Everything fits into the smaller suitcase and it's not even full! I love you guys.

 Love,
Elder Chambers

17 October 2011

Hey everybody! Hope you guys are all doing great. I'm really nervous/excited to come home. This week we are going to be busy so I'm sure it will fly by.  Last week we really enjoyed a zone conference on Friday.  Everyone that gave instruction did a great job.

One of my recent converts in Alajo sent me a sweet african shirt, too.  We have a lot of really great investigators that we are working with.  I think we have about 40 in our area book at the moment.  We had people come to church on Sunday, but not the ones we were counting on most.  This week we will have the baptismal interviews for Joe and also Hannah Azumah (Comfort's older sister).  They are both doing great.  We are also going to talk to another of our investigators, Samuel Ampiah, who has  come to weeks in a row to see if he'd be ready to move his date up because he is progressing quickly.  He has even been getting 2 of all the pamphlets because he's been teaching his girlfriend.  This week we are going to be focusing on the people that have dates so that we will be able to make sure their interviews come through and they can be well prepared for the 29th.

See you guys soon!  Love ya.

Love,
Elder Chambers

10 October 2011

Hey everybody.  I love you guys a ton.  Hope you are all praying for me.  The week before last we were given some minors to work with by an old lady in our branch.  She normally always brings them to church. This week we worked to try to teach their families, but it was very difficult because out of all their parents none of them can read and only one can understand us well enough to teach him.  The member also struggles to understand english as well so she wasn't much help in translating.  I think that literacy has been the biggest thing hindering missionary work on my mission.  Elder Maloni and I have been teaching a great investigator named, Joe.  He is really humble and really has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon.  He is preparing to be baptized at the end of the month.  He is just worried about if he can manage to stop taking alcohol.  I'm confident for him.  He's really serious, but he's also hard to get a hold of for us to teach and encourage.  So you guys can be praying for him.  The Azumah family is doing great.  They were all at church sunday, and Hannah's still set for her baptism at the end of the month.  You can also be praying for the sister missionaries here.  They said that they need more prayers.  Love you guys.

Love,
Elder Chambers

3 October 2011

Hey everybody! Hope you guys enjoyed conference.  I heard that Africa is getting 2 more temples!  That's awesome.  We had a baptism for Comfort Azumah age 17 on Saturday.  Her Dad performed the baptism. Her mom was the one that got baptized last week.  They are doing great.  Probably her older sister will be baptized the 29th.  On Sunday all the family came early dressed in their best.  Hannah (Comfort's older sister) came for the first time and really enjoyed it.  We'll be teaching her throughout the month so she can also be baptized.  I'm really enjoying being in this area. It seems like a really fruitful area.  There are plenty of prepared people for us to teach.  Almost every time we go out people we are passing call us over and we have lessons with them.  On Sunday we went to the Dansoman ward so I could interview one of the Sister's candidates.  While I was there they also had me explain to another investigator why breaking the law of chastity means that his baptism is being postponed.

This morning I finished the Book of Mormon another time.  I've read it more than I've read any other book, and I'm really grateful to my parents for that.  I know it's true and it's my favorite book.  I'm really happy to be able to work with Elder Maloni.  He likes to work hard everyday and cares a lot about our investigators.  I'm sure that these next few weeks will really make me miss my mission when I get home.  Everyday we are meeting people that I would just love to see be converted and living the gospel.

Love,
Elder Chambers

26 September 2011

Hey everybody! Hope you guys are all doing great. I love you guys so much. I was able to get the cheesecake. It was delicious! Thanks for everything.

Anyway so the most exciting news is that on tuesday Pres. Judd called to tell me that I'm going on transfer on friday. He asked me to come and be the district leader in Mamponse. So that's where I am now and I guess where I'll stay until I go home. On Tuesday we had a lot of struggle to help Joel Gyan get to his baptism interview. He stays about a 35 min bike ride from the chapel. We were waiting for him at the chapel when he called us that he didn't have any transportation there. So we had to ride to his house and take him to the ward mission leader's house and borrow a bicycle so that the three of us could ride back to the chapel. So I'm hoping on Saturday everything went well with the baptism.

 This week I also had a lot of great experiences teaching with the Book of Mormon. On Wednesday Elder Sesay and I were tired and by 8:30 we were feeling ready to go home and have dinner. We decided to call our last appointment half hoping she'd cancel on us. When we called her the call was cut and when we tried to call back the phone was off. We decided to go ahead and see her anyway. When we got there she had had a pretty rough day and was feeling sick. We were inspired to share 2 Nephi 4:15-35 with her. She was reluctant at first, but as we read she really got into it and was cheered up by it a lot. I really felt the spirit strongly myself as I read vss. 27-29. They were really important to me. The second experience was the day I was leaving Teshie. We went to see a woman who we had taught for a long time, but we had to stop teaching her because she couldn't come to the church on Sundays. Since I was saying goodbye to her we told her we'd read Nephi's farewell from 2 Nephi 33. The scriptures really touched hey and she was a bit choked up by all the spirit. She told us that the other day her husband had said if she wants to start coming to the church it is ok. She promised that she'll start coming. She was so happy that day and said she was sorry that I'm going to miss here family's baptisms.

When I came here to Mamponse I was really encouraged by all the Elders in the apartment. My new/old companion is Elder Maloni (if you can remember he was my companion on my birthday last year in Alajo). I'm really excited to be back with him. He is a hard worker, and that seems true of Elder Succo and Elder Treu as well. They are both from Utah, and they are both new missionaries. Elder Succo is 3 months and is training Elder Treu who is 1 month. All of us are teaching mostly newer investigators. We had a baptism for one woman on Saturday. Her husband is a recent convert and as a priest he did a great job performing the baptism. Her name is Theresa Azumah. We had to fill the font for her twice. When we filled it on Friday night we forgot to close the drain and the water escaped. I love you guys and I'm excited to finish my mission strong. President Judd is always asking us to sprint to the finish.

Love you guys.
Love, Elder Chambers

19 September 2011

Hey everyone! I hope you guys are all doing great. Happy BIrthday to mom! I hope you guys were all nice to her. For us this week was very interesting and productive. There were no transfers in our district except for Elder Collings who received a new missionary to train. The new missionary in our apartment's name is Elder Beaufeaux from Arizona. This week we did a lot of teaching with two of our investigators who have baptismal dates for this saturday. We also went with our ward mission leader to find some more of the members houses and get some referrals. On sunday we had a couple of investigators that came to church for the first time. One of them, William Jappong, really is understanding everything we are teaching. He's had a hard time the past couple of years. He was investigating the church in a different town and was about to be baptized when a car hit him and shattered his arm. He moved to teshie and a couple weeks ago he saw us as we were going to a new place we hadn't been to search for a referral. He called us and we started teaching him again. A funny thing happened to me last week when we were on exchanges. I was in the other area with Elder Boadu when we stopped to see some members. Some of the kids there carried out their small 3-year-old sister and put her in my lap. Do you know what sweet 3-year-old kids do when they just wake up? They pee. And she peed all over my lap. They told me that means I'm going to have twin girls when I get married. If that's true then I guess it's worth it? I love you guys so much. Love, Elder Chambers

5 September 2011

How are you guys all doing? Things are nice enough here. This past week a lot things were happening in the community as the people of Teshie finished their festival. It is called the Homowo. You can google it. The main final event was on Saturday. Most of the town went to witness it and we had lessons fail. We went to the chapel and were able to watch them running through the street. It was interesting. We have been teaching a lot of people, but it has been difficult for them to come to church. Transfers are next week. I'm kind of hoping to go on transfer. I think that way I'll have to work harder and things will go easier, since that way I'll finish my mission in a ward were I don't have any friends. It's way too wierd that I'll be saying goodbye to my mission and to Ghana. Love you guys, hope you are all doing awesome. Good luck to Dono on his first day in Vegas! Love, Elder Chambers

29 August 2011

How is everybody? I hope you guys are all doing great. We had a nice week of work here in Teshie. Our bikes were broken so we did a bunch of walking this week. On thursday we went on companion exchanges. The district leader, Elder Collings, came with me into our area. Elder Sesay went with Elder Boadu in their area. Elder Sesay is doing a good job teaching me some extra patience. On saturday we had a tri-ward baptism for the district. 5 people were baptized including our candidate, Abigail, and our bishop's little boy. Mostly on sunday we had people come to church that aren't really progressing. They have different problems that are keeping them from baptism. It's good they still come to church so that they can have the spirit's guidance in working things out. I hope you guys are having fun as school starts. I hope Donovan is doing great. I'm sure the Provo MTC has got to be pretty strange. Love you guys so much. Take care.

Love,
Elder Chambers

22 August 2011

I love you guys a ton. Wow the internet is extra super slow today so I'm just going to keep things brief today. On tuesday we had our first interviews with President Judd. They were nice. He's got that whole psychologist/religion teacher/bishop vibe going. We went through the temple recommend interview since mine expires at the end of the month. This whole week I wasn't having much of an appetite due to some sort of stomach bug. I'm feeling better now so no worries. But anyway it kept us from working the rest of tuesday. The rest of the week was pretty sweet. We mostly saw the people \we'd been teaching, and didn't do much finding. On Saturday we participated in the all africa service project day. Our ward went to clean up the police station's compound. I now have a huge blister from all the weeding I did. (Imagine Link from Zelda using his sword to cut all that grass) Sunday we had one of our investigators interviewed for baptism, Abigail Ofosu. She's 15 and will be baptized this Saturday. Well that's the week's basics. President Judd asked me to make sure I help Elder Sesay to sprint to the finish of his (and mine) mission. He's going the transfer after me. Chances are he'll train next next transfer. There are 42 companionships (excluding the ZLs) and 21 new elders coming. Love you all, Elder Chambers

15 August 2011

How is everyone doing? I'm sure you guys are all super excited for Donovan. I'm very excited. This week was pretty good for us. We had a mission tour with the new member of the area presidency, Elder Legrand Curtis. He has just come to Ghana last week. I think this is his first calling since joining the 1st quorum of the seventy. He and President Judd and their wives all spoke to us. It was a good meeting. The told us a lot of different things. Book of Mormon, being unified with your companion, and more. We were worried this week about trying to teach the people we thought could be committed to coming to church, but we were pretty disappointed on Sunday when none of them came. Well that's how it goes sometimes. This week we'll be looking to see if we should continue working with some of our investigators or spend time finding new ones. Once you start teaching someone you usually end up really liking the person, at least that's how it is with me. So it's hard to stop seeing them even if they've already decided to not follow through. You don't want to give up on them and at the same time you don't want to waste the time remaining on your mission. Nonetheless I'm looking forward to this next week. Good Luck to Donovan! Love everyone Elder Chambers

8 August 2011

Hey guys I hope you all enjoyed your vacation. Happy birthday to Donovan! By the way I got a package you guys sent, thank you so, so much. I love you guys a ton. This week we had our transfers. A lot of people were moved around, but Elder Sesay and I stayed together here in Teshie. We had a pretty good week. The best thing to happen was that two of the people we have been working with for like 6 weeks now, finally came to church on sunday. We were really happy they came. It was Mavis and her daughter Lawrensha. This week we also used the Book of Mormon a bit more in our lessons. It seemed to help some people. I'm looking forward to being here for the next transfer. Probably til the end of my mission. I love you guys and hope you have a great week. Love, Elder Chambers

25 July 2011

Hello, how's everybody doing. I'm doing great. We had a pretty nice week. Elder Sesay was sick monday and tuesday, but he's doing fine. We are working hard doing everything to try and help our investigators keep their commitments. It seems like these days we aren't able to find so many serious investigators. The weather has been nice and cool the last few weeks. It was 75 the other morning and it was like we were freezing to death. I'm going to die when I come home. This is the last week of transfers as well as the last week of July. It looks like we and the entire district are probably going to miss our goals this month. Next transfer should be interesting for the mission because about 12 missionaries are leaving, and because the MTC is closed no missionaries are coming. Then in September a huge number of missionaries are coming. There are around 60 companionships in the mission and in September we are getting 20+ missionaries. Well I'm loving teaching the gospel here. I love you guys. Love,

Elder Chambers

18 July 2011

How are you guys doing this week? This week we were doing more of the usual. We studied, taught, did finding, and visited members. I'm trying to finish reading all of the standard works before I finish my mission. I finished the old testament awhile ago and am reading through the new testament. Last night I finished Acts. For the Book of Mormon, I've finished a couple of times, but I'm planning to finish it once more. I'm just starting 2 Nephi. I'll read the Pearl of Great Price after the New Testament. For the Doctrine and Covenants I'm doing a thing with some of my MTC where we started at OD-2 and are going backwards 1 section a day. This morning I read section 100. We'll finish section 1 the day before we get home. It's crazy to think that I only have a 100 days left of my mission. I loved reading before my mission. Now after so many months with just the scriptures and preach my gospel to read I love reading the scriptures. (except not the Old Testament too much). By the way, Sis. Barney in the mission office called last week to ask me which airport I'd be flying to. She said she is going to make flight arrangements this week! It's hard not to get too trunky, but I'm doing my best to work hard. I've been improving my teaching and missionary skills for awhile now and I still have 3 and a half months to use them to the fullest. So I don't want to think about everything I have to do when I go home. Which will be a ton of things hopefully. I'd really hate to be home with nothing I have to do.

Anyway the week went by pretty smoothly. We are not having like anyone keep there commitments to come to church, so that's the only bummer. There was a baptism for the last person I taught with Elder Kanu before they divided the areas. His name is Michael Opoku, he's from Nigeria. He's pretty cool. Like everyone he knows here in Ghana is against him joining the church, but he really loves the book of mormon and knows the church is true. So he doesn't really seemed phased that he's getting kicked out of his house. Well I love you guys a lot. Miss you. Love, Elder Chambers

11 July 2011

How is everybody doing? This week Elder Sesay and I had some cool experiences. First of all on Tuesday evening while we were at the chapel for some meetings this guy just showed up and told us that he'd been thinking about joining the church for awhile and could we give him some more information on it. We were like, "No Problem!" And were able to start teaching him that night. Whenever we are proselyting I've been trying to focus on finding families that we can teach. I'm not really sure why I've been doing this, but it's just something I've been feeling like doing for awhile now. We started teaching a father with 3 small kids last week who seems like a pretty serious investigator. This last Saturday the sisters in ward 2 baptized 3 of the people that elder kanu and I had prepared before the transfer. Peter, who is a Nigerian footballer, and a mother and son, Elizbeth and Benard. The other highlight of the week was meeting our new mission president and wife, Elder and Sister Judd. They seem great and really excited to be here and working. They discussed a lot of things and it seemed like the zone conference was like being back in seminary class. They're different from the Smiths, and I know they are what the Lord wants for our mission. I love you guys so much. Love, Elder Chambers

4 July 2011

Hey everybody! I hope you guys are having a great fourth of july. And happy birthday to Lillian! I love you! On Tuesday as we were coming to district meeting I crashed my bike and broke some of the spokes. I'm fine but we spent most of the week walking because of the spokes. This was a pain since most of our appointments failed it seemed like we were just walking around half the week. We are still getting used to our new ward and new area. We have been finding new people to teach, but don't have too many that seem like they are ready to keep commitments. People here in Ghana can come to church any day of the week, except when you ask them to come sunday afternoon. There are a couple of member's family members that we are working with that we may prepare to be baptized at the end of this month. Mostly we are focusing on preparing to find people for the month of August. Our new mission president, President Judd, has arrived, and we'll get to meet him for the first time this Friday at a zone conference. Love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

27 June 2011

Hey everyone, I hope you guys are doing great. This week we had transfers. My companionship was assigned to be the missionaries for the new Teshie 3rd ward. So once again we are pretty much starting over with no investigators to teach. My companion, Elder Kanu, was transferred back to Cantonments and Elder Sesay from Sierre Leone was brought to be with me to get the work started for teshie 3rd ward. Basically we did a lot of finding and scouting out the area. Our area seems really big and less densely populated compared to the other areas of teshie. The ward meets at noon for the moment, but they are looking to rent a building that will be in the ward boundaries so we won't have to share with wards 1 & 2. On Saturday we had a kind of join ward baptism. Celestina, Doris, and Nora were all baptized and are members of the new ward 3 and Angela was baptized for ward 1. Anthony was supposed be baptized but he traveled, so the sisters in ward 2 will take over the teaching with him. After the baptism there was a funeral at the church for a young woman in a family of recent converts. It was pretty sad to see how hard it was on the family. She was one year older than me and died in the hospital after getting sick. The family is in ward 1 so I didn't really know them. After the funeral they had a wedding at the church. Everyone there was a lot happier. So those were the highlights of the week. Love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

20 June 2011

I hope you guys are all doing great. This week we were quite busy. We had a baptismal interview for Anthony and a woman named Celestina on sunday. Next month we are also planning for Anthony's wife, Magdalene to be baptized. We spent a lot of time tracking down some referrals we have been getting. The ward here is really good about doing their missionary work when it comes to referrals. Elder Kanu and I are getting along great and it seems like we should be able to have a lot of success in July. On sunday we had a combined ward conference with Teshie ward 1 and Teshie ward 2. This was so that the wards could be divided into three. We haven't had any word yet on how this will affect our assignments as far as proselyting areas go. Before there was a companionship in Teshie 1 and then a companionship of sisters and Elder Kanu and I in ward 2. Probably Elder Kanu and I will get assigned to Teshie 3. Transfers are this week but I'm guessing things will stay the same for me. For the district we'll probably get 1 or 2 changes. The weather is cooling down here and it's been raining a lot. Mostly it rains at night. I love you guys a bunch. Love, Elder Chambers

13 June 2011

Congratulations to Donovan! Las Vegas will be a great mission! It seemed like half my freshman ward was from Vegas so that's sweet!. Happy Father's day and birthday to Dad. This week seems like it went by super fast for us. I can't believe how fast my mission is going. First of all on Tuesday we had our last interviews with President Smith before he goes home at the end of the month. It was nice to talk to him for the last time. He said I was very "steady"--which he also said was a good thing. I also got the packages Mom sent. Thanks so much, we really enjoyed them. We also had our district meeting on tuesday and our district leader said we are doing a great job. Also it seems like the ward is getting used to us and is being helpful. On sunday we had a lot of rain and we had a lot of people at the church. We had investigators that came as well as a lot of visitors for a wedding and for a naming. Hopefully this week we will be able to get a lot of new investigators out of those. I love my mission. I love the work and I love Ghana. Also I love you home and you guys. Take care. Love, Elder Chambers

6 June 2011

Hey everybody! Happy Birthday Dad! and happy summer vacation to everyone! I hope you guys had a great week. Things are starting to get back to the usual in the proselyting. Meaning that now we are having some people to teach and we are not having to build everything from scratch. We just have to do the usual amount of finding and teaching. It's not been fun whitewashing the area, but Elder Kanu is a cool guy and we haven't had any big problems or discouragements. Just a ton of small ones... This week a lot of people were able to make it to church on sunday and it looks like if we work hard we'll be able to have a baptism at the end of the month for one couple, Anthony and Magdelane. From what I've been hearing is that all over the mission it seems like missionaries are struggling to have baptisms. One thing that I think is keeping the mission back is exact obedience. I'm sure when the new mission president come next month that will be one of his big focuses. Well I love you guys. I'm doing well. Enjoy the summer, and have a happy father's day. Love, Elder Chambers

30 May 2011

Hey everybody! We are really late today so I don't have much time to write. We went to the market at central Accra today so Elder Kanu could buy some stuffs. He got some luggage and clothes. Then it poured rain all afternoon and we were stuck in traffic all evening. We had some jollof rice at a members and just now got some small time at the cafe. I hope everything is going great for you guys. We had a pretty good week last week. A lot of failed appointments since all of our teaching pool are new investigators, but even though we were a bit tired it was a nice week overall. It looks like we will hopefully have some people prepared for baptism by the end of june, but it's still going to be a lot of work to get there. Teshie seems like it'll be a cool area and a good ward once we get used to everything and have some solid people to teach. Love you guys, Elder Chambers