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

23 May 2011

How's everybody? I hope you guys are getting ready for summer. This week it seemed like Elder Kanu and I had to go through a lot of hardship, but for some reason we were cheerful and hardworking throughout. On Tuesday after district meeting the office elders brought us some supposedly working bicycles. I say supposedly, because we spent almost the whole of tuesday and half of wednesday repairing mine. Which used up all of my money. Then since we had no records from the missionaries that left we started spending all of our time contacting and finding people to teach. Which means a lot of walking/biking in the sun and a lot of failed appointments. By the end of the week though we were able to increase our teaching pool from 0 to 18 so that's not so bad. On friday the APs came for a leadership training and were supposed to give our district leader the money to reimburse me for repairing the bike, but they said they'd do it the next time they came. I had no money, and I ate the last of my stew and rice for breakfast friday, so for friday, saturday, and sunday I borrowed flour from the other elders and mixed it with water and fried it to make unleavened bread. I also ate the instant mashed potatoes you guys sent. And drank water. Good thing today we got our subsistence... The last thing that happened was that on Sunday it poured rain in the morning so no one, members and investigators alike, came to church. And we got beat by the rain and mud on our shirts. We met a lot of people during the week that I'm excited to teach and help. I love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

16 May 2011

I hope you guys are all doing great. First of all I got a package from you. Thanks so much! I've loved the candy and pictures and expect to love everything else in there before this week is over. Elder Haggard also loved the candy and I think he sent you a thank you letter. This last week I was with Elder Haggard throughout. It was a fun week doing finding and getting to know Elder Haggard. At the transfers we were left together in Alajo and Elder Hunsaker was transferred out of the apartment and Elder Mutuku was transferred in. Things are looking up in Alajo. We have a lot of cool investigators in the teaching pool and really focused people/families that are committed to baptism. Even the number of people that came to sacrament was improving this week. On saturday we went out early to learn how to prepare wa-kye from the young women's president. She even equipped us with the ingredients to try out ourselves. We were planning on doing that today. On sunday we had a good meeting with the Relief Society President that I think will better help the missionaries and the ward work together. We also had a really nice dinner with one of my recent converts, rice balls and groundnut soup, Elder Haggard's current favorite. This morning I woke up early and put my clothes in soap and water to soak before washing them. Next, I cleaned up all the kitchen and set up our brand new gas stove. Then I used all my remaining food to cook a delicious onion stew to eat with rice. Just as I was scooping out my rice onto my plate, the phone rings. President Smith, just calling to let me know I was being emergency transferred in 2 and a half hours to Teshie to white wash the area. So I have to first call some of my favorite people in Alajo to say goodbye. Then I take my clothes out of the water (unwashed) and eat my rice and stew. It was pretty easy for me to pack everything, I have a ton of space in my luggage. So then the APs come and pick me (and the rest of my stew) up to go to Teshie. When we get to Teshie I find that it is pretty much the whole district that got emergency transferred. Elder Collings (texas) came on Saturday to be the new district leader with a green missionary, Elder Malley (colorado) who is the only person who stayed in the apartment, and I and Elder Kanu (nigeria) arriving today. I find that they are cleaning the fridge so there is no where to put my stew. I find that my companion has zero left of his sub (he did bring along his own stew and rice). What I don't find is: any water (to wash or to drink), any gas (to cook with, oh and I just bought gas 3 days ago in Alajo), any bikes to ride (broken chain and a flat tire), any appointments, an updated area book, or any reason/story why the emergency transfer happened. I did find a map. Well I love you guys. I expect an interesting week and hope you guys have one too. I'm excited, this is likely my last area so I want to make it my best. Love, Elder Chambers