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

27 September 2010

howdy everyone. First of all I got the birthday package you guys sent. Thank you soooo much. It's probably my favorite birthday present I've ever gotten. I was glad to see the pictures, everyone is looking fresh. The letters were all interesting. Just about the last thing I opened was the tortillas, and I just about squealed with glee. I ate them with the mexican rice yesterday. You guys are best. I love you so much. Tell everyone thanks for me. Things this week were a bit tough. On tuesday after district meeting we went on splits with the APs. That was cool, we had a sweet lesson with some cool new investigators and they committed to be baptized. Then on Wednesday I had the flu and we slept most of the day, only going out in the evening. On thursday I had a headache all day, but we got a ton of work done. Friday my tire got a huge puncture so we walked all day and had a lot of appointments fail us. Saturday we had a good baptism for Jeremina and five people from the rest of the district. On sunday we had quite a few dissapointments. None of the people having a baptismal date came to church. We had a new investigator come and a small girl who's been coming for a month or so. That was everyone that came to church. We did get our first member referral since I came to the area though. So that was nice. But the fact that it was our first in a month gives you an idea of the member involvement in the ward. Love, Elder Chambers

20 September 2010

Hey everyone, thanks for the birthday wishes. I hope you guys are doing fine at home. This week Elder Maloni and I did a lot of work. And too much of it was in the rain. It started on wednesday when we were beaten severely by buckets of rain as we rode from one side of our area to see a guy who on the saturday before disappointed us for an appointment, on sunday disappointed us by not coming to church, and on monday and tuesday told us to wait and see him til his appointment on wednesday. Well on wednesday when we came, through the storm, to see him he told us: that it's raining, that he just got home from work, and that he was eating dinner (a bowl of rice that he could have finished in 5 minutes), and that on saturday he would meet us by all means. Well we went back home having learned a valuable lesson about riding our bicycles in the mud when we saw the state of our shirts. The backs were completely black with dirt. So we had to scrub that night. On friday and saturday it also rained so we again got soaked, but we walked so only our trousers and shoes had to be scrubbed and not our shirts. I'll let you guess for yourselves what that guy told us on saturday night. Sunday we had a pretty good day at church. The usual mixture of disappointments and miracles in getting investigators to sacrament meeting. We had a new family come who seem pretty cool. Hopefully we'll meet them again tonight. On my birthday we should have a baptism for one girl, Jeremina, who's really great. She's been investigating the church for awhile and is way brilliant. Well I love you guys so much I hope to see you all safe and sound once again. Love, Elder Chambers

13 September 2010

Hey everyone. We had a great week here in the area. Alajo is quite different from my other areas. We have spent almost every day the exact same way. Going out and teaching a bunch of lessons. Elder Maloni and I are really learning patience trying to teach some of these people. Elder Maloni especially is learning. It's hard to help people read the Book of Mormon or the tracts when they read at a first grade level. For sure the number one difficulty in this mission is literacy. I'm going to make sure all my kids can read before they're 4 years old and make sure they read every week. People here go to school and learn to read and then never read their whole lives. Sometimes it's depressing. On saturday we had a baptism in the morning. We had to fill the font ourselves and we started like an hour and a half late. I'm always embarrassed to be late, but people here don't pay attention to time at all. Our candidate, Cecilia, and 3 others were all baptized and then confirmed sunday. On Sunday a few of the people we've been struggling to get to come to church came and more than a few continued to not come. We'll have to drop them and start focusing on getting good new people. It's always sad to see people who have a witness from the spirit to totally fail to act, but that's something you see a lot here. People just let little unimportant things get in the way of their salvation. I've really learned to always put God first in my life from seeing so many people just reject the blessings he has in store for them if they'd just exercise their faith. Anyway the other news in the apartment is Elder Maughn is out and Elder Maganda from Uganda is in. Elder Maughn wanted to go home, but I think he decided to stay at the last minute so I think he's now in a new area. I hope he manages to last because I think not going on a mission would be the worst decision he could make in his life. He'd regret it for the rest of his life. I really believe that for a guy in the church the worst things you could do would 1. not be married in the temple and 2. decide not to serve a full-time mission. Well I love you guys a ton. I'm really enjoying my new companion and new area, but missionary work is still as hard as ever and still as sweet. Love, Elder Chambers

6 September 2010

Hey everybody. Sorry you guys didn't get an email last week. The internet wasn't really working so I got to read your emails and write my own email, but I couldn't send or save the email that I wrote. So sorry about that. Anyway last week the big news that happened was that Elder Nielsen was called as a trainer and we had a mission tour. So we went to Accra on Wednesday and attended the mission tour and stayed over night so that Elder Nielsen could attend Trainers Council. The mission tour was really good. We all prepared talks on obedience to prepare for it. And the main speaker, a seventy from Cote D'Ivoire whose name I can't remember, gave a talk about satan's great plan of misery. He went through the scriptures and showed us some of satan's many methods and strategies to cause our misery. Ok now to this week. On tuesday we found out what transfers would be. I'd be going to the Alajo ward in Accra. And Elder Nielsen would be staying in Asamankese with his greenie. So then on tuesday night we had Rosetta's baptism. Elder Nielsen was the baptist and it was a little funny because of how scared Rosetta was of the water. She was brave though and everything went smooth. During the time after the mission tour on wednesday and at trainer's council thursday, I spent going on splits with the elders in Jamestown. It was way different from Asamankese. Anyway we finally made it back home thursday night. Then I packed up all my stuff. Which was pretty easy because I'm having less and less stuff it seems like every time I pack. Wednesday the Terrys came and picked us up and took us to the mission home. My new companion is Elder Maloni from zimbabwe. He seems pretty cool. He's funny and relaxed and I think we'll have a good transfer together. I'll be his second companion so he's still fresh. We cover half the Alajo ward. The other elders in the apartment cover the other half. They're Elder Nwachuku from Nigeria. He's our district leader and just got a new trainee, Elder Maughn from Utah. Elder Maughn is having a hard time being away from home, but I'm sure he'll get to love the work soon enough. Our area is somehow struggling. It'll be an upward battle this month to achieve the goal they set. Last night in weekly planning we went through every person in the area book and in the end we ended up with only 22 people left in the teaching pool and most of them seem pretty unserious/weak/flaky so we'll need to do a lot of good finding this week or we won't have much success in October either. Well that's how things are in my part of the world. I love you guys too much. Let me know what's up with you. Love, Bradford