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

31 January 2011

Hi everybody. This week has been really good for us. Nothing too interesting though. We've just been doing our best, teaching as many people as we can find. Helping as many as we can to keep commitments. On tuesday this week we had splits with the zone leaders after district meeting. Elder Berry and I worked here in Alajo. Elder Berry is from somewhere in Idaho and leaves the transfer before me. The rest of the days were just normal. It hasn't rained in a long time here. We are teaching some nice families at the moment, hopefully they will be able to be baptized in February. This week some of the officials from the government came to all the houses within 100 feet of the railroad tracks and told everyone they need to remove from the place. So a lot of people in our area are looking for new places to go before they start bulldozing. Our bishop is included and a lot of our investigators. Well I'm doing great. I love you guys, stay cool. Love, Elder Chambers

24 January 2011

I hope you guys all had a great week. Things were normal for us here. It was hot all week. On Wednesday we went to the temple side to have a mission tour with Elder Setati who's from Kenya and in the area presidency. It was a good meeting. He shared a lot of good experiences with us and challenged us to an experiment on being exactly obedient to the white handbook for six months. We also got some time to ask him questions about things. In the evening we got some excitement when I crashed my bicycle, getting a bit skinned up on my elbow, but nothing worse than that. On Friday we had our zone's interviews with President Smith. We were instructed by the APs on some of the principles we've been learning. President Smith checked our planners in the interviews and gave us tips to improve. He showed me that parrot that he has. I was lucky to ask him about it because he told me he was giving it to a new home the next day. It's an African gray parrot and can say like 150 words. He told me that he wanted to take it home, but it's illegal to import them. I guess he finishes his mission in june or july. Anyway on Saturday we worked very hard to catch up after having so many meetings this week. On sunday no one came to church who we've given a date to, but we still had some investigators come. Things are looking like we'll have some success in February. I love working with Elder Moses. He turned 27 this week. Well I love you guys a ton. Enjoy winter. Stay warm. Love, Elder Chambers

17 January 2011

I hope you guys are all having a good time. This week was really good for us. Elder Moses and I get along great, and we had a lot of success this week. The people we found were really responsive and the Lord really blessed us as they kept commitments. We will be looking forward to this week to continue to work hard and find new people and progress our current investigators. The weather this week has been cool and it's given Elder Moses a bit of a cold. We plan to go to the market this afternoon. That's why we are here at the cafe earlier today. I'm learning a lot about life here and my testimony is getting stronger day by day. I hope that all will be well with you till we meet again. Love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

10 January 2011

How are you guys doing? This week we had our transfers. President Smith called Elder Nwachukwu on Monday to be a Zone Leader in Tema zone so on Tuesday he spent a lot of time saying goodbye to the friends he has made here. On Wednesday we had the transfer. The new missionaries coming to Alajo ward and the apartments are: Elder Asiedu, Elder Hunsaker, and Elder Moses. Elder Asiedu is from Kumasi, Ghana. He's our new District Leader and is just coming out of the mission office as AP. He is going home in march and until then will be training Elder Hunsaker. Elder Hunsaker is from Bountiful, Utah and will be a great missionary I'm sure. Elder Moses is coming from Oda and is my new companion. We already know each other from when I was in the North Zone. He's from Sierre Leone and will go home this December. I'm really psyched to have him as a companion. It's really been enjoyable serving with him this week and it'll be a relief to have someone normal for a change. Anyway, this week was bit disappointing for us. Our investigators, none of them came to church. It doesn't look like anyone will be baptized this month, and we have like the lowest number of people with dates in the district. The people we have in our teaching pool are few, and we aren't getting any help from the members. For those problems, though, they don't really get me down. I know I've been working hard and I can't even try to force people accept christ's gospel. It's just up to me to keep working hard. The people that it will really stress are Elder Asiedu and the Zone Leaders. Love you guys. I'm doing great now. Have fun! Elder Chambers

3 January 2011

Hey everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed your new year. We had a pretty good week here in Alajo. We were balancing the two areas and enjoying the holiday season at the same time. The teaching pool is getting somehow dry in my area. The people we are finding we usually only end up seeing them once. There's a lot of problems causing this, people that can't read, people without phones, people that don't actually live in our area, people that are always working (especially on Sunday), and people that always come along and tell the people we just taught that we are evil occultists that just want to drink their blood. So we are trying to find people we can actually keep and teach. This is a problem with the whole district. Anyone good we find we baptize, and then we are back to having no one to teach. On Friday night they had a ward party that was really nice. It was like a christmas program with different groups singing different hymns and christmas songs. Then on New Years Day we got invited to a lot of FMs. The first person we saw gave us juice and cake, then we had malt and biscuits, then we had banku with okro soup, then minerals and biscuits, then fufu with light soup and malt, then banku with okro soup again, and then fufu with groundnut soup, and then lots of rice with stew and more malt. We felt so sick at the end of the day. Here in Ghana it's like you are not allowed to leave any food left. At the end of the day, when we were eating the rice, Elder Nwachukwu kept telling stories so that he wouldn't have to eat so much rice (all our meals we were eating out of one bowl). As he was eating he asked, "is it by force? is it a commandment we have to finish all?" I can tell you that we had no problems fasting at all the next day. Anyway we are anticipating transfers this wednesday. By all means some change will come to the two of us and the district. Love you guys so much. Love, Elder Chambers