Finally, Rain!

This week I had the opportunity to instruct in district council about how we can better invite the Spirit into our lives and into our lessons. My teaching wasn't really that inspirational, but I have been learning this week that repentance is for everyone every day. The really great people in this church are the ones who are good at repenting.

Speaking of the church, I'm not sure that on my mission I've been able to convince anybody that the church is true. But it sure has convinced me.  I feel I can strongly identify with the song "We'll bring the world his truth" (Armies of Helaman). And I'm really grateful for that, especially how I was raised.

Here's a short fact about pounding fufu that I've learned: The heavier the pistil, the easier the pounding. If the stick is too light, it's really hard to pound effectively. Your hands get blisters and eventually calluses and they hurt for days. But if the stick is heavy enough, gravity does most of the work for you. If you think about that in relation to "there must needs be opposition in all things", I'm sure that you can pull out some sort of spiritual parable.

The weather is changing! It rained for the first time in months on Monday night last. It was so wonderful. I've been missing overcast weather. It's been so hot and scorchy lately. But hopefully the rainy season comes in full force quickly and gives me some relief.

We made some nice ampesi in the apartment this week. It's boiled yam (NOT sweet potatoes) dipped into a stew of some sort and eaten together. Elder Antwi likes a lot of red pepper in his food, so I've quickly built up a tolerance for fire. But I'll bet that Pace has me beat in that department.

On a scale of one-ten, last week was about a three. I was also kind of seeing exactly what I would get if I asked for advice. I'll include a number with my future requests for advice.

On last week's questions:

Really HOW HAPPY are the Ghana people?

They're....... happy. As a disclaimer, anything I say is limited to the Ashanti tribe because I haven't been anywhere else yet. They don't like education. Or English. Or understanding things. They're totally proud to sit in the dirt for their whole lives. So we have the monumental task of changing the way they think. Not just what they think, but the way they think about things. You have no idea how ridiculously hard that is. They are really good at accepting "the word of God". It's easy to get numbers here. But it's hard to get powerful converts.

Have you faced the "superstitious" part of the culture? What are 2 or 3 examples? How do you differentiate between gospel and cultural traditions when you are teaching people. 

Yes, we've had a few funny experiences. I told about teaching in the home of a fetish priest a few weeks ago. Elder Antwi's father used to be a fetish priest. There are some weeeiiiiiirrrrrdddd things that happen with that stuff. But generally not around us. And people's poor understanding of English leads them to believe that Latter-day Saints perform blood rituals to summon evil spirits that give them money. Which is funny because everyone wants money here, so why not come and get money? But apparently we worship mammon and we call evil spirits in our funny-looking churches. You just have to teach them what the English words "saints", "mormon", etc... mean.

Have you gotten past the overwhelmed/stressful feelings of doing something new in a new place and felt the joy of being a missionary in Ghana yet? When and where?

There are still things that I don't understand about the culture, but I'm getting better every day at being charitable and Christlike. I love seeing people progress and have their lives lighted by the gospel. It's really wonderful to see.

I had a good week this week.

Elder Nelson