Snakes!

Dear America,

This week was smooth. I don't have a long time to email today because I have to go to a YSA FHE this evening, but I'm trying to get in everything that I can.

This week we have some neat progress. Remember a few weeks ago when I told you about the lesson that I was grinding onions and crying in? Well we've gone back to teach that woman several times, and her 10-year-old son has been present every time. One our second visit (the one right after the onion incident), we reviewed the restoration with them quickly and introduced the Book of Mormon. During the course of the lesson, Michael (the boy) opened up to us. He said "last night I prayed over this book (the Book of Mormon) and slept over it. Jesus Christ told me that your church is true." We were all surprised, including his mother. She asked him why he hadn't told her this before. It was sweet, though. We told her that she could get her own answer if she did the same thing. So far, 10-year-old Michael has been reading his copy of the Book of Mormon more than just about anyone in our branch. He's the most solid investigator we have.

We've seen two snakes this week. One was on the bushy path that we always take, so now we're avoiding that path like the plague. The other one came into our apartment. Let me repeat that: A long, dark, skinny snake with dubious intentions had the nerve to come slinking into our apartment. While we were just playing ping-pong and joking around at the end of the day, Elder Waihi got a really surprised look on his face and let out a missionary-appropriate exclamation. I turned around, saw it, and then both of us ran into our rooms to get our companions and our machetes. Pictures of the end result are attached. My companion did a lot of the active snake slaying. After the excitement, we were all super jumpy for the rest of the night. Every room you entered would have be thouroughly examined. Every elder independently checked under his bed before kneeling down to pray (confessed the next morning).

Yeah. Those are the most exciting parts of the week.

Elder Nelson

Drunk vs Crazy Guy

Dear America,

This week was full of interesting days. In fact, it was made up of interesting days. On Monday, pretty much all of the youth in Ghana went to a For the Strength of Youth conference in Kumasi for a five-day church boot camp. It was so fun to see them go and come back with stronger testimonies and a renewed determination to be active members of the church. It made all the difference in the lives of several youth.

On Thursday, President Cosgrave came to proselyte with us.... I'm still not sure why. I've never even heard of him doing that before. But he loves to keep everyone guessing,so I suppose that I'm not too shocked. It was a sweet day. We had some powerful lessons. He even left his car and walked down the street with us. Children were calling him names, singing, yelling..... he got the whole nine yards. It's awesome to see your leader commited with you the whole way.

Sunday was weird. Halfway through church, the Vatican City elders called us to inform us that their baptismal font was out of order so both them and Kenten would have to come and use our font right after church. Five minutes later I was in the font with my slacks rolled up, scrubbing away next to the Relief Society class. We got it filled and cleaned without completely disrupting everyone, so I'm counting it as a success. The font at Dwumoh is pretty much smack in the middle of everything, so I locked myself in the courtyard with the cleaning supplies so that no children or irresponsible adults could interfere. My companion kept everyone at bay pretty well. After church the baptisms came off nicely.

After church we went out to meet with an investigator who turned out not to be there. While we were at his house, a man came up and exclaimed to the woman sitting there that she shouldn't talk to us because we were antiChrists. We all looked at him funny and asked him if he knew what he was talking about. My companion introduced himself but the man refused to shake his hand or talk to us. After a while, it became apparent that he was slightly insane. Everyone started to ignore him and we continued on in our conversation while he raved. It got to the point where the drunk man we were talking to got tired and started arguing with the crazy guy about whether or not we were antiChrists. So here we were pounding fufu in the middle of a full Twi argument between the drunk who was defending us and the crazy guy who wanted to throw us out. The drunk guy won temporarily, so when we had finished pounding his fufu we sat down and thanked him for defending us. We had a really nice discussion with him and he said that he wanted to start coming to church. it was neat. Until the crazy guy came back. The drunk chased him away again. Life is interesting.

We took some youth out proselyting with us, but our Plan A appointment failed. So did Plans B, C, D, and E. Now they know what missionary work is really like.

Again, I will repeat: Life is interesting.

All in all, it was a great week.

Elder Nelson

Elder Bednar

Dear America,

This week was amazing. First things first: Elder Bednar came on Saturday. It was the best. The entire mission met together (a very rare occasion) in Kumasi to await his arrival. By the time he arrived, we were all standing on the hill outside the chapel, ready to take a picture. Then it was straight in for the conference. Elder Bednar is such a powerful servant of God and he's a such a neat person. He reminds me of Dad. A lot. It made me miss my father a little bit. It also helped me to be even more grateful for the great parents I have. He taught us a lot about the most basic doctrines in the gospel. We had plenty of time to ask questions and to answer his questions. All in all, I thouroughly enjoyed it. President Cosgrave also had the opportunity to get up and bear his testimony. He loves us a lot. You can tell every time you shake his hand. I love it. Then we all shook Elder Bednar's hand. There wasn't any personal time with him, so I never told him that I was Nikki Nelson's grandson or anything. I figured it wasn't worth disrupting the entire flow of things because I didn't know if he would even remember or not. The rest of the week since that meeting has been full of the Spirit.

One thing that I thought was cool was how much Elder Bednar really loves his work. He loves being an Apostle and representing Jesus Christ and traveling for insane amounts of time and never being home and talking with millions of people and standing behind a pulpit for most of his life and always being the center of attention and having an immediate overload of work in the spirit world as soon as he dies. OK he doesn't necessarily enjoy those parts, but there is nothing in the world that he would rather do. It made me never want to be an Apostle. It's a lot of..... just a lot.

Another spiritual event during the week: we met a woman who was about to prepare stew for dinner so we jumped in and did it for her. My companion was giving a quick summary of the Restoration while I was grinding onions and pepper for the stew. That short lesson was very emotional for me. There was nothing I could do to keep from crying.

I'm really having fun on my mission right now.

Love, Elder Nelson

No More Sisters

Dear America,

This has been an interesting and stretching week. There used to be two sets of missionaries here in Dwumoh branch (us and the sisters), but they went on transfer and there aren't enough missionaries right now to replace them. So we have our hands full with our area and theirs. This is exactly how I was trained at the beginning of my mission, and it's interesting that my son gets the same treatment. Except these areas are huge. We now have a lot of recent converts and potential investigators to take care of. We're doing our best.

On Saturday we had a big member-missionary football match for all of the branches in Techiman. It ended in a tie, 2-2. Nobody was hurt or offended, which is the best that could be hoped for. Then we had two baptisms. One of them was the referral that I wrote about two weeks ago. He's really neat and powerful. He has had several significant trials of faith, but he stayed true and doubted his doubts before he doubted his faith. It all worked out and now he's on a good path.

Elder Bednar is coming to our mission on Saturday of this week. Anticipation is building all across the mission. Everyone has fresh haircuts and bright spirits.

Martin's Cove looked like a lot of fun. I had to look for a while to spot Pace, while Dad's salt-and-pepper beard is looking more and more salty every day. You're right on about the pioneers. They weren't pioneers because they walked a long way. It's because they sacrificed. Which is something I'm learning in Dwumoh.

Brother Andoh was so happy that you replied. He always asks me questions about my family and my home, so I told him just to ask you. It will not be a form of communication with me. But you are free to ask him questions that you have about the church in Ghana or answer questions he has. He's one of the real pioneers that I have met here. So if you want to learn about pioneers, that's where you'll do it.

I had a really weird fruit this week. The small white part is edible and tastes like a mixture of fresh garden peas and cheese curds. The black part is deadly and if you eat it you won't live long enough to regret it. So that was interesting. Picture is included. My camera works again! Miracle.

Love,

Elder Nelson

No Camera

Dear America,

It was a nice week. I've been able to see the Spirit working through our companionship to bless people's lives on several occasions. It makes me feel useful.

This week my camera decided to break. Nothing happened, it just started acting weird and now it won't work. I'm trying to find someone who can fix it. Sorry. No pictures for a while.

We've had several interesting situations this week. One of them happened when a young member and his nonmember friend came and dishonestly borrowed (stole and returned) the missionary bikes. They lied to the clerk about their intentions in order to get the key from him and then entered the chapel and took the bicycles. They brought the bicycles (slightly damaged) back late in the evening with a dubious story of why they had them. We cornered them and had a discussion with them about what they had done. It was a blunt discussion, but not unkind. I had said a prayer just before they came that I would have the Spirit with me. I'm glad that I did. I was able to clearly express the reasons behind my disappointment in them and what they needed to do to start the repentance process. I forgave them. I hope that this experience will soften their hearts and cause them to change instead of pushing them to harden their hearts. Overall, I'm pleased and grateful with the way I was inspired to handle the situation. I didn't even feel annoyed or mad, just disappointed that they would betray our trust.

I've been able to see some miracles this week. The power of the priesthood is real. God has given us the authority to act in his name; basically to make righteous decisions and have Him back up those decisions. And oftentimes that power doesn't necessarily come by means of a hands-on-head priesthood blessing. As Elder Oaks said: "Priesthood blessings are not limited to those blessings spoken as hands are laid on the head of one person."

By the way, I got transfer news. I'll stay and finish training Elder Duaryenneh. Which is exactly what I expected, but you can never be too sure with President Cosgrave. He likes to keep people on their toes.

Elder Nelson