Back in Techiman

Dear America,

I'm not sending this email from Tamale.... nope, I'm back in my town, Techiman. I loved Techiman more than any other place on my mission so far and it's good to be back even if it's just for a day or two. We have a combined zone conference with Techiman and Sunyani so we all came to meet here. Life is good. Each zone was asked to prepare a musical number for the conference. I wasn't informed that I was in charge of said musical number until we showed up to practice. We have some appreciable talent in the zone, though, so we're pulling a nice Christmas medley together. I'm excited.

We had some triumphs this week as far as investigators go. One of our investigators (the Nigerian woman that I've written about before) has decided that God answered her prayers to know the truth. She's had several dreams that she takes to be revelation meaning she should join the Church. I don't have that much trust in dreams, but I'm glad that God talks to each of us in our own way that He knows we'll understand. It's funny that she struggles to understand my companion when he talks, though. He's from Georgia and is still relatively new on mission so his American accent is still pretty strong. And any Nigerian accent is always strong. So she doesn't hear him when he talks. I have to translate sometimes.

I felt blessed this week when we were knocking on gates and the people that met us all spoke English, were Christian, and were mildly interested to listen to our message. We were also able to do a good service project for the district president this week. He invited us to take out some weeds in his compound with cutlassas (machetes), hoes (Ghanaian version), and our hands. It was good work and we had fun talking about what we can do to strengthen the branches. We also ate a lot of fufu while we were there.

I feel like the members are kicking things up a notch right now, which makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE in our work. I'm happy. They're ever so slightly more active and involved--maybe it's just the Christmas season, but I like to think that we're making progress.

I'm planning on calling in the afternoon (for me) soooo before church for you. What time do you even have church? Either way, it'll be before. Just in case.

Thanks for taking the pressure off of the honors housing decision. That would explain why I wasn't feeling any major impressions in answer to my prayers.

Well life is good. I look forward to hearing voices on the phone this week.

Elder Nelson

PS The last picture is me with Elder Antwi!

Elections

Dear America,

I enjoyed the gift idea of the donkey and the good thoughts that came with it on the paper. That was neat. The keyboard courses sound helpful but are more of a job for a senior couple. I am so temporary in the areas that I would basically be handing out free keyboards before I left and that wouldn't be good. 

This week was long at some times and short at others. Transfers went smoothly; my new companion is Elder Maddox from Georgia. He is your typical American home schooled still-getting-used-to-Ghana missionary. No problem. The week has been sweet so far as we've been going around the area to show him off to the members and investigators. The real curve ball has been the addition of two more missionaries in the branch. I've taken them around and shown them their area and I'm doing my best to help them get used to the branch here. Everything has been going smoothly but I was stressed more than usual at the beginning of the week.

And for the most talked-about news in Ghana: NANA AKUFO-ADDO! Ghana will have a new president in less than a month. Probably not as big of a deal as Donald Trump, but it's still all anybody talks about here. The elections were peaceful and nothing noteworthy happened. During the days of the election, we had to come back to our apartment a little early. On Friday night they announced the winner and everybody was cheering and setting off fireworks. We went to the top of the water tower and watched the town rejoicing/bemoaning their fate. 

Among those who are less affected by the elections are missionaries and Nigerian investigators. One Nigerian woman that we've been teaching made some good progress this week. Up to this point, she's had a hard time comprehending some of the things that we've been teaching her. But this time we taught her with a member--or rather, the member taught her while we were there-- and things clicked a lot more. The member bore a forceful testimony and cleared up a lot of unasked questions. There were tears (from the investigator) at one point in the lesson. I don't know if they were good tears or "I'm being bullied" tears, but we can hope for the best.

Our water finally came back this morning! We'll see how long it lasts, but today was the first time in a while that I haven't had to pull my shower out of the ground in a bucket. Life is good.

Love, Elder Nelson