2017

Dear America,

I'm glad my talk went successfully last week. (The bishop had the parents of missionaries in our ward give a 5 min. report on their son or daughter) Thanks for doing that for me. I can't say I'm grateful for Porter's relative failure, but at least I can still show my face (and my scores) in public (Porter scored even with Isaac on the ACT). No, I did not get the letter from the Gundersons. 

My companion wasn't feeling too great for the first part of this week. It wasn't malaria (we went and got it tested) but it took him down for a little while anyways. 

This week was full of interested people asking us if they could come to church. It was pretty cool, except for the fact that all of them live across the road in the other elders' area. So we just hand them over to Elder Anai and Elder Mbithi. On Sundayalone we found four new investigators that all live in their area and are very interested in learning more. We got to help roll out bread dough with some random people along the roadside. That was fun and they really enjoyed teaching two silaminga (white men in Dagbani) how to make the bread just right.

Our friend the pastor from a while back has started reading from the Book of Mormon with us. That's a drastic change from when he refused to even take a copy of the Book of Mormon. So we're counting it as progress. We also taught a great lesson about the Book of Mormon to some intoxicated Nigerians at a New Year's drinking party. The best part of the lesson was when they all exclaimed in unison, "Where is your church?". I think I might go back and replay that one after I die and I have the scrapbook of my life. Classic.

The branch pulled together a last-minute activity on Friday. It turned out to be one of the best activities I've ever attended in Ghana. The food was done on time, there was dancing and games, almost all of the members came, and quite a few investigators felt welcome enough to show up. And today we were invited to a special dinner with the acting president of the Rotary Club in Tamale because of the service we collaborated on a while back. We had already had dinner with the branch president and his family, so we were stuffed before we even arrived. It was painful.

It's hard to imagine that 2017 is already here, but there's no going back. Make the time count and have a great season. Enjoy winter for me.

Love, Elder Nelson