I hope your Christmas was outstanding. I enjoyed this season far more than I ever have before, probably because I didn't once hear about Santa or Frosty or Rudolph. Everything was about Jesus Christ. That's part of the magic of Tamale. Either you're Christian or you're Islamic. Either you celebrate Christmas because of Christ or you don't celebrate it at all.
On Monday this week we traveled to Techiman for zone conference on Tuesday. It was great to see some old places and some familiar faces. I thought that it would be stress-releasing to relive some good times by being there, but all I realized was that we missionaries really don't do much. We come, we teach, we go. Whatever. It's up to the people to make their own choices and reap the blessings. Our missionary work is very temporary if they don't have a deep conversion to the gospel for themselves. It's depressing to think that everything you're doing is basically worthless, but it's not really like that. God does his own work, we just have the opportunity to be instruments in his hands.
On Christmas Eve, we prepared a Christmas caroling program and set up in front of Melcom (the closest thing to Wal-mart here). We sang Christmas carols and watched the short bible videos about the birth of Jesus Christ right in the middle of town. After we finished singing, we did some serious contacting in and around the store. Everyone within eyeshot had a pamphlet or two or five. It was sweet. After the caroling we went to a big district activity with all of the branches in Tamale. The food was well prepared, but the rest of the program was kind of thrown together. Ah, Ghana. The problem is that the party finished super duper late in the night and all of the members were pooped out and didn't come to church the next morning. So that sucked. But church was only an hour so it wasn't too stressful.
On Christmas day we made tin foil dinners with some supplies that we bought the day before. We had real Irish potatoes (that's what they're called here), carrots, bell peppers, onions, and meat. And real off-brand tin foil. It was nice. I was also happy to talk to all of my family. The voices that sounded the most different were 1) Tad, 2) Davis, and 3) Sadie. I can't wait until I come home and don't recognize you people. I am noticing that I'm getting better at slipping in and out of an American accent. When I'm talking to whites I get more western, and when I talk with Africans my English instantly changes. Except apparently I can't avoid talking to little children in my Ghanaian accent, which is why you heard it with Drew. I just don't meet any white children here. At all. So maybe by the time I come back you won't even notice that I have any accent.
Well thanks for your support! Have a happy New Year! Time's a-runnin'.
Love, Elder Nelson
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