I finished the Book of Mormon!

Dear America,

This week went by fast. We were busy in our area most of the time. We taught a lot of good lessons and worked hard, so I was pretty bummed when none of our investigators kept their commitment to come to church. Flaky flaky flaky. But after church on Sunday, one of the members told us about his friend and invited us to come meet him later in the day. His friend turns out to be the MCE for this area, which means that he is the official representative of the President of Ghana here. So all of the government agencies in Nkawkaw and the surrounding villages answer directly to him. Needless to say, he's a busy guy. But he's also been investigating the Church since 1994 and he says that he and his family will be baptized. I gave him my copy of the Book of Mormon Stories because he wants something for his children to read so they can grow up under the influence of the gospel. So I felt like that was a tender mercy from the Lord to show me that my work wasn't worthless to him.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time on my mission this week. It was so great. At the beginning of my mission, I started to breeze through it like I have done repeatedly in the past. But I stopped and began reading very slowly and carefully to try and milk out as much information as I could. I really enjoyed it this time and I feel like I learned a lot. I should have.... it took me more than a year. Now I'm trying to read through with a specific focus on only one basic doctrine and find as much as I can on that doctrine. It's something that Elder Bednar inspired me to do when he came to the mission. So I guess I'm trying a bunch of different techniques to read through the Book of Mormon and eventually I'll find the one that works best for me.

I don't know if I have any sketchy stories that I'm suddenly going to disclose when I get home... I don't censor my emails very much, so just prepare yourselves so you aren't disappointed. Honestly, I don't even remember the code. But I'll let you know if I send anything confidential.

The pictures are us playing snakes and ladders at a member's house while we wait for the sisters to show up, us eating after they finally do, the food that I've been snacking on all week, and an awesome shirt that an investigator was wearing.

Love, Elder Nelson

P.S. Mom, you can send your response handwritten. That way I'm not limited to reading it on Monday.