Finding Akpalu

Dear America,

One of our less-active branch members moved this week without telling anyone where he was moving to. We've been teaching his daughter and preparing her for baptism, so we planned to find his house and visit. We called the night before to arrange for him to show us the place, but when we called the day of we were surprised when a woman answered the phone and said that it had been lost. So we couldn't contact him and we also had only a general idea of where he was living. With nothing else to do, we started contacting the houses on that side of the street. We recruited the help of a member, and a little while later we stumbled into a small compound where he was sitting with his family. There was much rejoicing. We invited them to come to church the next day and they all showed up. It seemed pretty impossible to find his house and the odds were against us, but you'd be surprised how many things just work out when you're a missionary.

Last week one of the highlights that brightened my day was when we were walking down the street and passed a taxi parked on the side of the road when we caught sight of the Book of Mormon. The driver was getting ready to start work and was praying with the Book of Mormon in his hands so that he would be blessed and protected. It was touching. He didn't really know what the book was, but he did know that it was the word of God and had enough faith to pray over it. It was also exciting because it shows some success in our goal to flood Nkawkaw with the Book of Mormon. Elder Nuamah and I want to get to the point where missionaries don't have to hand out any more copies because everyone they meet with already has one. It's coming a little bit at a time. Whenever we stop a somebody on the road and they tell us that they already have the Book of Mormon, we smile at each other.

My companion made this insightful observation this week about faith and hope: Faith is like the wheels on a car. The action of the wheels move you. Hope is like the steering wheel; it directs the goal of the faith.

Questions from Dad:

1. What are some of the things that help you teach most effectively? Do personal experiences translate? Similes? Yes, personal experiences occasionally translate if you leave out a lot of details. They don't understand our culture or things like that, so you have to make it very vague. A lot of times we'll give kind of parables using the common things here. Helping them ask their own questions really helps them to learn. The school system here is so ineffective because it's based on memorizing and filling in the blank, so when you try to change their mentality to asking and answering their own questions it's REALLY HARD but eventually a lot better.
2. What role do you play on Sundays as a missionary? Do you ever speak / teach / play / sing? How often? I play the keyboard every week, usually speak about once a month, and teach every one or two weeks. This branch is really solid so I don't have to do much.
3. In what ways do you serve as a support to your branch / ward? How often? Missionaries are the home and visiting teaching system here. We're trying to change that. We reactivate and retain. We have been commanded by higher authorities to participate in every branch council meeting and PEC in our branches. Missionaries carry a lot of sway with the church leaders. We're like substitute general authorities.
4. What are the key things you’ve seen the most effective missionaries / member missionaries do to effectively share the gospel? Live the gospel. If you really enjoy living the gospel, people will notice. And you'll be a really effective Church member.

Love,

Elder Nelson