Sunyani- 8/7/17

Dear America,

I got the package with everything inside of it! I'm present at the customs counter when they check our mail, so I can supervise. In fact, they ask us to open every package in front of them so that they can check the contents. So I get to see everything. I'm especially glad for the (old) new camera. I'm so happy.

This week has been thankfully less stressful than last week. We were able to take care of all of our police stuff and got the van back and took around to get repaired. It was driveable after we manhandled it a little bit and gave the fan enough space, so it's forecasted to be back within the week. Which would be appreciated because transfers are coming up quickly. To summarize this week: we tested the van for damage,  had two zone conferences, took departing missionaries to the airport, helped missionaries renew their non-citizen identification cards, prepared for mission leadership council, took care of the customs at the post office, distributed supplies to the zone leaders, drove missionaries around, took a last-minute trip to Sunyani, and proselytized for a little while. In his letter to the mission at the end of the week, President Cosgrave gave us a shoutout:

Just a word about ordering supplies. I have observed the office elders (currently Elder Ayim and Elder Nelson) work very hard to fill your orders for supplies. There are times when they cannot provide what is wanted because we do not have any of that item in stock here, but for the most part, the orders are completed and completed joyfully. Please take the time to express your gratitude for the things that you receive and the effort that is made to give you what is needed to share the Restored Gospel and invite others to come unto Christ. There might be a temptation sometime to feel a sense of entitlement that these office elders should be serving us. In fact they are serving the Lord by serving you, so our sense should be one of appreciation and not entitlement. (This is not solicited by the office elders, nor is it necessarily a major problem, but rather just a bit of loving advice from one who is observing).

Sunyani has been on my mission bucket list for a little while now. It's one of the last extremities of the mission that I hadn't been to yet. We went to the zone conference there and then saw some recent converts that Elder Ayim knew. We also bought some nice Ghanaian ties. At the zone conference, they ran into a problem that there were two zones trying to have meetings but there was only one whiteboard. So they made good use of their resources and had each zone on a different side of the whiteboard (see attached photo). It failed. Neither zone had any focus.

I will probably be pulling some money this week in order to buy some things and I might even use my visa card to help my companion get something online. So if there are any small charges, that is why. 

Lately I've been trying to find something small each day to repent of. I include it in my prayers each night to invite the Lord to help me. It's been cool because I get little reminders of those things at key times even days or weeks after I've resolved to fix them. 

Love, Elder Nelson

Accidents Happen- 7/31/17

Dear America,

This week has blurred together. The first half was pretty packed with preparing for missionaries to depart, taking them to the airport, starting a new round of zone conferences in the mission, planning, hosting the training for the new missionaries and their trainers, taking care of mail, and finding a last-minute bus to Tamale. We were supposed to be less busy at the end of the week, but that ended up not happening because a driver here finally made a mistake that was bad enough that I couldn't fix it. That's code for we got in a car accident. I'm not going to write very much about it here because I'm sick of writing reports on it. So I've attached the summary that we made and I'll send more pictures next week. Luckily, nobody was injured and everyone has kept a level head about it. But long story short I did everything I could to minimize the damage and we were in and out of the police station for the rest of the week writing reports and waiting for our van. The police here aren't very effective. Nobody really knows what they're doing. We're supposed to get the van tested for damage today so that we can take it to get fixed.

We spent the rest of the week as foot soldiers. Most of the mission still has no idea what happened, so they're all wondering why the office elders aren't doing anything and we're enjoying ourselves walking around in our area. All in all, it has blown over pretty well. I've been able to see a lot of amazing "coincidences" that are really the hand of God working. It's been incredible to see things work out. I'll list a few:

• The insurance was renewed that week and the insurance stickers to put on the cars came only a few days before.
• My international driver's permit came just a week before and we would not have gotten it from the post office if it had been any later.
• Although we had renewed the insurance, we only had the old proof of insurance with us, which expired the same day we showed it to the police officers.
• My foot was already on the brake, so we were able to slow down a lot more than we otherwise could have.
• Nobody was hurt.
• The car we hit was a company car, not some crappy little taxi or tro who wouldn't have insurance and probably wouldn't stay around for the police to show up.
• On the morning of the accident, I prayed specifically for protection, which is something that I don't commonly include in my prayers because it seems mechanical and repetitive for a lot of people. I remember wondering why I included it. Now I know.

So don't worry, life is still sweet!

In answer to your question about casual discipleship, there are lots of things that separate the two. If they read and pray every day, have family home evening, come to church on time, accept callings and assignments, repent continually, etc. A lot of times, the symptoms of discipleship blur with the causes of discipleship. 

Have a safe week!
Love, Elder Nelson

Rogers Family in Ghana

This is the wonderful Rogers family that lives in Ghana and help the missionaries out a lot. Isaac loves Sister Rogers mashed potatoes and rolls!

Big Launch

Dear America,

This week was a really free week for us. We were actually able to proselyte for a lot of time. It was so nice but also hard at the same time because our schedule is so random. We have weeks when we have no free time and weeks when we're in our area every day. So we find investigators that we can't maintain as well as we should. And then when we have a bunch of time we don't have anyone steady to teach. But we've arranged to share areas with the Assistants so there are two less-effective companionships sharing investigators. It works out.

We spent much of the week just trying to find new investigators and following up on some potential investigators that we found before. It was full of disappointments. People lied to us, ran away from us, insulted us, and failed us. We had an unusually long string of those occasions. But Heavenly Father always knows what we need to keep going. At church on Sunday we met a man named Fred who had come by himself. We followed him home and taught him right after church. He was an apostate pastor for some time and he's been involved in a number of different churches but came to a point about three years ago when he felt like something was missing. He wanted to attend a different church, but didn't know which one to go to. So he prayed to ask God and spent a while without any apparent answer. He knew about the Church and was interested in it, but it wasn't until he found out that one of his friends was a member that he really started his research. After a while he showed up to church. And we met him and taught him what he was missing and now we have a sweet investigator. Just what we needed.

While I've been in the office I've discovered and renovated the "MY MISSION" section of the missionary portal, which has been neglected up to date in our mission. It's basically news and documents posted online for missionaries. President Cosgrave and the assistants have been trying all different ways and means to get news out to missionaries, none of which have been very effective. We've started using it and we have our" big launch" (for Dad) today. So we'll see if missionaries use it or not. We're a technology mission! Haha yeah right.

Stay out of trouble!

Love, Elder Nelson

This is the Rogers' family who live in Kumasi. They txt home this picture as a surprise one day.

Nicodemusly

Dear America,

For reference, I've included this entry from the Ghanaian missionary's dictionary of common vernacular.

Nicodemusly: (adjective) describes an action performed in an inconspicuous, secretive, surreptitious, sneaky, or otherwise shifty way.

Life moves fast at the mission home. Whenever we get a spare moment, the members of our apartment joke around with each other to release stress. That joking has started into practical jokes this week. The latest happened this morning when we nicodemusly snuck some water balloons that Sister Schow gave to us into our car. The Schows are the couple in the other office. We planned to ambush the assistants while we were washing our cars after playing football. Unfortunately, they were nicodemusly snooping around in our car and discovered said water balloons. So we all ended up getting soaked and washing our cars about three times after the other companionship got it dirty again. 

We had the mission leadership council again this week, which is where the mission leaders come from all across the mission to council. Makes sense. But it means that the office elders have to distribute supplies and orders for the whole mission on that one day within about two hours after the meeting closes. We have a sweet system going, though, so it happens. We also got our supply delivery from Accra on that day so we were carrying and organizing boxes all day. I love being busy.

We also have a tradition of making a mission newsletter for everyone to read and feel unity. It gives updates about the mission, inspirational messages from missionaries, jokes, and we even included a gospel-themed word search this time. Elder Ayim was going to school in graphic design and all of the things that Dad ever taught me are coming in useful. We made it look pretty nice.

I also met a less-active woman who the missionaries have known for a while. We're helping her to read the Book of Mormon every day. I think that it will really help her regain her testimony. She's willing, so we'll give it everything we've got. She's done a good job of reading so far. We've met a few families who seem prepared to receive the restored gospel, but everyone who is super prepared seems to have a big challenge to overcome before they get baptized. One of the most difficult and rewarding things about missionary work is helping resolve people's concerns.

The best thing about being in the Daban apartment? We have a big fridge, a microwave, a toaster, and a waffle iron. I have been craving waffles so badly for the past few transfers. This week I made chocolate waffles in the waffle iron and they were beyond fantastic. I wish I could send pictures, but my camera is broken.

Enjoy a wonderful week!

Elder Nelson

In the Office

Dear America,

Apparently not everyone knows what office elders do, so let me clarify: the mission president assigns two assistants, who usually solve 90% of missionary problems and run the mission when the president is worrying about other things. In many missions, this is all. But the Ghana Kumasi Mission is extraordinary. It's bigger than Idaho or Utah and has tens of millions of people and a lot of work to do. So the mission president has divided the load between one companionship of assistants and one companionship of office elders. The assistants take care of most of the "spiritual" matters like instructing and training missionaries and directing the mission; the office elders take care of more "temporal" things like supplies for the mission, phones, incoming and outgoing missionaries, and RUNNING EVERYONE ELSE'S ERRANDS. Seriously. 50% of what we do are just the things that no one else at the mission home has time for. So it's a lot of driving and coordinating with the assistants. Our apartment is just us and the assistants and it's so chill. We work hard and we sleep hard. If we ever get time to play then we play hard, too. All in all, I haven't gone to sleep before 10:30 one night this week.

This week has been busy. On Monday I came to Kumasi alone (!) but it wasn't too bad because the office elders met me on the side of the road and picked me up after an uncomfortable wait. We drove some missionaries around that night and got to the apartment late. On Tuesday morning we drove homebound missionaries to the airport and took care of all of their flight stuff. Then we prepared hard for the transfer and got to proselyte for a whole hour (pathetic) in between errands. On Tuesday for dinner we ate pizza in celebration of July 4th, although none of us actually realized that it was July 4th. We enjoy relative luxury because we have cars so we can go places and do things if we have time. 

On Wednesday--transfer day--I drove. A lot. Like I said, office elders do errands. And when someone needs to go somewhere, we are the preferred method of transport. We got everything done in record time. Success! Since then we have been able to spend more time in our area seeing members and investigators and meeting new people. It's great. It feels weird to proselyte with a car, but also pretty awesome.

Driving is not nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be. As long as you pretend like you're in a video game, it's normal. Elder Lindley (in the apartment) explained to me that there are four rules on Ghana roads: 1) don't kill anyone 2) don't stop at stop signs 3) don't use your blinkers correctly and 4) if you ever see a speed limit sign, don't slow down because people will get angry. Don't worry, I don't always follow all four of those rules. You just have to drive really defensively. Everyone makes up for someone else's mistakes here. It's so cool. If you do something dumb, the other drivers will compensate for your stupidity. If they do something dumb, you do the same.

These are pictures from last week that I couldn't send. My camera is coughing out its last breath right now. I haven't been able to take a picture on it for weeks so I'm having other missionaries take pictures for me. You can pray and fast for my camera or else the number of pictures is about to go down really quickly.

Have a splendid week!

Elder Nelson

The Lone Ranger- 3 July 2017

Dear America,

This week has gone by quickly. We decided that we need to drop a lot of our investigators. They won't be happy about it but they aren't serious about learning the gospel. They just want us to come and talk about our homes with them and be their friends. We can be their friends, but we can't let them waste a lot of our time. 

We got transfer news! I'm leaving Nkawkaw to go to Daban in the heart of Kumasi. I'll be one of the office elders, which basically means that I'll have a lot more stress and a lot less proselyting time. I'm not sure what will happen, but be ready for much shorter emails. I'm excited but nervous at the same time. I'm excited to be busy busy busy. I like being pushed a little bit. I'm nervous about working with so many people and trying to be patient with all of them. I'm also nervous about driving in Ghana. Super nervous. This place is a madhouse and I haven't touched a steering wheel in almost two years. I'm also nervous because the travel plans have fallen in such a way the mission president has asked me to travel to the mission home on my own. On my own. Without a companion. Solo. In a city with millions of people. It's a trip that I've made many times before but it's got my nerves on edge right now. But it's all part of a big adventure! So I'm happy to do it. It will be good practice for when I get home.

Elder Wood wrote this while I was typing a financial report:

Hey this is Elder Wood, Im Elder Nelsons companion ,Transfer  news has come and sadly Elder Nelson will be leaving me ,It was a pleasure serving with your son he is a great missionary I have learnt a lot from him he truly emulates Christ like leadership,He truly loves the Lord I know that because I have seen how he has serves the Lord and His children.

Do you miss anything about home? It's not too bad, but while I've been with Elder Wood I've realized how fast time has passed. He came on mission just before I did and now he's getting ready to go home. Ahhhh! It's made me small nervous to come back.

What is one thing you are praying for? I've been praying for help with Christlike attributes a lot. 

What are you reading in the scriptures? Right now I'm reading in the beginning of Alma with a focus on characteristics of the Godhead and also in the book of Revelation with a focus on getting as much out of it as possible. And I've also been finding scriptures about missionary work throughout the scriptures to help motivate me every day.

Love,

Elder Nelson