One of the hardest working weeks of my mission

A little clarification: in this e-mail Jesse mentions three separate women; Maame (pronounced "mommy"), Mother, and Maabina. Mother is a proper name, not a title - although Mother may in fact be a mother. But I don't think Mother is Maame's mother. Maabina is best friends with Mother. If you don't understand all this, go ask your mother.

hey it sounds like grandma's birthday party was cool. erin's talk sounded like it was pretty special. kinda sucks that anytime anyone from the extended family talks about that party i wont really know alot about what they're talking about .   : /

we had some really cool experiences this week. it was also one of the weeks i've worked the hardest on my mission. this area has been kinda dry for my first couple of months here, but elder christensen and i have been putting in some LONG LONG days of prosolyting and this week it finally started to pay off alot. i felt the Lord blessing us for our diligence this week.

on tuesday we had a SWEET lesson with maame (mommy) and mother. they just don't know very much at all about God (for a ghanaian) and were asking sincere questions. we taught mother how to pray, and they didnt really understand who he is and if there was a trinity or if God and Jesus Christ are different or what. we are probably most excited for them right now. we also taught kennedy three times this week. he has a hard time believing that all of the different churches are not true, but he's praying about it so if he's sincere he'll get his answer. we'll probably teach him about the book of mormon this week.

on wednesday, we had a leadership training meeting that was really cool. president sabey just always delivers. every time we have a meeting where he speaks, i go home energized to work harder and smarter than i did the day before. love that man.

after the meeting i went with elder lehr to their area so that i could interview their 3 baptismal candidates. they are mcallen oppong, francis twumasi, and fredrick (i'm not sure the last name). they are all three REALLY powerful. mcallen was found by elder darrow and elder matheson in sekondi and came up here soon after i did. as for francis, here's his story in a nutshell. about a month and a half ago, he walked into the chapel during church and i didnt know who he was and so i went over and asked who he was. he explained that he had been on facebook and became friends with a member from utah named tyson or something. this member had been teaching francis about the gospel through facebook and he wanted to join the church now. haha normal ghana. fredrick is the best friend of francis. they're all 3 real intelligent, future melchizedek priesthood holders that have strong testimonies - especially mcallen. it was really cool to be able to interview them.

meanwhile, while i was doing those interviews, elder christensen was in our area with elder kundiona, and they made some good progress, meeting with maabina and mother (we had an appointment with maabina, but somehow she and mother who we didn't know were friends, made the connection that they were both meeting with us - so they came together haha. quite a surprise.)

on thursday we did alot of walking, and sorting out the situation with judeth (who i'll tell you about in a sec). maabina and mother came to the chapel after school and had a bunch of questions about the church that they asked us - it was a cool lesson. they both really seem sincere to me.

on friday, we met this ghanaian gangster kid who had been referred to us by some missionaries from the accra mission. he was crazy funny and really interesting. i'll tell you more about him later.

we also had a really sweet experience with yaw boadu (like yao ming). his mother is a long-time less active that we meet with. i don't really have time to relate the story now in full - but basically, he left the room without speaking to us when we walked in the house (which is REAL rude in ghana culture) because he had been exposed to some anti-mormon stuff online. then he was just standing in the next room thinking about whether or not he should come back in, eventually he did come back in (and was literally shaking cause he was freaking out a little). we had never met him before and started talking to him, and it led to a long discussion about why people say the things they say about the church, about joseph smith, and the book of mormon. he schools in tarkwa (eastern side of ghana - no missionaries in that city) but he's bringing a book of mormon with him to school and he said he'd give it another chance. i can give you more details about that one later, along with gideon if you remind me to.

on saturday we prosolyted with justice morgan, a kid in the ward preparing for a mission. we met a new SWEET guy that i'll tell you about later named isaac amponsah.

sunday was maybe the sweetest day of the week. we got one referral, a huge guy named bismark that has been coming to church for a long time, but hasn't ever been baptised. we had a random newlywed husband and wife come to church together, and a cousin of a member that came. all in all there were like 8 investigators there. maame didnt come, but mother came! we were real excited about that.

elder christensen just leaned over and said "does your mom want my home phone number so that my mom and your mom could talk to each other??" i figure, why not?? so it's 801-_______.

well maybe i can also tell you about how our mission is doing with our goal right now... right now the goal is for every missionary to baptise a referral from a recent convert and help a recent convert to prepare a name to do baptisms for an ancestor at the temple. the mission is doing well, but time is beginning to run down. it ends at the end of february. in our zone, every missionary is complete except for elder hair in sunyani, and he has a recent convert from his former area that is going to the temple in february - so then he'll be complete. the only other person in our zone that hasn't completed is elder christensen. we helped our recent convert, mary osei-mensah to go to the temple at the beginning of this month. so all that remains is for him to baptise a referral from a recent convert. maame, mother, and kennedy are all recent convert referrals. if kennedy gets an answer to his prayers he'll be solid, but we donno if that's gunna happen yet. i feel that maame and mother will definitely be baptised - but i'm not convinced that they'll be quite ready by the end of february. we are helping to teach one young girl named judeth that is the sister of a recent convert in elder lehr's ward. she was doing really well, she was actually supposed to be baptised yesterday. but that was until last week our (idiot) ward mission leader said some rude things and offended her and she vowed never to come to church again. so we're trying to clean up that mess. i think we can get her back, but if her testimony isn't strong enough right now, i'm not sure it will be by the end of february. so we're still working on the goal... pray for us.

well i'm out of time and i hope all is well for you. as you can see the Lord really blessed us this week. after 2 months of maybe 2 referrals, we got like 7 this week!!

love, elder mackay