dad thanks for the advice about preparing for home. i always love it when you tell me about your mission. its so interesting to me how, with it being quite a while since you served, some things are so much different - yet some things are so much the same. i appreciate your advice.
i had a couple of random questions come to me this week. i met a senior mission couple a few weeks ago (elder and sister borden) that are serving a mission for the area office right now. this is their FOURTH mission in ghana!! haha. there's been alot of talk about senior couples here, cause we need them really bad. when senior couples are sending in their forms, a pretty high percentage of them don't have good enough medical stuff to be able to go to africa and serve. then, of the few that make the curve to be able to serve in africa, the general authorities still pray and send those persons where they need to be. some are sent to africa. after that, president sabey said that ONE in FIVE of those called to africa accept the call and come!! isn't that a little bit embarrassing?? i donno if they think they'll be living in the jungle and in the middle of civil war, with gunfire and poison darts at all times, but i think that's a terrible number. anyways, mom and dad, i was just wondering if it was in your guy's plans to ever serve a mission?? what are your thoughts about that?? i know from the lambs and saunders and sabeys that alot of people want to serve but can't cause of this bad economy.
mom i got the missionary newsletter this week, thanks a ton. that's one of my favorite times of the month when that comes in the mail. i also got a nice christmas card from the kleins.
it's still crazy to me that jason and lisa are gunna have twins...
so this week was really nice. on tuesday, we went down to cape coast with the other kumasi zone leaders for zone leader council. as usual, president sabey sent us away more motivated to work hard. by the time i got back home on wednesday evening, i was so sick of air conditioning! i was FREEZING for those two days. i'm gunna die at provo when i get home.
on thursday we went on splits with president sabey in our area. it was really cool, and we had a couple of really powerful lessons there. one was with maame and mother. at one point in the lesson, maame came out and assured us that she'd be there on sunday (and she did end up coming), but that because of her work (she does work and sunday from 11am going is really busy for her) she would only be able to come to church every once and a while. she is in a situation where it is difficult for her to give up a full day of pay and still get by ok.
president sabey, who hadn't spoken too much yet during this particular lesson, sat up in his chair. he explained that later on in our teachings, we would teach her about the sabbath day and how God wants us to handle ourselves on that day. he asked, "maame, do you believe in God?" she said "yes," and i was kind of taken aback by how firm she was in her answer. he promised her that God would bless her if she put her trust in God to take care of her if she came to church. i then asked her "do you believe that God knows you and is watching you? do you believe that He would be aware if you were making sacrifices like that to come to church?" she responded yes to all of the questions, just as boldly as she did the first. i then asked her, "what do you think God will do if you do that?" she had a look on her face as if it all just clicked in her mind and she said simply "he'll bless me if i do that."
on sunday after she came to church (and loved it) she promised us that she'd go to church every week from now on!!! some people just have sooo much faith.
we spent the rest of the week in our area. i think i'm gunna skip the rest of the week until sunday.
well, as i have been mentioning lately, our area was pretty dry at first, but over the last couple of months we've been putting alot of work into visiting members, and it's just now starting to pay off - cause we have some sweet people to teach. by the time sunday rolled around this week, i cant really remember the last time i was more excited for sunday to come. we had a load of people who said they'd come to church.
on sunday morning, we went and picked up amma sewa, an old woman that we teach (i have a sweet video of her that i'll show you sometime), for church. she loved it, especially the bulding itself - she thought it was beautiful, and said she'd be back next week so we'll see.
we went to church and found that one of our members, nana bonsu (bone-sue), had come with one of our investigatiors, dora. there was also another member, cecilia, who brought her neighbor cinthia (she's been coming for like a month.) then maame and mother came in with the members that live right next to them. oh man i was happy.
then a man named isaac yeboah came in with his wife and two children. we've been teaching isaac for a couple of months and he's come to church 3 times now, but we never even knew he was married until saturday we went to his house and met his wife and invited her too and she came!
next, the really sweet guy named isaac amponsah that we are teaching came by himself. (either he or maame and mother are the sweetest people we have to teach). then a man in the ward's wife came (sister odame).
then, to top it all off, this random 15 year old white girl named nina walked in and said she wanted to start investigating the church haha! it was so random. but man oh man, was i happy yesterday. i've definitely had more investigators at church before (especially in moree) but i've never had this many sweet sweet people come before. i had everyone gather around after investigator's class and take a picture. i'll send that soon.
i'm out of time though, thanks for everything. i love you!!
love, elder mackay
The Bantama/Kumasi Zone - February 2011
