100% p-day

(During the week I received an e-mail from a person through FamilySearch who was looking for some information on an ancestor we share. Turns out he's the 1st counselor in the Ghana Accra Temple Presidency! I asked him to give Jesse a hug for me knowing he would be at the the temple with his companion on Tuesday, which he did! Small world.)

hey guys how was your week??

mine was nice. it's weird how on some p-days, we have 0% preparation time, and others we have 100%. last week was a 0% p-day haha. we ran a a bunch of errands in the morning then left to accra in the afternoon. we stayed the night there, and went to the temple. when we got to the temple, president empey was asking for me, and so we got to chat for a bit. he struck me as a man who posseses wisdom. (i asked him if, since we were family, i could get any preferential treatment. but then we concluded that everyone gets preferential treatment at the temple). then we sent off the departing missionaries, then went to the mtc and spent the night there.

wednesday morning, we came back to cape coast with the incoming missionaries (there were 16 of them so it was kinda crazy) and did orientation before sending them off to their various areas. after that we helped out with the latter end of transfers, giving people rides and stuff. then on thursday, we got to do some stuff in the office that we haven't been able to do cause we've
been out.

then on friday was zone leader council so all the zone leaders around the mission came into town and we talked. we talked alot about our current goal and how we are doing. it looks like every missionary has someone who will potentially fulfill the goal for them, it's just a matter of that happening. we have three sundays left in the mission goal. as we got updates from around the mission, this week was a really productive week (a solid few missionaries completed the goal), but there were 5 families that were supposed to be sealed last week that weren't. some people decided to go to funerals instead of the temple, some had some genealogy paper work issues at the temple, and one went to accra with the ward then instead went to town and did some stuff instead of going to the temple then came back home and lied to the missionaries and said that he did the sealing to his deceased parents. ah!!

so we're finding some speed bumps along the way, but slowly and surely we are making ground. one zone is totally finished with the goal and 2 or 3 have just one or two missionaries left to complete it. a couple of them are stuggling though, so we got work to do.

since saturday, we've been able to be in our area alot which has been so good. yesterday especially was good. we decided to visit a somehow active member and he ended up introducing us to his non member wife who seems cool. her name is rejoice. a woman in the ward that elder halling baptised a long time ago named nana introduced us to her neighbors, a husband and wife, and we taught them too. we were able to visit some people that we haven't seen in a while, so it was really nice.

today we had one of those 100% p-days. we really didn't have a ton of stuff to do at all. we went and played football in the morning (we lost...) then ran some errands and took in some lunch and then got a quick nap in before going to family home evening. we had two members who invited us to come, but one cancelled last minute, so we went to the other. it is maame danso and her family who are really cool. they love missionaries and missionaries love them. some former missionaries have taught them how to play the game 'mafia,' so after some scripture study we played mafia and it was really funny.

it's been really nice to have a couple of days in the area, and we have a few appointments for tommorrow that i'm excited for. but then we go on another little road trip. every transfer we go on splits with all of the 9 zones in the mission. this transfer, we're trying to knock them all out at the front end, so that when president shulz comes, we won't have a ton of other stuff going on and we'll be more available to do anything he needs us to do. so after tomorrow, we'll be traveling like crazy.

also, thanks again for sending me that nice copy of Jesus The Christ when i got here. i've been saving that one for the end of my mission, and i started it a week or two ago. it's freaking sweet. do you guys have any particularly favorite parts of that book? just a random question.

anyways, love you!

elder mackay