9/14

The title of this e-mail is dedicated to Nat. I hope that she is doing
ok and wish her and official congrats for being pregnant. Sorry that
you fell in the temple. Speaking of temples, we get to go as a mission
in 2 weeks to Accra to go to the temple for our yearly trip and I am
so excited.
Yesterday the internet was out so we are e-mailing today. We just got
back from Cape Coast, where we had a mission tour with Pres. Satati of
the 1st quorum of the 70. It was cool i guess, but he spent the whole
4 hours talking about different ways of writing in your area book. I
guess that that is what our mission needs to learn how to do right
now. We have a baptism not this sat but next sat and we are baptizing
three people as of today. Just and fyi for mom, Stephen Essel missed
church again this last Sunday and he will not be included in that
baptism. His father is an elder in the Baptist church and we went to
his house and had a good talk with him last week in which he said that
Stephen is old enough to choose for himself, but at the same time he
wants to talk to the other leaders of his church before he gives his
official ok. This Sunday Stephen went to his dads church and we have
no idea what is happening because we have not been able to meet with
him yet. So the moral of this story is that we need all of your
prayers for him right now. Speaking of your prayers, I just want to
give you and update on the last goal and how it went. This is the goal
that includes baptizing a person contacted during a world cup game.
Well, I got a call from Elder Bond 2 weeks ago that he had just
baptized a man named James that we contacted during the world cup. I
had taught him most of the lessons and helped to get im ready enough
for the baptism that he counted for me also. Actually, he has a really
cool story. He called us over to his shop which is right next to where
we passed every Monday to go and play football for p-day. He said that
he had seen so many pastors that came by and tried to trick people
with magic and stuff and he just liked the way that we looked and felt
good about us. Come to find out, he was from Ghana, but lived in
Nigeria and had a big company there that was doing really well. He met
a woman and they got married. The night of his marriage, his foreman
at the company ran out with all of the money and made him bankrupt.
Very soon after that his wife got pregnant and died during childbirth
leaving him with a child. He moved back to Ghana to live with his mom
and got a small job to wait for some legal problems in Nigeria with
the company to get settled. It was there that he met Elder Bond and
myself. He thought that he had an evil spirit inside of him and that
that was why he had all of the problems in his life. We gave him a
blessing of comfort and taught him the gospel and he is now a strong
member, who helped us to finish the goal.
This next baptism should be really cool also. The first person that
we are baptizing is an older woman who had an accident that gave her
severe lacerations on her head this last January. She was being taught
by Elder Baron and his companion when I got here and I really have not
done much to help her, but be here friend, because she already knew
the gospel. The next person is a young Woman named Pat, who we just
started to teach when I came to the area. She, Elder Baron and myself
have become really close in the last month and a half and she is
already a major support for the ward, and contributes a lot at church.
The last one for the baptism is a young girl named Theresa who is
about 15 years old. She is a referral from a member of about the same
age who is very active. This last month all of West Africa had a big
cultural event where all of the youth came together and reenacted
Lehi's dream. Supposedly it went really well, but it was held outside
of our mission so I didn't get to see. Anyways, Theresa was involved
in that and has been coming to church for some time because of that.
We met her and have started to giver the the lessons and she has
soaked it all up and really wants to be baptized on the 25 with the
rest of them so that she can go to the temple and do baptisms for the
dead with the rest of the youth the next week. The only problem is
that we need to get special permission from Pres. Sabey, because she
is only 15 and would be the only member of her family that would be a
member, and new church policy is that if that is the case she has to
come to church for 3 month before she can be baptized and she would
have only come for a month and a half. Anyways, I guess that we all
need your prayers for the next few weeks that everything will go all
right for the baptism and that Stephen will be able to be baptized
soon also. I gess that Im out of time. I love you all and pray for you
every day.
LOve Ty