March 14th, 2011

First things first, what happened in Japan that is so crazy? I hope
that Jeff is OK. Tell the family I said hi and that they are in my
prayers. I hope that all is going well with the prep for the wedding
and all and that everyone else is doing fine and all. Everything here
is going well and we have had a very productive week. With this week
we have a lot of stories, but some of them may be considered negative.
Just a note for before I write, I love my area and the people here,
and have enjoyed every second of it here in Sunyani. The first thing
to write about is that the girl that I write about a few weeks ago
named Sherry had her father come home and spoil everything. She is 24
years old, but she still lives with him and because of that she has to
follow what he says until she leaves, which will hopefully be later
this year. Anyways, her father told her that she could still listen to
us, but that she is not allowed to go to church, because she and her
mother had a run in with a false prophet who took all of their money
to go and sleep with girls. He is now really against small churches
and thinks that because we are new to Sunyani and only have a few
members that we are small and worries that we will be the same way. He
also refuses to meet with us which makes it almost impossible for us
the solve the problems unless we use Sherry and her mom who wants to
be a member and Aunt who is a member. Please remember that family in
your prayers for us. Another similar situation is that we are teaching
the mother and younger brother and sister of one of our members and
they have been coming to church for some time now, but the father will
not let them become members and is himself a member of a cult. We try
to meet with him and ever time that we have an appointment he is not
there. We also need prayers with that family also. This last Monday we
went to Kumasi for a Zone activity. Usually we will leave at about
6:30 in the morning and after the activity come back and be home by
9:00 at night. We got to the bus station at 4:30 to come home and were
hoping that we would be able to be home early, but there was a crazy
line and so we had to wait for about five hours before we even got to
buy our tickets. When we started to stand in line it was really hot
and sunny, but about half way through, it started to pour on  us. The
place where the line ran through had a little bit of a tent set up for
those waiting, and as soon as it started to rain, the people in the
line turned into a mob trying to get into the tent and to buy a ticket
so that they could get on the bus. Because of this, it turned out that
the missionaries were some of the last to buy tickets and get on the
bus. We were drenched from head to toe, and then there were not enough
seats on the bus for everyone, so the missionaries gave their seats up
so some of the ladies standing so that they could sit, and then we had
to stand for about three hours while we drove back to Sunyani.
Needless to say it was not the greatest trip to Kumasi this week, but
on the scale of hot wives my wife just jumped a couple of points.
Another story this week is that we started to teach a man who can only
speak twi so we had to get a member to come and translate for us. We
took a member who is not the strongest of members hopping to
strengthen him, and when we got there the man started to tell this
ridiculous story about how he has been blessed with great powers from
God and how we either need to help him build his own church,or else
give him a position in ours so that he can use his powers and help
people. Honestly he made me really mad, because he took two hours to
explain this story and would not let us speak and confused the member
so we had to go back and explain things to the member again so that he
is strong. He called us today while we were cleaning our apartment and
asked us again if we would help him. Honestly he is not on my list of
favorite investigators, and we need to explain to him a little bit
better about some of the basic truths that we believe so that he
either stops bothering us and our members, or else he becomes a member
himself. Another story this week is that we were ridding our bikes up
the hill to go home one night and as we were going we saw for the
first time in my life what they call a "deliverance". Basically there
was a young girl that was thrashing around on the ground outside of
this church with all of the elders of the church yelling for the demon
to come out of her. It made me feel really sad, not only because they
were so confuse, but because they were confusing his small girl into
following them and doing those stupid things. So I just rode my bike
over to them and started to beat up all of the priest and then I
raised my arm and cast out the devil for real. Just kidding, but it
did make me really sad. I guess that the last thing that I can think
of the write about is that Bro Owusu's baptism was changed to this
week so that we could teach him a little bit more. So this Saturday he
should be soaked, which is something that I am really excited for. He
also asked if he could go on the temple trip that we are planning so
that he can do baptisms for the dead, which also made me happy.
Everything here is going really well. We are getting ready to call a
unit leader (basically the last step before becoming a branch). We are
hopping that we will become a branch before july so that we can give
that to Pres. Sabey for a going away present. That is one month before
we had talked about before, but I think that with the help of the Lord
we can do it. Anyways Im out of time. I love you all and cant wait to
here from you again this next week. Love you all lots, Ty