Week 79 Berekum

Wow. What fast week! I can't believe another week has gone by! So wild! The time is just a blur.... 

This week we were a little busy traveling for interviews.  Elder Brown and I had to travel an entire day for one interview! We went to an area called Kenyasi.  The road to get there is half dirt.  The cars have no AC so you gotta have the windows down. I don't think I've ever seen a white shirt so dusty in my entire life until that trip. When my companion and I got back to our area in the evening, we had to run back to the apartment and get some new white on!

A little update on our teaching pool… The “Traditionalist” from a couple weeks ago is still working with us. His name is Sammy and he came to church this week and loves it!  Hahaha!  We were walking around the town with him and three people told us that they were in shock that we even got the guy to come to church!

Clifford Osei (our man formerly known as Korihor) is doing soooo well. He is the head of the household over his brothers and sisters.  Both his parents have passed away and he is responsible for everything like school fees and such.  He wanted us to teach his family so bad! We taught them a lesson and we are praying that they all come! That would be amazing! Clifford is such a cool guy! We have a couple of more part member families that we are trying to wrap up. Two members in our branch had us teach their children while they are having a long break from school.  We didn't have a lot of time this past week for finding because of all the traveling. 

This week I was studying a lot about the Holy Ghost and how we can be more open and have the influence of The Holy Ghost in our Lives. I was listening to Henry B. Eyring’s talk in April of Last year. He teaches a very very simple way of receiving the Holy Ghost. Oddly enough it's just about the same thing President Nelson taught. Most importantly is to be Humble, Pray, and Obedient.  That’s the easiest way I think! 

Sorry for a short email!! 

ELDER ELIJAH T. TURNER

GHANA KUMASI MISSION

Clifford's Cat

This is where I sleep when we come up to Sunyani!

Week 78 Berekum

That’s another week in the books and it was a crazy fast one as well! This week was just another great week of missionary work as well. 

Nothing too wild happened this week to be honest. This week we found ourselves working with part member families and other referrals.  That is always a nice thing, right??  Out of nowhere we had a woman in our branch give us THREE solid referrals!  We visited her one day and she had three people there and we taught them!  It was great! 

We also found out that some of our members have kids away in High school that haven't been baptized or taught. They are all on break right now from their boarding schools.  So we are teaching 2 of them and when they go back they have a church to go to!  We have plenty of referrals to work on now... The Berekum members are giving us work to do! 

One of the coolest things happened yesterday at church!  During Sacrament Meeting that "Korihor" guy, the one I wrote about last week, called us and said he was outside the church! HE CAME! I was seriously in shock! Let me give you an idea of this guy. He's about 26 or so and has a huge tattoo on his shoulder (In Ghana that is an abomination). He weighs about 130 pounds and has long hair and he scams people online for a living.  His name is Clifford BTW.  Hahahah! We had a lesson with him where we simply talked about the life and testimony of Joseph Smith. He was very interested and humbled by what we talked about.... I love Clifford! Such a cool guy now that we have "common ground" hahaha! 

This week I just couldn't get over 3 verses in 1 Nephi chapter 21. 15-17.... (Also Isaiah 49)

15 For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel.

16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

17 Thy children shall make haste against thy destroyers; and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.

The Lord will NEVER forsake us! Our walls (Challenges, struggles, disappointments, sufferings) are continually before him! Don't forsake him! 

Anyway, This week was cool!  Like, it just goes by so fast!  I hope people back home are loving the snow!  People on missions, Enjoy!

ELDER ELIJAH T. TURNER

GHANA KUMASI MISSION

Our Baptism that happened last week

Me, Eric Appiah, Isaac, Nana Kwame, and his grandma Nana Hema, and Elder Brown kneeling.

A market in town

This guy feels like he can help with quite a lot of things! 

Week 77 Berekum

Another week, another email, I can't believe that I'm already writing another weekly. I have to wonder how many people actually read these! Hahaha! 

This week was a good one!  My companion and I met a lot of different types of people.  So many people told us so many different things!  I hope I can get it all in one email! 

We met with Isaac from last week.  This week we decided to teach him about The Book of Mormon. He told us his Pentecostal pastor warned about books that people shouldn't read literally two days before we met with him. The very first book that his pastor said the congregation shouldn't read was The Book of Mormon!  We told him about it and he was a little confused as to why his pastor would warn them not to read it.  I had him read Moroni 10, which told him that he should read it! haha! 

Another guy we met was named Sammy. Sammy was asking us about God. Then he went on the rant about how he is a “Traditionalist!”  Basically, they worship their ancestors in shrines and have their little fetish people. So interesting and wild! So we just propounded about the nature of the Godhead! He was so interested that he even came to church yesterday. The reason he started his traditions is because of how apostate other churches seemed to him. He was even telling us about some of the rituals that he does......... sooooo scary! Yikes! He wants to stop them. He even swears that he sees his dead ancestors. Wild! He came and said that he loves the feeling at church! 

We met a man yesterday that literally was Korihor in Alma chapter 30. We were at a members house and this guy starts going off how there is no Christ!  If you read Chapter 30 of Alma it has some of the EXACT same questions this guy was asking us.  And some of our EXACT answers too!  Finally Elder Brown and I asked him a thousand questions that he had to seriously think about. He believes in a creator and nothing else. He doesn't even think that God talks to us anymore. We invited him to pray to see if God will give him a small sign that he is there. 

We had two baptisms this week! Eric Appiah and Isaac Antwi. We also got to take part in some “child of record” baptisms.  It was so sweet!  The service was very, very, very nice! All went smoothly! 

Anyway! What a great week here in Berekum! No pictures this week. My computer network is not working too well.  Hopefully next week! 

ELDER ELIJAH T. TURNER

GHANA KUMASI MISSION

Week 76 Berekum

2019 huh? I can't even believe it and it got off to a pretty good start!! 

This week, we had a lot of time OUT of the area! The whole first part of the week we were just dealing with stuff for transfers! Oh yah… Transfers were this week! It went over well! My new companion is Elder Ezra Brown from Accra, Ghana! The guy is an absolute STUD!  I love making the guy laugh! But for real, he has a sweet desire to do the work. So yeah, transfers went over well and everything went smooth! 

The little time we did spend in the area was cool. We had so much stuff to catch up on.  We have a lot of people we are teaching right now so we wanted to see all of them and introduce Elder Brown.  We also spent time showing him the area and meeting the members. The people in the little Berekum Branch are happy to see Elder Brown. They love him! So it's nice to see that they are enjoying having the missionaries serving in the Branch! 

Elder Brown, Patrick (our Branch President's son that just returned from his mission) and me!

Like I said we had a small amount of time in our area. The time that we did have we were just running around trying to meet with as many people as we could! We met with one of our investigators, Isaac, at his work place. By the time we finish our lessons with him he understands what we’ve taught perfectly. Then when we leave he just gets railed by his co-workers. It's actually pretty ridiculous.

There is also a girl named Esther.......... Esther doesn't like the missionaries at all! I asked "why?" she just told me cause what we teach is so different to anything she has heard before. Hahahah!!  I told her that was true.  The message of the Restoration of Christ’s Church on the earth is very different from what they have been taught. If the people we teach actually think about it, read the stuff we give them and pray they'll find out that what we teach isn't all that different and it is the TRUTH!

Esther also had a huge problem with the Book of Mormon and wouldn't even take it from us.  So I asked her if we could read a couple of scriptures with her.  After each verse I'd ask her if she thought it contradicts anything in the Bible. So I gave her a couple of verses in 3 Nephi 11 and of course she said that nothing contradicts.  She still was so heated.  I just didn't understand why! hahaha!  I asked her what it was she wanted to hear from us and she said "The Gospel."  I couldn't help but just laugh.... It’s so sad.... I know that one day she will find out the truth and look back and say just say, "wow!" 

It’s kinda crazy how missionary work is. Some people you meet are just funny. We keep praying for Isaac to find new work. 

We had tons of people disappoint us for church this week. We also had a lot of people surprise us! We had a family that was a referral that didn’t really ever seem very serious. So we didn't spend any time teaching them. They just decided to show up for church! One lady in the family is 98 years old! Wow!  Still going strong! It was cool! 

We also are preparing some people for their baptism this week so that’s nice! Berekum is the Ghana Kumasi Mission Paradise!

This week I was reading in Alma 32 about Faith. Some of the best words in that chapter are; "experiment" and "exercise."  These are perfect action words for Faith!!! I love, love, love when those words are mentioned in that chapter! 

What a good week! Got another good week planned. Time’s flying... Things are good. 

Elder Turner

I found these sweet, stylish jeans in the apartment!

Me with Elders Garrett and Barron

Elder Blanchard and my old comp Buhler