Third time for a threesome

Hello everyone!  How are you all?  I hope that life is wonderful.  It has been pretty good here recently although it was to send off Elder McKeon to Praso and then be put in another threesome again.  But I have been blessed by members helping us so I have been able to be in my area all day for three of the five days so far.  It is weird working with a companion or with someone that does not know the area and is not learning it, but is just helping you for a little bit.  It is sweet though.  Sarah, who Elder McKeon and I have been teaching for the last few months was baptized.  It was sweet.  She is 17 and has a sister who is in the church.  She was supposed to be baptized last week but the pipe didn't flow, but everything went well yesterday!  I am very excited for her.

But I have worked one day with Elder Shinasi and Elder Odongo each and then I worked with a member, Peter, one of the days.  The have been good and productive.  It is sweet to see the willingness to help out the work.  Peter has only been a member of the church for a year, yet he has a strong testimony and is willing to do all that he can to help.  It has shown me that no matter how much we do have the desires, we should be willing to do anything to follow the Lord and to help Him in his work.

Today we went to Shama and there is an island just a small ways off of Shama that we went to for a combined Zone acitivity.  We went to the beach there and played rugby.  That was a lot of fun but I now remember how tiring it is to run in the sand.  Or maybe I am out of shape... or both.  But it was lots of fun.  It is interesting that the island speaks Ewe even though the Ewes are found in Volta Region and now one around speaks it, but it was sweet.  It was cool to see how self reliant the community is.  But man, am I sunburned.

One thing that I have been studding a lot lately is Endurance.  As missionaries, we often teach people about enduring to the end and what it means.  Most people here in Ghana have no idea what it means to endure.  One analogy that I like to use is running a long race.  We may start the race fine, we may run great almost all the way.  But we have to finish strong.  We must do the best we can all the race.  If we want to do the best that we can achieve, we must try our best and put in all our effort.  Endurance throughout life is very important... we must continually press forward, each and every day.

Well, I love you all!  Thanks for everything!

Elder Walston

Our service project.

Me at the chapel.

Our recent convert Julie.

Sad to say goodbye to Elder McKeon.

Sarah who was baptized Sunday!

I was able to talk to Elder Adams again.

We went to the beach by Shama for our Zone activity.

A Sweet Week

Hey everyone!  I hope that you are all doing wonderful!  This last week has been good and busy.  It started off somehow slow, but it picked up along the week.  This week we were supposed to have a baptism for one of our investigators, Sarah, but the water was not flowing so we could not fill the font.  But it has been pretty good.  We have been blessed as we have been finding our investigators just leaving, getting ready to go somewhere but we have been able to see them and been able to teach them.  It has been really sweet.  It was nice.

We were also able to learn how to make kenke and helped one of our members make some for an activity this past Saturday.  It was the All Africa Service Project.  I believe that the church across all of Africa gets together in their congregations and does service for the community.  So all of Kojokrom, Nketsiakrom, Eshiem, and one of the Mpinstin wards came together and cleaned up the market here in Kojokrom.  I was one who got to get in the gutters and clean then  out which was filled with nasty sewage like dirt about two feet deep... it was a lot of work... the hardest work that I have done since I was back home but it was a ton of fun.  I enjoyed it a lot.  It was cool to see all the members come together and be able to help the community.  We were able to show the community how much we actually care for the welfare of everyone around us.  I enjoyed it a ton.  And then we had some amazing banku and okra stew.  Then I found out that afternoon that my companion is leaving me. :(  He is being called as a Zone Leader to go serve in Praso and since there are ten elders who are leaving two weeks before the transfer, he is going to fill one of the spots.  But that means I won't really have a companion for the next two weeks so instead I will be with the Zone Leaders here in Kojokrom for the next two weeks covering both areas.  My third threesome so far... it will be fun but interesting.

I Have been thinking about endurance a lot lately and I read a talk by Elder Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy.  He gives the analogy of having to train for basketball.  That we have to be able to train to gain and build that endurance.  I think that something necessary is to train ourselves spiritually.  We must read our scriptures, pray, go to church, and do those things that will help us be in tune with the Spirit.  That is what we must do so that we will be able to endure through our live so that we will be able to meet God at that final judgement and be worthy to enter into his kingdom becasue we endured throughout our lives.  It is an important principle.  Doesn't mean we are perfect, but continually trying to improve and become better.

Well,  I love you all and I hope that your week goes well!

With Love,

Elder Walston

Another week has come and gone

Hey everyone!  How is everything going?  Hope that everything is great!  Things here in Kojokrom are going well.  It has been a hard time finding people at home, but we have been truly blessed this week.  We have been working with a few people that have a great desire to learn and are very interested in the Gospel.  We are planning to have a baptism for Sarah this Sunday.  I am excited for her.  She is someone that we have been working with for quite awhile.  She had two sisters in the church and has been coming for awhile now.  It will be a very good experience for her.

But yeah... not much really happened this week too out of normal.  Just kept on pushing forward.  We had a funeral and a wedding in our area that made everyone not available... funerals and weddings are the biggest events here in Ghana... even if you only knew the person just a little bit you go.  And they spend so much money on them and the place music that you can hear halfway across town.  But it is all good.  Just a part of the Ghanaian culture here.

This last little bit I started reading the Book of Mormon more.  For a little bit I had stopped and just been reading the New Testament among other things.  It is interesting how significant of an impact just reading the Book of Mormon has made.  I feel as though it has helped me feel the Spirit more and helped me become more in tune to listen to the Spirit.  Reading the scriptures is so important and I know that it is the way to be guided by God in our lives.  As we read, we can find answers to our questions and even if that does not happen, it invites us to be more spiritually in tune to receive an answer.  The gospel is a wonderful thing.

Well, I love you all!  I hope that you you all have a wonderful week!

With Love and Care,

Elder Walston

*I, Kristi, apologize for some of the pictures that Trevor sent us...but he sent them, so I am posting them.

I really enjoyed the pizza stuff you [Mom] sent :)

Jollof rice we made with a member.

FHE

It gets cold in Ghana...

My shoe broke :(  This was after the second time wearing it :(

Roasting the pig.

A member made this picture from wood and a sautering iron... pretty cool.

Ghana!

Hello everyone!  I hope that you all are doing well.  Things are going good here in Ghana.  This last week was a hard week proselyting though... lots and lots of walking.  A lot of appointments kept falling through, but we were able to make do with what happened.  We have been working with a young man named Benjamin, but sadly this week he has been really sick as well as a few of our investigators.  But yeah... it still went well.  One of our members, Gloria, went and helped us all day twice this week.  It was sweet to have her help, but I felt bad because we walked so much.  She was so exhausted at the end of the day.  But yeah... at least the weather has been nice and cool.  A member also made me and Elder Mckeon these cool art pieces... she calls them pyrography which is just a piece of wood that she uses a sautering iron to draw on.  She drew the picture of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus and it looks really cool.

One interesting news that we found out about this week is that there has been an ebola outbreak in West Africa.  We have heard that Sierra Leon and Liberia are closing their missions so we are getting 20 new missionaries this week.  That will make things interesting for this mission.  It will definitely increase the size of the mission a bit.

We also had a zone activity yesterday.  We have two Tongans in our Zone so we wanted to roast a pig... so instead we decided to roast two.  Yep!  Yesterday we had some nice pig with some cassava... it was rather good.  Took a long time and it was really hard since we didn't have any water and power had been off since Sunday morning, but that just made it a little bit of a challenge :)

Well... I was thinking back on a talk this morning that was about a scripture in Luke 17. "Remember Lots' wife." It talks about when they were leaving Sodom and Gomorrah how they had been told not to look back, but Lots' wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.  We can take it not as just looking back, but rather want those things that we have left behind.  Don't wish that we can be back in 'Sodom and Gomorrah'... don't want the things of the world even though we know that they aren't correct.  Find yourself faced upon the truth and the goodness in the life that each of us are in and look forward.  Look to the bright future and know that all the happiness and joy that we can experience is not found within the world or 'Sodom and Gomorrah', but rather within the gospel.

I love you all and I hope that you have an amazing week!  Take care!

Elder Walston