Allah Akbar

Hello everyone! It's been another great week. Here's what went on.

First, on Monday, we went to a prayer camp up in the mountains. It was quite a hike to get there, and my legs are still sore from it, but it was worth it. It reminded me of a hike we did last year on high adventure in Wyoming. Although they were two different places, they were both beautiful. The name of the mountain or prayer camp is Mount Olive. When we arrived, we were greeted by someone who told us about the dos and don'ts at the camp. There were certain grounds we were not allowed to set foot on because they were "sacred." I tried to respect their religious beliefs by abiding by their rules. It was a peaceful place, except for some people's version of praying, which is yelling and screaming at the sky. It's kind of crazy. We decided to branch off from the trails of the prayer camp and hike to the top of a big rock that had a nice view. There was a flat rock at the top that was the perfect height for playing uno. So we played a few games. A while after we started playing, we were met by the "prophet" of the camp, who was angry at us and asked us to leave the rock. We didn't know why and packed up the game, but soon we found out it was a sacred altar, and we should not have been playing a game of uno on it. It was funny. To us, it's just a big rock. Good times.

Anyway, a spiritual moment I had this week was when a member's infant had fallen very ill. I was on exchange with Elder Riley, so we went to administer a blessing of the sick. The baby was fussing and squirming around while the mother tried to hold it still. Elder Riley anointed the oil, and as soon as he spoke the words of the anointing, the baby became silent and no longer moved. I sealed the anointing and gave the blessing, and the baby remained silent. When I had ended the blessing, the baby started to squirm and fuss again. I love how the child was able to tell when the spirit was there. The infant made a full recovery in two days!

That's the highlights from this week. I'll talk to y'all next week! -Elder Gilbert

For the photos, I have one of Elder Riley and me with American drinks! Zone conference was this week in Kumasi, and we were able to find Twizzler Nibs! Considering there are no good sweets here, I love finding American things. I also have photos of the prayer camp, playing uno on the sacred altar (although probably not very respectful), and recording someone's prayer (if they didn't want me to hear it or share it, they should not have been yelling it). No one really smokes here, and I found out why. Cigarette companies are required to put a giant warning label on their packs of smokes, and it seems to work! (The USA needs to take some notes.) Elder Bonnet and I also sampled Ghana's version of Red Bull. I believe that's all!

Coconuts & Country Music

Hello everyone! First of all, I am sorry for not sending an email last week. I ran out of time on my P-day. There's just too much to do sometimes. Anyways, I hope all of you are doing well. There has been a lot going on lately, so I will try my best to remember all of it.

To start off, last week was a good week. On Monday, we went to a waterfall. It was way cool and super beautiful. I took tons of pictures, so I will be sure to include a bunch. Being in such a tropical climate, I am so sad that I am not allowed to swim at times because of how great it would be just to jump in some water and cool off. But oh well, it probably has crocs in it anyway.

The rest of that week was honestly a blur. All I know is that we spent time with our investigators. We have just been plugging away, trying to get them all ready for baptism. That is something that I absolutely love about sharing the gospel. There are so many people who have never even heard of the Church here. But, of course, like everywhere, there are many speculations about the Church. But for the most part, it's so small here that many have never even heard of the Church. It's perfect because most of them haven't heard of these false speculations, so we share our message, and they get hooked. And I can just see how they flourish and improve in the time that we meet with them. It's definitely something special.

Coconuts are readily available here, and so I bought a few just to eat. Anyways, it was evening time here in Nkawkaw, and the sun was going down. I grabbed myself a chair, put it outside, and grabbed my handy dandy Bluetooth speaker. I put on my finest selection of country music and just sat watching the sunset while eating coconuts, and it was about the most peaceful moment I have had here. I sure appreciate moments like those.

Another thing that happened was I got a package from Ol Abrochilla (America). It was from my sweet Aunt Debi, and it was full of all sorts of goodies. I thank her so very much for it, and it truly was my saving grace to have a little bit of home so far away from home.

We had another baptism this week. We would like to welcome Brother Michael to the covenant path. We have been teaching him for a long time, about 8 or so weeks. He is someone who is a fact-checker. He liked to make sure that whatever the topic of discussion was, it was correct and the truth. He was telling me after his baptism that when we first started to meet with him, he wanted so badly to find a hole in what we had taught him. He said he wanted nothing more than to prove us wrong. But he couldn't find anything. He would think that he had found a reason, and he would research it. But it only proved itself to be correct. Anyways, super proud of him and his decision to be baptized. He has a strong testimony and a good desire to grow and better himself.

Today, we went to a prayer camp for our Monday activity. I have some wild stories to tell you, but I'm going to save that for next week. You will get a kick out of it.

Anyways, I hope y'all have a wonderful week. Thanks for all of your constant love and support. I sure appreciate knowing I have people rooting for me! Until next week, yours truly, Elder Gilbert.

For this week's photos, we have a baptism photo, waterfall photos, the sweet package (thank you aunt Debi), this random guy we met who was wearing a cool shirt he was a spunky dude, and some random pictures. Hope you enjoy!

Cowboys And Africans

Hello everyone! It was another wonderful week. It was transfer week, so there was a lot that went on, and I have plenty to share.

To start off, I stayed in my area of Nkawkaw, but I was given a new companion. His name is Elder Adu; he's native to Ghana and is actually about an hour away from his home. I wouldn't be able to handle it if I was on a mission only an hour away from home! So, props to him. So far, he's way cool. The reason the name of the email this week is "cowboys and Africans" is because the first thing Elder Adu did when he got to the apartment was to look at the pictures I have taped to the wall. One of them is me and my buddies all dressed up, and we have our cowboy hats on. He says, "Wow! I thought it was supposed to be cowboys and Indians, not cowboys and Africans." That is how I know we are going to get along great! I think we are going to have a great time this transfer. It's interesting to have to get adjusted to new people again. It's not a bad thing by any means, but I feel like I just got comfortable, and they throw me another curveball. But it is what it is. I better get used to it now because I've got a long road of readjusting ahead of me.

On another note, I had one of the biggest testimony building experiences yet. I testify to you that God is real. If you are willing to keep His commandments, He is willing to bless you, even when you think the odds aren't riding with you. God is all-knowing and all-powerful. Anything is possible. To start off the story, I first need to explain how you go about getting power in Ghana. If you want power, you have to prepay for that power. So, about every two weeks, we go and buy two weeks' worth of power. How much we use depends on how fast our power runs out. It's no big deal if you run out of power; we buy one day of reserve power. So we know that when we run out, we have one day to buy more. To buy more power, you just run down to the prepay shack and pay the dude. There is a credit card that you give the power guy along with the prepaid money. He types something into his computer, gives you the card back, and you are good to go. The only thing you have to do now is when you get back to the apartment, you need to swipe the power card on the meter, and it allows the power to come into the house. Also, when you run out of your main power and you want to access the reserve, you swipe the card again, and it will turn on reserve power.

So, with all that being said, this is where the story gets interesting. We ran out of power last Monday, so we swiped the card and turned on the reserve power on Monday at noon. That means we would run out of reserve power on Tuesday at noon. No big deal, we planned on buying power on Tuesday. Keep in mind that transfer day was Wednesday, and Elder Bloomfield was leaving on transfer. So, Tuesday was the day before he left, and it was the day to pack his things and say goodbye to everyone before he leaves.

As we were going about our business on Tuesday, scrambling to see everyone he wanted to say goodbye to, we forgot to buy power. We returned to the apartment in the evening, only to remember that we completely spaced out on buying power. We got home around 8:30 pm or so, and the prepay shacks close at about 5 pm. So, there was no way to buy some this late at night. We found ourselves in a sticky situation; no power at night means no fan, and that means no sleep. Not to mention, Elder Bloomfield had yet to pack his things, so that was going to take place in the dark.

Saddened and a little ticked off by the situation, we figured that we ought to quit our pouting, humble ourselves before the Lord, and say a prayer asking for His help. And so we did. In the prayer, we explained the situation and asked that if it be according to Thy will, that a miracle may be worked. When the prayer was over, I swiped the prepay card, and nothing happened. I was a little saddened but not surprised. I put the card back in my wallet and turned my back to the meter. As Elder Bloomfield and I were about to walk into the house, the meter clicked, and the lights came on! We were running on God's power, baby! We looked at each other in shock and pure awe. We just witnessed a miracle.

Immediately after we were done freaking out about how cool that was, we took to our knees and thanked the good Lord above. The power lasted all night, and as soon as we got up to head to transfers, the power ran out. God was blessing us, and I love how the power only lasted as long as we needed it. I promise you that the Lord is much closer to us than we think He is. If I hadn't come on my mission, I would have never realized this. God only wants to help us, but we must first want to follow His commandments first. And when we do, I promise you we are blessed. I know He lives, and I assure you that miracles don't only happen to certain people; they happen to everyone. I encourage you, if you aren't living your life in accordance with God's teachings, to change! Change so you can also experience these miracles and feel God's love. We were given these commandments for a reason. And oh, how blessed we can be if we choose to follow them.

3 Nephi 12:19-20 says, "And behold, I have given you the law and the commandments of my Father, that ye shall believe in me, and that ye shall repent of your sins, and come unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Behold, ye have the commandments before you, and the law is fulfilled. Therefore come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."

I hope you all enjoyed my letter this week, and I love and miss you all. Until next week,

Sincerely - Elder Gilbert 

For my pictures this week I have a few before Elder Bloomfield left pictures with members. Elder Riley found a wig and we all put it on and took pictures but it definitely looked best on him. My new companion. Mainstreet of Nkawkaw. Me and some wonderful branch members.

The Last Supper

Hello everyone! It's been another week. This week was pretty normal, honestly, but I remember a lot of it only because I took plenty of pictures.

There are a lot of people leaving me soon. We got transfer calls on Saturday, and I learned that Elder Bloomfield is leaving me. I will stay in Nkawkaw for a bit longer. Although it's nice to be done with my training, I will be getting a new comp this Wednesday, and I'm not too excited to have to adjust to someone all over again, but it's just how the cookie crumbles. I better get used to it because it's going to happen many times before I'm done. Also, Elder Bampoe will be leaving on transfers too. I wish we knew where they were going to prevent gossip in the mission. They just tell us who is leaving. It kind of sucks, but it is what it is.

We had a wonderful FM this week from the Kumi family. They fed us fufu with chicken. It was really good, but I'm still learning how to eat fufu. It's more difficult than you would think. Fufu is cassava and plantain that has been pounded into almost a dough texture. It reminds me of bread dough, but the tricky thing with fufu is you are not supposed to chew it. You are supposed to swallow it whole. It's a skill that I wasn't really expecting to have to learn here. But anyways, besides that, this family is such a good family. They are so very kind. They are a good example of Christ-like people. The father is a presiding elder for the Apostolic Church here in Nkawkaw. Although they are members of a completely different church, they are still so willing to feed us and be friends. The food was great. The only issue is there was like 10 lbs of food there for three people. We were stuffed! There's a picture; I'll put in the link. You can see I'm just stuffed and suffering.

We had two baptisms this week! The first is Solomon. I have told you plenty about him! He is a great guy and will be a bishop one day. This guy is amazing, and we also baptized Derrick. Derrick is 12 years old. We were teaching him and his mom, and after all of the lessons, he expressed that he would like to be baptized. He is a great kid, and I'm happy he is choosing to follow the covenant path.

This week's photos are honestly just me and Elder Bloomfield chilling with all the homies, teaching them lessons, and just enjoying the African lifestyle!