Another week in Paradise

7/6/2015

Dear family of mine,

Serving is the greatest thing I have ever done. It feels like it wasn't me that took it to this point though. God really is full of Grace and mercy, He has done all the heavy lifting. We watched 17 miracles (and Lion King) as a zone today! It stuck out to me how when the Lady prays and the revive the daughter, she said "Father we have done all we can...' Time and time again miracles have come as people 'Have done all'. It just made me pause and again ask, 'have I done all?' We have been pushing as hard as we know how, unfortunately it has gotten to our sleep schedule a bit, Elder Bautner, our District Leader, was saying that we should choose at least one day this week and start planning by 9 and not the usual 9 30ish. Seems like people are not around till like 3 pm in Tema is the problem, but I feel so happy :) nothing brings joy like His work.

We also signed journals at the activity and this week, as we have had a bunch of chances to be with zone members (exchanges, hand off to sisters lessons, meals with a couple members, meetings etc) I felt an overwhelming love for all of them. Two sisters are transferring today (some mtc mix up so a 2 week transfer for it) Sister James is going, she will leave the same day as me. We celebrated her bday on tuesday with cake mix mom sent for my bday! haha :) Also Sister Wanjohi, and Elder Yeboah (Godfred, from Kwabenya who is here as a ward missionary to take the place of a missionary still at the mtc for language help). I love being able to serve them and you can feel how precious each is to God, how much they did to come and serve. I love these people :)

This week was full as far as our time goes. I feel like we didn't really have a down moment, and we (hopefully) accomplished some good! We went on back to back exchanges. We thought now would be a good time and we thought we had a Stake Presidency Meeting on friday that didn't happen. After some prayers and consideration we decided to have both of the DL's to come and see how things work in our area and then next month the exchanges will go to their areas and see how they applied what was learned. The Junior companions would both get a chance to lead and take charge. I was in Newtown with Elder Saunders and saw great things. He is everything you could hope for a missionary who is 3 weeks out. he is doing great things with what he knows. I tried to help him with adjusting, and a few areas to improve. Other things he will learn as he simply progresses on mission. He will be a great Elder in the future and capable of almost anything he gets called to do. We are excited for him! He said 'You know you've made it. You're there!' I remember thinking the same thing about people like Elder Nelson and was overwhelmed with humulity knowing that I was far from the level he thought. The Spirit prompted, so I said "there is one correction, you don't arrive, or get there, but you'll get farther than ever before."

Elder Udonsa was also great, he has progressed a lot. He was a lot more confident in his area and approaching his people. He is so humble about how he approaches people and they feel comfortable with him. He is truly a servant of the Lord and shows a lot of love.  It was sweet being with these two elders! I learned a lot as I watched them, the simplicity and the honest way in which they share what they know really touches the heart. Seems that in the end the best missionaries are not necessarily the best teachers, but the ones who love and try with a fervent testimony. Being with Elder Saunders brought a wave of emotions and memories flooding back. Mission has been beautiful.

Our area was really blessed this week and some part member families are doing so good! One guy, Fiifi had his baby blessed on sunday, Logan Yao Nunana Cudjo-Deborah. (his wife is an rm) the man is sweet! He is Jehovah's Witness but has really been softened since he moved into the house full of members :) Gifty is doing great, bore testimony in RS and gave the closing prayer, she loves the church and is excited about the Gospel! baptism is the 19th! Suzy also came to church, she is in the same family with Fifii (a cousin-in-law I guess haha). This week was great in the area.

Also the fourth was awesome!!!!! There is a lot of asians in tema and so we went to the asain shop and picked up some roman candles for 3 cedis!!! (that is like 75 cents for 8 full sized ariels) We also bought what we thought was sparklers... turned out to be a 12 cedi bag of incense hahahaha. Took them to the Kufalors and they lit them off (WHB says we re not supposed to use fireworks so we couldn't be the ones to get close and light them) so much fun! We got to whole neighborhood out to come and watch! We were at the top of the flats in community 4 and people enjoyed! Funny enough even helped our relationship with Fiifi to pick up! :)

Alright I love you all from Ghana and Back and to Eternity

Elder Van Wagoner

p.s. as for leaving. I feel peaceful about things, just working hard is the only thing I really have control over, my attitude is the other. So I'm giving every tiny gram and effort I can and choosing joy. Thanks everyone I love this work, it is the Lord's. This is His gospel we bring!

Nyame Adom

6/29/2015

Family I am out of time. Trying to send more one on one emails this week so please forgive:)

It will have to suffice to say that this week was watching a roll of miracles happen before us. We have been trying as hard as we know how and it seems like God has poured out his blessings upon the Tema zone and the follow ups on sunday were so rewarding. Many great things have happened for us all here :)

We worked on a lot of things this week we have been working on our planning strategy a lot. The following days were very busy and so rewarding.
Members have been in higher support of us, actually of most of the missionaries in Tema and this week we recieved some great reports from all of the zone members. It was a very humbling call in report. We have seen some mighty miracles come in Tema. Several have come as missionaries brought the other Elders or Sisters to teach someone who they felt needed the other more. Others have come as people have contacted and referred those contacts on, taking the contact still seriously and not just moving on because it wasn't in the area. We want to keep up this attitude here and move things forward.

It feels as though it has all been 'nyame Adom' as everyone says. Elders and Sisters have been working, and many miracles took place this week, for whatever reason God has allowed. We feel very blessed. God has led and directed and done so much, seems like we were just continuously in the right places at the right time. Wish I had more time to tell you about it all.

We have been working with some great referrals, a couple don't speak english and so we have been working to see if they could be strong enough to baptize. But we understand it is not rushing for numbers but helping to have sustainable Recent converts. We've made plans to take different translators and things for people like Sister Martha. Sisters Kafui and Gifty are both progressing well and we had some of the more spiritual lessons I can remember with Kafui, she loves the idea of temple work! Met a man who was dating a member and she was trying to force him to baptize, he wanted to break up with her, but called us over to teach him. He had some bad experiences with missionaries before and I was blown away that he had the courage to try again (after telling us about his past member/missionary experiences). His name is Prince and we can see the Gospel is going to make a great impact on a great person.

Mission is sweet and I love it here!

love you all frm ghana and back and to eternity!

Elder Van Wagone

Tune my heart to Sing Thy Grace

6/22/2015

Emailing Jake.. everyone says he is at home... Not sure I buy it. #tupaclives

Thanks for emailing me though, it's always uplifting to read about what everyone is doing. As we learned yesterday in Elder's Quorum about being led by the Spirit, all of you do a great job of that, thank you!

It is a blessing that the revelation came to keep me in Tema, I feel like it has taken up till now to truly desire the welfare and happiness of the missionaries and to be willing to Sacrifice my proselyting time more for them. At first I was just doing it because I knew I was supposed too, now it is a blessing. I suppose some (myself) learn these lessons slower.

We gave one sister missionary a blessing and she was very grateful, I think she has some stresses getting to her. The spirit really did direct things that I would have never thought to say otherwise. They did well this week though and it seems the blessing was what she needed. Giving blessings is so great. We gave several this week to members and non-members. It really helped us be a lot more obedient and Christ-Like, knowing that we would later give blessings.

We had a lot of working with members the past couple of weeks, some interesting results. Some of the people we may ask the sisters to start working more with. Like a young girl who seems a little terrified to open up to us hahaha her family is awesome though. It's the Kufalor's neice. By the way, Ethel Kufalor had her baby! I predicted she would give birth to Yao (a thursday born) She did and so, after some debate, she asked for my first name and now the baby is named 'Logan Yao Nunana Cudjo-Deborah'. He is awesome!!!!!!!

We were blessed to have some great people come to church, Jerry's mom Gifty came, a referral who has been overcoming a pretty massive alcohol addiction named Martha.

After our zone meeting, which went on well, we followed our own council to see "if we had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel" (A President Monson quote). We had all our appointments fall through and no where to go around 8 pm. So Elder Beckett said we should stop and pray. We did and started to open our eyes to his guidance. A couple roads down we met a sweet guy named Kwabena (my name sake in Ghana) who is a family man and pretty interested! We would have missed him without stopping to pray. Then as we passed a part member home, we felt to go back and didn't know why. We did though and found the non-member husband sick and we were able to give him a blessing. It was so sweet to be used by the Lord and I felt like we were really going about his business, not our own.

We were a part of the choir who sang for a lady's funeral in the church. As we sang "Come thou Fount" the words rang out for me "Tune my heart to sing thy Grace". What greater joy could we have than to be instruments in his hands?

I love you all from Ghana and back and to Eternity

Elder Van Wagoner

Father's Day!

6/15/2015

Today has been sweet everyone! I just did a quick check on the missionary portal. I looked up some old emails between me and President Judd, about November 2013 time. That was the time I received some of the best council ever given to me, it came from Elder Jensen (congrats man, thank you for the example). He seemed to be having such a good time I wondered how it was possible. "When things are crazy I try to see the adventure in it all, other than that I see the people".

As I applied this council and others from President Judd, the difference in the emails and journal entry's (yes I reread some with Elder Beckett on Saturday) was almost humorous. People are what it's all about. Just searching for that 'one' somewhere :) Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad? or made someone feel glad? if not I have failed in deed...... then wake up! and do something more than dream of your (self, problems, worries, desires, etc.) mansions above, doing good is a PLEASURE, a JOY beyond measure, A BLESSING of DUTY AND LOVE. Serve and never look back.

We watched Ephriam's Rescue as a zone today, it was in black and white, but super awesome. It really struck some deep chords. "When you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel you can reach out and Rescue others". President Monson

I would like to send my gratitude out to a man who has rescued me on several occasions. Dad Happy Father's day, thank you for all you have done. The small day by day lessons you have taught are still affecting missionary work here in Ghana. :)

We saw some miracles the past couple weeks though with finding. We were at the chapel and Bishop Appianti gave us a ride with a member because of the rain. We stopped at the member's, Jerry, home and made a quick plan to visit the next day. As we came we talked about his family and his mom has not come to church before. As we came another day to meet, she was so ready for us and had good questions and is on date for July 12 now!!!

The other great one came after getting 2 lessons to fall through with a member along with us. On our way a man came running from a nearby church and asked for the Book of Mormon, at first I feared he was a church member and want the Book of Mormon too aid his preaching (oddly enough a common problem here, pastors will steal a line or two from it). Turns out, he was the security there and went to a different church. Then, 2 days after MLC, we followed up. He had been reading, had awesome questions and accepted to be baptized and come to church the next day (after some inspired insights from Elder Beckett).

The following day we went to pick up another investigator, but he wasn't around. The rain was decently heavy (Ghanaians fear the rain and struggle to come out of the house when it's even a small sprinkle), so we thought neither of them would come. I had to keep telling my self to get some faith and when we walked in, he was waiting! He loved it and contributed a ton, it was sweet. I think he is now permanent living in com. 1 so we will have to refer him there, but still he is sweet! Albert is his name.

I'm realizing that we do a lot of planting seeds until we can meet that one who is prepared. I have been seeing that the most important moment in our day may just be when we follow a simple prompting to talk to an unlikely man on the way. God's work is incredible. I would love to be someone he could call at any time and know I would respond, so I'm working on it.

I was blessed to have my temple recommend interview with President Heid on thursday. It was one of the most incredible moments. Going through and being able to have the Spirit testify to my answers was making getting a simple 'yes' or 'no' out difficult. This Gospel is true, Jesus Christ really is the Savior. This really is his church.

The invitation is to all of us to go to the rescue. President Monson said the opportunity WILL be there. We all have need to 'go where he wants us to go, say what he wants us to say, be who he wants us to be'.

Love you All from Ghana and Back and To Eternity

Elder Van Wagoner

The Scientist

6/1/2015

An older Coldplay song has a chorus that says, "No body said it was easy, no it's such a shame for us to part... no body said it was easy, no one ever said it would be so hard...  O TAKE ME BACK TO THE START."

Sorry I had some random guy from Germany and his wife who didn't know how to work the computers very well (the guy had some difficulty in movement and speech) ask me for help. they were trying to get the wifes visa to go back to Germany, so I am once again short on time. But hopefully that couple is able to get home to the kids. Pretty random, they seemed super lost. 

A lot of my MTC mates are talking of going home just about everytime I meet one of them. It's crazy that they are feeling this way. Mission is so sweet and I feel like the song sometimes. I would love to try mission again with what I know now. But I am sure that at the end of any time I did that they same feelings would come. Mission is such a rare opporunity. No one could have taught me these things if I spent eternity in a class room.

Elder Beckett and I tried to pick it up this week, just more squeezing our time. It did allow us to meet some great people, met one guy whose name is Newlove and we will meet him tonight! We couldn't meet on Sunday and he was super disappointed he is really excited about the Book of Mormon!!!! We were working on 'keeping our lines in the water' and being aware of opportunites at all times. Tonight we will be trying to follow up with a couple of those people, I'm excited! We are then going to Newtown to do exchanges and also take part in their district council. So both of us will be their tomorrow.

We had some sweet lessons this week, really powerful and one of the great ones came as we simply read and explained 1 Nephi 13 with Sister Beatrice. For the first time, she committed fully to church and also to baptism. I fear that the rain was the thing that stopped her. Many of our ward members also didn't attend because of the rain, even Benjamin didn't come. We took a teaching record to him and explained why he can't yet be baptized, how he needs to be keeping these committments and learning these things. It helped him see the scope of things and hopefully it will be the push that he needed.

The member work is going ongreat!. We had some great lessons as we planned in advance for the member present and would also use the opportunity to work with and teach the member. We had a chance to do a service project for one family, trimming a tree, and it went well. They were really grateful.

Elder Beckett is great and tries hard, I always learn a lot from him and am very grateful to be serving with him. Mission is sweet. We are trying and working hard as we can to be finding those who are ready to progress, we will find them.:)\

love you all from Ghana and Back And to Eternity!!!! have an awesome week!!

Elder Van Wagoner

subject de.. but i no go for make one dis time

5/25/2015

Super short  on time, sorry I was trying to respond to all of the members of Tema zone. President and Sister Heid are doing a great job about setting up activites to help people who never had the chance to learn some life skills. This week they set up a computer assignment and they had to email Elder Beckett and I. So I spent a lot of the time getting to learn more about them and respond to some comments they made, it was super sweet! I love the missionaries here, they are not a perfect group, but they really try.

This week we had a few times where God lined things up super well. ON monday we were late getting out, but we felt we should just try and go contacting around, our area was too far to get to by then. We ended up meeting two people we had contacted in com 4 but they hadn't accepted us the times before! Also this week we tried to fast for the area and as we did we had some really powerful lessons with some people, also one house we just felt prompted to try at like8:45 was the house of a woman who had come to church like 3 times in ashiaman! God really can connect all the dots and it's amazing to watch!

Sorry my time is out, I love you allf rom ghana and back and to eternity!

Elder Van Wagoner

The Music of the Gospel

5/18/2015

Dear family! the cafe is struggling and won't load names of contacts.
So hopefully this one reaches ash and jordan and if possible the
elders.

We are late today, had a zone activity that was good but went over
time. We make burgers for the whole zone! Found a great place called
max mart in the industrial part of tema.. seriously most random place
to put a store of that caliber hahah. They had patties and some great
things to throw on, made it for half the price of what the zone
members would have paid for a half as nice burger at the restaurants!

We had a good week of trying and making new efforts. We are getting a
lot more creative than I can remember being before and I love teaching
about family history these days. At the core of what we are doing is
bringing families to the foundation of Christ. As I studied this week
it seemed like family history work was jumping out at me, they make so
many references of it and it is just as both Luke and Malachi put it,
that without this work we are cut from the root and we lose so many
blessings (luke 3:7-9 and malachi 4) the Book of Mormon and the
Doctrine and Covenants are full of the 'intent' (jarom 1:11) for
family history work and it is so sweet!

We have been able to find a couple of people this week that have some
potential and we have also made some great plans with members this
week. We are trying all we can, so any ideas or suggestions would be
soooo appreciated. One guy, named John, is interesting, a bit socially
awkward, but so are a lot of people. We met him after a row of funny
meetings with a couple drunk people and some... disturbed?
individuals. He is reading though and seems ready to listen! Bro
Yeboah-Aferi has been opening up a bit, a first he seemed pretty
unconcerned with our invitation, but we were so bold it kind of
shocked him and he started to pay attention. He had a mild stroke and
is having a lot of difficulty getting out of the house for more than a
few times a week. We are looking for someone with a car who can drive
him to the chapel. Still we are excited to work with them and looking
to help their families. His wife though, is not speaking too much
English, so it's kind of a challenge. Teaching families is sometimes
really stressful, but it is the best thing ever!

We got to see general conference, two sessions on Sunday!!!! They were
so good and really I was just overwhelmed with gratitude and guidance
from start to finish. Truly good and without guile was so powerful and
humbling (we had a 3 hour discussion on it at the house last night)
and also I loved the one about 'hearing the music of the gospel'. We
were looking at all the ways we are just dancing and not even looking
for the music. We can teach, work and even serve with all the right
steps and moves, but what truly helps people to dance is the music.
They may be awkward and incapable at first, but so are all of us. That
is what the Atonement of Jesus Christ was all about. Which person are
you going to help hear the music this week?

I loved the sessions we heard so much! We have living Prophets and
Apostles who hold the Authority of God and direct His work on the
earth. I know this is true. As we sang the hymns and saw the group of
people standing and singing in sign language it brought the sweetest
tears to my eyes. They can hear the music of the gospel. Can you?

i love you all from Ghana and back and to Eternity. I invite everyone
to stop and think for a moment....... do I hear the music of the
Gospel? Now what will you do?

Elder Van Wagoner