Praise To The Man

(Written: October 21, 2013)

You ever read your journal and realize.. huh.. lots has happened in only about 3 months? I had that today. I read my journal of the time I was in the mtc. For everyone that plans on serving a mission, just expect that it won't be what you are expecting. Working with the people will be different, the schedule will feel different. Spoiler Alert: being a missionary is just not what you expect.

Is life ever really what you expected it to be though, do things ever go the way you imagined. There isn't a person in the world whose life is exactly what they thought it would be.

Nevertheless (my new favorite scripture word) Heavenly Father has things planned out a little better than we do.

When I was small boy I dreamed of basketball and fame, not as much about mission. I was thinking about what playing for thousands of fans would be like, not what working all day just to find one person would be like. And for all that, I am grateful that Heavenly Father did. That he saw in me something more than I did.

We often think that our imagination of ourselves is the best way it could go. More and more I see that the plan Heavenly Father has is so infinitely better, so beyond our capacity to create or believe that what we imagine is often the very best we can yet conceive of. Yet we have a Father who sees nothing short of eternity, and captures all the details held within.

I want to thank everyone for the prayers and support that has been given me. I am humbled to think that people who have much more difficult times and bigger issues to deal with than just being hot and working hard, have prayed and thought about me. I pray for each of you, I didn't really know how prayers could be different, then Heavenly Father sent me on a mission. You start to pray more earnestly, quoting the bible. So know that you have the prayers of missionaries with you, with all the new missionaries in the world, that is a lot of more earnest prayers, I hope you see and look for the blessings that come, you WILL have to search but they are there.

monday my week started out with us biking in from an appointment and seeing the words "keep the faith" on this taxi. in ghana all the tro tros and the taxis have little quotes or bible sayings on them, nyame adom is pretty popular. but it is nice to have these little pep talks that sometimes come, sometimes I think they are not as coincidental as they look to me.

Tuesday in our district meeting, Elder Nelson gave instruction on becoming a consecrated missionary. that is a term that is getting thrown out more and more in our mission. the difference in those that murmur, manage and prosper. I'll talk more about that soon.

But we went to work on tuesday and contacted several people in the morning, I even saw an obruni from lebanon and decided "hey I should try and teach at least one obruni on my mission haha" so we went to talk and he politely said he was a muslim, I said he is still a Child of God and our message is for him. He said that religion is a choice for anyone and any religion will do. A surprisingly ghanaian answer. Still I am glad I tried to talk to an obruni, it is different trying to talk with them then with the people of ghana. with ghanaians you use such a different approach to talk with people. I don't know how to explain it but if you see me in 21 months and I can't say anything normal to you just smile and nod :)

a lot of lessons fell through that morning. we did contact a lot of people though which is good, we need to find more people that are ready to be serious, and plant more seeds, you just never know who is ready for this and whose time is not yet. We did teach a lesson down by Perpetual's place to a lady named Juliana. We have been trying to meet her for some time and finally got the chance, it went great! As our lesson finished Ghana's match against Egypt began. We heard a cheer as we walked away from her area towards Perpetual's. Ghana scored. We ate there some nigerian food called eba which I got some pictures of because it is hard to describe..basically it is a dough of stuff called gaurry and you cook it and stew and you put the eba in the stew with bare hands and eat.. maybe ill bring home gaurry at the end of my mission and cook it. will see how many people like it, i didn't at first but now I love it! good thing I have a nigerian comp who can make it. so as we ate we heard people screaming and cheering about five more times, just loud enough to hear through all the area and we couldn't believe that they were cheering for goals. we finished and then a drunk old guy ran in cheering about ghana winning 6-1! he kept saying "o ghana we know football, we are small but we know how to really play, best in africa!!" haha o ghana :) the eba was a sweet deal too! only 2.5 gh cedi for a huge plate!  so after the lesson we headed to Bismarks house. On the way we met Lawson who said he went for a stroll trying to find the truth. I felt prompted to leave a copy of the Book of Mormon so we did. still havent met with him but there was this feeling of being exactly where I should be in the universe.

On wednesday we had what I call "deep sea fishing" as we tried to get out to the far end of the area and see who we could find. Now cantonments area is huge. Like to bike to one end of the area and back could take a couple hours. So we biked halfway and walked towards Spintex road. that isn't the far reaches of our area but on the other side of the airport is just these big houses that aren't finished (and won't ever be finished, not in this generation atleast) with sqauters living there. so spintex and the accra mall is about as far as people are. 

We walked out there and talked to about 30 people that day. Some were cool lessons and others it was obvious they didn't care haha but we kept trying and were able to meet a lot of people. We sent most of them out as referrals to other areas but that is just helping the other laborers in the vineyard :) We were starving so we got some small food that wasn't enough. so as we walked back we were pretty exhausted. as we taught a lesson to Desomds friend we left hungry. I was praying to be a better missionary, and be able to still teach well even though I was hungry, I guess Heavenly Father knew that wasn't happening haha because just then we bumped into a lady who said "hey i know you! you are the elders! i stay with one who fellowships in your church. You are doing good work" then she dashed us a meat pie! The best part was the meat pie actually had way good meat in it. if you come to ghana don't buy the meat pie from the fanice guy, it doesn't have meat in it. but this great lady gave us these awesome meat pies! she stays far from us so we can't meet again but hopefully she will listen to the missionaries we are sending to her :) That night we were able to teach sadat and bismark again which were both good lessons. I was feeling pretty exhausted though and frustrated with how many people we talked to who just kinda shrugged of the seriousness of the message. You would speak of the restoration and as you talked about joseph smith they would just kinda nod there heads and move on. sometimes you just wish they could feel it, that your words would mean something to them, and often they do. but it's sad seeing people brush it off. The blessings that can come and the hope they need is right here, and I pray that more people will feel that, but everyone has there agency.

The next day my morning study helped to refocus me though, and I sent a letter to mom and elise and one for ryan.. I still don't have an address for him sorry! We talked to a lady named auntie gina, who lives in mobile force and had a great lesson with her, she is pretty insightful and as we talked about the book of mormon and lehi leading his family from jerusalem she stopped and said "o, lehi is like somehow noah, leading people out!" I was like... ummm yaa wow hadn't thought of that but ya great example! there is a letter that could be written about that little thought there but maybe another time. Later that day as we got dinner at the apartment we listented to some talks. I have jon bytheway on my ipod and we listen to him out here a lot and any other talks we can get. I actually use stuff I learn from them and I would encourage all of you to find some time to listen to things like that instead of the radio. I have to work to apply it to my investigators but it is crazy how i learn something and then a few hours later I will use it. which was the case that day as I taught a lesson about something we learn in the war chapters of the book of mormon. it really helped Perpetual.

friday morning we went out to teshie for my companion to get his patriarchal blessing. I had to wait outside but it was great to see ghana in the morning, not inside the apartment :). we got to take the tro tro back which was pretty funny haha something america totally needs is tro tro's. they are like small buses or huge vans that are just everywhere! Well later that day we talked to Abena, who we meet earlier that week. as we talked to her about the restoration it is such a sweet moment to feel the strength of my words. I felt the song praise to the man in my heart. I felt the peace of knowing I was where I should be. Sharing the greatest words I could at that moment. and I want you all to know that I do know Joseph smith was and is a prophet of God. He did see our maker and our savior face to face. I died a martyr for the same reason the savior did, the eternal salvation of man.

Praise to the man.

each time I think of this I am reminded of when landon and I sang this song as small boys. I am so grateful that I was raised with these songs, with my family. I am grateful I had the chance to sing that song with Landon. one day he will be 'singing' it out here in the field. I hope you share that message with all those that you can, the restoration needs to happen on a personal level just as much as it had to happen on the world level. 

As that day continued I had that strong with me and it will continue to be, I pray forever.

We met with bismark that night and expalined to him the some of the commandments. his determination to keep them impressed me.

saturday morning I ran into an old email from the President about not murmuring. it was regarding missionaries who complain, survive, and thrive or as the scriptures would say murmur, manage, and prosper. I then read in 1 nephi 3:5-8 some great stuff. Nehpi doesn't murmur, Lehi says he is blessed for it. In verse 7 he bears his testimony that he has gained because he didn't murmur and because he prayed ( 1nephi 2:16) for faith. in verse 8 lehi is excited and glad. He says nehpi is blessed. yet why is he blessed? he is still over 15 1/2 chapters from his 'promised land'. how are we blessed when we haven't reached the end? 

because he didn't murmur. because nephi trusted in the Lord and did all he could to find things to be grateful for. 

It can be hard to not murmur, to be consecrated to the Lord. A talk I heard later that day from neal a. maxwell talks about how in the church we say things like "trials and challenges make you stronger, and God loves you". he says they are true and yet have become trite sayings. that we forget the implications of a loving Heavenly Father, or the grace of Jesus Christ. That we don't realize how hard those challenges are. how they make us stretch. how easy it is to talk about them and how so hard it is to do them. because we have a loving Heavenly Father we will have to face challenges, that if we could pray them away all the work we had done until then would be for nothing. How those who would feel happy in Heaven would be those who had pressed on. another talk that day was about Grace and how because of grace Jesus can ask us to do things. Not to pay him back, the debt is paid in full. yet to feel worthy to be there. Those who will be in Heaven will be those who want to be. It will be the savior, not people, pleading for us to stay there. we won't beg to be let in, but he will beg for us to not want out because we feel unworthy. 

on sunday sister robinson from america talked about her little daughters getting shots to come to ghana. how they cried and she had to comfort them saying "it will only be a moment and it will make you stronger". she talked about how the same words are coming from heaven.

Another line that I found in the talks that day was "i have been saved by grace, but have you been changed by grace?" grace has the power to change us to raise us up over any challenge. you have never sunk bellow his love or his help, your mistakes do NOT take you from his grace. in fact the repitition and the trials you have faced make you the person the grace is for. it is to change you, you can never repay the savior. you pay him by coming to him. (3 nephi 12:3)

I wish i could say more but i have got to go to work :) me ko yuma.

I love you all and  hope you invite the missionaries over, that you offer to be a member present lesson for them. that you refer people to them. we are all enlisted. Landon try and go out with the missionaries sometime.

hey dad I heard new kid in town on friday haha!

love you all sorry this letter is rushed and unfinished but i hope this week is great! see you soon!

Elder Van Wagoner