June

June 2, 2014

Mom note: Its been a crazy week..please forgive my tardiness..After some extensive heart tests on Monday, they have moved Savanah's heart surgery and the surgery date is unknown until some insurance things get cleared through. This could feasibly be a really good thing, but I'm hesitant to get too up the idea until insurance gives us the thumbs up..so if anyone wants random things to pray for: getting this new device approved for her heart would be great!!  Logan sounds so happy and said he knows he will be in Ho until at least July. I can tell he would like to stay there the whole time but he is very content now. He asked me to sign him up for the draft..I said..uh.."son you have no idea what's going on here in the United States, please don't make me swear..but no freaking way!" Yea so there is a tiny peek into my feelings about that! Sure love you all and love the missionary letters you forward. Hope everyone is starting summer out with some fun and sunshine.
Myrna

Sending some older pictures this week, Gifty's baptism was so awesome, still gets me happy thinking about it. That family rocks my socks. Then the pic of me and the small girl. Her name is Daniella Gidedi Afi Savonyo, I told her I am going to adopt her. She is super smart girl, especially for a 7 year old African, and so she was just laughing and was like 'um.. okay!' haha her family is great though. 

We were blessed with some pretty solid member referrals this week. Brother Prosper Tay called us up to give him a blessing one day and afterwords we talked about the work in the branch and after we talked about referrals you could see the inspiration come to him. Led us to a couple of guys I would have never met just contacting. One is the CEO of a fridge repair and air conditioning company. His name is Frank. His shop looks pretty normal from the outside so we didn't bother with it. (normal being normal for Ghana, meaning not worth going into). When we sat with him though he was a boss! Reminds me a bit of dad, just with more Ghanaian qualities. He is like 54, owner of the company, has a family. The other referral works at Hope Fm. Going to meet the other one tonight and the first one we had a pretty solid lesson with. We were excited because he, Frank, seems to actually care about his family and was excited to have us come again he set up the return appointment.

Had all our member present lessons fall through. Just busy people whose jobs are good but can be a distraction.

Wednesday was kinda a massive downer. I was so excited to teach mutual and we had the coolest activities lined up. Things were going good. Few trouble maker kids showed up and we kept them all under control. But we were playing our last game and two kids were talking smack in ewe and this one kid that I had to.... remove... from mutual came back and some other kids were trying to tell him to go back (this kid struggles he was just there to ruin it for the others). A scuffle broke out and I had to pick two kids up and toss them off of each other. Lots of kids left before we could calm the remaining kids down and close. Just felt like I failed. 

Came back in and there was about 10 or 15 kids left inside. These kids do not come from good situations and yet they are some of the strongest people I know. We had a pretty serious discussion about what we needed to do. I would give everything if it could all work out for these kids.

Talked with one of them afterwords, Donner (said like dough-nay in Ghana). He had gotten into the scuffle, such a good kid though. We talked about priesthood leadership, since he would be a priest in a few days. Talked about how I wouldn't be satisfied till I knew he would be on a mission, married in the temple, and one day that I would walk the streets of Heaven with him. 

There is a lot that is wrong with Ghana, the only person that can fix it was born 2000 years ago. But these kids are some of the light he gave to the Earth. Just pray for them alright?

Still on a happier note, Saturday was pretty funny. Definitely not the normal go. Usually we just proselyte all day. In our mission we don't have any tech stuff just: Find, teach, appointment, find, find, teach, find, grab a pure water, find and teach. All the way till it's 9. Saturday though our church got invited to the 'KUUL FM religious Games'. Always a shock when 4 white guys show up to something. Met some good people and even set a date with one of them, David. 

I got to play some basketball and it felt soooo good!!! Man I love sports!!! Our church won quite a few events and the youth placed a box of copies of the Book of Mormon and another box of pamphlets hahah they rock!!

Still that plus the baptism for the other elders took most of the day. We had to fill the font with the buckets on the head again, water still hasn't come back. But a stray thought crossed my mind: The Savior himself carried each persons load to cleanse them. We were absolutely wasted from the day, burned and hungry, and carrying the buckets seemed like more than we could do in time for the baptism. Still it all worked out and I got to learn something, or rather experience it. Pretty special day

 We have been trying to set dates with more people. We are working on trying to get David and Divine and Jonas ready for the 28th. Divine is a pretty cool guy. The Jews ruined his testimony on Christ and he doesn't understand why all the 'Christians' in Ghana worship as they do or what for. Had a pretty intense discussion with him about the plan of Salvation. It answered some of his true and serious questions and at the end the Spirit was thick in the room. He just leaned back and was taking in the answers you only find here. The Spirit was really testifying too. 

It's like the Lord has pruned him to grow the right way.

Still doing what we can, we will do all we can to help our recent converts experience the joy of missionary work. I know there is some family members out there waiting. The one thing about Ghana is family relationships are hardly anything. I feel like we do what we can to teach about the importance but seems like it's usually the younger ones who are growing in the Gospel that understand that. Romel, a recent convert from April, even prayed to be a good husband after a lesson we had, that was a sweet experience. What else can we do that will help people sense the need for families? Sometimes I just want to shout like Lehi and say "AWAKE!" (2 nephi 1:23) Because we know they are missing out on the best part of existence.

Elder Turley and I are doing well. I think he is getting more comfortable in teaching and now we just need to find the right balance as we work together. Sure that June will be a good month and a chance to do the Lord's work more in his way.

Got to let you all know, I am a happy Elder, wouldn't want to be anywhere else. This is right where God meant for me to be. :) The more I am here, the more I want to be right where God Meant for me to be.

Well everyone I love you and hope that you are choosing to be happy this week! Love you from Ghana and Back and to Eternity

love

Elder Van Wagoner