The World Needs Missionaries, Consecrated Missionaries

Written: March 10, 2014

Hey everyone! Pretty sweet week, really feeling blessed and seeing work have an impact. Praying a lot this week as the Baptism for Eyram (Magdeline) and Beatris was coming up. Please keep them in your prayers. Beatris speaks ewe and the branch speaks English, she has support but we are working on getting a literacy class or ewe class together. Eyram, is young but she has surprised me by her efforts to follow the teachings. Still haven't found good friends for her in the church. You just realize how tough it would be to be a recent convert. How.. fragile? the situation is. Especially serving in a branch, so much depends on what happens with these people. Even the possibility of the mission opening areas in Hohoe and beyond depends a lot on the work here and in Kpando. 

Thank the Heavens that this is His work, the Lord is in the lead. You just want everyone to experience the blessings this Gospel brings and to not let go, just when it is going to get so good! Seeing my sister and her child, Skye, I know that families are eternal. They have to be, true happiness could not be found without it. Seeing how the family is so central where we are from and how it blesses us; then contrasting that with the lack of family emotional connection here Ghana and the lack of those same blessing is stark.

That is why we need missionaries. And serious ones, ones who come to make a difference and serve a mission that actually matters. This work and baptisms, we have had will not mean anything if we don't get to the end of this life and find them standing with us on the other side. The ones we need to find are the ones who can bring others and help truly convert others to the Lord.

Mom sent me an email talking about how many hours missionaries have, when you remove study, sleep, travel, and other various things. Being on mission long enough to look back and have memories to think on brought me to realize: the concerns, the work, everything from companionship problems to a really tough day, leaves. What is left at the end is the difference that lasts. 

Any missionary can make a difference that lasts while they are around. But a consecrated missionary will make the best possible differences, that lasts forever. We are called to live a higher law, according to the white handbook (the missionary handbook). The Handbook is the letter of the law; the difference is when we consecrate ourselves, it is the Spirit of the law.Teach a man to fish, you can feed him one, but do it to show him how, he can feed himself. Help lift others to a new hope in Christ. Help them become agents to act, and not merely objects to be acted upon. Change the culture, and the nature, not just behavior.

Thanks for the emails, the love and the prayers. Especially for the great people of Ho,Ghana!

I learned that Ho comes from the origin of the town. It was originally an ewe saying 'ho a mi a va" and "ho a mi jo". Meaning, we all come together, and we left together. Ho is at the center of a bunch of villages. Long ago people came together and then went out.

Love you all

Elder Van Wagoner