Hey y’all-

I hope everyone had a good week! Mine was good. I didn’t fall off my bike this week so that was a blessing. However I did hurt my toe playing soccer. I kicked the ball the same time as someone and bent my toe nail back. OUCH!!! It was bad ha-ha but it’s all good now.

Not much to report on this week. Sadly, Bro E. is running from us. We only saw him Saturday but he was making some excuses so that we wouldn’t meet. We started asking questions to find out his concerns and we did. We'll see him tomorrow but depending on what he says we may be dropping him. It’s sad to see someone who has come so far in the teachings, even passed a baptismal interview, who is now falling away because they refuse to pray and ask God. We understand they all have their agency. So we will continue to pray for him.

Mercy’s kids, Nancy and Kofi (Ransford) will be baptized this next Sunday along with Sister Janet’s husband (recent convert/part-member family) Abraham. It will be wonderful to have their whole family there together. Families are forever!

Mercy’s family is so cool!! They love the gospel and the Church. They're like the definition of prepared investigators. I feel bad that Sis. Mercy has to wait to be baptized (due to her extended marriage) but I know she'll press on in faith! You don’t have to be a member to come and worship God. One day her time will come.

Yesterday was Elder Sakala’s 1 year mark and his birthday!  We had a small party at our ward mission leader’s house. It was fun and he had a great time. It was a very special day for him.

We finally had rain the last 2 days. Rainy season is almost over so we’ve been enjoying the nice cool weather lately. A small bummer for the last few weeks is that we haven’t had running city water so we've been searching all over for water to bath with! We have a lot of wells around but ours happens to be filled with dirty nasty water. I don’t know what is in there but I’m sure we’d get a skin disease if we tried using this water ha-ha. Yesterday it came on for just a short time right before bed so we all rushed to fill up our gallon jugs. Pray for water!!

Transfer news comes this Saturday. I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying in Winneba but I wouldn’t mind. I’d love to celebrate my 1 year in the field with this ward. We've really grown close. Anyway, that’s about it for this week. Hey did I ever mention that I have learned to cook bean stew?  I’m almost a professional now ha-ha. 

Well, I hope everyone has a great week. Thank you for your letters and support.

Love and miss y’all!

Elder Morris

Hello again-

I hope everyone had a wonderful week!

Mine was just dandy considering I fell of my bike twice! First time we were riding home from a FHE and my front tire went into a big ditch...so yeah it hurt a lot. Second...well just know i pulled the front break and it didn’t go well ha ha.

So The past week has been interesting. I went on an exchange with the Zone leaders again. I went up to their area called Swedru. I was with an American, Elder Jolly from Idaho. It was good! We walked a lot!!

And it was really hot that day. Then after coming home i came to find that we're now in a 3 sum companionship!! An elder got sent to be with Elder Sakala and I. His name is Elder Chimbunde, from Zimbabwe! This is my 3rd Zimbabwean companion.

I think that what I get for hangin’ out with Angus Chihaba all throughout my senior year.(if y’all didnt know he’s from Zimbabwe.) We've been going around teaching in 3. You definitely learn a lot but you also don’t talk as much ha ha

One day Elder Chimbunde wasn’t feeling all that well so because we have 5 in the apartment, one of us stayed behind. They asked me to stay so I spent that day reading and studying.

Just a few updates. Bro Eric didn’t come to church again, and we only met with him on Tuesday. Mercy will wait to be married before her baptism but we are going ahead and planning the baptism for the kids, Nancy and Kofi. They love the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ. They say it’s, "fantastic!"

On Saturday, we usually go to clean the chapel and for the last 4 or 5 months, the members haven’t really shown up. It’s typically just missionaries and 2-3 members and a few small boys. This week we decided to bring a soccer ball and play a small game after cleaning! It was a great turn out! We a lot of the youth come and bring their friends to play. Let me just say it was hard to get out of bed the next day!! I could not feel my legs. I was the only American on the field and I can’t play to save my life so...

There’s two more weeks before the next transfer. Elder Sakala has his 1 year mark this week!! That’s exciting because he was in the MTC group just before me! Sooooo, you know what that means!! Is it crazy that I have been here almost 1 year!

That’s about it for this last week! Thanks for the emails and congrats to those who have received mission calls and/or are leave in the coming weeks! Good luck to y’all! You’ll be great!

I hope everyone has a great, blessed week!

With love,

Elder Morris

Investigators

Another good week in Ghana.

For the updates this week…Not much throughout the week but we did meet with Bro. Eric. Not so good news. First, the Saturday before he was going to be baptized we talked about temples. Well confusion came upon him and that's kind of one of the reasons he didn’t come to church. Also he has such a strong testimony about the restored gospel. Although, he thought he could be baptized by the correct authority and then return back to his church. He didn’t know after baptism you become a member of the church. So, we had a lot of explaining to do. We retaught the temple, slower for understanding, and he said he’d have to learn a lot more about EVERYTHING we do before he joins. So I guess that’s why they call them INVESTIGATORS! I’m glad he’s truly investigating.

As for Mercy and her kids, they’re great!!! They came to church again and love it! And the once again To prove Opposition in all things, After Sis mercy had an interview with the bishop, we found out that her and her husband aren’t married. So what has to happen is a Traditional marriage which will count as marriage and she'll be able to be baptized. As for the kids they have no problem, except maybe remembering all the things we've taught for the baptismal interview.

But I’ll update y’all about that when we find out more. If we go ahead with their baptism, it will be on July 24.

Once upon a time, we were teaching a lady named Josephine... This girl was a very strong investigator. She even shared her testimony one fast Sunday. Anyways she traveled to deliver her baby to another city. And last week we found out she gave birth to a baby girl! She'll be coming back to Winneba soon for school (college) so we'll start teaching her again. Hopefully I’m still here next transfer so I can see her be baptized! We were teaching her back in March…I can’t believe I’ve been in this area for 6 months now!!

And on Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting on love and charity! I started my talk by getting the attention of everyone by saying “Good morning” in their language!! hahaha Ghanaians love it for some reason when a white person speaks their language. Our ward is starting to pick up their responsibilities on missionary work! It’s great! We've received a lot of help from ward missionaries and a few referrals every now and then.

That’s about it for this week!! Thanks for all your prayers and for keeping me in mind! I love and miss y’all! Hope you have a wonderful week!!

Elder Morris!!

 Ghana Wedding 

 Young girls from the Winneba Ward

Primary kids

 HAPPY 4th OF JULY EVERYONE!!! 

Recap of the week.

We suffered to have lessons the first two days this week. But we had the awesome chance to meet our new Mission President and his wife. President Simpson from Australia (Originally from New Zealand). He has such a cool accent!! He and his wife came and introduced themselves to the zone and they shared with us a little about their family. They also told us about their children and the missions they served. 

It's great to have a mission president who feels like a parent to me. Having President Simpson is a lot different than having A General Authority, President Snow. Pres. Simpson is a younger guy who has a son that just left for his mission as well. So it's great seeing them like parents too!

Thursday the lessons started to pick up. We've gone back to doing some small contacting in hopes to find a few people to teach. We are somewhat out of the contacting spirit since President Snow had changed that. But, we need people to teach so we just go do it. 

To update y'all on Bro Eric's Baptism that was suppose to happen this week...it fell through. Sadly he didn't show up to church. We've pushed it out to this week. Brother Eric is truly prepared. 

Mercy, Nancy and Kofi all came to church again this week! Sadly their father is still not interested in attending. We've set a Baptismal date for the family on the 24th of July. The wife and kids really enjoy coming. Now we just need to help Bro Peter feel that spirit and motivation to come.

Well that's about it for my week.

I hope y'all have a great week!

I'm proud to be an American, were at least I know I'm free!! (religiously and so forth)

GOD BLESS THE USA!!

Love,

Elder Morris

Blessing, our cute member's baby 

Out proselyting with our ward missionary, Sis. Nellie 

loving this puppy

Winky 

NAILED IT!!!  Literally ran into this nail

OUCH!

 Sisters from the ward

Mamma Maybell, one of our members