Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net> Dec 14 at 11:33 AM
To
Hi, all!!
This has been another crazy week. I love the work so much,
but man, I'm exhausted! One night I was laying on my bed writing in my journal,
and in the morning I realized I had fallen asleep while writing, and my pen
drifted off the page and onto my sheets, haha! Elder Palmer inspired me this
week, and I've been washing my clothes each day as I wear them, so today I only
spent like one hour washing clothes instead of six! I finally found some time
to relax and unwind, and it was beautiful! THIS WEEK I FOUND PIZZA. Ah, I wish
you could have been there to see the excitement on my face, haha! It was 35
cedis, but I had no regrets whatsoever. It was kind of small, but it was good!
I feel bad, I was a little selfish and my companion was irked with me for not
sharing more, but I promised him I'd share more next time :D
One night this week we stopped at the shop by our apartment
and we heard someone playing some American music! It's a song that I was never
particularly a fan of, but I was excited to hear some American music in Africa,
so I actually kind of tapped my foot along with the beat, it was fun!
Also, I saw another white guy in Africa! We were teaching a
lesson in an investigator's shop and this guy just came up and handed us some
fliers, and walked away. It was kind of weird but cool at the same time!
This week I found a scripture that I related to in a weird
way! 2 Nephi 5:16. It talked about how the Nephites built a temple after the
manner of Solomon's temple. It was structured in a similar fashion, but it wasn't
as fine materially because they couldn't find those materials in the land. That
seriously made me think of the San Antonio Temple and the Ghana Accra Temple,
because they're the exact same floor plan, but the Accra temple isn't quite as
fancy because the materials aren't as readily available! I just thought that
was something kind of cool.
Thursday was a crazy intense day. We had a big multi-Zone
Conference. It started at 9, but we had to meet in Ashaiman at 6 to take tro
tros there, and it takes just over an hour to bike there, so we had to wake up
at 4am to start getting ready! It was a hard morning. We made sandwiches of
bread, chocolate spread and sweetened condensed milk to take for lunch and
started biking. We were originally going to meet at the Stake Center (big
church building) in Ashaiman, but we don't know how to get there, so we
normally meet with the other Elders in our district to get there. Literally 5
minutes before we get to their apartment, they call us and tell us that they
took a taxi and left without us and we should just somehow find our way. So we
head in the general direction of the Stake Center, and we get to one road that
just had some CRAZY traffic. It was so packed in some places that we couldn't
even get through with our bikes! So at one point, we're sitting there stopped
waiting for an opening, and a tro tro decides to try to move somewhere and
literally runs right into my companion's bike, kind of pushing him along the
road and bending his tire. Needless to say, he was not happy at all.
We find the Ashaiman Station where all the other Elders are
gathered, and we discover that people changed the plans on us without telling
us and we weren't supposed to meet at the stake center. So we bike over there,
and the gate is locked, so Elder Palmer jumps the fence and Elder Saunders
hands our bikes over and we start walking over to the tro tro station. We
finally get there and head to the Zone Conference. That was really nice. I was
invited to play piano for our own zone musical number and I sang with a few
other missionaries, and that was lots of fun. It was a great experience and I
learned a lot from it.
Also, I played piano again in church yesterday! I'm starting
to enjoy being the unofficial ward pianist :D One of these days they're going
to pick a ridiculously hard hymn that I really can't play, and that'll
definitely be an adventure.
As always, I just want you all to know that I KNOW the Lord
lives. He loves all of us so much. I love sharing with my investigators 3 Nephi
27:21, where Christ invites people, "that which ye have seen me do, that
shall ye also do." All Christ ever did while He was on the earth was serve
people. He did good to them. He loved them. It's important for us to also
strive to follow Christ's example as the Good Shepherd. We need to serve
people. We need to love them and do good to them. We need to do everything we
can to bring people unto the Savior because he is REAL. He always has been and
always will be. It's the truth, and that will never change. I know it.
I really appreciate all of the love and support even when
I'm so far away. You all are amazing. Thanks so much for everything! I love
hearing from you each week.
With love,
Elder Daniel Buchanan
P.S. I had some great pictures to share this week, but this
internet cafe always has trouble registering my camera, sadly :( Hopefully next
week we'll be able to go to the one closer to our apartment that actually
works. I wish I could send pictures more frequently!
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