Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>
03/15/16 at 1:17 PM
Hello, all!
This has been a pretty intense week! This work is so tiring,
yet so incredible! So some exciting things have happened this week.
-I finally made bo-floats this week! They mostly turned out
well, but they got a little burned, haha. I'll perfect them before I get home,
though :D
-Last Tuesday I played piano in a Zone Conference! I played
the hymns, but I was also asked to play a special musical number! I didn't know
what to play, so I asked the zone leader. I told him a few I could play cool
arrangements for and he picked If You Could Hie to Kolob, so I played my own
arrangement of that for the Zone Conference! It's always quite fun getting to
play.
-Yesterday was by far the most exciting day of the week, and
probably the most exciting day of my mission! I actually took six pages to
write about it in my journal, my longest journal entry so far! So I won't
recall every detail, but I'll include the most important things. There's two
main reasons why yesterday was so fantastic. I'll mention the more exciting
part second, haha.
So we had a meeting in Accra and after the meeting, I
zealously seized the opportunity to finally go to the Accra Mall!! Holy flip, I
had to restrain my excitement. I felt like I was back in America! It looked
like a typical American mall, and there were a bunch of white people there,
too! It was so weird... But as soon as we got inside, we made a beeline for the
food court. I thought, "So this is what Heaven is like!" Haha just
kidding, but I was so dang excited. I'm sure none of you will be surprised to
know that the first stop was The Pizza Inn. I bought a large meat deluxe pizza
for 36 cedis. We both had half that pizza, which was actually really good! As
soon as that had been consumed, I went and bought myself a cheeseburger meal
for 30 cedis which came with french fries and a soda. It was definitely up to
American standard for a cheeseburger and fries. Then, we couldn't leave without
getting ice cream, so I bought Elder Udonsa and myself some ice cream. I bought
an "Oreo Spinna" for 8 cedis. So in total, I spent 82 cedis just on
food yesterday... I had never been so excited for pizza, a cheeseburger and
fries, and ice cream. It was so worth the 82 cedis. Luckily, that converts to
roughly $20, which is about normal back home for what I got, so I had
absolutely no regrets. :D
So the first part of the day was the most exciting. We had a
combined meeting with the city zone missionaries in the Accra Mission and the
missionaries in the Accra West Mission. It was a big conference in which Elder
Rasband came and spoke to us! It was such an incredible experience. We
frequently meet apostles here (or people who claim to be apostles), but I had
such a powerful sense that this really was an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're constantly teaching people that one of the reasons for the authenticity
of our church is that the same organization exists in the church today as in
the time of Christ, which includes apostles called to help lead and guide the
church closer to the Savior. When I was young, I viewed them more as
celebrities, I suppose. Everyone would always want to just shake the hand of an
apostle, but now, I had a much more real sense that Elder Rasband isn't a
celebrity—he's a special witness of Jesus Christ. He really is. There's no
doubt about it. I could feel his testimony so powerfully. I learned so much
from him, but my favorite part was this: He gave us an apostolic promise that
as we learn more and more about the Savior, we'll come to love Him more deeply,
and when we do, we'll have much more happiness in this life and our desire to
serve Him and be obedient will deepen and increase. That's something that I
suppose I had subconsciously noticed, but Elder Rasband helped to bring that
realization to light in my mind. It really is true. As I've studied the life of
the Savior, I've felt so much more joy in my life. I've had a greater desire to
serve Him and to submit myself to His will and to do what He would have me do.
I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to hear and learn from him.
As always, I want you all to know that I know the Savior,
Jesus Christ, lives. He loves each and every one of us so much more than we can
ever comprehend in this life. He's always there right by our side ready to lift
us when we're down. All He asks is for us to reach up to Him, and He'll immediately
reach out for us. I know this is true with all of my heart.
I love you all so, so much. As always, you're the best
family anyone could ever ask for. I absolutely love hearing from each of you. I
miss you all and I hope everything is going really well for all of you!!
Love,
Elder Daniel Buchanan
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| So here's the Accra Mall |
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| I was so excited about my burger I started eating it before I got a picture! This was fantastic. |
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| And just a cool picture of my companion in the food court :D |
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| Here's the cold food display. There were donuts and cheesecake!! I had a debate in my mind whether to get those, too, or not. I decided against it. I'll get them the next time I'm in Accra :D |
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| And last but not least, the "Oreo Spinna." Ah, good times :D |
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| Here's the large meat deluxe pizza :D |
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