Letter and Photos from May 30, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>  May 30 at 2:13 PM

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Hi everyone!!

Quite a lot has happened this week. It's been an awesome and busy week!!

-We had a cool service opportunity this week, which, here, is practically a miracle! We passed by a member's home and she mentioned she was about to go to the farm, so we offered to go with her. Normally, this is where people shut us down, but she said, "Let's go!" So we followed her to her cornfield/maize farm and helped to plant several rows of corn! Of course, some of the other workers there thought it was just about the funniest thing ever seeing a white man plant corn as if that's something that's never ever happened, but yanno, I was grateful for the opportunity to offer service to someone. :)

-While close around the farm, we taught one of our well-progressing investigators, and a member brought us a referral who joined the lesson as well! She came to church this week, which was awesome! But at the end of the lesson, she hands us a bag with a big bottle of something. I see it's a water bottle, but it has a white liquid inside. All I say is, "...is this milk?" "Yes." "Cow milk??" "Yes!" "Elder Kwofie, you aren't getting any of this!" Haha, but when we got home, it wasn't nearly as appealing as I was expecting. It's not the processed milk I'm used to, so basically Elder Kwofie in reality ended up using the entire thing, haha! \

-So this was an awesome week in regards to food :D My mom sent me a microwave recipe for apple crisp which was absolutely delightful. I bought some vanilla ice cream and put it on top and it was just about the best thing I've eaten in the past eight months. Also, I decided to be a serious fatty and I bought the biggest tub of chocolate ice cream available, which is a 5 liter container. I bought that Saturday. It's now Monday, and only half the container is left. And to top it all of, today we took a 30-minute journey to buy some pizza before coming to the cafe. It was glorious. :D

-So the work is actually going really well. Yesterday we had eight investigators come to church!! That's more than I've ever had before! And to make it even more awesome: One of them is a woman who had come to visit a while ago, but hasn't been to church for some time. She came yesterday, and immediately after Sacrament Meeting, like six women like swarmed her and smothered her with hugs and love. Those members were awesome. Then, I was assigned to teach Sunday School. I wasn't told the topic until literally right before class started. I taught about service, and I must say, considering I was teaching on the fly, I feel I did quite well :D Haha, but I know I was guided by the Holy Spirit, and I feel the class was enlightened by the Holy Spirit as well.

-As always, I just want you all to know how much I love the gospel and the Savior Jesus Christ. I want you all to know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. Sometimes we think that Jesus just died for us a long time ago and because of it when we stand before God to be judged, we can be forgiven of our sins. But it's so, so much more than that. The Atonement has real power, and it is ever-present every single day of our lives. It has power to change people. I've seen it, especially in my own life. I've seen how the gospel and the Atonement have changed me, and I know it can change every one of us into something better. It change us into what God knows we need to me. It's all possible because of our Heavenly Father's and Jesus Christ's eternal, infinite love for us. I love them, and I know They love each and every one of us, and I'm grateful I have the opportunity to share that knowledge with the people around me!

I just want to thank you all for your continued love and support. You have no idea how much it really means to me. I love and miss you all! I pray for you all daily and I hope life is treating you well. I hope to hear from you all soon!

With love,

Elder Buchanan

It's hard to tell, but in this first picture are the most massive coconuts I've ever seen in my life. Like, they're about as big as my proselyting bag, and everyone I've ever met points out how big my bag is, haha!

 I took a selfie with my companion on a rice field when someone let us help chase away the birds! I was proud of this selfie because of the nice view in the back, haha!

 I discovered that here, people use slingshots to scare birds away on rice farms! So I got to use one for a bit. It was fun. :D

Then, of course, I had to include the picture of me enjoying 5 liters of chocolate ice cream!

Letter and Photos from May 23, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>  May 23 at 2:11 PM

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kelvincbuchanan@yahoo.com

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Hey, everyone!!

So this week has been a little slow. Here's a few things that have happened, though!

-So I discovered that there's a shop right across from our apartment that sells ice cream!! So I bought a big tub of chocolate ice cream, took some of the oreos my mom sent me a bit ago, and I made a chocolate milkshake for me and my companion. It was quite exciting. I was going to take a picture, but I think I got too excited and I forgot, haha. Is it bad that many of my notable experiences from the week involve food? Haha

-This week I broke up a fight. We were at a member's shop and we bought some sodas and were about to sit down for a lesson when I heard some commotion behind me. I turn and see two boys (probably both around 10 years old) hanging onto each other and one is punching the other in the face. They're weren't big kids at all, so I just literally step in between them, pick one of them up and carry him a bit away while someone else pulls away the other kid. I set this kid down and go back to the seat where we were about to have a lesson and just go on with life, haha. So that was something kind of interesting that happened. I like to think maybe I saved some kid's life ;)

-This isn't a specific experience, but right now we have three investigators that I believe will be baptized very soon. They all have expressed a real desire to be baptized. One of them lives about a 40-minute drive from the church (in Ghana, that's quite significant), and she's been coming every single week. The first time we even met her was at church! So we've been teaching her as often as money and time permits us to travel there, and she's doing so well. The other two are children, yet they're doing well also. They love the gospel and they're learning and all three obviously have a strong desire. I'm so excited they've come to see the blessings that come from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I hope you all know how much I truly love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have seen so many blessings in my own life that come from following the Savior. I've come to realize how depressing it is to live thinking that there's nothing beyond death, but many people do live that way! I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to share the glorious news that our loving Father in Heaven has a divine plan for each and every one of us to be eternally happy. We will live again, and through the gospel, we can be with our families and with our Heavenly Father forever! It's all because of the Savior, Jesus Christ. He came here so that we can have hope for a bright tomorrow. He came here so that we can have peace in this life and joy and happiness in the life to come. I know this is true more than I know anything else.

I love you all so much! Thank you for all the love and support you always give me; you have no idea how much it means to me. You're the best!

With love,

Elder Buchanan :D

A selfie

Zone Conference - the Kpong Zone

Letter and Photos from May 16, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>  May 16 at 10:27 AM

To       

Hello all!

This week has been pretty good. Not super eventful, but I had some cool experiences.

-So last Monday after emailing, we found a beautiful pizza place and we went there and it was delightful finally getting to have pizza again :D But then this week someone showed us a new internet cafe that's literally a 3-minute bike ride from our apartment which is way better than the one we'd drive for 2 hours to get to... so now the dilemma is if I want a nice internet cafe or if I want pizza... the consensus between me and my companion is that we want a nice internet cafe. Those of you who know how much I love pizza will understand how big a deal that actually is, but then you'll also know how much I love all of you, so having a nice, reliable computer is more important to me because you're all more important to me than pizza, so yeah :)

-Also, last week, it was time for me to cut my hair again. So I get everything all set up and I cut my hair and get it looking nice and spiffy, then after I take a shower I look at the mirror and realize I had caused a minor disaster without realizing it... I have absolutely no idea how or when or where or why it happened, but when I looked in the mirror I realized I had somehow accidentally trimmed part of my eyebrow... It was like a V cut into my left eyebrow! So I had to trim it just a little bit more to make it less conspicuous... it's not so disastrous anymore, but yeah, that was fun.

-I got to play piano in zone conference again! I played the hymns like normal, but then I was also asked to play a special musical number, so I played my own arrangement of Come Thou Fount since the people in this zone hadn't heard it before, so I took the opportunity to play it for them. It went really well, but afterwards I got to play a little more and I could tell I'm losing the muscle memory I had for some of my favorite songs! It was a little depressing. I can tell the Lord has helped me to increase in my piano skills, particularly sight-reading, but I'm forgetting some of the songs I loved to play since I rarely have the opportunity to play them. But it was fun getting to play again. I love playing piano and I love music!

-There was a really cool experience I had this week. There was one day we went out proselyting and when we left the apartment in the morning, it was nice and hot and sunny. We got to one appointment where we sit outside but under an overhang. While we were teaching, somehow the skies opened up and poured all the rain in the sky down upon us. In the space of about an hour or two, dark clouds had rolled up and it started pouring like crazy which was accompanied by lightning and thunder and mini rivers were forming down the road. We couldn't sit in this investigator's home all day and wait for the rain to stop, but I wasn't too thrilled about going out in a rain/lightning storm with rivers forming in front of us, either, but I also knew that we had to keep going in the service of the Lord and we couldn't let rain stop us. So I said a prayer to myself that the rain would stop so that we could keep working. Within 30 seconds, the storm subsided to a drizzle, and about a minute after that, the rain completely ceased. We were able to go and safely travel and it didn't rain again the whole day. That was a really cool miracle for me, and it just reaffirmed to me that the Lord really does hear and answer prayers. It's true for every one of us. Not all prayers are answered so quickly, but He always hears and He always answers our prayers in the way that's best for us.

I hope all is well with all of you and I can't wait to hear from you again!!

With love,

Elder Buchanan

We were out contacting new people one day and we decided to go down a road we hadn't been down before. We soon saw that it was a steep uphill slope, so we dismounted the bikes and walked up this hill looking for houses amongst the trees and when we got to the top, there was a fantastic view! We were way higher up than we originally thought and we could see all around us! The picture doesn't quite do it justice, but it was quite nice. Don't mind my "helmet hair," haha!

This one is, of course, the pizza we got last week! You can notice my slightly deformed eyebrow in this picture, so don't make too much fun of me, the pizza is the important part of the picture xD

Letter and Photos from May 9, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>  May 9 at 9:47 AM

To       

Hello, everyone!

This week has been great. It hasn't been too crazy eventful, though.

-Something I thought was really funny: So there's always the joke of missionaries having like a plastic bag in their pockets whenever they go have dinner with anyone just in case it's food they hate, then they can hide it in their pockets. I've been tempted to do that several times, but I haven't done it quite yet, but my companion on the other hand... so my companion is actually Ghanaian, and a family invited us to visit them and they fed us banku. So we sit down and start eating, and even my companion leans over to me and says, "Man, I'm tired of banku." I was also excited because I was thinking I was finally going to finish my banku before a Ghanaian, but then he wraps us his banku in the wrapper and then puts it into another plastic bag and hides it in his scripture case!! Haha, I thought I didn't like banku... so I found that quite humorous.

-The work has been progressing really well lately. So one of my goals this week was to work on contacting more people, and I think the Lord helped me a lot with that goal! Recently, we've normally had about 4-5 new investigators in a week, but this week we had 11! It's so wonderful to see the hand of the Lord in the work every day.

-The highlight of this week was Mother's Day! I got to call my family and it was so much fun getting to talk to them. It's been such a long time since I've heard their voice, and it was great hearing from them again. We get to call home on Mother's Day and Christmas... before my mission, I just kind of thought Mother's Day was about in the middle of the year and Christmas was at the end, about six months-six months... that's not the case. It's closer to 4 months-8 months... xD so it'll be a long stretch before I get to hear their voices again, but as I've already come to see, missionary work flies by when you lose yourself in the service of the Lord.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here to share the gospel with everyone around me. The gospel has brought me indescribable joy, and I want everyone around me to feel the same joy and happiness that comes from following the Savior, Jesus Christ. I know He lives and that He loves each and every one of us. I think I say that ever week, but every week I just come to know that fact more and more. It's absolutely true.

As always, thank you so much for the continued love and support you always give me.

With love,

Elder Buchanan

Inside my apartment

In front of our apartment

The kitchen in our apartment

Study area in our apartment

No Mom, this is not my apartment.

Letter from May 2, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>  May 2 at 9:28 AM

To       

Hi, all!!

This week hasn't been to incredibly eventful, but it's been a good week.

-It's so sad to see people who once knew the gospel to be true fall away. We've been working with a less active member, and I've even heard her say to me that she knows the church is true, but she's stopped coming to church and started attending a different one. I don't know how I could have more boldly, lovingly, and clearly borne my knowledge of the truth to her, but it seems like it went in one ear and out the other. I love this gospel, and I want others to enjoy the blessings that come from it as well, and it's sad to think that she once enjoyed these blessings but has let go of them. We're prayerfully working to strengthen her, though.

-So, just an update on the whole thing that's been going on. It has a happy ending, I promise. :) So when I got here to Asutsuare, I discovered that there was a tradition of the District President having the missionaries over to feed them every single Sunday. It's nice of them, but the only problem is is that it's far away, we spend three hours there, and it wasted tons of proselyting time and money, too. I would try my hardest to make the best of the situation or to get out of it or anything in between, but I wasn't ever able to. So finally I turned to my mission president and informed him of what was going on and asked for advice. I want to serve the Lord with everything I have, and this entire situation has been hindering that. So I had been praying very fervently that the Lord would help me out in this situation. President Heid sent out a text message to the zone leaders and the district leaders reminding people about what "inappropriate behavior" is, and my district leader pretty much knew that I mentioned the whole deal to president. I had brought it up to my companion and the whole district and apparently I was pretty much the only one who felt like it was hindering the work and wanted to resolve the problem. I think the district leader just got tired of dealing with me, so he "banned" the Asutsuare elders from going there. That almost sounds harsh, but I was so glad when he said that, because I could finally relax on Sundays and focus on the work. I could see that even through this difficult situation, the Lord is mindful of me and blessed me with my desire to serve Him. Yesterday, the first day we were "banned" we had a member refer us to four new people to teach!! So I've learned that the Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways, and that He's ever mindful of each of us.

I know He lives and He loves us. I know it. I'm so grateful for the gospel and all the blessings that come because of it. I've seen the blessings of the gospel in my own life, in my family, and in the lives of those around me. It all comes from following the Savior Jesus Christ in everything we do.

Thank you all so much for all your love and support. You have no idea how much it means to me. I hope all is going well for all of you. I hope to hear from all of you soon!

With love,

Elder Buchanan