Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net> Jul 4 at 11:28 AM
To
Hello, all!
This week was a ridiculously awesome week. We had lots of
good and interesting things happen:
-There's this one girl we often see running around Asutsuare
who has autism. It's always an interesting encounter whenever we see her. This
week we had a few encounters, haha. For one of them, we were riding our bikes
when we saw an investigator and we stopped to talk to her. While we were
talking to the investigator, this girl comes up to us, grabs Elder Tolzmann's
planner from his shirt pocket, and starts to just walk away with it. This
investigator we were talking to starts just yelling at this girl in Dangbe, so
I didn't know exactly what was being said, but I knew she was trying to get my
companion's planner back, haha. This girl steps over the gutter and picks up a
stick as if she were in danger and needed to defend herself. Then she put in
down and started walking away more. At this point, I turn and realize that like
the entire town was watching what was going on (two white guys and a girl with
autism that everyone recognized and some kind of uproar; you can imagine why it
got everyone's attention, haha). The investigator then picks up a decent sized
rock as if she's going to throw it at this girl (I don't think she intended to,
but threats are a common way of disciplining people here), and finally
retrieves our planner for us and the girl walks away. So that was definitely
interesting.
-Tuesday was district council, so the district was all
together at the Akuse apartment. When we were done, the other elders noticed
that there was a bat just hanging out in the top of their kitchen. They grab a
broom and are about to swat it to try to get it out of the apartment, so I step
outside so I don't end up with a bat attacking me or something. I hear a little
shuffling from inside and I ask, "Where is it?" Elder Tolzmann
replies, "Right here." I step forward so I can see inside the
apartment, and I realize Elder Tolzmann has it sitting on a piece of cardboard
or something AND HE THROWS IT AT ME. Luckily because I'm so agile and I'm such
a ninja, I was able to dodge it, haha. He says he knew it wouldn't attack me or
anything since it was a fruit bat, but still xD Eventually it just flew away
and no harm was done. But I decided to get him back for that little stunt. One
evening after proselyting, he was taking a shower. So here, the power is very
unstable, and we also have an electric water pump, so whenever the power goes
out, water doesn't flow into our apartment. So while he was taking a shower, I
shut off the lights in the bathroom and then I ran into the other room and
turned off the water pump, so he totally thought the power was out. After about
two minutes I turn the lights back on and turn the pump on again, but he had
already gotten out and had dried off and didn't care to get back in and finish
showering. When I finally told him the next day, he was like, "Wow, that
was actually good, I'll give you that one, nice." So that was like the
most devious thing I've ever done xD
-As always, I have to include a little mention of good food,
haha! When Elder Tolzmann first came to Asutsuare, I told him I'd make sure that
he'd enjoy his time here. So yesterday, I made him probably the best chocolate
oreo milkshakes I've made since coming here and I reminded him that I said I'd
make sure he'd enjoy and he said, "You're a man of your word." My
family knows how much practice I've had making milkshakes, so that's a skill
that's definitely come in handy here :D
-So this weekend was pretty intense. Saturday we had a
funeral for a member of the branch who recently passed away. I was invited by
the branch president to play keyboard. Now, if you've spent any time in Ghana,
you know that funerals are a BIG deal here. You'll have people who aren't even
related to the deceased show up because they like funerals and they're pretty
much parties. So there were lots of people there and big speakers set up. I was
all set to play, but the sound guy was being super unhelpful and wouldn't help
us hook up the keyboard to have good sound, so I ended up not even playing at
all, so we sat there on a particularly hot day and just sweated for a few hours.
Afterwards, the church started handing out Plan of Salvation pamphlets and had
us help, so we had about 75 contacts that day! Then the most exciting part was
the next day, Sunday. That was the craziest church experience I've ever had. So
we get to church and everything starts out like normal. In the middle of
Sacrament Meeting, like 5 people walk in with red and black clothes and I
remembered that in Ghana, when there's a funeral, people will go to the
deceased's church the next day. Then, for the next 45 minutes, people just
continued to trickle in and they just kept coming! I asked President Heid if we
count them as "Investigators who attend sacrament meeting," and he
said yes! So we had 62 investigators at church yesterday! That was pretty dang
awesome... but only for about one hour. During Sunday school, the teacher was
talking about ordinances/baptism. At one point, one of the visitors stands up
and basically tells everyone his own personal view and essentially says that
the teacher is wrong. Someone else stood up and gave his thoughts and then
several people stood up and started talking and before I knew it, people had
begun to raise their voices and argue and I was getting really nervous that we
were going to have some massive uproar. Everyone in Ghana is very religious,
and many of them are quite passionate about it, so I was quite worried. I just
covered my face and said a prayer to myself that the Lord would silence the
commotion and that the leaders of the church would be able to take control of
the situation and invite the Spirit back into the meeting. Within about a
minute, Pres. Abotsi, the branch president, a pretty large man, got up and just
started talking over all the arguing. He said something to the effect of,
"We're not teaching our own ideas and philosophies, we back what we teach
with the scriptures. If you have disagreements, set that aside for now, and
let's reason together. Remember, this is the House of the Lord we are in."
He then changed the topic to Choosing Not to Be Offended. He started teaching
and within a few minutes, the people were happy and liked what he was sharing
again, and it was once again a peaceful atmosphere! This was just one more
experience that showed to me that the Lord truly does hear and answer prayers. Then,
right when we normally say a closing prayer to end church, a bunch of people
start standing up and walking to the front. All the women who visited all went
to the front and started dancing/chanting/singing, I assume as a cultural thing
succeeding funerals. It was pretty cool, I must admit, but a little weird to me
right in the middle of church, haha. But it was a crazy Sunday, but it was
really good, too!
I love this gospel. I say it every week, but it's true! I
couldn't be more happy to be here sharing what I know to be true with the
people of Ghana. I love these people and I love the Savior, Jesus Christ, who I
am serving. I know He lives and I know He loves each of us. He knows us
personally and individually and He knows how to look after us. Christ has
taught us so many times that if we have faith in Him and we ask, He will bless
us with our righteous desires because He's always right there attending to our
needs. I'm so thankful for a loving Father in Heaven and for His Son.
I love you all so much! You're the best. I thank all of you
for the love and support you always give me. I pray for you all daily and I
hope all is well with each of you and I hope to hear from all of you again
soon!!
With love,
Elder Buchanan
 |
There were some kids playing on a makeshift hurdle, so I went over and jumped a few hurdles with them, and I used the opportunity to get a picture with them.
|
 |
| Elder Tolzmann excited about pizza! |
 |
| The Volta River |
 |
| The Volta River |
No comments:
Post a Comment