Letter and Photos from November 28, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>11/28/16 at 1:00 PM

Hi, all!!

This week has been a great week! Some fun experiences as well as some really cool ones.

-Our Thanksgiving dinner plans were kind of crushed when we were called into the mission home Thursday and we had to spend the night there... but don't worry, we're going to have our Thanksgiving dinner this evening. We're going to enjoy some nice grilled chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cheesecake, so definitely looking forward to that.

-There's a place right next door to our apartment that has two pool tables, and we finally got the chance to go. It was definitely fun, although sometimes that table defies the laws of physics... we got to play as a district and I won one of the two games I played, so I'm only 50-50 right now, hopefully I'll be able to get that up soon. I'll include a picture. It also features me wearing a cool new African shirt I had made here, so I'll attach a picture of that as well.

-We got to go to the mission home on Thursday, as I mentioned, and we got to go to the temple as well! I'll attach another picture in another email. It's always a wonderful experience going to the temple. That is definitely one of my favorite places. Then we slept in the mission home, and in the room in which the elders were going to stay had a broken AC unit... I was sweating in there until the office elder texted me specifically and said if it got too bad in there, we could move a mat into the office and turn the AC, so my companion and I promptly stood up, took mats into the mission office, turned the AC on full blast and passed out. Then, just my luck, power went out in the night... but thankfully the mission home has a generator which was turned on a bit later and we continued our restful night sleep. We got up early and played some basketball in the morning which was fun. I scored a few times, so my brother would be pretty proud of me.

-The coolest experience of the week was yesterday. We don't know all the details, but our bishop's landlord kicked his family out of their house, so they didn't have anywhere to stay. They moved their things into the church temporarily and they found a new place (which isn't even completed, though that's common for Ghana) to move into. So after church yesterday, there were so many people who stayed and helped the bishop pack up all of his things into a van, make one trip to his new place, and then drive back for another load. Those people were so kind and generous to take extra time out of their Sunday on top of three hours of worship to help a family in need. Sometimes the generosity of these people blows my mind. I wish more of us would be willing to reach out and spontaneously help others in a similar manner. It's experiences like these that remind me that there are genuinely good people out there. That's what the gospel does for us. It changes us into better people. The Lord knows how to help us, and He's eager and ready to do so, so we should be willing to do the same for those around us. The Savior just asks us to become more like Him and reach out to Him so we truly can see His hand in our lives. It's not always easy, but in reality, following Him makes it easier than the alternative of rejecting Him. I'm so grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ and the change He has had in my life.

I love all of you so much. I hope you're all doing great and I hope to hear from you all again soon! Thanks so much for everything.

With love,

Elder Buchanan

My new suit

A game of pool

Me modeling the cool new African shirt I got.

A picture Hanberg took that I thought I looked super studly in!

We had a fun time with a recent convert, and I couldn't pass up this particular photo opportunity... :D

Letter and Photos from November 21, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>11/21/16 at 12:19 PM

Hi, everyone!

This week has been pretty great. Definitely some cool experiences.

-I just hit a new milestone this week. I finally finished a whole ball of fufu on my own. Twice. Still not enjoyable, but becoming more bearable, haha. One of them was also "neat" fufu, which is basically fufu in powdered form, and then you add water and boil it and it becomes fufu, so I definitely will be bringing some of that home to make for my family, so prepare yourselves, haha!

Also, today we played some basketball with some other elders in the zone which was way fun, and then we went and got some pizza afterwards. This was actually some pretty dang big pizza. They had 16" pizza, and I got the "Full House" which is basically a supreme pizza and it was quite delightful. Definitely always an enjoyable experience getting to enjoy some nice pizza.

-There was one day when I fell asleep and I had a dream that I was packing up and going home from my mission the next day. I saw my mission president and I asked him, "Am I really going home tomorrow?" And I couldn't get the question out without breaking down. I was so depressed that I woke up and I was actually on the verge of tears when I woke up. I can't express how much I've come to love these people. I am not looking forward to the day I'll have to leave these people despite my excitement to see my friends and family from home again. These are wonderful people, and I truly have come to see that love grows through serving those around you.

-Yesterday there was an All-Africa broadcast and so our stake all met together to watch it, and it was a glorious site. We got to the stake center and the chapel was filled and the overflow was overflowing into the foyers! There were so many people and it was beautiful to see so many people faithfully gathering there. My companion and I did what we could to make sure all of the members were able to find seats and we sat outside in one of the foyers with one other member, so we couldn't actually see it, but we heard the broadcast, and it was really amazing.

-One thing I've really come to recognize recently is how within our grasp Eternal Life really is. Some people view it as some ridiculously high bar that's nigh unto impossible to reach, but the gospel isn't designed that way. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much and wants us to return to live with Him, so He has made it absolutely possible. If we love God and want to follow Him, He will help us and we will be able to see His hand in our lives and feel His love continuously each day. I'm so grateful for that fact and I'm grateful that I have the time to spend here helping others to come to the same realization for themselves.

I love all of you so much. You are all amazing. It's great hearing from you and, as always, I hope to hear from all of you again soon!!

With love,

Elder Buchanan

My companion and I both like climbing trees, so we couldn't pass up the selfie opportunity...

Pizza from today. Truly a glorious site, isn't it?

There's a recent convert here who's a young woman who goes with us to teach lessons and she's already referred us to a few people to teach.

Letter and Photos from November 14, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>11/14/16 at 10:29 AM

Hey all!!

This was a pretty awesome week. Nothing too crazy, but definitely good.

-I tried making breakfast tacos this week for breakfast. Not sure if I think it was a good idea or not yet. It was really time-consuming and the tortillas only ended up being pretty mediocre. I made a mess of the kitchen and the tortillas were super heavy, so I had like two tacos and I was stuffed. But earlier this week I actually found some honey BBQ sauce and that made a mediocre breakfast taco pretty dang delicious. Also, our bishop fed us yesterday. He gave us a heaping plate of jollof rice and some nice fried coconut cookie-type things called polo. They were pretty enjoyable.

-This week we went on an exchange and I went to the other area in our district called Haatso. That was fun. I went with Elder Ebinum and they have one investigator, and she is like the smartest, coolest investigator I've ever met. This is my second time meeting her. I was there for her first lesson and we taught her about the Restoration and about Joseph Smith. That was about two weeks ago. From then until now, it has been awesome to see how much she has grown in the gospel and in the church. It's cool how open she is with the missionaries. She told us about some of the crazy rumors she's heard. When I first got there, she was pretty skeptical of the Book of Mormon because people had been telling her it's an evil book, but by the end of the lesson, she said one time she was reading and she forgot that she was actually reading in the Book of Mormon and thought it was the Bible! So that was a cool experience.

-We had a baptism yesterday! That was really cool. Her name is Natalie. She doesn't really speak English. She speaks French and Ewe (Ewe is one Ghanaian language that I really don't understand, so I can't even speak to her in broken Ewe, so we need a translator, haha). One of the members baptized her, and it was pretty interesting. On his right hand, he doesn't have any fingers aside from his thumb, so I'm pretty sure that gave him a little trouble. He had to try three times before he finally got her all the way under. Regardless, she was able to be baptized and I could see how happy she was afterwards. As I always say, I love how much happiness the gospel brings. I'm also grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who loves us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for all of our mistakes. Because of Him, we can be lifted from any hole we fall into. Any despair we feel can be healed because of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

I love all of you so much. Thanks for all the love and support. You all are amazing. I hope you're doing well and that I hear from you again soon!!

With love,

Elder Buchanan

The baptism yesterday

Me being a fatty. I got donuts from a nearby grocery store called Shop n' Save, and it was quite enjoyable.

Letter and Photos from November 7, 2016

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net>11/07/16 at 11:28 AM

Hi, everyone!

This week was good. We had some interesting things happen.

-Oh man, food. I'll have to admit that I've definitely regained some of the pounds I lost before I came. So the beginning of this week, I decided to start eating a little better. When I make a resolution, typically I'm pretty good at keeping it... unless members feed you... every single day. As soon as I made the decision to work on losing weight, then everyone decides to feed us. Just so you all know, just one ball of banku is roughly 1400 calories... so that's kind of detrimental to any weight loss goal of mine. Yesterday I thought I was about to die. Here in Ghana it's kind of a big deal to finish the food presented to you. First we saw someone who gave us jollof (I enjoy jollof, it's basically rice mixed with some tomato stew type stuff) and fried plantains. That was nice. We had a whole plate filled. THEN, we went to our bishop's home, and he gave us a plate of some fruit bread type thing (it was like banana bread, but I could taste something else in there as well, so I'm not quite sure what it was), and a soda, so that was nice. I was perfectly satisfied there. But lo and behold, he comes out with plates for both of us heaping with fried plantain, fried yams, fish, and vegetable stew. It was very good, but man, I was physically incapable of finishing. My companion, too. We were both about to explode. Luckily, our bishop is an amazing man and he totally understood (he served his mission in Ghana, so I'm pretty sure he knows how we felt, haha), so he packed it up for us and gave it to us to take home. I went home, collapsed on my bed, and passed out at like 8 and was out.

-It's been fun working with Elder Hanberg. So a few days ago we were out proselyting and we were riding our bikes and the rain decides to come down in buckets. So think about it. We're on bikes riding on red dirt roads and the rain comes pouring down. You can imagine what would happen to our shirts. Let's just say We were no longer proselyting in plain white shirts, we decided to proselyte in polka-dotted clothing. It was quite humorous. I'll be sure to include a picture.

-I was emailing a friend today and we just were talking about college classes, work, religion, etc. It helped me to see the value of goals. Sometimes it's hard working in college classes because they're tiring, you just want to sleep, you don't want to do homework; or it's hard dieting because you enjoy food (especially if you're like me) and it's not always easy going to the gym or going running or whatever it is. Sometimes it's hard in the moment, but if you have a goal you're working towards, it makes all the hard experiences worth it. That's exactly how it is with the gospel. It's not necessarily easy following the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it will absolutely be worth it in the end. Keep the end goal in mind. When dieting, think about how awesome you'll look when you're 30lbs lighter, or when taking hard college classes, think about how it'll lead you to your dream job. But there's just one difference between those and the gospel: the gospel doesn't have to be something super sucky right now and our reward is some distant intangible impossibility. The gospel is designed to bless our lives right now. It's designed to make us happy and to bless us right now. Our Father in Heaven, who loves us so much, does not want us to be miserable for all of this life. He wants us to be happy, so that is exactly why He has given us the gospel. This gospel will make us happy in this life, but the eternal reward is also right within our grasp. I've come to see it's always important to keep the end goal in mind.

I love all of you so much. I love hearing from you, and I hope life is treating all of you really well. I appreciate all that all of you do for me. I hope to hear from all of you again soon!!

With love,

Elder Buchanan

Here's a picture of a cool place in our area. Elder Hanberg said he had seen other churches do baptisms here.

I got my clothes fitted and I got some new shades. I'm a little heavier than when I came but I think I'm looking pretty studly regardless...;)

Here's the picture of our new "polka-dotted" shirts. Nice, right?