Letter and Photo from March 13, 2017

Daniel Buchanan <daniel.buchanan@myldsmail.net> March 13, 2017 at 10:44 AM

Hi all!!

This week has been pretty cool.

-We had an investigator that we were going to see this week, but unfortunately that appointment fell through. At the same place is a little girl I've gotten to be buddies with, and I was able to teach her to ride a bike. She actually learned really quickly! I rewarded her progress with a Fan Yogo, just a little treat for doing so well. That was pretty cool.

-I've also realized that my sight-reading piano abilities have significantly increased since the beginning of my mission. I can mostly just sit down and play a hymn I've never even heard of before. I also have some sheet music that I wanted to learn a few years ago, but it was pretty challenging, so I gave up on it, but it doesn't seem very difficult to me anymore, so I'm way excited about that. One thing I came to learn very early on my mission is that God helps you with your talents when you use your talents to help others.

-The work here in Tema is much slower. Tema is a very industrious place, so there are lots more jobs and more work, so people are very busy, therefore it's harder to find people to teach. There was one day where things were going slowly, lots of appointments falling through, not finding new people, and we went to visit one member at her shop, and she was there with her three daughters. It was my first time meeting her, so I introduced myself and we chatted for a while, and we started the lesson with a question from one of her girls and she asked, "Why is it important to worship?" So we talked about that for a while and when we finished with that question, the girl got up and went elsewhere, and my companion started talking to someone else nearby, and so I continued talking to this woman, and she told me she had some problem in her life and she had been praying for something to help her for a long time and felt like God wasn't hearing and answering her prayers, so she was going to join some other church in their all-night praying (a.k.a. lots of making noise and dancing around yelling and calling it prayers). So I explained what Christ taught in Matthew that God doesn't tell us to pray for the whole world to hear because He can hear us in secret, He knows our innermost thoughts, and through faith our individual prayers can and will be answered if we continue to be patient and faithful. Later as we were going, she said that she had prayed to know if it was the right thing to go to the all-night prayer, and she felt like God had sent us in response to her prayer, and she concluded that God has a master plan that we can't see. I told her that I couldn't have said it better myself. God sees everything. He knows all. Sometimes the response to our requests is delayed because He knows how to help us the best, He knows what is best for us when sometimes we do not. I know that our Heavenly Father does indeed hear and answer every prayer. He is never too far from us, and we are never too far from Him for Him to hear us when we cry out to Him.

Thanks for everything, you all are amazing and I love you all! I hope you're doing well and that I hear from you again soon!!

 

With love,

Elder Buchanan

Sorry, I only have one picture this week. It's a selfie of the elders in the apartment! Me and my companion Elder Murige, and Elder Gillam and his trainee Elder Bidi! Elder Bidi is a French speaker and he's learning English so dang quickly.