Two Years in Ghana: 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