Monday was Elder Cooley's month mark. During this week I also realized that August is approaching fast with just over six months until I return home.
Tuesday we met with our investigator, Trigot, and his family who are members of the church. He won't be able to be baptized this month, but we are working for it though. One issue is that the family isn't a unified family. For example, when Trigot was telling us something, members of the family were speaking the local dialect. Now I don't know what was said, but I do know it was about Trigot not telling the truth and showed some family disunity. We had to address this issue telling them it wasn't helping Trigot becoming baptized and that the family had to read the scriptures together every morning if they wanted peace in the house. Watching the family I spent time thinking that I don't want such dysfunction and an unhappy marriage. We also met a man who came to the church named Michael. He has a relative who is a member and after Sunday he decided that his whole family will join the church. He didn't come to church this past Sunday due to traveling out of the country, but we are working for him to come next week.
Wednesday (as well as Sunday) Ghana had a national football match in the tournament with the other national African teams. Ghana won both matches and around the time when they play everyone is watching leaving us to come up with ideas for proselyting The culture with football here is crazy.
Thursday we taught Elfrida and Adel. Elfrida is half Sierra Leonian and Ivorian. As a result she cooks a mix of foods and when we went to teach her we ate rice with a stew made from a cassava leaf (cassava is a root). It was interesting. People like cooking with leaves in West Africa. President Judd had mentioned previously how there are many great boys here, but he needs more great men. I was thinking about this and on my mission here there have been many things I have done that characterized me as a great boy, but I am working to be a great man. I look back back to my growth and it is nice to see that I am moving closer to being a great man. My goal if myself is to live my life in such a way that when people talk about me they will basically say that I am great person that they have a lot of love and respect for. It's an everyday effort.
On Saturday I learned how much the devil wants to thwart my work here. I learned a great life lesson that we often underestimate the power and desires of Satan because he is so careful to shroud himself and his ways to the point where people think they are being influenced by God, but it's really from the devil. As Elder Cooley and I were looking up some information we came across a method to figure out if a counsel or a revelation is from God or Satan. #1 Does it claim/state/suggest to come from God or from man. #2 does it bear the proper label with the authority of Christ? #3Does it follow ALL of the doctrine of the church (not having half truths). #4 Does the revelation come through the correct church channel/ chain/ authority?
Also a church leader shared with us what his family does when there is a problem. One person in the family fasts everyday for a solution to the problem taking rotations until the problem is solved.
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