Tuesday Sister Mbonwa organized our district hymn after district meeting. I have no issue singing the number, and I am excited to make myself do something different. I wasn't too thrilled with how she volunteered our entire district at first, but growth is always uncomfortable. I had also done some recollection on how I felt when I first come to Ghana. We can call it that new missionary spirit. As time continues here, I have been working to rekindle that new missionary high for my middle ageness on my mission. Now while I always have some level of that spirit at all times I do feel that there are times where that level becomes almost normal and therefore I am not able to distinguish it (like Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden, not able to know how good they had it because they didn't know the negative side of life.) I figured that refocused desire was what I needed because we had several high spirit lessons after. We contacted a man named Kwame and taught him the plan of salvation. There are times here where the people we are teaching are so spiritually ready for the Gospel because we are able to see that their personal beliefs on God's plan for us matches up with the information we have from the restored gospel, more specifically with Adam and Eve. Back to Kwame, Kwame is this kind of person. We later taught Nii Tackie and talked about the culture here. It's one of a kind and while I will be excited to return home, I will miss Ghana. The last lesson we had was teaching the Baninis who are a part member family. It was great to see how the father called the whole family together to learn.
Thursday Elder Orchard and I went on a split. Elder Orchard was my first companion and will be returning home on the 7th of December. We spent the day teaching and contacting people. It was an interesting experience to be companions for 24 hours while he did some baptismal interviews for us. We spent some time talking and catching up on life from the 11 months after I was transferred from him. It was fun to see how we have grown and how we can still connect with each other. He is a great man and I was luckly to have been trained by him and to have had this opportunity to go on a split with him before his family comes here sees Ghana, goes to South Africa for a safari and then returns home.
After the split with Elder Orchard had ended I was able to see the difference in the unity between Elder Orchard and Elder Macaulay. Now there are some factors to consider (the time we have been companions for and the cultural aspect) but I realized that as unity develops then the spirit is in the lessons more resulting in more people accepting our message. It was a wonderful find and it motivated me to continue my efforts for perfect unity with Elder Macaulay. Also on Saturday Elder Macaulay and I ran into a return missionary that went home from this mission in 2010. His name was Elder Mitten and he was delivering some mechanical parts for his brother's business here. He was riding around in a member's car who was introduced to the church through Elder Mitten. It was an interesting experience.
Saturday Elder Macaulay and I had two good lessons with a man named Pearce and another with Louis. With Pearce we brought a member to the lesson who then brought him to church on Sunday. Pearce said he liked the service and it was good to see him there. With Louis we were collecting his information for baptism and we were able to talk to him on how his life was before and after we had shared the gospel with him. To sum up his feelings he is able to see a significant difference for the better and he has a better family life. It is great to see how the gospel can influence people for the better. At the end on the night we met an American from Washington DC going to George Washington University for international relations. He said he was here for vacation having spent five weeks in Sierra Leone and will spend a total of eight here in Ghana. He recognized us missionaries from the states and we were able to give an overview of what we do. While not everyone agrees with our message we find it very common to see respect us for what we are doing and such.This man was one such person and it was fun talking to him.
Over the past week I have been able to really understand what true forgiveness is. To sum-up what I have come to learn; after confession true forgiveness is when one changes their actions and desires working to improve all aspects of their life, showing God they have had a permanent change of heart. This can take a long time, but the end result is worth it.
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