11/28/2011 Seku Panics His Mom

Dear Family

 

So this is Elder Holder as you can see. I still can’t access my lds account which is causing me much frustration and I guess i forgot the password for my rocketmail account so if you have sent anything to that account i haven’t read it. Please kaysville family. Send me the information for the rocketmail account because i know i wrote it down so you guys could check it. I spent all my time trying to figure out passwords and things that I don’t have very much time left. I’m not sure if i’m going to have enough money to eat until the next time i’ll get a chance but i have some extra money i can use. I wrote down all the info for this account so i should at least have access here. i would prefer to use my lds account but i have no idea how to get into it.I think it sent the information to my seku_holder@rocketmail.com account. The people here are so different. You can ask them many times if they will come to church and they’ll say yes and then out of 15-20 people 2 will show up. I was actually surprised to get two investigators to church. one was solid but the other i didn’t think would come.Sister akuosa and sister Felicia. Felicia is the one i didn’t think would show up. She’s looking pretty solid though.I saw the moon for the first time yesterday. It was pretty hardcore. oh and handwashing laundry isn’t the greatest. It’s a good change of pace though. Anyway I have to hurry now. Devin Where are you going on your mission? Was thanksgiving good for everyone? We didn’t have one here. You should definitely try sending me letters that would be sick. Oh and everyone just send me addresses and things so i can make sure i write back and don’t forget. Send as much info as you can so i can make sure i have it. I’m getting really frustrated not being able to talk to you guys and it all my fault. it sucks. I gotta go

 

Your loving missionary

Elder Holder

Elder Holder’s First E-Mail from the Field 11/21/2011

It’s actually been a rough start to in field experience. We had two elders who got transferred out of the area i’m in because they weren’t doing what they were supposed to. Oh and by the way my new companion is Elder Wheeler. He’s from Bountiful, and graduated from Woods cross and went to a year of school at Weber before he come out here in May. Anyways he ‘s awesome. he and i are whitewashing the area called Asuoyboa. Its gone alright so far.  So when me and one other American, Elder Gagne (gone-yay), got to the apartment it didn’t have power because the two elders who got sent off were bootleggin power or something like that. I’m not sure. But ok i can handle that no big deal. It’s also kind of cool to do studies by candlelight anyways. then the water is pretty intermittent where our apartment is but alright i can handle that. Just got to make sure I have enough clean water and to do all my stuff fast. Then on Friday, three days into it, I got sick. I woke up with a headache and some pains and small diarrhea. Wheeler and I went out to an appt. close to our home and she said to come back in an hour. Got back at the apt. and I ended up puking after eating watermelon. I still tried going out after a little rest because i was feeling a little better but after an hour or so my stomache was really telling me to go and my body was getting beat. We made it to the apartment and I could barely stand and stuff. I was so weak. My aches got worse and my diarrhea was already bad but I was having to spend a lot of time on the toilet which sucked. I was having to get up 3-4 times an hour to use the bathroom. It was at this point that I was like Oh my gosh this sucks. WHY!!!!!!! is the world cruel? It pretty much continued like that until the next day before it lightened up. Then I was feelin pretty good sunday. I can’t go into much detail but that’s basically waht happened. Investigators are rather disappointing at times. Wheeler and I had 5 say that they would come to church. None of them did. One we ran into on the way to church and you could see the building. We left to go while she was talking with her member sister and she went home. The church was closer than her house was and she went home. bogus. Teaching people is nothing like you would think out here. For the most part you never go inside homes you usually just take the lessons outside. With all the people doing this or that. but ya. The people here are super relaxed about everything. nothing is all that serious to them. It’s hard to teach lessons with that attitude. They just become unfocused or distracted. Well I need to write some other peeps talk to ya later. Oh and guess how many naked children I’ve seen? lots. Guess how many mothers i’ve seen give suck just right out in the open. right now I’m at 3 or 4. It’s crazy people just don’t care here.  Well Tell kylie i’m sorry for not being able to email her this week. I’ll try to give more details about the mission as I figure out my ldsmail stuff.

E-Mail dated Fri. 11/18/2011 From Mission Office

Seku arrives in cape Coast from the MTC.

Elder Holder, Mission Pres Shultz and Sister Shultz

Please find attached the photo of your missionary with President and Sister Shulz.  You will be receiving a hard copy along with a letter of commitment from Elder Holder’s trainer in a couple of weeks.  We are so excited to have Elder Holder in the best mission in the world ~ have a great weekend!  -Sister Asay

Nov. 6 2011 Letter Arrive 11/15/2011

Dear Family

I’ll write some stuff while I wait for the E-Mail to open up. The flight was so long it’s not even funny. I tried sleeping throiugh the whole thing. It kind of worked. I think my favorite American missionary is Elder Brown. He’s a swirl like me and wears glasses too. Except he has curly hair. My next one is Elder Belnap from Idaho. Brown is getting pretty good at Twi (tree). Since my companion Elder Okaka is from Kenya I’m not picking up much Twi. Every once and a while Okaka will try and teach me Swahili but he doesn’t do it ofetn enough for me to pick it up. There only a few phrases that I had to write down that I can say. Mimi Naitua Elder Holder, Mimi natoka Warekani. I’m Elder Holder, I come from America. There are also missionaries from the Congo here that speak French. It can get pretty crazy at times.

I look pretty dang good as a missionary I noticed. I didn’t think I’d pull off the halfsleeve but looking at myself I can’t believe I ever doubted. The glasses bug me a little bit though. And my glass cloth doesn’t clean tham well at all.

The food is ok but most of it has fish in it. By fish I mean they just cut off the head and gut it to cook it. I’m tired of bones and scales. last night I’m pretty sure Elder brown got a fish head, I’ adjusting ok. We teacha bunch of fake investigators. They’re played by the teachers here. I’m really tired of it. I’ll explain in E-mail. One of my teachers is Bro. Ashun the other is Appianti. Ashun is a real hard case but I understand what he is trying to do. Appianti is so much easier. We’re inside most of the time so I don’t know what the people are like.

How are things wi you? When does Devin get his call? You should send some candy bars. That would help so much. If I got a Snickers or Fastbreak that would prove to me all the principles that our gospel teaches. Just saying

Farewell

Elder Holder

Nov. 13, 2011

Things have been good. I’m not surprised either. You are always sick. but my reckoning you’ll outlive all of us because what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger so you’ll probably be pushin’ 150 yrs. old when you finally pass away. It’ll be cool i guess to see flying cars and the such. WWIII and IV. You re going to be hardcore. Those stories are hilarious and I;m so sorry I don’t have more time write I hope it will change in the mission field. My companion is Elder Okaka right now but I don’t know who it will be in the field. Classes are long especially when we don’t exercise which is until we leave now. I leave for the field on thursday. I don’t have anything about shipping yet but you should be getting a letter from me soon. Anywys let me see if I can get some pics on for you guys.

Sunday Nov. 6, 2011

Dear Family,

   The set up for the Email is here. sorry I wasn’t able to talk to you all individually but c mon I ‘m a freaking missionary now. What do you expect? No, I will not be going to cote d’ Ivorie as far as I know. But there is a seperate mission there and a few missionaries are being sent there already. I talked to my mission president about the whole learning french thing and he told me that it would be something for after my mission so as not to distract me from my purpose here. So i’m cool with it, one less thing to worry about. I still think I need to learn french but until told to do so I’ll just chill. Some days are super long with all day classes and no exercise (the first four days here). I start to get restless on those days. Some days we just end up missing exercise and those ones are hard too. So far the only ‘investigators’ we have taught are insructors who are pretending to be investigators. I get annoyed because we have to put in a lot of planning for people who don’t act like they’re supposed to from the bios or consistently with the last visit. Also i feel like it’s pointless to plan that long for fake people. I’m sending a letter today telling you a little bit about what’s going on. Bro. Ashun is one of my teachers and he’s pretty hardcore. He’s always on someones case about this or the other. A lot of time it’s the District leader (my companion) to do something different or just at the class because we didn’t do something right. He made us remember a couple things that I didn’t know completely before we got here. The purpose, the first vision, D and C 4 and 50 v. 14. All the US guys who came are all going to cape coast. In fact l a lot of people are going to cape coast, twenty something missionaries are going there. Another chunk are going to nigeria, calabar mission. Some are heading to the congo. Others i’ve seen are benin, togo, ivory coast. I need Caleb’s and mckay’s address too i decided. Halloween sounds fun. I don’t think they even understand the concept of halloween here. oh and don’t worry mom, everyone is having a hard time with me gone. Don’t tell me you forgot how great I was to have around. geez I can’t believe that. Cape Coast is just the west side of Ghana. But it’s still a big area. but ya I gotta head, Tell me about your weeks and stuff for next time. Signing out

                  Elder Holder

Elder Holder’s First Week

November 3, 2011

Alright to start off sorry I haven’t written you yet. I couldn’t remember my account information so I had to miss the first email day and they didn’t let us use it when we first arrived. I tried sending emails to you guys from the mtc pres. account but I’m not sure if you got it. I just barely figured out all my account info. I did make it ok and yes Elder smoot came to the airport with six other elders. We met up with another four in georgia. The flights were long and so was the layover. We got to the airport and it was and very humid. I’m still getting used to it all. At night I sleep without any covers because of how hot it is. My companion is elder Okaka. He is from Kenya, he’s kenyan. He’s a pretty quiet guy and doesn’t like to do sports and stuff but he’s still cool. Almost every African here knows two languages. my companion knows english and swahili, others know twi, and some of the Congo missionaries speak french and swahili. The names aren’t as hard as I thought they would be. for the most part they sound like they’re spelled it’s just hard because your not used to pronouncing words that way. umm, the nigerians are loud and friendly. They make up a chunk of the missionaries here. They like to talk a lot and are very comfortable with everything. Like last night I was trying to go to sleep because we were going to the temple today (That’s right, been in the Ghana temple, suck it) two of them just came into the room and talked for like a half hour. it was around 11. I ended up having to kick them out. I have some pictures but I’ll wait till next time to send some because i ‘m using up to much of my time here. I think I forgot nail clippers even though Devin even asked if I had some. Also I can’t find my notebook with family emails in it so you should definitely see if you can find it. I need mom’s, devins, and my dad’s. I’m also not sure where my patriarchial blessing is, i thought i packed it but i can’t find it anywhere.That’s all i got for now. Oh and i think i figured utah is 6 hours behind us so it should be almost 10 or so there. right now it’s 3:47. I also think I’m supposed to be learning french for some reason. Don’t know how I would though. Anyways signing off Peace Yall

 

Elder Holder

Elder Holder Arrives

Sunday October 30, 2011

Hey guys,

        Sorry I haven’t been able to write. I gotta make this quick. I made it alright and I’m adjusting well. I forgot my username for the lds email stuff and it should be in my call packet stuff that you guys kept. It should be something like seku.holder@ldsmail.net or something. Anyways sorry it has taken so long. Be good

        -Elder Holder

Hello world!

Elder Holder was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on October 26, 2011. He is assigned the the Ghana Cape Coast Mission

He left for the Ghana MTC on October 27, 2011 from the Salt Lake International Airport.

He arrived at the Ghana MTC on October 28, 2011.

The journey and adventure begins.