E-Mail 11/26/2012

Oh Dear Family,

   This week was kind of a dud. We had a lot of unplanned days. We were going to go through the directory and find the less actives in our branch but we still didn’t have a complete directory. We didn’t get that until yesterday. That directory is riddled with mistakes. There are children as head of households and husbands and wives who should be put in the same box. That being said we have like 36 elders and 49 prospective elders.  182 members where probably around 50 or so come to church. Yesterday we went through the directory and updated phones and addresses as best we could and tried to find out who people were but we need to sit down with our mission leader and figure it out. Oddly enough we did have a good turnout for sacrament. A investigator who’s married to a member and is kind of difficult came. without us prompting her to. A few less actives related to an active. Some other less actives one of whom we offended and apparently we made cry. More on that in a sec.  A couple of members who are from other wards. Then finally Eric Vanderpuye. He was supposed to confirmed yesterday. Church started and the BP did the announcements. Our Elders quorum pres. got taken to the 1st counselor in the branch pres. and our YM pres. was made the 2nd. The new 2nd counselor came in with ray ban sunglasses. Went to the stand in them. Stood up for us to sustain him wearing them. And to cap it off he gave his talk in Ray Ban sunglasses. yeah…… Anyways so BP finished the announcements and then we started sacrament. At that point Eric walks in. After Sacrament he comes and sits down telling us he went to a different chapel like 20 min. away because he thought we were meeting there like last week. Then BP gets up and says he forgot to do the confirmation and it happens right then and there. So we were like sweet! Then he was sustained and confirmed. We have his record and it’s all ready. Now the girl we made cry. Her name is Josephine. She’s a less active. Pres. Shulz gave us a thing on the ten virgins so that we could help less actives that we have so that’s what we did. We went through it with her and pretty much said she wasn’t doing what she was supposed to. Another person told us at church that she came over and cried. Oops but I didn’t really think what we said was harsh unless you weren’t doing what you were supposed to. Last night we hung out with cape coast ZL’s. Then when we rode our bikes home we got rained on. I was soaked. Hung our clothes up and they were dripping pretty bad. Alright before I forget. I haven’t said anything about the prayer thing because I had to think about it first. At times ya and then others not really. Take last night for example. It was dark and late. It rained on us hard and I couldn’t see very well with rain on my glasses while riding a bike. Then mom saying that she just had to trust me in God’s hands. At times like that I feel the prayers. It’s kind of something you think about after and say oh ya. Glad you had enjoyed thanksgiving. We just proselyted. We did make burger today but that was for transfers. Sooooooo the powers really bad right now so I’m going to wrap up and finish. Tell kylie to be awesome when she gets there. I’ll remember Justen too. Thanks guys. No woholla. Love yall
your best mulato son,
Elder Holder
 P.S. Elmina castle was cool, a little depressing but also interesting. Look it up on internet.

E-Mail and Photo 11/19/2012

Dear Family,

  This week I won’t lie our numbers looked terrible but we actually did do things. We visited just about every leader in our Branch. Trying to figure out what they need or their concerns are. It’s the same across the board. Activity. The Elder’s Quorum is having less actives and trouble getting their guys home teaching so I’m hoping that those guys will start coming to us for help.I think if the priesthood starts bucking up others will follow. The YW/YM are having a few problems because the parents of some won’t let them go to church because they are non members. Relief society just has low activity. etc etc. We did get a few referrals this week and they actually look like they’ll turn out well. Then Henry and Albert are doing good but if they are baptized they most likely won’t be for our branch. We’re hoping we’ll start getting more soon. Right now it seems like we need to work on internal issues for Bakaano so I”m not super worried about having investigators. The bikes have really helped a lot to get around our area and they were working just fine for the most part. My problem is that I sweat, a lot. Unbelievably so. I’ve been needing a ton of water and now I always have to pee. The bikes are going well but when I’m transferred I won’t ask for any I like being reasonably dry when I go to people’s houses. We’re also entering dry season so I might be sweating a lot more. I’ve already started. It sucks and I’ve gotten darker again and my tan lines are getting worse. The one thing I’m still disappointed in is that I can’t seem to find one on one time to pray. One where I can be really conversing with God. Usually in morning I’m trying to get going at night I’m falling asleep during my prayer and our apartment is too small for me to find a lone place to just go talk/pray. I did one last week because everyone else had gone asleep so I was awake enough to actually talk. It helped me to feel better. Just sometimes I feel like I won’t ever be good enough to reach the standards that I’m supposed to be at. It probably didn’t help that I was apparently doing something apostate and didn’t realize it. Our music availability was extended to like inspirational type stuff or so I thought. Me personally I don’t actually have any music but Elder Willyerd has a ton. And well we were talking about a song that he had while at District meeting with Pres. I was wondering who sung the song and I guess it was josh Groben. Pres. heard and said that was apostate. I dunno it sounded fine but I guess I’m wrong. This week I think we’ll work on finding the rest of the less actives in our area. Went to Elmina castle today. It was interesting. Tried my debit card and the machine kept saying I had entered the wrong pin and soooo I’m confused. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work. I’m pretty sure it was the right pin. oh well we’ll try again later. With “perfect love that casteth out all fear” GLC.
Your son, the one the only
Elder Holder

Elder Holder Gets A White Shirt

E-Mail and Photos 11/12/2012

Dear Family, 

   I’ll talk about the pics first then I’ll go over my week. One is a pic of me as I was leaving Kojo Bedu. That was our district pic. I don’t know why I’m making a funny face but whatevs. One is when Elder Adair and I got stuck in a rain storm. We took shelter in a school and i wanted to see if I could get the massive amount of rain in the back. Another is Elder Adair as he’s about to leave for his new area. Then there’s me sitting on my bed as we’re waiting to leave the Cape Coast apartment to come to my current apartment. Me at Kakum national park. The rope bridge Me burning a shirt at my one year mark. I didn’t pay to attention to my garment s at first. Then the last one is when Elder Willyerd and I went to a members house. We found this this thing that’s meant for if people try to break in. It’s a wooden club with a bunch of nails sticking all through the top.Now for the week.

 

 Dear Family,

  

 We’ll start this one like it’s a normal letter. This past week has actually been a bit harder. We’re trying to make good use of our time but I wouldn’t say we’re being 100% effective. We spent the last week finding out who, what, where the leader’s are. We have most of them and for the most part we know all of them already which makes things easier. I’m hoping to start working on all the separate quorums and classes this week. Finding them, becoming friends, doing service for them and finding out what their individual needs for the groups are.I’ve been praying to make sure that this is the best way to go to help Bakaano. Then after a few weeks of asking Pres. finally allowed us to have bikes which made my companion super happy. The only catch is we have to fix them up and keep them up. Pres. doesn’t really like bikes so pretty much he’s just providing the old ones. Luckily Elder Willyerd is really good at that kind of stuff. Unluckily we didnt’ have everything we need to get going right away. We fixed em up to where we could use them or so we thought. As we were going Elder Willyerd’s bike kept getting flats. My brakes weren’t cooperating the first night. They were too close to the wheel so I was having to pedal a bit harder. Then the next few days. My bike actually got a flat and I was riding it for a pretty long time. That just about killed me for two days in a row. We thought we fixed it the first day. Our Branch Pres. shooed from Ward council meeting. Then we’re still finding more less actives then we knew before. The ones we do know I’m just getting tired of hearing their dumb excuses. I think I understand how you guy’s feel now when I would give dumb excuses. It’s sooooooo obnoxious to hear it every single time. In optimistic news Eric Vanderpuye WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!. That heaven sent motivator was baptized yesterday. He was just ready. It was the easiest baptism I’d ever done, mostly because our Branch mission leader is a boss. One of the most hard working men in church that I’ve ever seen. He got everything organized and set up. Us the missionaries hardly had to do anything. Bro. Jessie is his name and he does too much. He’s going to school, he’s the Branch mission leader, does a job for the church, and takes care of his family. Also he has back problems which doesn’t like to tell people about. We told him he actually needs to rest because he’s doing too much. Soo Eric is the first baptism that’s happened since I came to Bakaano. Then we have been teaching this guy Henry. We left to read Moroni’s promise and pray about the Book of Mormon. When we came back to check up he said that he had felt something even before he prayed. He had read the portion, thought back on it and relaxed and then he said he could just feel it. That was the first time an investigator here has given that experience. I was a little dumbfounded or possibly “exceedingly astonished”. I’ve never heard of that happening on the first time. With how Henry described it though he might be the only one who did it on the first time or correctly. He came to church the following sunday. So did some other less actives. We got two pages of our branch directory so we can start figuring out who really is in our branch. We’re having a combined district meeting on Wednesday, I don’t know why. I think that’s it for this week. Love ya’ll and talk to yous latas.

your goodly son, 

Elder Holder

Elder Holder in Kojo Bedu

Elder Holder on a Rope Bridge2

Elder Holder Speaking Softly and Carrying a Big Stick

E-Mail 11/5/2012

Dearest Family,
   Well at least you guys are doing somehow well. At least you guys were able to enjoy Halloween. Next year will be a mighty Halloween. I thought it was interesting that this fast sunday had people talking about fear and Halloween just passed. In a way it’s kind of funny. Anyways we watched general conference yesterday. We were combined with ola ward. I have to say I’m a little disappointed in my branch. When we first got there only one or two people from our branch was there. Then once it started about five. During the first session I don’t it got up to 20 and during the second session it went back down to 5. I was almost embarrassed. This past week we have picked up a few investigators. We’re waiting to see if they’re serious or not but even then they don’t actually live in our area. If they do end up believing in this gospel it won’t benefit Bakaano Branch at all. Our other one didn’t come to church so we’ll give her another few chances. Our ysa members are behaving like little kids. Someone doesn’t talk to them so they say they won’t talk to them anymore or won’t mind them. I’m actually kind of seeing that our branch isn’t very strong so I’ve been thinking instead of looking for new people we’ll go to the leaders and less actives of the branch instead. Another reason I’m a little hesitant of looking for new people in the area is that last thursday we went through our area book. We looked at the recent convert and less active section. Almost all of the people who have been baptized in the branch in the last year maybe even two have fallen less active. Barely any converts have been retained in a super long time. That’s a problem we have to fix before get to baptizing more people. Aside from that Erik has been going solid. He finally came on time and as long as he’s there for sacrament next week we should have his baptism then too. He doesn’t seem like he’ll fall less active so that’s good. We went and talked with Pres. Tandoh and he seems like he will be able to put some into the branch. We went and met with him yesterday and just learned more about him. His niece is staying with him and well she’ll most likely be a baptism too. I’m struggling a little bit because some guys are watching Falling Skies just across from me. I can’t focus.  We made orange Julius yesterday and planning on getting a bunch of stuff for burritos. I found out Elder Wheeler, my trainer, will be released from AP in Kumasi and will be training a new missionary. That’s sweet.  Thanks for the update. Thanks for the help with everything. Just remember members of this church would be the greatest green lanterns. Why? because of our faith we know no fear. Through sheer power of will we fear nothing not even death. One of the reasons I like Green Lantern is because his powers are best suited for Latter Day Saints. I told Devin that before. Anyways be faithful and soon we’ll chillin up in heaven with resurrected bodies singing We are family or something like that. Love y’all. Be good
Love’s the Bakaano Boy,
Elder Holder