Matsi - "I Hear"

Hey, Family! :)
...

And nice pictures. :) Amazing mountains in the background of those football pictures! And all the pictures made me smile. :) Especially the Aerial shots!!!! Those are incredible! Just... Whoah. That's cool. I love 'em. [some of the photos he's referring to are on our family blog. He didn't send us any photos this week, so here's one with his dad, his brother and the mountains that we sent him:]

For my week!

This week was pretty good. :) First thing, Monday evening:
FHE with Sister Monica and her family! Super hilarious. Just a 16 year old daughter with two other smaller daughters and their mother. So funny, 'cause all of them love to talk. :) They want us to come over again this week, so that'll be fun tonight!

Tuesday:
District meeting! I gave my instruction (again)! District leader requires more preparation each week, though this week's is "combined district meeting" (should be called zone meeting... *murmur murmur murmur*) so I don't need to prepare! Woohoo! We taught a few lessons, W., V., and B. All three are doing good!  [the *murmur* part is because in Liberia it would've been called a zone meeting, he's making fun of his own reluctance to adapt to the different terminology in this mission.]

Wednesday:
Taught more lessons! M., R., and J. J's sweet 'cause her not serious sister told us that her sister wanted a Book of Mormon (after we had simply given her a pamphlet, never really taught her, so it was incredible that she knew what the Book of Mormon was)! :) We taught her. She's a teacher, so she understands everything very well, and she's more serious about the teachings than her sister. Good day! We also went to an interview that evening, an awesome sister named M. She was 14 and had the sweetest testimony, her eyes sparkled and she would smile so big when we talked about the gospel. It was sweet. :) On the way to that interview, however, the car busted.. Hahahaha, the hub of the back tire broke. The inside of the hub. It was the weirdest looking thing as we were stranded in the middle of the bush and this guy was dissecting his wheel-grease everywhere. Awesome time! We caught a trotro (big van), though, so we were fine!

Thursday:
Lessons! We taught S. (her brother wasn't there, so the spirit was definitely more there this time), N. (who is progressing to baptism. Awesome guy! He's actually from Accra, I found out!), J. (again! We had to come back and explain the Book of Mormon through and through), and B! Good day, too, it's nice to have more people to teach. :) While we were up in Agona, Elder 'Atu'ake and I were walking on the main road when we heard some tires screeching behind us; we looked, and we saw a guy on a motorcycle get hit by a taxi. They rushed the rider to the hospital. It had my heart pounding for a while. Ayee.. You can imagine the feelings I get with that. Anyway.. We had an FM that night with Ch! We got her talking about churchy stuff, and she shared her testimony with us. It was really sweet, because she's borderline active. Good times, good times.

Friday!
More lessons! We went and taught B. again, because she called us Thursday night wanting to make us food, and we fried some garry for some members. [I asked for more info on what garry was:]  I should send you some... The base of it is cassava (like a potato), then they grind it up to a powder (but it turns wet and sticky), then they dry it a bit by compressing it, then they dry it and fry it a bit on a metal pan! It's flat. Like, it's not "fried." It's just cooked. No oil, nothing like that. Just the powder onto the hot metal, and we stir it around so it doesn't clump up. The smoke hurts my eyes BAD, but it's okay, the service is nice. :)

That night was another interview for baptism! We got over to Abura, and I interviewed this awesome 20ish year old girl named A. The sisters told me that she didn't speak very good English, so we had a translator there. The coolest things happened that interview. We were talking, and she could understand every little bit of English I was saying. She didn't always know how to respond in perfect English, so the translator helped, but it was really cool, especially when we reached the tithing question (near the end). I understood her response! She responded in Fanti, and I understood her. It was the coolest thing for me to say "matsi (I hear)", but then watch her tell the member translate, and he told her, "didn't you hear him? He said 'matsi'" :) Very cool. Both of those people I interviewed this week were baptized this weekend. More on that in a sec.

Saturday!
We cleaned the chapel in the morning! They had some pledge, so I went to town on the wood stuff. I never truly appreciated pledge before... But now I do. Thanks, Mom, for making me use it back home. ;) Although I still don't know how to use the liquid gold..

There was also the sisters' baptism! Sisters from Abura 2, Sister Udo and Sister Awuah. They're sweet, and that was M's baptism. Very cool to see her sister there supporting her (her sister is a member). Very nice day. :)

Sunday!
Church! So, in the morning Elder Judy set the phone clock for him and his companion to be 30 minutes fast, 'cause last week his companion took a long time and they missed the sacrament. So we set the clock like that, and my companion and I played along to it all morning, getting ready at seemingly normal times. According to his phone clock, we were showing up 15 minutes late to church (and Elder Moleme was frustrated a bit this time), and we walked in 10 minutes early. His surprise when he realized the time was off.. GREAT prank. And useful, too! :) We were all on time! Also, there were some really good talks, and one of them was from a fairly new member. He started off by sharing a bit about how he was before he was a member...  Good church, though still no investigators. No new progress on Agona, it seems like. We went to Elder Baldwin and his companion's baptism that afternoon (they are no longer in my district, though they're in my ward). It was nice! That was about it for the day. And the week!

So, I have a couple questions I wrote down as I was reading those conversion stories!
1: Who else served missions in my family history (those on my pedigree, not brothers or sisters of them)?
2: Grandma Norton's history with the church?
3: Grandpa Price's history with the church?
4: Grandma Ofa's island name (this one is for Elder 'Atu'ake's benefit)? [for those who are wondering, Dale's step-mother is Tongan, from the island of Vavaʻu]

Those are my questions. :) The light has been on and off for this entire evening, but it was just enough for us to go to FHE with Sister Monica's family and come back to email! [making this "part two" of his email, he lost power before he could hit send, then came back to finish.] FHE tonight was AWESOME. We were belting hymns at the end! It was incredible; there was a strong spiritual thought that was shared, everybody was having a good time, Elders Baldwin and Ndunduma had an investigator there. At the end we were all singing hymns, mostly Christmas, until the end! As we were walking out the door and down the cement stairs, we were all belting "The Spirit of God." So loud, and so awesome.

This past week has been pretty good, and I've been noticing the nice spiritual experiences lately. Elder Judy has had some talks by John Bytheway and other inspirational church speakers that he's been playing, and I've really liked it. I'm trying to improve as much as I can, still, and I'm trying to remove all things that will hinder me from that progression. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm striving. ;) Thank you so much for your support, I don't know where I'd be without my wonderful family behind me. Remember to do good things, keep the Sabbath day holy (ahem, seriously, when the Lord promises a blessing, He means it.), be awesome, I love the fact that you guys are doing morning prayers now! I pray for you guys every night. Have an awesome week! :)

Love,

Elder Price