Square Toast Bacon Burger

Hello all,

The power was out in Kumasi this week. I am very grateful for your email. I love you and am thankful for your thoughts and prayers on my behalf. We are teaching a mother right now who reminds me a lot of you, Mom. We have baptized one of her girls and are now working with the other, then the boy and hopefully her. She makes me laugh when she tries to speak English and we all laugh along with her. It reminds me of how you would try to use the slang that I would use in High School like the word "poser." I love you, Mom and hope that you will not change.

What I would do for a cherry limeade right now with the special ice and a square toast bacon burger. I guess I can wait though. haha
I am so excited for Chan and Dev. Can I call her that, or is that one reserved for Chandler only. I would love to get their picture.

Amanda, I am very proud of you and know you will do great in the play. About 20 primary kids come to Church, and about 8 youth between 12-17 that I teach every week. This week we talked about the Millennium and they really loved it. The questions they asked were amazing. There are things the youth will ask that the adults won't even think of. I think it is important to learn from them. Jesus Christ taught us to become like little children. Keep working hard and enjoy your school play.

Two of the people that we had planned to baptize have decided they want to go to Church a little more so that they can truly know that this is what they need to do. On Oct 1st, we hope to have Erica, Dorris, Emmanuel, Mommy Frema, Vera, Julie, Evans, Acose, and Elizabeth, take that necessary step toward the Lord's Kingdom by entering the waters of baptism.

Before I began studying the Old Testament, I read the Book of Mormon again focusing on the number of times it mentions or talks about the Savior. It was amazing how much I was able to learn. I marked all of the places that talked about Christ, and the words remember, and repent. While E. Omini and I served together for 8 months, we noticed how often people would use scriptures from the Old Testament, so I have not been just reading it, but really trying to understand it. We felt that our knowledge of the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, along with our testimony, led us to the success we had in Fiapre. This Sat, our old unit will be made into a branch! Since leaving Fiapre, I have been able to read, study, cross-reference, and gain understanding how Jesus truly was the God of the Old Testament. I have gained a greater knowledge of the standard works as I have studied the Old Testament. The BOM and NT are the most important, and they are what we should be using. When we teach, we mainly use the NT, but there are times we refer to the OT as well. Sometimes we have to use it to help them first understand who Jehovah is, about tithes, and about the fall before someone has gained a true testimony of the BOM. I have been using what I study every day. Proverbs has become one of my favorite books of the OT along with Isaiah 40-45. I will be done with the OT in like 2 weeks and then it will be on to the NT again.
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A senior couple working with Spencer sent us a short email:

. . ."we attended district meeting he conducted last week and your elder gave the most inspiring instruction and testimony on the atonement, using brother mckonkie as his support, that I have ever heard. Not a dry eye in the audience and the spirit was powerful. You can be proud of this young elder serving faithfully under some very tough conditions. He is doing great and growing in every way. We will hate to lose him back to America.

God bless you and your family while you have sacrificed for the cause we all believe in.

"Fruit That Will Remain"

I remember well Sept 11. I remember sitting in my 5th grade class when all of a sudden, the teacher yells at us to keep it down. She turned on the TV and some kids got excited thinking we were going to watch a sweet action movie. But as we all came to the realization of what exactly happened, we couldn't believe it, and it was the talk around school for a long time.

One of our recent converts spent the last 4 days doing indexing, and is on her way with the neighboring ward to the Temple for the first time. She has been a member for only three weeks and has done more for the Church then most members do in a year. God bless her and her family. We will be baptizing her younger sister and about 10 others on Oct 1.

Dad, you wrote of a missionary who is struggling. I don't know how long he has been out, but the best advice I can give him is to work more with the members. They can help him a lot by introducing him to friends who will listen to our message.

I remember when we watched a video clip in the MTC from Elder Holland about the irresponsibility of some return missionaries. He wanted to ask them why they would waste 2 years, only to return home and quickly forget what they had just taught others. After gaining a testimony of something that you can't get anywhere else, some returned missionaries are throwing it all away. Maybe they were lazy on their mission and really didn't even want to be there. Some don't want to keep the rules, they hate the culture and food, and haven't tried to
learn Christlike attributes. I am grateful for this mission and the amazing experiences that I am having, learning not only how to be a missionary but how the Church needs to be run and how the Church gets started in places where it hasn't been before and so on; however, Pres Hinckley was right when he talked about how members should work hard to give the missionaries people to teach, and the missionaries should teach. No one wants to go to Church with people that they don't know. Maybe you could tell any discouraged missionary that if he really wants to enjoy his mission, I honestly believe he should work with his companion and work with the ward mission leader and members to get people to teach. If they have to lower their teaching numbers to get "fruits that will remain," it is better then wasting time walking around trying to find people that don't want to hear the Gospel. Don't get me wrong. Spirit led contacting can be very effective as we discovered in Sunyani. Anyway, it would be great if members worked more with the missionaries and weren't so worried about what their friends will say when they ask them to hear more about the Church. Blessings follow hard, EFFECTIVE work.

"Companions should prayerfully counsel together, understanding they are accountable to God for their decisions." Tonight when I have time I will pause and think more about that as well.

I am happy that everyone is doing well. Thank you for everything! Please tell Chris, Tyler and Chandler that without the example of my older brothers, I would not be the person I am today.

Love Elder Hair

What a week!!!

We have been so busy, it really didn't seem like my 1 year mark mattered. We enjoyed some fried rice which has become the "lobster dish" of GCC missionaries.

A member killed a chicken and cleaned it, then I showed Elder Saili how I've learned to cook it. I cut it into pieces and boiled it, adding some of my own mean spices. I'll kill a chicken and make the same dish for you when I get home. haha

We have too many people to visit and not enough time to visit them. I don't remember if I said that last week, but it is not easy. Elder Saili and I had some pretty powerful lessons this week. I don't know how to explain it, but we've reached a point where we feel at ease with investigators and they seem to feel the same with us. It doesn't matter the age, gender, or religion. We still
have a lot to learn, but like the feeling of confidence that comes when we're teaching.

We had a sweet lesson with Jenna's younger brother and sister. Their mother, however, is the one I want to tell you about. She was a devout Presbyterian for 20 years. She paid offerings and did more for her church then most other members. She fell very sick and couldn't go to church for 3-4 weeks. The pastor came by but didn't believe she was truly sick so he kind of chastised her and left. She was not very happy but just let it roll off her shoulders. She is now learning about the Church small small, and this week we are going to have some of the Relief Society visiting teachers visit Jenna and try to include her mom in the lesson. I gave her mom a For The Strength of Youth Pamphlet this week, and she loved it!

We've also been teaching an 18 year old boy named Emmanuel, who has been sneaking out of the house to take the lessons and come to Church. His parents did not want him to have anything to do with us because people were saying that we worship the devil and "call upon" saints. You would be surprised what people say about the Church. We had about 15 mins to explain and answer questions about the Church to his mom after she found out he was sneaking out. We have taught her the first two lessons and invited her to be baptized on Sep 24th along with Emmanuel and his 11 year old sister, Vera. We were so excited when she came to Church and was warmly welcomed by the members. It was testimony Sunday, and with my broken Twi I bore my testimony and saw her laughing. That was a good sign!

I have grown very close to the people here as I have continued to learn more of the language small. The Lord has blessed us in our time of need. I love the Gospel and Church very much. My testimony of the temple grows more and more every day. I always get emotional when we teach the temple to our investigators. I love this area just as I have all of my areas. I have grown spiritually and physically. I'm getting taller!

Love Elder Hair