9 FMs 😱🤤

This week was busy with a bunch of random stuff.

It was a very special week because we got an FM every day of the week. FM just stands for Free Meal. Some were from members, some investigators, and some from other missionaries. Very joyous indeed.

During the week, I got my new Ghana Non-Citizenship card. It's crazy that I got my last one over a year ago now but you can see a big difference in the pictures.

On Thursday we had interviews with President and we got to eat lunch with President and Sister Jacobsen to discuss different things about the zone. After all of the interviews we met with the Stake President and got to know him better. It was a fun day and I love how the Jacobsen's are leading the mission.

On Friday we got to foster Elder Rottweiler. His companion had to go to a meeting, so he got to come with us for the day. In the morning, we made French toast for 6 missionaries and it took 2 loaves of bread to feed everyone.

On Sunday we had a baptism for two of our friends. Their names are Rita and Akos. Rita is a single mother of two and she is super cool. Akos is 11 and way smarter than I was as a 5th grader. It was raining a bit but the Baptism went through and everything was good.

Scripture of the Week

2 Nephi 26:23 - "For behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you that the Lord God worketh not in darkness."

That's the whole week. Sorry it's not a lot, I didn't really feel like writing haha. I have a lot of pictures though. Love you guys!

Elder Holyoak

New Year in Ghana, New Me

Akos and Rita

Alajo Ward

Cool New Tie

French Toast Friday's

Ghana Walking

Railroad X-ing

Ampesi and Kontombre

Akple and Pepe

Gobe

Fried Rice

Sleep Tight

Bra na yendidi 🤌🏻

OK here we go again. This week was pretty normal but I'll find some stuff to talk about.

The first thing is an update with Adelaide. She is a Ghanaian, but her husband is an American living in Michigan. Shout out Elder Perry. We went back for a second lesson and it was interesting. It became very apparent from the beginning that she wasn't the one coming up with questions. She had an ear bud in her ear and her husband was telling her what to say the whole lesson. They had a complete misunderstanding about what our church believes. They thought we worship the prophet Mormon and a few other things. Next time we will bring a translator to speak Twi to her, so the husband won't be able to jump in.

I've decided that I'm gonna dedicate this paragraph to Ghanaian foods. I've probably talked about it before but Ghana has a great variety. There are 4 common types of rice; fried rice, plain rice with stew, jollof rice, and waakye. Jollof rice is rice with tomato stew cooked into it and it's very nice. Waakye (pronounced "watch-ay") is brownish rice with beans cooked into it. You usually eat Waakye with some kind of stew. Now we get to swallow foods. Swallow foods are exactly what they sound like, you just throw some in your mouth and swallow it without chewing. The four most common are fufu, banku, kokonte and rice ball. Fufu is plantain and cassava pounded together and it's my favorite out of them. You usually put the ball of fufu inside your soup and eat it with your hands. Banku is made out of corn and cassava dough. You can eat it with soup or stew. Kokonte is probably the least appealing food to look at, but it's basically brown fufu. Rice ball is just a ball of rice. One of my favorite foods here is Gobe or Red Red. It's beans and plantain with some palm oil mixed in. There are a lot more foods in Ghana, but those are the main ones that you will hear about in my emails.

This area has been a lot of fun so far. The work moves great here with a lot of member support. Being in the city, we have to deal with a lot more fake rumors about the church. A lot of people are talking about stuff in the temple and how once you leave the church you can never leave. Please if you hear any rumors about anything in life, do your own research, don't just blindly believe what the people around you say. That should be pretty self explanatory but we all do it sometimes. Anyways the area is great, my comp is great, and everyone we are teaching is great.

Scripture of the Week
Revelation 21:7 - "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son."

Contacts
Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org
Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

That's a little bit about my week. I'd love to hear what's going on in your guy's life and I live pictures! See you all next week.
Elder Holyoak

I found turkeys

Dogs on an AC unit

Lil Cat

Companionship Unity

Exchanges with Elder Spencer

Alajo

Chop Shop after District Council

Kokonte

Banku with Ademe

Milky Milkshake

White people are weird 👩🏻‍🦲

It's time for another email, yessah boss. This week was super busy so I've got a lot to talk about.

We had a lot of lessons with recent Converts and soon to be Converts. It's hard planning for people in Ghana because they say they're "busy" when they are just sitting in a chair doing nothing. We had two special interviews over the phone with our mission president and luckily both people passed. Everything went according to plan and 4 of our friends got baptized this week. 2 of them, Cynthia and Priscilla, have members in their families and became interested in the church. The other two are Emelia and Miriam. Emelia was going to the Baptist church for over 30 years until missionaries came. It took a while but she eventually gained a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and decided to get baptized. Her daughter Miriam was just as excited and decided she wanted to be baptized as well.

And now I'll get to the title of the email. On Wednesday we went to the temple distribution center. We went just to get some books and things for people we are teaching. We were sitting on a bench when a group of about 25 white people walked up. They were all our age and it was the weirdest experience ever. I'm so used to Ghanaians and the way they talk that talking to people from home like that was super awkward. We took some pictures for them and after we left I felt sick to my stomach.  It was a very confusing experience. White people are weird.

It doesn't stop there. This week we started teaching a woman named Adelaide. We found out early on that her husband lives in America and he is from Michigan. They met each other on a Christian dating site and they are working on the paperwork to get her to America. During the lesson she had a lot of questions from the Bible about the Old testament specifically. At some point we found out that her husband was on the phone listening in. He spoke up and said, "What denomination are they?" We said, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" like any missionary would say. He said, "Oh they are the Mormons...  Honey, you need to send them away now." The weird thing is that he almost seemed scared when he said it. His wife was confused and didn't know why. She went in the other room and talked with him on the phone for a bit and when she came back he brought up the Book of Mormon. He said it's not OK that our church uses it and we explained that it's important. The funniest thing was when his wife said, "So you don't like this book, but have you ever read it?" Of course he said no, but he had heard a sermon about it from his own church. It was just a weird interaction seeing the difference between Americans and Ghanaians. We ended up bearing our testimony of the Book of Mormon and leaving her with a copy to find out for herself if it is true. White people are weird. We plan on going back this Tuesday and we are expecting something interesting, so I'll keep you updated. White people are weird.

We had Multi-Zone this week and I got some more cool ties and some inspired instruction from our mission president.

Scripture of the week
Moroni 7:33 - "And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."

Contacts
Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org
Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

I hope this email was good. I hope you guys are all good. Have a good week. God is good.
Elder Holyoak

Serious Missionaries

Alajo Ward Baptisms

The House of Learning

Goodbye Elder Englebright (He goes home tomorrow.)

Our friend Grace

True Beauty

Short Cut

Multi-Zone

Pizza Inn Pizza Party

New Tie Buys

Every day average normal week

This week was very busy, but not a lot happened at the same time.

On Tuesday we had my first Mission Leadership Council. I was the greenie Zone Leader there but it was a good time. We talked with President about his plans for the future and how we can help our zones. We had lunch and it was delicious Jollof rice. It was nice getting to the Mission Home because it was only a 15 minute ride instead of the usual 3-4 hours from the bush.

Working in our area this week was awesome! We had two people put themselves on baptismal date this week. We were teaching one boy named Prince and before the lesson started he said he wanted to be baptized this month. He's a super funny kid and actually got to go to the temple with our ward. He didn't get to go inside and that's part of the reason he wants to be baptized so soon. The other person was a teenage girl named Miriam. Her mother Emelia has been on baptismal date for some time and she said she wanted to be baptized the same day as her. Alajo is a great area with a lot of work to do, I'm loving it.

We had a multizone activity this week and we hung out with the Kaneshie Zone. We were able to play football with everyone and I don't think I've run that hard in a while. The elevation back home is gonna kill me. We also played a big game of Mafia and everyone had a good time. I have nothing else to say about this week I'm sorry.

Scripture of the Week
Alma 7:15 - "Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism."

Contacts
Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org
Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

Pretty normal boring week but I hope you'll enjoy some of the pictures. We have a good week coming up with multizone so I'll have more to write about next time. Thanks for reading. I love you guys!

Elder Holyoak 

MLC

Brothers and Sisters

Friends

Stinky

Mafia-Multi Zone Activity

Pillow Head

Rostrum

New Area New Me 🤓

Wow, I cannot believe it's August today. Time keeps moving so fast! This week was a little crazy with the emergency transfer but I have settled into my new area pretty quick.

On Tuesday I rode with all of my things to the mission home and said goodbye to Breku. We weren't at the mission home too long when my companion showed up. I'm with Elder Zile who is 6'5 and was actually in my MTC zone. We both have the same amount of time on our missions and we've been loving it. His mindset is the same as mine, work hard and play hard. If you're not enjoying the work then what are you doing?

Our area is called Alajo and we are over the Tesano Zone. Alajo is an amazing place because we are in the capital city of Accra, but we don't have to deal with all of the paved roads and gated communities. That sounds strange but the people in richer areas don't really like the gospel. Our ward is filled with great members and it's probably the biggest Sacrament Meeting attendance I've had my whole mission. The area is over Alajo and Kotobabi. Kotobabi has a pizza place in it so you already know we are gonna take advantage of that. 

When I got here we hit the ground running. I've been here almost a week and I still haven't unpacked my suitcase. The city is crazy, more trash, more poop, and more drunk people. Everything is more expensive too so I'll have to manage my money better. We had two baptisms this Saturday and I'm taking full credit for them haha. I was already having a hard time speaking Twi and then I got here and they also speak Ewe and Frafra, so that's cool.

Scripture of the Week

Alma 1:27 - "And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

I'm looking forward to the rest of the time I have in this area. I hope you guys are enjoying life. Have a good week!

New Me

Stella and David's Baptism

Our District

Elder Zile and and my new area

More of new area

Oliverrrrr

Heaven is a place on Earth