Exchanges with President Jacobsen

Happy Halloween! This week was loaded. We had MLC and Multizone conference with a General Authority, and 3 exchanges.

Tuesday 

On Tuesday we rode to Kasoa for MLC. We got there at the end of Multi-Zone so I saw a bunch of people I know. I saw both of my mission sons and my grandson! I also saw Elder Mvoula who was my first companion out of training. We ate lunch and started MLC. It was cool because it was all led by Elder Nielsen of the seventy. He didn't prepare anything beforehand, so he just followed the spirit and had a great council about Charity and Obedience.

Wednesday 

The next day we went to Kaneshie for our Multi-Zone. I saw every missionary in the mission in just two days, so it was great. The Multi-Zone was really good too. We talked about repentance and studying the Book of Mormon. After lunch I got more ties and my companion Elder Zile was interviewed by Elder Nielsen.  It was a normal interview though he just wanted to get to know a few missionaries. Awesome day and I learned a lot!

Thursday 

On Thursday President Jacobsen decided to join us in our area. He gave us these super good mango juice drinks. We drove a bit with his car but walked most of the day. It was kind of funny because 5 of our appointments fell through. Our back ups, back ups fell through haha. We ended up having 2 good lessons with recent Converts. He paid for our lunch and we ate Kokonte. He ended up leaving around 3:30 because it was actually his birthday and he was going to dinner somewhere. President left with a fresh sunburn. It was a great and successful day.

Friday

On Friday we exchanged with the Office Elders. I went with Elder Spencer to the mission office for the day. I did some work sending referrals to different parts of Ghana. I also downloaded some General Conference talks and worked on the mission photos folder. It was a very slow day and I didn't know what I was doing for most of the time. At around 4:30 we went out to proselytize in their area and all of the appointments fell through again haha. It's a super nice area with a lot of cool people.

Saturday

On Saturday I was on exchange with Elder Murdock. He's a super cool guy and a great missionary. Elder Skasim was having problems with his knee so we walked pretty slow most of the day. We had some good lessons and finished the day with free Banku.

Scripture of the Week

Ether 12:41 - "And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever. Amen."

Contacts 

Email - Aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

That's the end of a packed week of missionary work. I hope you all have a great Halloween. Send me pictures of your costumes and candy! Have a great week!

Elder Holyoak

Elder Nielsen and Mission President

My Missionary Family

Multi-Zone with Elder Nielsen

Office Exchange

Exchanges with Elder Murdock

Making Jollof Rice

Ginger Bum 😬

Another weird week in Ghana, this week I went on two exchanges, found a turtle, and saw a white guy.

The first exchange of the week was in Alajo with Elder McKnight. He's from Idaho and we had a great time. A lot of our appointments fell through so we had a lot of recent convert lessons. Nothing too crazy happened, but it was a fun day.

The other exchange was with Elder Alves in his area. Elder Alves is from Brazil and he's also super cool. His area is Newtown 1. A lot of the day was walking and contacting, but they have a bunch of cool members. We were in a pretty nice part of their area when a white guy walked up to me. He was from Seattle and he was living in Ghana for journalism. He even said that he would go to Utah during the winter to ski at Snow Basin and Deer Valley. I walked away very confused.

The turtle will be in the pictures, there's no story behind it.

We went to a member's house because it was her birthday last Sunday. We hung out there for a bit and ate Jollof Rice. While we were talking one of the little girls ran over crying. We found out pretty quickly that the other kid bit her arm. At first the lady got a stick to beat the kid with but she got a different idea. She took some ginger, ground it up and put it on her finger. She ran over the boy, pulled his pants down, and put the ginger in his butt. Thank you Mom and Dad for not doing that to me. Don't get any ideas.

Scripture of the Week

3 Nephi 20:30-31 - "30 And it shall come to pass that the time cometh, when the fulness of my gospel shall be preached unto them;

   31 And they shall believe in me, that I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and shall pray unto the Father in my name."

It was a weird week with all of the exchanges. This Elder Nielson from the seventy is coming to MLC and to Multizone. I love you all. See you later!

Elder Holyoak

Children of Ghana

Exchange with Elder Alves

🐢

Stake Conference

Tesano Zone

Proselyting with a stubborn girl

Elder McKnight money shot

Goat fight

Jollof Rice

Fufu

Muslims are awesome!

This week we went to Pizza Hut, I got a Qur'an, and our friend Jessica got baptized.

On P Day last week we went to a place near the Stake Center that has basketball courts. It's a police depot so there's a bunch of armored cars and cargo crates. After we played we went to Pizza Hut with a bunch of missionaries. Pizza Hut is scarily close to our apartment and scarily tasty.

One day in the middle of the Week, we came home and were talking with a guy in our compound. The area we live in has a lot of Muslims including our friend Mohammed. We were talking about religion and I said I would love to read through some of an English Qur'an. He said he had one and would lend it to me. We decided to trade him a Book of Mormon for the Qur'an. I have been reading it a little and their beliefs are very close to our own. I hope Mohammed will read his Book of Mormon too.

Our friend Jessica got baptized this Friday. Just one week ago we thought that she was moving to a different part of Accra. Last Sunday she told us that she wanted to go on a temple trip at the end of the month and that she wasn't going to move anymore. She had already been taught everything so we just reviewed some things and she was baptized. Almost her whole house are members, so she will be in a really good environment.

Some weird stuff that happened this week. So we went to the house of one of our new investigators and she wasn't there so we waited a while. On the other side of the compound we realized that there was a lady shouting at someone. Looked over and found out very quickly that she wasn't wearing any clothes. She was chained up by her ankle to some cart thing so she couldn't move around. She was getting pretty rowdy, so one guy started pulling on the cart and dragging her on the ground a little bit. When our investigator got there, we asked what was happening and she just said, "Alcohol". I learned a lot in just a few minutes there. 

Scripture of the Week 

Helaman 12:3 - "And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

Well this was a long email but I hope you enjoyed. I'm having a great time in Alajo. I love you all and pray for you. Have an awesome week.

Elder Holyoak 

Jessica's Baptism

Pizza Hut

Children of Kasava

Our Apartment

Aponche

Elder Zile

Jorts and Burger King 🤴

This week we had Burger King, I bought Jorts, and we had a celestial FM.

Last Monday we didn't have anything planned for P day and we were pretty tired anyways so we were just planning on hanging out at the apartment. Things changed when Elder Skasim found a place to buy a knee brace. He has had knee problems his whole life, I promise its not just because we trek him. The place with the knee brace happens to be across the street from the only Burger King in our mission. Of course we went and it was delicious. After we finished the manager gave us coupons, but I don't know if I'll ever be back there again. 

We had MLC but there wasn't anything too crazy that we talked about. I always love going though, it's nice to see some mission friends and get free lunch. Within the week we were at a members' clothes shop and I spotted some Jorts. She sold them to me for 7 cedis. That's 7 cents for jean shorts, I'm not gonna pass that deal up. Another funny thing that happened this week was during a lesson. We were teaching the restoration and talking about Joseph Smith when some guy nearby started shouting. We looked over and his friend was piercing his ears. It was funny because they kept trying and it wasn't working. It ended up being a good lesson though.

The last and probably craziest thing this week was meeting up with our friend Shyne. Shyne is friends with one of the best ward members back home. Shout out to Scott Cragun. Shyne is a Ghanaian that went to BYU with Scott a while back. We met up and he suggested that we should go out for dinner. We said yes and the place he suggested was just outside the mission so we had to get approval from President. The place is a hotel called Alisa and the dinner was a buffet. Hands down the nicest place I've been in Ghana. They had Ghanaian food and some other random dishes. I filled my plate with baked potatoes, tuna salad, kelewele, jollof rice, and washed it all down with some sobolo. It was a great night and a lot of fun talking to him about his experience in Provo Utah.

Scripture of the Week

Alma 60:13 - "For the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God."

Congratulations to Britt and Caitlin. They're married now . Have a good week!

Jorts

De Bois

Funny Baby

Dinner with Shyne

Ghanian Foolsball

Stella

Burger King

Kotobabi Area