Small goat friends 🐐

5/29/23

Where is time going?

This week was busy, but slow at the same time. One Tuesday we went to Winneba for our multi-zone conference and we talked all about recognizing the Spirit and receiving personal revelation. Those are two things that I have really been trying to work on and it's not easy haha. The travel honestly wasn't too bad to get there. I've just gotten used to 2 hours in the back of a van with no leg space.

The work this week was kind of funny. It felt like all of the serious people in our teaching pool weren't around or weren't available. We were planning back ups for our backups every day and still ended up having gaps in our days haha. Near the end of the week it got better though.

On Friday we had the baptism for Rose! She was super excited and we were able to have 2 members there. 2 doesn't sound like a lot, but we had to travel to a different chapel to do the baptism so it wasn't too bad. She was confirmed this Sunday and she already seems super happy. We will keep learning with her and helping her along the covenant path.

•Week 9•

You are what you eat.

Single digits that's wack. This one is self explanatory really. On my mission I've just really come to know the importance of good eating habits. Ghana doesn't have a wide variety of food so it's not too hard out here haha. With all of the walking we do in a day there is a noticeable difference between drinking a soda and a bag of water. I have learned to eat bigger and more wholesome breakfasts that will sustain me past noon. It's something that I kind of took for granted back home and I will definitely watch my diet more when I return. It'll be difficult with college living though, haha.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Thanks for reading all of this, the week wasn't too crazy. See you next week!

🐐 Elder Holyoak 🐐

Goat Friend 😀

Multi-Zone

Rose's Baptism

Nyak City

They even sell boxers!

Art?

I found Gladys!

5/22/23

Great week, let me tell you about it.

We met up with some members of the branch to go to a funeral for one of our members. He passed away early on in the week and they held the funeral a few days later. We weren't able to stay the whole time because we had district council.

There was one crazy thing that happened this week. We were walking through the area at night and I stumbled into someone I knew from my last area. Her name is Gladys and we just started teaching her right before I left Odorkor. She was staying there for school and Nyakrom is her hometown. So she showed us her place and we plan to continue teaching her here!

On Saturday I went on exchange with Elder Chapman. He's a super cool guy from Michigan. We didn't have a lot of success in the area that day because all of our serious people were busy or they canceled on us. It's all good though, we ate some Fufu for lunch and caught the last 15 minutes of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on the TV with super low volume.

This Sunday we were teaching our friend Grace and when we finished the lesson she said that she had someone for us to teach. We called the guy and after getting directions from some strangers we made it to his place. His name is Joshua and his friend John joined us for a lesson. In the middle of the lesson he asked a question about whether or not there was a third heaven. We were a bit surprised but we answered him with some scriptures about the degrees of glory. He told us that he would read the whole pamphlet in one sitting and he asked when we would come back. We have plans to see him tomorrow.

•Week 10•

Live where your feet are.

Shoutout to Elder Zile for that title. It's a basic principle, but the only way you can possibly be happy in this life is by living in the moment. At the beginning of my mission I missed home a lot. I always had thoughts like, "Life will be better when I'm 1 year out on my mission," or "I'll be happy when I am home again." I realized later that it is a terrible way to live. Never put off living! The only thing that you have is right now. Carpe Diem. Seize the day! They always say that depression stems from looking too much into the past and anxiety from looking too much into the future. Learn from the past, plan for the future, and live where your feet are.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

Thanks for reading, I love you all. I'm happy to be here, right now, exactly where I'm at. See you all next week!

Elder Holyoak

Funeral for Francis Arthur

Gladys

More with the kids

Exchange with Elder Chapman

Nyak City

Augustine

Got Em'

Twice

Two Chainssss (Broken Ones) ⛓️ 🔗

5/16/23

Cool cool week

Huge win this week. We put our friend Rose Amoah on baptismal date for the 26th of May. She is someone that the elders before us contacted and started teaching. She has been coming to church and asked us about baptism. She is definitely ready for the step.

This week we finally pumped up the tires on our bikes and had the chance to ride them. My companion's bike was having some problems pedaling and then the chain broke. We ate lunch and a guy on a bike pulled up. We asked him if he knew any places that we could get it fixed and he said he could do it himself. After walking up a hill with our bikes we got to his house. He fixed the chain with a hammer and a thick piece of metal. It looked pretty good but not even 5 minutes later the chain broke again. Haha. 

We are still teaching all of the kids in Rose's Bible class and all of them showed up for church on Sunday. It was the most full we have seen our school room Sacrament hall the whole time I've been here. Rose even had them perform a little skit about the wise king Solomon. The story has a guard with a sword and when the time came for it one of the kids pulled a real knife from out of his waist-belt! The whole thing was in twi, but they did well.

Also, my p-day was Tuesday this week because we went to the temple today. We got to sleep in Alajo and I visited a bunch of old friends. I found out that one of the guys that was baptized while Elder Zile and I were there is planning on going on a mission in December. He plans to leave on the exact year mark of his baptism and we are super excited for him to go.

•Week 11•

The Power of a Smile

It has amazed me my whole mission how much of a difference a smile can make. Someone can give you a correction on something you did wrong with a smile on their face and it will give you a completely different feeling than someone doing it with a straight face or a grimace. However small and simple it is, that smile brings light and joy into the lives around you. A wave and a smile at a stranger makes you both have a better day. A smile makes you look more approachable and makes people more comfortable around you. I'm gonna take a page from Roman at wood's book and just tell you all to Smile More! We don't have time for frowns.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

I love you all and wish you the best. I pray for you all the time, see you next week!

Elder Holyoak

Rose's Bible Class

Broken Chains

Temple Trip

Happy Mother's Day❤️

Evening Road

Nyakrom

Bushionaries 🌱🌿🌴

5/8/23

This week was nice.

We have been working hard in Nyakrom and this week we tried to build up our teaching pool a bit more. We have 11 new people and there are some super cool people that we are teaching now. 

On Thursday I went on exchange with Elder Hill. He is one of our Zone Leaders in Swedru and he has served in this area before. He showed me a bunch of people on opposite sides of the area. He showed me a member named Magdalene and she lives way out in the Bush on a Coco farm. We had to take a car and then do a 30 minute hike just to get to her house. The funniest thing was she wasn't even home when we got there. Haha

We have a recent convert named Rose Mensah and she is great. She is teaching a Bible class for a bunch of little kids and she brings a lot of them to church every Sunday. Elder Hill and I taught the group and they were actually not that noisy... except for clapping every time we prayed. 

Elder Durling is doing pretty good on adjusting to Ghana. He already likes Fufu a lot, and this week I had him try Rice ball with groundnut soup. (The peanut butter soup) He's having a tough time adjusting to the heat because he's coming from a snowy April in Utah. 

We have had a lot of mentally ill people follow us around recently. It's sad because far out from Accra they don't really know how to treat people with mental problems, so they just walk the streets. They all freak out when they see white guys so they just glue to us. Sometimes we get followed for a good 15 to 20 minutes.

•Week 12•

Books are cool

One of the best things I will take home from my mission is a greater appreciation for books. For the last 21 months my only form of entertainment has been books. Every morning we wake up and study for one hour. When we get home from proselytizing I read something. When my companion is sick and we have to stay in the apartment, I read. All of the knowledge in the world is written in books. There isn't much more to say about this one. I like to read now.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

See you next week!

Elder Holyoak

After District Council

Rose's Kids

Exchange with Elder Hill

Near Magdalene's House

Broken Bridge

Nyakrom

Ghanian Cattle

😁

Rice Ball and Groundnut Soup

Breast feeding baby blessing 👶🏽

5/1/23

Well it's May now. That's weird.

I am now here in Nyakrom. On Tuesday I said goodbye to Elder Christensen and went to the trainer training meeting. I found out that I will be training Elder Durling, another American son! He is from West Jordan Utah so that's kind of funny too. We had a nice 5 hour Tro Tro ride to our area and the Zone leaders slept the night in our apartment.

The next morning we went to district council which isn't too far because it's just the next area over. After council we went to a chop bar and had some nice Fufu. When we got back to the area, I remembered what it was like to white wash. We just walked around most of the day trying to find pins on the map on our phone. There is one youth named Albert who knows pretty much everyone in the missionaries teaching pool so he took us around for the day and showed us a ton of people.

From that day forward we have just been working in the area. It is super quiet out here and it doesn't even smell that bad. During the day a lot of people go out to their farms so the morning and afternoon get kind of hard to fill our time. A lot of the work here is going to be helping less active people come back to church. We have done a lot of service since coming and that has been really fun. 

One morning I was about to get in the shower and my companion told me to come outside. I went out and saw that a truck had crashed and rolled right in front of our apartment. No one was hurt and we have no idea what caused it, but after the guys yelled at each other for a while they drove off in a taxi.  Also one of our members' children is sick and she asked that we give him a priesthood blessing. He's a baby so it was hard getting him to sit still with hands on his head. The mom started breastfeeding him and I blessed the baby at the same time. It worked really well to calm him down, but that was definitely a first.

The area is very different from my last area but I know I'm here for a reason so I'm gonna give it everything I've got. 

•Week 13•

Matthew 7:1

I know I said that I wasn't doing scripture of the Week but bare with me. The scripture reads, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." This is an amazing principle to live by. We can't judge anyone else because we ourselves haven't been judged yet. Unless it is your literal duty to be a judge, in court, as a bishop, or at a talent show, then you have no reason to judge others. Every single decision that a person makes in their life has a reason, whether they consciously think so or not. We don't have all of the reasons that people do things and so we have no reason to judge them for it. There have been countless times on my mission where I have judged my companion or another missionary just to find out later that I was completely wrong in my judgment. In a world with different opinions and interests we don't have time for the unfair judgment of others. Love everyone you meet despite your differences and see them through. We are supposed to be different from each other, it's a major part of life. Don't judge people at your first glance, some people are really bad at first impressions but turn out to actually be super cool people.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook- Aidan Holyoak 

Well that's all I have to say this week. Enjoy the pictures and don't judge me for the quality. 

I love you all, see you next week.

Elder Holyoak

Elder Durling

Some Kids

Old Lady Stylin' 

Service

Statue of Nyakrom's first chief 

Crashed Car

Our Chapel (A school building)

Nyakrom