🗑Trash + Van 🚐 = A van with Trash on it

Alright alright everyone, welcome to another weekly email. This week we had the chance to make two videos and go to multizone!

Two videos

The reason we were able to make two videos is that the two other Elders in our apartment asked for our help. We were able to film and edit a video about the Iron Rod for them. 

The second video we made was our video. The topic was scriptures so we decided to do something with the primary song "Scripture Power". It was a ton of fun and I hope you guys can go to Facebook to check out both of the videos next week when they get posted. I'll share them on my page, but it would be awesome if you can like and share the original video so that it can reach more people.

Multizone

It was a pretty normal multizone conference this week. Our apartment repairs/equipment guy Elder Jones asked us to bring anything that is cluttering up our apartment to multizone. Our apartment has been a missionary apartment for 10 years, which is before this mission even existed, so we had a few things to bring. We brought 4 broken fans and our entire gas stove. That was a lot of fun to carry to the Tro Tro at 4:30 am. We have to leave early because we are pretty far away from where they hold multizone. Since we packed our whole zone in one van (around 22 Elders) the driver just put all of our junk on the top and threw a net over it.

We made it to multizone on time and it was lots of fun. I was able to see some old friends from my last area and some new friends that joined our area this transfer.

After multizone they let us go to the mall for 20 minutes. 20 minutes is not a lot of time to look around so you kind of have to know what you want before you get there. I came out with a small bottle of Red Tabasco, seasoning salt, and two packs of powder mix chicken noodle soup. I think it was a pretty successful trip.

That's the whole week! I hope you guys enjoyed the email and the videos are coming hopefully next week. (Our mission Facebook Elder's do the posting.)

Scripture of the week

John 10: 26-28

26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

Contacts 

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

See you all soon!

Elder Holyoak 

Elder Asante and Elder Segura

Multi Zone

The Market (not the Mall)

New Ties and Mall Buys

Our apartment dog named Gus

No caption needed

Rockabye Baby, Rockabye

 Rockabye Rockabye 

Transfers passed and we had to say goodbye to some of the friends in our district. Our roomie Elder Muhaga left us to go to Swedru Zone, Elder Libby and Elder Murdock in our district also got transferred. :( Sad times but I know I'll see these guys again some time. The new person in our apartment is Elder Steadman. He is from a small town in Utah called Wales. He just finished his training and was actually trained by one of the guys I started my mission with! He's a super chill guy and he's 6'5 so he takes up a lot of space in our apartment, in a good way.

This week we have been teaching a ton of new people and we hope to see some more success. We have been working with members a lot more and it has been really nice having a translator. He can only translate for maybe 3 lessons a week though so for the rest we just have to rough it out. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Some kids were throwing rocks at us last night. We were coming home from the stake center on  P-Day and one kid said, 

"Obrony give me water." 

I didn't have any water so I said, 

"I don't have water."

One of the kids next to him threw a small rock and he hit me in the leg. I told them not to throw rocks but I guess that made it even more fun. A few more started throwing them as we walked away. It's alright though they were all really bad at throwing so they only hit me on the first one. Maybe we can go back and teach them how to play baseball, then invite them to church.

It was a pretty average week but we have multizone this week so it'll definitely be more eventful. The media guys also assigned us another video so I'll include that in the next email.

Scripture of the week

John 6:48 - "I am that bread of life."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

To all the missionaries out there, keep on grinding. Remember the fruits always come after you exercise your faith, not before. I'll see you guys all next week!

Elder Murdock, Elder Muhaga, Elder Libby (left to right) 

You will be missed.

Our goodbyes to Muhaga

Prankz

A man of good taste

Minecraft - For Simp

6 months!!

Hello Hello, I hope you're all doing well. Some stuff happened this week so let's get right into it.

On Wednesday I hit my 6-month mark as a missionary. I am already 1/4th of the way done with my whole mission and that blows my mind. Mission time is really confusing but one thing I know for sure is that time definitely isn't going slow anymore. I think staying busy is the key to making it go faster. To celebrate the 6 months I burned one of my ties! For some reason, the tie wasn't flammable at all so we had to use matches and cockroach spray to burn it. Don't worry the Holy Ghost protected us the whole time. Elder Duncan lit my hand on fire and I didn't even feel a thing.

During the week our missions Facebook guys asked us to make a video for them. We chose the topic "Love Thy Neighbor". I'll try to see if I can send it through email but if not it will be on my Facebook account also. 

An update on our Chicken problem. We had to forcefully evict her. OK, not forcefully but it was pretty annoying chasing a chicken and her baby around for 20 minutes. She kept coming back to the same spot but I think after the 4th or 5th time she got the point and hasn't come back since. 

We also got transfer news this week and I'm going to be staying with Elder Duncan to finish his training. This is good news. I like Elder Duncan and I like this area. Some bad news however is that we are losing our roommate Elder Muhaga. This guy is one of the funniest people ever and he will be missed. Maybe I'll actually be able to get some sleep in this apartment now. I'll probably be seeing him sooner or later though.

Scripture of the Week

1 Nephi 8:10 - "And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy." 

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Well, I hope you guys are staying nice and cozy in the cold weather. I forgot what cold really feels like. Have a good week!

Elder Holyoak 

Tie Burning Ceremony

Chicken Eviction

Cool Forest Place

Ahhh...I'm in a tree. Help!

Companionship Bonding

Yummy fish soup!

"Love One Another" Facebook video

🍊🍊🍊 It's Raining Oranges!

This week was very very normal. Don't be surprised if I start sending short emails every once in a while. I'll still tell you what's going on, I just don't want to bore everyone with long emails that just talk about boring stuff to fill space. On that note, here's something funny that happened this week...

Elder Duncan and I were thirsty so we bought some cheap knockoff Sprite. While we were walking away from the shop a big truck with a bunch of kids in the back passed us. One of the kids held up an orange and said "Obrony! You want it?" Of course we said yes, so the kids all started throwing oranges off the back of the truck at us. It was on a dirt road so all of the oranges were fine. We got a plastic bag and packed them all in. It was a ton of oranges so we handed them all out to people for the rest of the day. Also, Ghana oranges are actually all green, not orange.

Outside of the front of our apartment, we have a chicken staying there. She has a couple chicks with her so she's super defensive. If you get near her she pecks at you and she's been pooping everywhere so we are trying to figure out a good way to get rid of her. I'll keep you updated on that.

We've been trying to teach as much as we can out here but it's hard to find serious people. And when you do find serious people they usually don't speak a lot of English. Everyone is a lot of fun to talk to though.

We have been taking more pictures even if they are a little stupid so I hope you enjoy them.

Scripture of the week

Luke 12:34 - "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Enjoy your week everyone, see you later!

Elder Holyoak

It's a lot harder than it looks.

"The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma" - Patrick Star

Stop Over Pub

Companions

Support Each Other

#GetPlanked

#PlankNation

New Year, New Me

It was a very uneventful week. But I'll still keep this as entertaining as possible.

New Years

Our New Years' treatment was pretty much the same as Christmas. In Ghana, holidays are more like a day off than a day to look forward to. They kinda just say Merry Christmas and that's as much as they celebrate. Christmas isn't really a day either. They say Merry Christmas the whole week before and after Christmas.

Our ward had a little activity on New Years Day that was about 2 hours long. The whole thing was just playing this game called "pick and act". It's like a super simple trivia game. The way it works is you pull a piece of paper out of a box and do what it says or answer the question on it. Here are a few of the things that were on different pieces of paper.

-Bare your testimony

-What's your favorite scripture?

-What's your favorite pet?

-How many months are in the year?

-What's your favorite color?

It was kinda weird but everyone seemed to be having a good time. The rest of the night we just went back to the apartment and hung out until 12. (We couldn't have even slept if we wanted to with all of the fireworks.) The fireworks here are like roman candles. They're not very powerful but there are a whole lot of them.

That's pretty much everything cool that happened this week so I'm just gonna answer some questions some of my friends have been asking about Ghana.

How much trash is in Ghana?

There is trash everywhere. There are almost no trashcans anywhere so people just drop trash on the ground or throw it in bushes. The really thoughtful people gather it in piles and burn it though.

What kind of animals are there?

Goats, Chickens, Dogs, Cats, Cows, Snakes, Lizards, and a few less common animals.

Have you gained/lost weight while there?

I haven't lost or gained any weight. I didn't have much to lose in the first place and the food isn't Fatty enough to gain anything, but I know some missionaries who have lost over 25 pounds.

Do you even have rules there?

Yeah... kinda. We have the standards like everyone else but the further you go into the bush the more disobedient missionaries get. I haven't had a disobedient companion yet but I know it'll come down the line.

If you guys have any other questions I'd love to answer them because I'm running out of stuff to talk about.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Scripture of the week

Luke 5:32 - "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

I don't have a ton of pictures, but I'll do better next week. Next week's email will be better too. I pinky promise. See you guys later. 

Elder Holyoak 

These kids are crazy!

Don't mind the underbite

Big Tree at the old mall (old area)

Coolio

Baby Powder Baby

Afehyiapa!!!

Afehyiapa!!! That means Merry Christmas.

I'll be completely honest nothing that cool really happened this week besides Christmas so this email will be a little bit shorter.

Christmas

Christmas in Ghana isn't celebrated as crazy as it is in America so there wasn't much we could really do. It was more of a good hang-out day for us. We got to sleep in and that doesn't sound like a lot but as a missionary waking up at 6:30 every day it was really nice. We didn't get fed by any members on Christmas day but 2 days before, we went to one of the sisters' houses. She fed us kokoente and that was my first time actually trying it. It's like fufu but it's brown. It is also known in Ghana as Face the Wall or Chris Brown. It was... Good. On actual Christmas day, we had some vanilla French toast for breakfast, egg noodles for lunch, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for dinner. The mac and cheese was a Christmas present from another missionary in my district, Thanks Elder Smith. Since it's a new area for us we don't know the members very well, so the rest of the day was hanging out with other missionaries. 

Christmas Miracle

It rained! It's been really hot so that felt great.

Elder Muhaga's Chicken

Today we went shopping for P-day and one of the Elders that we share our apartment with wanted to buy a live chicken. The process pretty much went like this. We walked over to a guy standing next to a chicken coop and asked him how much his chickens were. He told us they were 30 Cedis each or around 6 USD. Elder Muhaga picked out his favorite one and the guy packed the chicken up for him. He pretty much just tied it's legs and put it in a plastic bag. We rode in a taxi back to our apartment and when we got back Elder Muhaga went straight to sharpening a knife. I'll spare you the details, but it's still crazy to me how much chickens can move around with their head cut off. He cleaned it up and I'm pretty sure he's just gonna cook it tomorrow. Elder Muhaga is actually a really nice guy. He's from Zimbabwe. He said he wants an American girlfriend when he gets back so if you're single and willing to wait 17 months let me know. 

Scripture of the week

Mormon 8:22 - "For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled"

And there's nothing you can do about it Satan.

Contact me:

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

That's the whole week. Nothing too crazy going on but the work has been progressing. Have a good rest of your year everyone and I'll see you in 2022!

Elder Holyoak

Santa's Little Helper

Kokoente or Chris Brown

Christmas Breakfast

Stand Off

Christmas Dinner - Kraft Mac and Cheese

Elder Muhaga and his prize

Elder Duncan misses snowboarding

The Rice, The Witch, and The Buzz Broz

The Rice

We had multizone this week and it was all Christmas-themed. There were a bunch of activities and I got to see a lot of friends from around the mission. We watched the movie "A Christmas Carol", the one with Patrick Stewart, and they gave us popcorn. It was really nice to watch an actual movie and not just the 5-minute gospel library videos. After the movie, we ate and they gave us a ton of rice, chicken, and brownies. Then we had a missionary talent show. A few of the talents were singing, piano, guitar, stand-up comedy, and ballroom dancing. It was a very interesting show. One zone even made a human pyramid. At the end of everything, they gave us Christmas packages from home and a little present from our senior couples. That's probably the most Christmas we are gonna get for the rest of the month, so it was pretty nice.

The Witch

This Wednesday, one of the members in another missionary's ward invited our whole District over for dinner. The whole dinner was great! She made us noodles, rice, and stew. When we finished it was dark so we said our thanks and started walking home. It was fully dark because the sun goes down around 6 pm here. When we were walking on the side of the road we saw an old lady standing in the middle of the street. As we got closer we saw that she wasn't moving. Not even an inch. If you put her next to a statue I'm pretty sure the statue would be moving more. As we walked past I looked at her face. Her eyes were opened wide and so was her mouth. Cars kept stopping in front of her, but she wouldn't move. It was a pretty cool way to end the night. The funniest thing is some other Elders actually saw here about 30 minutes later on a different street doing the same thing. There's a ton of possibilities. She could've been crazy, on drugs, a witch, or just trying to start a flash mob. We just call her a witch because that's what someone shouted at her while we were walking past. I'm just glad I'm on the winning team with Jesus to back me up.

The Buzz Broz

Elder Duncan and I have been doing companionship bonding exercises. We rode bikes for the first time in our area and it was a ton of fun. Our area is mostly hills so you're either coasting or pedaling hard uphill. If you go anywhere off the main road it's pretty much just a mountain biking trail. Elder Duncan also thought that his hair was getting a little long so we went and bought hair clippers. He started slow and was cutting the top himself. I left the room for maybe 5 minutes and when I came back he was fully buzzed. I thought it was funny so I told him to give me one too. We have been asked if we are brothers a couple times in the street and one time a lady asked if we were twins.

It was a really good week and I'm excited to see what we can do to celebrate Christmas. I hope you can all do your part in sharing Christ's life this week because that makes God happy.

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

Scripture of the week
Exodus 22:18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"
I'm sure she is a nice lady, but still a witch. 

Enjoy your Christmas everyone, I hope you all get what you asked for and help someone get what they asked for. See you next week!
Elder Holyoak

Buzz Broz

Bike Broz

Christmas Feast

Mission Family Tree

Family Dinner

The Witch