Mud and a Little Blood

Another solid we here in Asamanketewa. We have been working a lot on trying to find serious people but it's never easy. I feel like every time we get a solid person they decide to travel out of town for a couple weeks. 

This week we had President interviews and transfer news. President Sanders is the most chill guy in the world, so I look forward to interviews. He looked at our area and saw no crazy problems so he decided to change nothing. Elder Duncan and I are staying together for another 6 weeks! I'm very happy about it. A good area and a good companion are something I'll never take for granted. 

At interviews, I also got a birthday package from my family. Fun fact, Ghana is the second most expensive country to send packages to BUT it has one of the easiest visas to get. In order to receive packages, we have to give them to people already traveling to Ghana. There isn't amazon or anything so we only get packages every 3-4 months. All of the stuff in this one was super useful. Stuff like Twi language books, drink mix, spices, soup mix, deodorant sticks, Scripture markers, etc. Thanks to my family for all the stuff. I'll put it to good use.

Another thing that happened this week was exchanges. I had the chance to go to an area called Yayo with Elder Webley. Now Elder Webley has only been in his new area for about a week so neither of us really knew who we were teaching. On top of that, we decided to bike. Within the first 5 minutes of leaving the apartment, Elder Webley slid out on the sand and crashed. He tore a little hole in his pants leg, but the work goes on. Later on in the day, we were following Google maps to find someone and we had to bike through a small footpath. The path consisted of rocks, old staircases, sand, and a creek that ran back and forth through it. Sadly Elder Webley crashed again. This time he went over his handlebars! He wasn't hurt too badly, but he did rip another hole in his pants. On the way to the people we were going to teach, it started raining. Usually, if it starts raining too hard we will stop and get cover. It wasn't raining too crazy so we just kept biking. The tires on the bikes flicked mud everywhere so we showed up at the lesson covered in mud. I really enjoyed the exchange overall and it was a really fun day.

Scripture of the Week

Alma 41:10 - "Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Thank you guys for reading, I hope there isn't anything too crazy going on in the world right now. I'll see you all next week!

 Slava Ukraini 

Exchange Day

Taxi

Ground Nut Soup and Rice Ball

Mega Mega Bed

Pineapple Plant with a Goat

Cool New Shirt Designs

Elder Murdock's Evolution

Ups and Downs (on a bike)

This week we biked very far. The whole week was pretty normal until the middle. One of our members wanted to show us a family's house that had some less active youth. He said the only way to get there was to bike or walk so we decided to bike. The one thing that we didn't know was that he is insane at biking. We were struggling to catch up on all of the hills. Out of nowhere, he turned off the main road onto a small dirt trail. Turns out the rest of the ride was about the same as an uphill mountain biking trail. We rode on that for about another 20 minutes and finally made it to their house in the middle of the jungle. When we got there, we were all super thirsty and they offered us rainwater to drink. I hesitated for a second and then decided I'd have to go thirsty for a bit. I didn't want any parasites. Riding back down was a lot of fun because it turned into a downhill mountain biking trail. A great experience all around, especially because we are now teaching one of the kids in the family. 

Another crazy thing that happened this week was an emergency transfer. My companion and I stayed the same, but we lost one of the Elders in our apartment. Elder Steadman was transferred out of our apartment, but he will still be in our zone. Lucky enough president interviews are tomorrow and since our apartment is closer he will have one more night to sleep over with us. We will party.

RIP Elder Steadman you will be missed.

That's the week. Real transfers come this week so I can update you on that in the next email. I hope you're all living happily right now. Enjoy the small things, like ice cream.

Scripture of The Week

Revelation 10:9 - "And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."

Bitter Belly

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

My family said they wanted more pictures of our area so here you go and thank you, everyone, for the birthday wishes. 

Birthday Pizza

Bike Day

Our Member Hommie Everand

Goodbye Elder Steadman

Area Pictures

Baptisms and Strawberry Jam 🍓

Well well well. Another week, another email. Not a very crazy week but we had some success in the work. 

This week we were blessed to baptize 3 new people. All 3 were referred to us by members or were in part member families. Members in missionary work are EVERYTHING. If you think someone near you could use the gospel in their lives, refer them to missionaries. The restored gospel is one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone.

We had a few troubles with the font and trying to fill it up in time for the baptism. We went to the Chapel the night before and started to clean and fill the font, but it was going super slow. We decided to leave it overnight and come back early in the morning. When we came back in the morning, the water was turned off and the font wasn't even half full. A very good samaritan decided that they needed to turn the font off probably about an hour after we left. We ended up pumping water from a hose outside in through the window in order to fill the font in time. Everything worked out fine, but the water was a little green.

Like I said it wasn't a very crazy week. We did also find strawberry jam and I hit 7 months. Time seems to be picking up which is good and bad. We have some super cool friends that we are teaching and I'll keep you updated on their progress. I hope you're all enjoying your lives right now! Happy valentines day!

Zaragamba is my valentine 

Scripture of the week

Mark 7:15 - "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Enjoy your week! 

Elder Holyoak

Cool Little Baptism

Cool Little Bridge

Hiking to a lesson

Moist

Daily Role Plays

I ate 21 cans of Beans this week

Yeah... I ate baked beans for every single meal this week. Breakfast lunch and dinner. It all started when Elder Steadman, who lives in our apartment, said, "You like beans, I bet you can't eat them for every meal this week." Once he said that I was already on the way to the store to buy more cans. The first few days were pretty rough but after about day 3, I was just used to it. One of the hardest parts by far was eating beans for breakfast every morning. You wake up all happy for a new day and then you realize you have to eat a whole can of beans for breakfast. Overall, I think that it was worth it. I'd recommend it to anyone who is willing to try the Bean Diet. It'll change your life.

This week we had the opportunity to go to the temple. I love the temple in Ghana because it's one of the quietest places in the whole country. We had a little trouble with travel and the time we signed up for, but the temple workers were really nice, so they helped us out. 

After the temple, we all went to KFC. On the day we went there, I was on Bean day #6. I wasn't just gonna lose all of my progress because of some fried chicken, so I planned ahead and brought my own can of beans for lunch. I bought some fries and spread my cold can of beans over them. It was kinda weird but I regret nothing. 

That's my week!

Scripture of the week

John 20:3-4 

    3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulcher.

   4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher."

  -Here is John flexing in a Bible verse that he can run faster than Peter.

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak

I hope you guys are enjoying the food wherever you are. If you aren't, go buy a can of baked beans. Seek you next week!

Elder Holyoak

Temple Trip

Trav at the Temple

Ghana Pizza

My KFC Beans

Secret Menu Item

Bean Kill Count

🗑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