🎅We know it's Christmas time in Ghana🤶

Another week, but this time there was Christmas inside.

On Tuesday I said goodbye to my homie Elder Zile. 5 months as companions had to come to an end eventually. I know he's enjoying it in the bush right now anyways and he's probably reading this right now too. Any pillars up there? Anyways my new companion is Elder Gemah and he is from Liberia. He's a super nice guy and the ward already loves him. He goes home pretty soon too so this is probably his last area.

This week everyone was preparing for Christmas. It honestly felt pretty normal because they don't really put up decorations in Ghana. A lot of chickens die during Christmas time, that's for sure. Everyone buys 1 or 2 for their family and they kill them either on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning to celebrate. We don't get snow here, but we do get the Harmattan. The Harmattan is when the sand from the Sahara desert gets blown into Ghana from Northern winds. This time of the year is always super dusty and I've been sneezing way too much.

The whole week was pretty normal until Christmas eve. We went to our ward Christmas party and had a great time. Ghanaians love really loud music! They played musical chairs with the primary kids and it was super funny to watch. An Elder who served in the Alajo ward and finished his mission came back to visit some people. His name is now Brother Soter and he decided to buy some Roman Candles. I was able to record it and that was the closest I could get to using any. It was pretty cool to have some fireworks for Christmas.

On Christmas we had an awesome day! Sacrament meeting was only 1 hour long, but there were some really good talks and testimonies. After church we were invited to go to the mission home and celebrate Christmas with the Jacobsen's. They said they didn't want an empty house on Christmas so they invited a bunch of Elders over. We had a Christmas lunch and I ate so much food I didn't even want to look at the dessert. We played a bunch of card games and things after. Elder Okeke is the Big Booty, the winner of the Big Booty game. After we left the mission home we went to our Bishops house because his wife just gave birth. Another family made us fufu and we packed it home with us.

Scripture of the week

3 Nephi 1:13 - "Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook- Aidan Holyoak

That's the whole week wrapped up. We are having a white elephant zone activity today so that'll be fun. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. I'll see you in 2023! 

Elder Holyoak

Elder Gemah my new companion

Christmas Lunch

Abigail's last Sunday-she's leaving for her own mission

RIP

Brother Soter's Christmas Surprise

Elder Rottweiler's bug bites

Alajo

Pictures

 12/19/22

So basically we had a packed P day and I didn't have much time to write an email.

We had our Christmas devotional, and we got news that Elder Zile is leaving.

Enjoy the pictures!

🎄Elder Holyoak🎅🏼

Rice Ball Party

Exchanges with Elder Asuquo

Elder Allen with Fufu

Zone P-Day and D&D

Elder Zile's last Sunday

Manhu wo akye

 12/9/22

This email might be long, because I wasn't able to send an email last week. We went to the temple on Friday, so I had no P day last Monday. It's been a busy two weeks though, so I'll fit in as much as I can.

In the past two weeks the World Cup has continued and last week both the USA and Ghana were knocked out. I was supporting Ghana for a while but I honestly wasn't too sad they lost because all of the Ghanaians were being super cocky about their last match. Then the United States played and lost to the Netherlands which hurt a little bit more. It's OK though, the next World Cup we have home field advantage. 

I went on three exchanges. Two of them with the same set of Elders. All great days with cool people. I went on an exchange with Elder Rottweiler first in Maamobi and that place is called the Zongo. Everything is super close together and it's very easy to get lost. They also have a super nice part of their area and I bought some Dr Pepper. I was really excited about that. I went to Newtown 1 with Elder Ashliman and he goes home in 2 months. We actually didn't have any lessons that day because everything fell through but we got some good street contacts. The last exchange was with Elder Allen in my area Alajo. We had a solid day of work and he helped us out with 2 baptismal interviews the same day.

Since we skipped our P day on Monday, we had to proselyte the whole day and that was really weird. After all of our lessons, we decided to go to the mall in our zone and we bought sushi. This zone is crazy. The sushi was really good too. Elder Zile was feeling the Christmas spirit, so he bought a Christmas tree for the apartment. He leaves this area before Christmas and he said he doesn't care. 

The temple trip was great on Friday. Our session started at 7 am so some people were battling sleep. The temple is the most peaceful place on the earth, which also makes it one of the hardest places to stay awake if you're tired haha. After the temple, a member who worked at a nice restaurant served us free food and it was super good jollof rice. While we were sitting there a girl walked in and the member told us she is a musician. Her name is Wendy Shay and she is super popular in Ghana. We also played some basketball that day.

To finish off the two weeks we had a baptismal service for our friends Caleb and Patience on Saturday. Patience is a super nice lady that has been consistently coming to church since we met her. Caleb is 19 years old so we can pick on him a little bit more. We are good friends, don't worry and we have a good reason. This guy is late to EVERYTHING. He showed up to church an hour late 3 weeks in a row. He started coming on time but he was even late to the baptismal service. It would be a little more understandable, but his house is a 5 minute walk from our Chapel. Anyways we love you Caleb. It was an amazing baptismal service and we had a good number of members there. Days like that make the work worth it.

Scripture of the Week

Jacob 4:7 - "Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Well I probably missed some stuff, but this email is long enough already. Have another great week everyone. I pray for you every day!

Elder Holyoak

Elder Rottweiler

Elder Allen and Abigail

Me and Morphius 

Sushi

Merry Christmas

Patience and Caleb's Baptism

Delicious Jollof Rice

Ice Cream Party

Pizza Party

Gobe

Fufu

Ghanaian Funerals are Awesome

Sorry for no email last week, our last P day was a little chaotic. This week was Thanksgiving, we did backflips, went on exchange with the APs, and we went to a Ghanaian funeral.

Last P day we had a Zone Activity and we did a Thanksgiving potluck. Everyone brought different kinds of food from their home country and we ate a lot. We had mashed potatoes, pizza, jollof rice, apple fritter, and some Nigerian dishes.

After district council on Wednesday, I put up the idea that we should try to do backflips on the hill behind the church. I was only able to convince 2 people but we all landed it, kinda.

On Thursday we had an exchange in the APs area and it was a great day. The only problem with the day was the World Cup. Ghana played Portugal at 4 and right when the match started, no one had time for us. We had 7 different people that we tried to see and they were all watching the game. It was really cool when Ghana scored because everyone was yelling in the streets. Ghana ended up losing 2-3 but I have high hopes that they will make it out of pools. That night we ordered a bunch of KFC and Pizza Hut for Thanksgiving.

On Saturday we went to the funeral of a recent convert's mother. Funerals in Ghana are a lot different than the ones at home. In Ghana, the funerals are very loud. The funeral was run by the pentecostal church so halfway through the service one guy gave a Sermon. Nothing he said had anything to do with the woman who died and after he finished they put out offering bowls. I'm hoping the money will go to the family, but I'm not too sure. When everything was finished, they had dancing pallbearers carrying the coffin out with trumpets and drums in the background. I hope you are all taking notes. I want dancing pallbearers at my funeral.

Scripture of the Week

Alma 5:20 - "I say unto you, can ye think of being saved when you have yielded yourselves to become subjects to the devil?"

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

A little bit longer email this week. See you guys next week!

Elder Holyoak 

Thanksgiving Potluck

Thanksgiving Pizza

Exchanges with Elder Okeke

Adam's Birthday

Back Flippin'

Kelewele Plantain

Ghanian Funeral

Dancing Pallbearers

Flippin' Missionaries

Photo Bomb

We had a super busy P day so I didn't have time to write an email. Here's a bunch of pictures instead.

Elder Holyoak 

Twsano District

10 Cidi Fufu

Untitled

Alajo

Stella

Phase 10

Monkey Fist Bump🐒🤜🏻🤛🏼

This week was crazy and very good. We were super busy and had fun all week. 

We are now in a double(two companionship) again so we decided to celebrate the new transfer with pizza. We ordered a bunch and gave a lot of it to the people who live in our compound. We also had an exchange so we didn't eat it all ourselves I promise. The pictures speak for themselves.

This week we met all of our goals and that felt really good. This whole month we haven't been able to reach them. We put 4 of our friends on date. They are Caleb, Joshua, Eliezer, and Patience. We set the baptism for December 3rd so we have some time.

We went on 2 exchanges, one in Newtwon with Elder McKnight and one in Northridge with Elder Hill. Elder McKnight and I had a super successful day and a lot of fun in his area. I bought a bunch of Kalyppo drinks which are just juice boxes. I also had a super good time with Elder Hill. Their area is super nice and we ate shawarma and hamburgers for lunch.

We had a little baby powder party with the kids in our compound and we also dressed up for our mission wide zoom call. That will explain some of the pictures below.

I also saw a monkey and gave it a fist bump.

Scripture of the Week

Alma 34:18 - "Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save."

Contacts

Email - aidan.holyoak@missionary.org 

Facebook - Aidan Holyoak 

Sorry that this email was short. I didn't have much time to write today, we had a busy P day. I hope you're all good and I hope you actually read this far in the email. See you next week!

Elder Holyoak 

Pizza Party

Exchanges with Elder McKnight

Exchanges with Elder Hill

Kalyppo

Abigail - Ward Missionary

Monkey Fist Bump

Baby Powder Party

Party Pals

Area Pics