Week 57-Another Week another Dollar!!!

10/20/2014

Hey Carson Fam!!!:)   It sounded like you guys had an eventful week! As I read your emails I was just laughing at the things Grandpa had said this week.  When I first read I was like oh no, but I am glad he is doing okay.  He has to start being careful and not getting himself too far off the ground, he is getting to old, he can’t stand on things anymore.  I am so grateful that he is okay, maybe this is a warning to him to not do that stuff anymore.  Dad sounds like everything is pretty normal at work and at home, I bet your getting the sleds prepped and the bikes put away, is the weather cooling off at all? Glad all is well boss.  Mom I think that is a great idea to do with Dad and Colby.  To be honest reading the Book of Mormon is what got me through the first couple of months of my mission.  I have found such great comfort in reading it, you can just feel and know how Heavenly Father works as you read it.  I have the strongest testimony of the Book, I can’t wait for you to see how my scriptures look when I get home, I love reading them.  I know the book is true, I don’t doubt it for a minute!  Like even if I didn’t have a testimony of the book or Joseph smith I still have to keep my covenants in hope that I can live with my family forever, no other church on this planet offers that, that’s all I care about I hope and have faith that it will happen and have to keep my covenants. 

Well everything with me is going good.  Ebola is still not in Ghana and that is good, I did read an article though that Ghana has a 50 percent chance of getting it by the end of this month and is the highest country in the world that has the biggest chance to getting it.  I hope and pray it doesn’t come because if it does it will kill a lot of Ghanians.  This inside scoop here is, the African cup of Nations which is like the fifa cup for Africa was supposed to be held in Morocco but they don’t want it because of Ebola and now they are pleading with Ghana to hold it, we will see what happens.  I just stay focused on the lord’s work and listen to the spirit and it will keep me safe.  We had a great week this week.  It seemed very very fast and was good.  We had to let Sister G go she isn’t serious that is hard and also sister P she too wont progress.  So now we are preparing a young man named C who is a great humble man who has been coming to church since last year, he loves the church and came to us to be baptized...we thought he was a member already haha but it has been fun teaching him.  Also there is a young girl named V.  She is the cousin to two of our recent converts and is a very very smart girl.  She told us she has to make sure that this is the Lords church before she is baptized and she doesn't want to go on her cousin’s testimony...that answer is the best I have had in Ghana.  She has been reading the book of Mormon and has been praying every night, she is doing awesome.  Well other than that our Area is so freaking cool, it’s super hard but we are trying our best.  We went on Exchanges this week, I went with Elder Valdez, we have been in the same district for almost 6 months now I love that guy, he is from Utah, boy he is a handsome guy!! So if you have any hotties from Idaho or anything boy this guy is a keeper!!  Elder Bangi and I are getting along really good!! They play a game called draft here, it’s like Checkers and is a lot of fun so we play that plenty and it has really brought us closer together.  Bangi always tells me Carson I love you, you are a successful missionary....but you are very stubborn why?  haha I laugh and say I’m a Carson!  Elder Jesse is a cool guy and we get along well too, we have been having a good time in the Apartment, we always have something to chat about and it has been fun.

I have been working out in the mornings and have been enjoying that, I actually found some protein here and it was cheap so I am excited to start using that it’s all natural so I am excited. 

Today marks my 13 months, I can’t hardly believe that I have been here for over a year time has truly flown bye.  I have loved my mission thus far.

Well family, ask me questions next week on some things you have been wondering or on some things others have asked, I have found that Ghana feels like home and everything is normal to me, so nothing really stands out to me anymore.  I destroyed a public toilet today at Shop-Rite that was fun haha!! Also they are building a huge mall right by shop-rite and it will be open at the end of this month I am so pumped to go there!!!  Mom Dad And Colbs I love you guys tons.  I pray for your safety and health every day.  I also pray that you are always happy.  I watched the video of Dad opening his present and that made me laugh, I am glad you are all happy!!  I love you all very much!!

Love you guys Tons!!!

Elder Carson

Week 56- Flexin in Ghana!

10/13/2014

What’s up Family!!:)  I swear weeks just go by faster and faster it feels like.  Thank you for the emails, I am so grateful that I can always get on my email and have an email from my family.  You know some of the African missionaries here don’t ever get emails their whole mission, we always need to be grateful for our blessings.  Mom it sounded like you had a good week.  That story about Dad and the ear wig is funny.  When I go home I beg don’t make rice either haha.  We have a very bad cockroach problem in our apartment so we get a cockroach every once in a while in our food lol.  Dad you sound like you are staying busy boss, that is good to hear.  I saw the pictures of you guys in Sun Valley I know where you were at.  That is such beautiful country, I sure miss the mountains.  I’m still wanting to get a bunch of chocolate( m$ms) and some mountain dew and start the jeep up and go for a ride when I get home so be ready for that.  Grandpa looks healthy and happy I bet you guys enjoyed...you’re getting old though haha chii Dad is almost 50 I’m going to be able to kick his freaking butt when I get home haha:) you all looked great though.  Ghana is still the same.  I realized that I am just used to this place, it feels like home, As I was washing my clothes this morning I thought of how grateful I was for a washing machine...wow we are blessed.  The weather here is about the same, it is warming up a lot though, I think I am used to it though.  The apartment is still cool, Elder Jesse is a good guy, we get along really well, I enjoy being around him.  I miss ole Jensen though that gay boy haha but it’s been great to build another brotherhood with Elder Jesse.  I miss fishing!!! 

This week was awesome. It’s been different here in Kaneshie but it’s been fun.  We are working and that’s all that matters.  I was thinking about how cool this mission is because you get to adjust to every different types of culture.  Right now I’m adjusting to Uganda culture and is has been a blast.  Elder Bangi and I get along very well.  We are laughing a ton and are always joking.  Bangi when you fart says oh Elder Carson you are always Gassing haha, he uses gassing it makes me laugh.  We always make fun of each others english and have a good time.  I was so happy at church this Sunday seeing my Recent Converts there.  Speaking of that Mom next email I need the pictures of me and the three girls, they are the S Family. We took T and A to FHE on Monday to the O's house,  They are members that have a big FHE every Monday.  T was asked to give the closing prayer there and gave an outstanding prayer, it made me so happy.  I love those girls, they are so dang cool and are great examples to their father who is currently less active.  We were able to get a draft board which is like checkers and play with him, he is an old wise fart and made me and Bangi look like small boys but it was fun to gain a relationship with him.  G is doing pretty good, she is progressing small small, we taught her the Plan and it was good, we are praying that she will progress.  We as well were able to contact this older woman who just automatically brought us out two chairs and said lets learn...that was cool.  She is a very nice strong old lady, she is a catholic and is very lovely we will love to teach her and see how she progresses.  The highlight of my week though was Saturday.  Elder Jensen and Elder Akpossu were teaching a man named K, he is a young man around 25 and is very smart...awesome guy.  Well they could only teach him on Sundays, so I would always join and just chat with him. We chatted and we get along really well.  He actually came with his Girlfriend who is a very beautiful member and he loved the church.  Well this Saturday was his baptism, well they asked him who he wanted to baptize him and he said me. I felt honored it was a very good baptism too the spirit was so dang strong.  As I sat back and watched him get the holy ghost at church I just thought to myself this is why I’m on a mission to help this man join our Heavenly Fathers fold and then he in the future will have a family in the church, they will get married in the temple, and his children will serve, it’s so dang cool.  I love missionary work.  We as well went to this funeral at this very nice Catholic Cathedral in Accra,  It was a very nice funeral.  Well we were chatting with this family off in the corner about the gospel and some other guy came over and started learning with us.  Well he was a very nice man and we had an enjoyable discussion with him and some women.  Well as were learning this big guy wearing this nice suit comes up and says what are you doing you can’t learn here.  The man responded oh we are just chatting and the guy in the suit said oh but I see a bible well we said okay no problem and he got his security to come and warn us.  Well there is a saying in Ghana that one palmnut tree bears palmnuts, well if one palmnut out of the hundreds is spoiled it will spoil your soup.  We talked about how that man just spoiled the reputation of the Catholic church.  I love how people worship Christ here and I will never tell them to stop, I don’t mind the Catholic Church but all it takes is one man to spoil a reputation of a church. As we discussed that I thought about the LDS church at home.  The same thing applies, all it takes is one person to spoil or leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth about the church.  We always need to remember that we are being watched as members of the Lords church, and we always need to represent in the correct way.  

I was going to tell you as well.  Here in Ghana they always talk about how parents train their children.  Well if a child is stubborn or a punk they will always say that his parents didnt train him or her well and it makes the parents look bad.  So they always try to train their children in the right way in order to not have that reputation (Africans care about what people think very bad) .  Well I was going to tell you that I talked to Mommy Beatrice and some other people that I am close to here and they told me Elder Carson your parents trained you right, they must be great parents.  It always makes me smile.  I am thankful for my family, a lot of the credit goes to mom and dad but a lot goes to the whole family.  I love you three very much Mom Dad and Colby.  I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for my family!! 

I love you guys tons!!!

Elder Carson

Week 55

10/6/2014

Hey family!!! It was good to hear from you this week :)  I always love hearing how you are doing :)  How was conference this week?  I want to watch conference so bad, I love watching it, and we should get it in about a month so that will be good!  Can you believe this is my third Conference, only one more after this one.  I got your package too, thank you so much, I loved it! I loved all the pictures they were great.  You are all getting so big, chii I can’t believe it.  Colby looks like a grown man, Magi looks like she should be married, I can’t believe it.  Also I can’t believe how big Saryn and Will are getting, they can talk now pretty good, and they couldn’t talk when I left.  They are so dang cute!! It is wild how Burley is changing though, I can’t believe that. Mom that is good you were able to go and have a good weekend with Cindy.  It sounded like you had a good time.

This week was a really good week!!  We had a lot of distractions due to transfers and we got rained out a couple days so we weren’t able to work as hard as I wanted to but it was still a fun week.  Tuesday we spent the whole day with elder Jensen because he was leaving and that was a lot of fun!  We had a couple Free Meals with some Recent Converts and just had a good day with him.  Then we had Transfers on Wednesday.  Well Elder Jensen gave me a cowboy looking straw hat so I rock that thing everywhere now, I feel like a redneck haha but it’s nice to keep me out of the sun, I’m so sick of the sun I hate it, I just want cold snowy weather. I love Transfers though, it’s nice to be able to see all the missionaries and chat with them all.  I like seeing the missionaries I came to Ghana with; it’s fun to talk about how far we have progressed.  It’s been one year and it feels like yesterday I got here, missionary time is a lot different.  We picked up Elder Akpossus companion Elder Jesse, he is from Sandy, he is a cool guy, we will have a lot of fun together, and he came just one transfer after me.  He is cool so we will enjoy in the apartment.  The rest of the week we just had a normal week.  We found and contacted this really cool woman.  Her name is P.  She has a couple children and just barely moved to our Area.  Well she gave us a chair and we had a very powerful first lesson with her.  Well we invited her to pray and read the pamphlet and she said she would.  Well we visited her two days later and she had read the pamphlet (which is a miracle) and she had prayed.  She said she prayed before she read and she read about Joseph Smith and it really touched her heart. It was so dang cool, well I was all pumped like this women is awesome she is progressing so fast and so I was like well church is tomorrow at ten will we see you there?  She was like elders I have to be honest, it will take a miracle for me to leave my church (catholic)  I was thinking to myself God has answered your prayers and you won’t leave...it’s very hard here in Ghana.  She explained to us that her husband is Catholic and her whole family so it will be hard.  Plus the culture here in Ghana is the women have to follow their husband to his church, it’s so stupid, so we are going to work on her and we all know how Roman Catholic baptize so we are going to explain baptism with her and help her understand that only one church has the one true baptism Eph 4:5.  Well as well we were able to see G!! It was so cool when I contacted her I didn’t get her number so we stopped by her house on Thursday but she wasn’t there.  Well she got our number off of the pamphlet and called us the next day and asked when we are coming again (another miracle in Gh)  I was so happy, I was like right now we will come.  We went there met her children and had a very good lesson with her.  She was so happy!  She said this week Sunday she will come to church so we are happy for her!  We just have to hope she prays.  Everyone else we had been teaching we kind of put in the back of our minds and are trying to find more serious people to teach.    The S Family is doing great.  We are going to go to a Family Home Evening with them tonight.  They are so dang beautiful.  The Bishop gives them a ride every Sunday, it’s so cool to see your Recent Converts progressing in the church. It’s the best feeling in the world:)  

Mom, Dad, and Colby!! I love you three tons! Thank you for the emails and the support.  I thank you for the prayers you have sent my way.  I can feel them and I can feel your love and support.  I know this church is true.  My testimony strengthens every day I am out here.  I get to defend this church and our Saviors Gospel every day, I love it!  I love my Savior and am so grateful for what he has done for me; with him we can do all things.  I know that with whatever trial we are going through or whatever we are facing Heavenly Father is always there for us, he loves us, and wants us to talk to him every day.  I know that with whatever happens with my family, I will see them again, thanks to my Savior!  I love you three very much, don’t forget that this is Christ’s Church not a man’s church!  

I love you three so dang much!!! 

Elder Carson

Week 54- No Jesus...No Swag!!!

9/29/2014

So everything in Ghana is Christian related. Above almost every shop you will see by his grace hair salon, or Gods gifts key cutting service, on the back of every tro tro or taxi you will see God’s Grace, or Jesus's Love, it’s really cool.  Well on the back of a car I saw this No Jesus...No swag I freaking loved it!!  Family it sounded like you all had a very good week.  I actually had the worst urge the other day to go to Burgers Etc.  I was glad you were able to get out and go to the hills and go to rock creek store.  Dad it sounds like work is okay and everything is moving along pretty well.  Mom don’t worry about the computers they will settle down.  How are your classes?  Are the kids okay?  How is baseball?  Basketball? Baseball?  Mom I will be honest I kind of want to know what is going on back home with those things.  I am glad you all had a great week I love you all very much!! 

This week was a very good week for me and Elder Bangi.  It was full of excitement and some spiritual experiences.  We are trying to work a little harder, it’s been hard to balance things but we will get it figured out.  Elder Bangi and I are doing really good, I love that guy, and we are always laughing and having a good time.  So to begin transfer news they are here.  Elder Bangi and I are staying together, so that means two more months I will be with him it will be good, I am happy with that!!  The only change is Elder Jensen is going to my last area, to be the district leader there, so that will be hard to not have him anymore but the district is still really cool!!  

I am so excited for conference!! I always look forward to hearing the Apostles and the Prophets!! They are truly special witnesses of Christ....I remember when Bednar came and I heard his testimony, WOW they are truly Apostles and have that authority, I love President Monson very much!! I read that book you sent me and I have developed a new love for him.  I will be so happy to hear his counsel this week!! I beg as you listen to the talks don’t try to remember everything they say, remember what the spirit tells you to do!! 

This week was awesome!! We were able to help Sister M into the waters of Baptism on Saturday, it was so awesome, and she was just shining with the spirit!! Usually we try to get a lot of members there and none came this week and at first I was greatly devastated, but M kind of just wanted a small spiritual experience and she got it, it was really nice!! She has been super prepared, as I did the practice interview with her, I said M what was the role of Joseph Smith, she said oh he brought back our saviors church to the earth!! I was so happy for her!! Well we had an okay week as far as being able to see our investigators, J is still very stubborn so we are going to have to not see her as much as we used too, I hate doing that especially when she has received an answer to her prayer but we have to find those who have been prepared more!  We will continue to pray for her.   This week we are going to focus on finding more people to teach and help more progress, we have done okay but our people aren’t really progressing towards baptism it’s very hard in Ghana you really have to learn to balance things. 

 I had a very spiritual experience this Saturday, one that was probably the coolest on my mission.  In this mission we are just like the old school missionaries, we walk and knock on every gate to find people to teach.  Well we were going to an appointment later at night on Saturday, and on the way there was a woman who was petting this dog, she had a baby on her back and her son with her.  Well I stopped my companion kept riding and I said is this your dog, she replied with a yes.  So we chatted small and she asked what church I was from.  I told her and she said she had been to a wedding at our temple but didn’t go in!  I explained the church to her and what we do as missionaries.  Well I started to bring out the restoration pamphlet and she said you know what Elder Carson my husband died three months ago.  Well the spirit just took over it was so dang cool.  I said you know sister G I was going to share this with you but when we come we will discuss how in that temple you visited we can be sealed to our family forever, which means you will see your husband again, and can be sealed to him for eternity, when I finished she was tearing up.  For Africans to show emotion it is very hard to see, I have never seen them cry unless I was at a funeral.  Like at church if you start crying they laugh haha its weird so it was cool to see her feel the spirit that way, and it was just a contact...we will see her tomorrow:)  You know that is how the spirit works for me, I didn’t have this super strong impression to stop but over something as little as a dog the spirit and our heavenly father was able to help me plant a seed.     

Also Yesterday at church we were going to leave but we had a recent convert take my companions bike so we were waiting for some time, well some time turned into a couple hours and Elder Jensen and our companions were getting a little frustrated.  As we were sitting in the sacrament room a woman came to the front door then started to leave, well again usually we don’t mind them but I decided to call for her, she told me she was looking for the missionaries.  So we brought her in and sat her down, by this time we had been waiting for 4 hours.  She opened up to us and explained that she is in a different ward and was baptized in December.  She started to cry as she explained her situation here.  People in Ghana see missionaries as just super great people so they always come to us.  She basically said that she is from Nigeria and was going to marry a guy and he brought her here to Ghana.  This is where she met the missionaries and was baptized.  Well as she has been here the guy is just a bum and is doing not good things so she wants to leave, he doesn’t care but she has to wait to get paid at the end of the year.  Overall she just needed someone to talk to, she just cried as she talked to us.  Well we have a very good member that has a bunch of apartments so we took her to him plus he is a great member that helps us when we run into stuff like this so we don’t face any precautions.  We gave her the option of staying there until the year ends.  Well long story short we handed her off to the ward and she was very happy.  She told us she was very relieved and very happy!!  What was amazing was we never stay that long at church but for some reason we did, and we were able to help that woman!  It was pretty neat I was thankful to be able to help her!! 

Well that was my week family!! I love you all very much and am so grateful for you all!  I miss you like crazy but we just have to do what we have done one more time and I am home!  Time goes by way too fast!  I pray for you each every single night! I love you all very much!!  Thank you for the emails! Tell me everything that is happening at home!! I love you all very much!!

Love you all tons!!!:) 

Elder Carson Elder Duke