hey!
this week has been kinda sweet/weird/cool/tough. on tuesday we went to swedru for district meetings then in the evening had some time in our area and we taught some good lessons. then, wednesday we went to foso then praso then came back to cape and i got to sneak out to moree to visit a couple of my old people one last time, and we also had some lessons in our area.
thursday was splits with assin foso zone. i got to spend the day with elder ekaette and elder meinzer which was sweet.
friday we had a couple of lessons and i said goodbye to my bakaano people. that night elder adams got sick with malaria so he was in his bed while i packed late that night. then saturday we had planned to go on splits in kumasi, but elder adams was sick so i didn't get to prosolyte on my last planned prosolyting day haha.
but we did make it to kumasi that day. we spent the night at the zolls (bless their hearts) then i got to go to church in bantama one last time which was really sweet.
then all of my kumsasi mt's met at the chapel at two and we came down. we got to cape coast then ate dinner. elder adams and i went and taught rejoice one last time, then we came back and i finshed packing while he did numbers.
so here's the plan from here on out. today is monday. all of my mt's will meet at the mission home at 10 am and we'll drive to accra (2-3 hrs). then we'll chill for a bit, eat some food, then have a testimony meeting. we'll sleep the night at the temple compound.
then we'll eat breakfast in the morning there. we'll be in the temple starting with the 8:30 am session, then the temple president said he could organize stuff for us to do until the afernoon. then we'll eat some lunch, send off the ghanaians who are going home, then we'll go to the airport and get checked in and eat some dinner. my flight doesn't leave until i think like 10 or 11 pm so we'll have a bit of a wait, but there'll be like 15 of us waiting together so we'll have lots of laughs.
we'll we gotta do some more stuff before we leave to accra, so thanks for everything, love you, can't wait to see you at baggage claim in vegas!!
love,
ELDER MACKAY
August 22, 2011
August 15, 2011
A Takoradi week
dear fam
this week was a takoradi week. we went about 4 times - monday for a p-day football match, wednesday for a district meeting with president shulz, and thursday for a medical training meeting with the west africa mission doctor.
over the past few weeks, president shulz has been going around to all of the districts in the mission and doing some training. we've gone to all the districts except four, and we will go to two on tuesday and two on wednesday then be finished. after those meetings we'll be in our area from about six going.
our branch president invited us to our pec meeting on tuesday and we have a couple of appointments. we have a really cool woman named rejoyce that we are begining to teach. she is a member's wife and is very smart. we're really really excited about her.
we also had a good meeting with our branch president tonight because the branch is really struggling. he was very humble and really listened to the input on how to improve the branch. we have a brand new relief society presidency, and she has decided to do some training for them on how they can put on good activities and how they can fellowship and get their relief society members to fellowship. we asked him if there was anything we could do to help and he said he would like to come and train the sisters on how to fellowship (how they can get to know their sisters, make them feel needed in the branch, how they can approch them and befrend them, etc) so we're really excited about that.
where was i? oh yea, thursday will be splits in assin foso. i'll be with elder ekaette for the day so that will be cool. friday we we'll have all day in the area. We have an appointment with rejoice.
we're also going around with a member named sister gibret to visit some less actives. we've gotten some less actives to come back, but we've learned the hard way that the key to getting less actives back and making sure they stay is member involvement. so we're gunna start trying to have members in all possible visits we make.
saturday morning we will wake up early and drive to kumasi and go on splits there. then we'll stay the night, worship there, then come back on sunday afternoon.
i'm really excited about this week i think there'll be some good memories.
thanks for everything, i love you and am excited!
love, elder mackay
this week was a takoradi week. we went about 4 times - monday for a p-day football match, wednesday for a district meeting with president shulz, and thursday for a medical training meeting with the west africa mission doctor.
over the past few weeks, president shulz has been going around to all of the districts in the mission and doing some training. we've gone to all the districts except four, and we will go to two on tuesday and two on wednesday then be finished. after those meetings we'll be in our area from about six going.
our branch president invited us to our pec meeting on tuesday and we have a couple of appointments. we have a really cool woman named rejoyce that we are begining to teach. she is a member's wife and is very smart. we're really really excited about her.
we also had a good meeting with our branch president tonight because the branch is really struggling. he was very humble and really listened to the input on how to improve the branch. we have a brand new relief society presidency, and she has decided to do some training for them on how they can put on good activities and how they can fellowship and get their relief society members to fellowship. we asked him if there was anything we could do to help and he said he would like to come and train the sisters on how to fellowship (how they can get to know their sisters, make them feel needed in the branch, how they can approch them and befrend them, etc) so we're really excited about that.
where was i? oh yea, thursday will be splits in assin foso. i'll be with elder ekaette for the day so that will be cool. friday we we'll have all day in the area. We have an appointment with rejoice.
we're also going around with a member named sister gibret to visit some less actives. we've gotten some less actives to come back, but we've learned the hard way that the key to getting less actives back and making sure they stay is member involvement. so we're gunna start trying to have members in all possible visits we make.
saturday morning we will wake up early and drive to kumasi and go on splits there. then we'll stay the night, worship there, then come back on sunday afternoon.
i'm really excited about this week i think there'll be some good memories.
thanks for everything, i love you and am excited!
love, elder mackay
August 8, 2011
New chapel in Moree
hey family
sorry i haven't written back the past couple of weeks. i had every intention of doing so, but we've been busy.
two weeks ago i woke up and first thing went to the office and read the emails. then all day had a ton of things to do and went to bed late. as i was about to fall asleep my eyes shot open and all at once i realized i forgot to write you back. so i said to myself, "i'll let myself slip this one last time, then from next week going i'll write every week."
then last week rolled around and i wanted to know how lisa and the twins went that week. i rushed out of bed when i woke up and read the email which was a huge relief. then the same thing happened and i totally forgot to email back again cause we were doing a bunch of stuff. i didnt even realize that i forgot to write back until the next day.
so i've made a commitment that i won't read any emails until i've found a time at which i'll read and respond at the same time. so i'm sorry i'm slacken of late. i'm not sure if it's a good thing that i'm not focused on home or a bad thing cause i forget about you sometimes, i donno if i should be embarrassed about it or proud of it, but it is what it is and i love you and you know that!!!
dad i gotta say that your temple story a couple weeks back was one of the funniest ones i've heard in a while.
and i'm happy the twins were born healthy and ok. i was pretty worried about that up until that monday when you said everything went fine.
the last couple of weeks have been pretty sweet for me. especially yesterday, when i had one of the highlights of my mission.
the saunders went home about a week ago so that was pretty tough, they were so sweet. the asays are the new office couple now and they're really cool people. last week we were in kumasi and sunyani alot, and since then for the next three weeks we'll be able to spent alot more time in our area, so i'm really pumped about that. it's amazing how fast the shulz are picking things up.
so yesterday was a day i've been waiting for for close to 2 years. MOREE WARD WORSHIPPED IN THEIR NEW BUILDING!! it was a pretty special thing to be there. the chapel is very very nice and there was a very good spirit about the day. there was about 300 people there! i tell you less actives were just coming out of the woodworks. it made me feel good to see how many people still remember me. i was especially happy to see Georgina Wilson (a former less active) and Felicity Hawkson (a recent convert) and their families who i havent seen in over a year. it was one of the highlights of my time here in ghana. i saw some of my best friends there yesterday.
it was also pretty sweet that elder adams and i both got to be there with everyone for it. i'll see if i can attach a couple of pics. (by the way the ward leadership bought like a hundred red ties and gave them to the members in the weeks leading up to yesterday)
anyways, still, all is well for me...i'm trying to make the most of my days here cause if there's one thing i know its that i'm gunna miss this place.
love you!!
elder mackay
sorry i haven't written back the past couple of weeks. i had every intention of doing so, but we've been busy.
two weeks ago i woke up and first thing went to the office and read the emails. then all day had a ton of things to do and went to bed late. as i was about to fall asleep my eyes shot open and all at once i realized i forgot to write you back. so i said to myself, "i'll let myself slip this one last time, then from next week going i'll write every week."
then last week rolled around and i wanted to know how lisa and the twins went that week. i rushed out of bed when i woke up and read the email which was a huge relief. then the same thing happened and i totally forgot to email back again cause we were doing a bunch of stuff. i didnt even realize that i forgot to write back until the next day.
so i've made a commitment that i won't read any emails until i've found a time at which i'll read and respond at the same time. so i'm sorry i'm slacken of late. i'm not sure if it's a good thing that i'm not focused on home or a bad thing cause i forget about you sometimes, i donno if i should be embarrassed about it or proud of it, but it is what it is and i love you and you know that!!!
dad i gotta say that your temple story a couple weeks back was one of the funniest ones i've heard in a while.
and i'm happy the twins were born healthy and ok. i was pretty worried about that up until that monday when you said everything went fine.
the last couple of weeks have been pretty sweet for me. especially yesterday, when i had one of the highlights of my mission.
the saunders went home about a week ago so that was pretty tough, they were so sweet. the asays are the new office couple now and they're really cool people. last week we were in kumasi and sunyani alot, and since then for the next three weeks we'll be able to spent alot more time in our area, so i'm really pumped about that. it's amazing how fast the shulz are picking things up.
so yesterday was a day i've been waiting for for close to 2 years. MOREE WARD WORSHIPPED IN THEIR NEW BUILDING!! it was a pretty special thing to be there. the chapel is very very nice and there was a very good spirit about the day. there was about 300 people there! i tell you less actives were just coming out of the woodworks. it made me feel good to see how many people still remember me. i was especially happy to see Georgina Wilson (a former less active) and Felicity Hawkson (a recent convert) and their families who i havent seen in over a year. it was one of the highlights of my time here in ghana. i saw some of my best friends there yesterday.
it was also pretty sweet that elder adams and i both got to be there with everyone for it. i'll see if i can attach a couple of pics. (by the way the ward leadership bought like a hundred red ties and gave them to the members in the weeks leading up to yesterday)
anyways, still, all is well for me...i'm trying to make the most of my days here cause if there's one thing i know its that i'm gunna miss this place.
love you!!
elder mackay
July 18, 2011
In Accra 3 times
hey how was the week??
i had another sweet week in ghana. we went to accra 3 times - once for transfers, once to send off some missionaries that have been serving in our mission temporarely back to the ivory coast mission, and once today to sent off four more of those missionaries.
President shulz has come with a few things that he wants for the mission. since he's come, he's thought of a few other things he'll be focusing on. he's a very faithful man. he has come with lots of energy and is very quick. we rarely need to tell him something twice, cause he'll remember it the next time. (i don't mean like telling him what to do i mean like telling him about the mission and him remembering.
for example, a week or two ago as we were going to have a meeting in swedru zone, i quickly explained to him the layout of the district and where our four branches are geographically in relation to each other. since that time we've been able to just talk to him about the branches there and he knows which ones we're talking about. he's quick.)
transfers was cool. it went pretty smoothly. we have a big group of 16 new missionaries who've just joined the mission and they are a spirited group. i'm excited about them and i think there gunna be some good missionaries there.
we still havent been able to spend very much time in our area. we're slowly needing to spend less and less time with the shulz as they become more acquainted with things here. but at the same time, we are trying to pick up on some of the saunders responsibilities so that we can be there to help the new office couple elder and sister asay when they come in a couple of weeks.
i'm also reading Jesus the Christ and loving it. if you want a more interesting update on how my life is, read elder adam's blog. he's been writing for a while, while i've been doing some office stuff.
let me know if you have any questions or advice or anything you'd like me to talk more about!
love you!
elder mackay
i had another sweet week in ghana. we went to accra 3 times - once for transfers, once to send off some missionaries that have been serving in our mission temporarely back to the ivory coast mission, and once today to sent off four more of those missionaries.
President shulz has come with a few things that he wants for the mission. since he's come, he's thought of a few other things he'll be focusing on. he's a very faithful man. he has come with lots of energy and is very quick. we rarely need to tell him something twice, cause he'll remember it the next time. (i don't mean like telling him what to do i mean like telling him about the mission and him remembering.
for example, a week or two ago as we were going to have a meeting in swedru zone, i quickly explained to him the layout of the district and where our four branches are geographically in relation to each other. since that time we've been able to just talk to him about the branches there and he knows which ones we're talking about. he's quick.)
transfers was cool. it went pretty smoothly. we have a big group of 16 new missionaries who've just joined the mission and they are a spirited group. i'm excited about them and i think there gunna be some good missionaries there.
we still havent been able to spend very much time in our area. we're slowly needing to spend less and less time with the shulz as they become more acquainted with things here. but at the same time, we are trying to pick up on some of the saunders responsibilities so that we can be there to help the new office couple elder and sister asay when they come in a couple of weeks.
i'm also reading Jesus the Christ and loving it. if you want a more interesting update on how my life is, read elder adam's blog. he's been writing for a while, while i've been doing some office stuff.
let me know if you have any questions or advice or anything you'd like me to talk more about!
love you!
elder mackay
July 11, 2011
President and Sister Shulz
hey!
sorry this one'll probably be short again...but it's midnight and it's been a whirlwind of a day so you'll have to excuse me...
but man these last few weeks have been crazy, especially today. the sabey's left (that was tough to see them drive away) and the shulz have come. they feel a bit overwhelmed with all that they have to learn and they have such little time to do it cause the saunders and half of the missionaries in the mission will finish their missions in the next three transfers.
We spent this past week showing president and sister shulz around the mission. they went and had a 'meet the new mission president meeting.' basically, we went to each city and each zone and had a meeting. the shulz interviewed every single one of the missionaries. it was cool, and it was very very helpful for the shulz i think. they are learning very quickly. i really dont see any culture shock in them, cause they've already served one mission in ghana. its just all the mission pressident stuff that they've got to learn.
today was just a crazy crazy day. transfer news came out to the mission. there were four missionaries that had their calls changed while they were in the mtc from ivory coast to cape coast.
our truck had a flat tire that we had to get fixed, the internet company came and worked on our internet, we had some departing missionaries coming from all over the mission that we had to pick up (all of which were late and one of which was super late because the bus broke down on the way), we had to finish off transfers and call the mission with the news, we prepared for accra tomorrow and filled up the cars with gas, we had dinner and a nice testimony meeting with the departing missionaries, we saw and said goodbye to former elder akoki, a missionary from our mission from ivory coast who has come back to visit, and we planned for what we'll do tomorrow in accra and wednesday on the way back.
we have a meeting tomorrow with elder sitati where we'll hopefully get more info and get some more guidance about how we work on our new units we are creating throughout the mission. we'll wake up early tomorrow and head to accra. we'll go to the temple, do some stuff at the area office, eat some food, run some errands, drop some missionaries off to send them home, and go to the mtc to meet the incoming missionaries.
then early wednesday morning we'll bring the 16 new missionaries back to the mission home and we'll orient them and get them sent on their way. so its going crazy and there's no sign of slowing down.
at the beginning of my mission, the transfers couldnt go by fast enough - but this transfer had gone by CRAZY slow and i love it.
thanks for everything love you!!!
love, elder mackay
sorry this one'll probably be short again...but it's midnight and it's been a whirlwind of a day so you'll have to excuse me...
but man these last few weeks have been crazy, especially today. the sabey's left (that was tough to see them drive away) and the shulz have come. they feel a bit overwhelmed with all that they have to learn and they have such little time to do it cause the saunders and half of the missionaries in the mission will finish their missions in the next three transfers.
We spent this past week showing president and sister shulz around the mission. they went and had a 'meet the new mission president meeting.' basically, we went to each city and each zone and had a meeting. the shulz interviewed every single one of the missionaries. it was cool, and it was very very helpful for the shulz i think. they are learning very quickly. i really dont see any culture shock in them, cause they've already served one mission in ghana. its just all the mission pressident stuff that they've got to learn.
today was just a crazy crazy day. transfer news came out to the mission. there were four missionaries that had their calls changed while they were in the mtc from ivory coast to cape coast.
our truck had a flat tire that we had to get fixed, the internet company came and worked on our internet, we had some departing missionaries coming from all over the mission that we had to pick up (all of which were late and one of which was super late because the bus broke down on the way), we had to finish off transfers and call the mission with the news, we prepared for accra tomorrow and filled up the cars with gas, we had dinner and a nice testimony meeting with the departing missionaries, we saw and said goodbye to former elder akoki, a missionary from our mission from ivory coast who has come back to visit, and we planned for what we'll do tomorrow in accra and wednesday on the way back.
we have a meeting tomorrow with elder sitati where we'll hopefully get more info and get some more guidance about how we work on our new units we are creating throughout the mission. we'll wake up early tomorrow and head to accra. we'll go to the temple, do some stuff at the area office, eat some food, run some errands, drop some missionaries off to send them home, and go to the mtc to meet the incoming missionaries.
then early wednesday morning we'll bring the 16 new missionaries back to the mission home and we'll orient them and get them sent on their way. so its going crazy and there's no sign of slowing down.
at the beginning of my mission, the transfers couldnt go by fast enough - but this transfer had gone by CRAZY slow and i love it.
thanks for everything love you!!!
love, elder mackay
June 27, 2011
Yay, we've got mail!
hey how are ya??
i really appologize for not writing these past couple of weeks. it's been busy and we've been outta town and stuff. i told myself this morning that i would not sleep tonight until i've written you. so it is now about 12 am here, i'm dog tired, and these are the first spare moments i've had to write you!
so these past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. i know i mentioned in my last email that we now have 9 zones in our mission now. We go on splits once with each zone every transfer, we spend some time in the office doing one or two things, or we have calls from missionaries and have errands we need to run, then the remainder of our time we get to spend in our area. that keeps us busy for a whole transfer.
well, for this transfer, president shulz will be coming, and so we decided to do all of the splits at the front end of the transfer. we don't know how much of our time we'll be spending with them when they get here, but if we knock out the splits before they get here, then after they get here either we'll either have the flexibility to spend a ton of time with them or else we have more time in our area.
so we kinda went a little crazy and did 9 zones of splits in 10 days from like the 8th to the 17th. actually, some of the time, we didnt even end up going on splits when we went to some of the zones. we ended up going with missionaries to visit their families that they were preparing to be sealed, and made sure all things were in order and everything was prepared. we were able to have meetings with bishoprics and people got temple recommend interviews and they became super excited about the goal and alot of good things happened. it was tiring but i was able to experience some pretty special things during those days, and my testimony was strengthened. i wont share them right now, but i'll just suffice it to say that i witnessed miracles and saw probably more clearly than i ever have God's influence in this work we are doing.
if there are two things i learned while persuing this goal they would be 1. the logistics and importance and blessings of families being sealed in the temple-especially husbands and wives (well done tyson & melissa!) and 2. that this is the Lords work, and he did things to push us towards accomplishing this goal when we pretty much had no way to finish it.
for example, the last family that got sealed last saturday is a couple that lives about an hour north of sunyani. they called president sabey out of the blue and said they wanted to seal their marriage, so he went and got them recommends and put a companionship of missionaries in charge of taking care of them and helping them to be prepared for the temple - only to find that the family wanted to be sealed in july-after our goal ends-because they will have family in town that
time. a couple of weeks later, president sabey had an impression to call them so he did. when he did, president just told them how excited and happy he was to see them preparing for the temple and the man basically said "actaully, we've been talking about it and we feel like we should do the sealing a little sooner than we planned." so they chose to do it on the 25th of june-the last possible day to be sealed before the goal ends, even though they weren't aware of our goal. meanwhile, all of that companionships other candidates ended up not working out...meaning that if that family didnt just up and out of nowhere, FEEL like they should seal their marriage a week earlier than they planned to, we would have failed the goal. but...the Lord set this goal for us and He accomplished it for us too.
so i guess i forgot to say that we accomplished the goal. i was doing some thinking about it this week and it is very easy to see how special the ghanaian people are. think about it. think about the goals we have set over the past couple of years in this mission (for every missionary in the mission to...baptise a future leader ,baptize a husband and wife, baptize a referral from a recent convert, activate a less active and baptise a referral from that less active, help a recent convert to go to the temple for baptisms, and the latest...help a family to be sealed in the temple). think about how many countries in the world the church is in. alot. now think about how many of them do you think these kinds of goals could be set let alone accomplished, every one of them. i just kind of have to remind myself to every once and a while take a step back and see how special these people are and how much the love God. so, in the past four months, every missionary in our mission both baptized a family and helped a family to seal in the temple.
so since those splits, we had the week of the 20th. we had zone conference in kumasi on that monday then spent the rest of the week doing stuff in the office that we'd neglected a bit because of our road trip (and also teaching in our area). then we experienced the nerv-racking feeling from the final weekend of the goal. 5 families sealed on the 24th and 25th and the goal was finished.
then this past week we kinda did the same thing again. we were in cape coast running errands and doing office stuff and teaching in our area. we have a guy named adzeah-mensah who is really excited about the church and just loves it. he comes to church every week and says it's taking too long for us to baptize him. we gave two blessings to sick people this week. one was a young girl in our branch (josphing abraham) who had a talk to give on sunday. she had been pretty sick for a few days when we gave her the blessing on friday and on sunday she was able to come and give her talk. the other was a member who is from accra but is staying with her mother who is in our branch right now. he'd been really really sick for about two weeks and hadn't been able to go back to accra to take care of his family. when we saw him he could barely walk because he was so weak. all the doctors he went to see gave him different kinds of medicine but none of them worked, rather it was getting worse with time. we gave him the blessing one morning, and the next morning we recieved a very gracious phone call from the man telling us that he is 100% healthy and was about to leave to go back to his family in accra.
so today was a really sweet day. we had zone conference at 9 oclock this morning for the 6 southern zones in the mission. it was rather short. elder adams and i gave a quick instruction about how we can continue to do (in our companionships and in our areas) the things we have done for these goals even though they are no longer misson goals.
sister sabey followed with a talk about how much she loves us, on how she knows the shulz are called by inspiration to adopt her children (us), and some parting advice that really i think will stick with me. "Do not live below you're potential."
president sabey then gave his final instruction of his mission. prior to the meeting, he told elder adams and i that he always thought that the last zone conference he would have such a difficult time deciding what to instruct on because he would have so much that he wanted to teach them before he left. as the time approached though, he couldn't really think of anything to teach them, and concluded that the reason for that is because, later this week this will no longer be his mission. so most of his instruction was talking about what we've learned from the goal, talking about how perfect the shulz's are for our mission right now, and stuff like that. we ate lunch then went to the stadium that the professional football team in cape coast (the cape coast mysterious dwarfs. no, i didnt misspell that. powerful huh?) and played a football tournament. cape coast zone lost to swedru/abura in the finals...
after, we came back to the apt and showered then we went over to elder and sister saunders house. they invited the sabeys and us over for dinner and afterwards we watched a dvd that the mission made for them saying goodbye to the sabeys. today i got a lot of good memories.
so, by next week, i'll have a new mission president. man that's so weird. i'm really sad to see the sabeys go but excited to see where president shulz takes this mission. sorry again for not emailing the past couple of weeks i've tried to make this one a long one to make up for it-hope it wasn't too boring.
love you and love ghana,
elder mackay
ps heres a picture of me with the sabeys taken tonight after dinner.
i really appologize for not writing these past couple of weeks. it's been busy and we've been outta town and stuff. i told myself this morning that i would not sleep tonight until i've written you. so it is now about 12 am here, i'm dog tired, and these are the first spare moments i've had to write you!
so these past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. i know i mentioned in my last email that we now have 9 zones in our mission now. We go on splits once with each zone every transfer, we spend some time in the office doing one or two things, or we have calls from missionaries and have errands we need to run, then the remainder of our time we get to spend in our area. that keeps us busy for a whole transfer.
well, for this transfer, president shulz will be coming, and so we decided to do all of the splits at the front end of the transfer. we don't know how much of our time we'll be spending with them when they get here, but if we knock out the splits before they get here, then after they get here either we'll either have the flexibility to spend a ton of time with them or else we have more time in our area.
so we kinda went a little crazy and did 9 zones of splits in 10 days from like the 8th to the 17th. actually, some of the time, we didnt even end up going on splits when we went to some of the zones. we ended up going with missionaries to visit their families that they were preparing to be sealed, and made sure all things were in order and everything was prepared. we were able to have meetings with bishoprics and people got temple recommend interviews and they became super excited about the goal and alot of good things happened. it was tiring but i was able to experience some pretty special things during those days, and my testimony was strengthened. i wont share them right now, but i'll just suffice it to say that i witnessed miracles and saw probably more clearly than i ever have God's influence in this work we are doing.
if there are two things i learned while persuing this goal they would be 1. the logistics and importance and blessings of families being sealed in the temple-especially husbands and wives (well done tyson & melissa!) and 2. that this is the Lords work, and he did things to push us towards accomplishing this goal when we pretty much had no way to finish it.
for example, the last family that got sealed last saturday is a couple that lives about an hour north of sunyani. they called president sabey out of the blue and said they wanted to seal their marriage, so he went and got them recommends and put a companionship of missionaries in charge of taking care of them and helping them to be prepared for the temple - only to find that the family wanted to be sealed in july-after our goal ends-because they will have family in town that
time. a couple of weeks later, president sabey had an impression to call them so he did. when he did, president just told them how excited and happy he was to see them preparing for the temple and the man basically said "actaully, we've been talking about it and we feel like we should do the sealing a little sooner than we planned." so they chose to do it on the 25th of june-the last possible day to be sealed before the goal ends, even though they weren't aware of our goal. meanwhile, all of that companionships other candidates ended up not working out...meaning that if that family didnt just up and out of nowhere, FEEL like they should seal their marriage a week earlier than they planned to, we would have failed the goal. but...the Lord set this goal for us and He accomplished it for us too.
so i guess i forgot to say that we accomplished the goal. i was doing some thinking about it this week and it is very easy to see how special the ghanaian people are. think about it. think about the goals we have set over the past couple of years in this mission (for every missionary in the mission to...baptise a future leader ,baptize a husband and wife, baptize a referral from a recent convert, activate a less active and baptise a referral from that less active, help a recent convert to go to the temple for baptisms, and the latest...help a family to be sealed in the temple). think about how many countries in the world the church is in. alot. now think about how many of them do you think these kinds of goals could be set let alone accomplished, every one of them. i just kind of have to remind myself to every once and a while take a step back and see how special these people are and how much the love God. so, in the past four months, every missionary in our mission both baptized a family and helped a family to seal in the temple.
so since those splits, we had the week of the 20th. we had zone conference in kumasi on that monday then spent the rest of the week doing stuff in the office that we'd neglected a bit because of our road trip (and also teaching in our area). then we experienced the nerv-racking feeling from the final weekend of the goal. 5 families sealed on the 24th and 25th and the goal was finished.
then this past week we kinda did the same thing again. we were in cape coast running errands and doing office stuff and teaching in our area. we have a guy named adzeah-mensah who is really excited about the church and just loves it. he comes to church every week and says it's taking too long for us to baptize him. we gave two blessings to sick people this week. one was a young girl in our branch (josphing abraham) who had a talk to give on sunday. she had been pretty sick for a few days when we gave her the blessing on friday and on sunday she was able to come and give her talk. the other was a member who is from accra but is staying with her mother who is in our branch right now. he'd been really really sick for about two weeks and hadn't been able to go back to accra to take care of his family. when we saw him he could barely walk because he was so weak. all the doctors he went to see gave him different kinds of medicine but none of them worked, rather it was getting worse with time. we gave him the blessing one morning, and the next morning we recieved a very gracious phone call from the man telling us that he is 100% healthy and was about to leave to go back to his family in accra.
so today was a really sweet day. we had zone conference at 9 oclock this morning for the 6 southern zones in the mission. it was rather short. elder adams and i gave a quick instruction about how we can continue to do (in our companionships and in our areas) the things we have done for these goals even though they are no longer misson goals.
sister sabey followed with a talk about how much she loves us, on how she knows the shulz are called by inspiration to adopt her children (us), and some parting advice that really i think will stick with me. "Do not live below you're potential."
president sabey then gave his final instruction of his mission. prior to the meeting, he told elder adams and i that he always thought that the last zone conference he would have such a difficult time deciding what to instruct on because he would have so much that he wanted to teach them before he left. as the time approached though, he couldn't really think of anything to teach them, and concluded that the reason for that is because, later this week this will no longer be his mission. so most of his instruction was talking about what we've learned from the goal, talking about how perfect the shulz's are for our mission right now, and stuff like that. we ate lunch then went to the stadium that the professional football team in cape coast (the cape coast mysterious dwarfs. no, i didnt misspell that. powerful huh?) and played a football tournament. cape coast zone lost to swedru/abura in the finals...
after, we came back to the apt and showered then we went over to elder and sister saunders house. they invited the sabeys and us over for dinner and afterwards we watched a dvd that the mission made for them saying goodbye to the sabeys. today i got a lot of good memories.
so, by next week, i'll have a new mission president. man that's so weird. i'm really sad to see the sabeys go but excited to see where president shulz takes this mission. sorry again for not emailing the past couple of weeks i've tried to make this one a long one to make up for it-hope it wasn't too boring.
love you and love ghana,
elder mackay
ps heres a picture of me with the sabeys taken tonight after dinner.
June 22, 2011
No mail
We haven't heard from Jesse for the last two weeks. Hopefully it's because he's busy, not because he's sick.
Here's a couple photos I copied from the Saunder's blog which shows the missionaries making and eating fufu.
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Here's a couple photos I copied from the Saunder's blog which shows the missionaries making and eating fufu.
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