Last e-mail home

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

100% p-day

(During the week I received an e-mail from a person through FamilySearch who was looking for some information on an ancestor we share. Turns out he's the 1st counselor in the Ghana Accra Temple Presidency! I asked him to give Jesse a hug for me knowing he would be at the the temple with his companion on Tuesday, which he did! Small world.)

hey guys how was your week??

mine was nice. it's weird how on some p-days, we have 0% preparation time, and others we have 100%. last week was a 0% p-day haha. we ran a a bunch of errands in the morning then left to accra in the afternoon. we stayed the night there, and went to the temple. when we got to the temple, president empey was asking for me, and so we got to chat for a bit. he struck me as a man who posseses wisdom. (i asked him if, since we were family, i could get any preferential treatment. but then we concluded that everyone gets preferential treatment at the temple). then we sent off the departing missionaries, then went to the mtc and spent the night there.

wednesday morning, we came back to cape coast with the incoming missionaries (there were 16 of them so it was kinda crazy) and did orientation before sending them off to their various areas. after that we helped out with the latter end of transfers, giving people rides and stuff. then on thursday, we got to do some stuff in the office that we haven't been able to do cause we've
been out.

then on friday was zone leader council so all the zone leaders around the mission came into town and we talked. we talked alot about our current goal and how we are doing. it looks like every missionary has someone who will potentially fulfill the goal for them, it's just a matter of that happening. we have three sundays left in the mission goal. as we got updates from around the mission, this week was a really productive week (a solid few missionaries completed the goal), but there were 5 families that were supposed to be sealed last week that weren't. some people decided to go to funerals instead of the temple, some had some genealogy paper work issues at the temple, and one went to accra with the ward then instead went to town and did some stuff instead of going to the temple then came back home and lied to the missionaries and said that he did the sealing to his deceased parents. ah!!

so we're finding some speed bumps along the way, but slowly and surely we are making ground. one zone is totally finished with the goal and 2 or 3 have just one or two missionaries left to complete it. a couple of them are stuggling though, so we got work to do.

since saturday, we've been able to be in our area alot which has been so good. yesterday especially was good. we decided to visit a somehow active member and he ended up introducing us to his non member wife who seems cool. her name is rejoice. a woman in the ward that elder halling baptised a long time ago named nana introduced us to her neighbors, a husband and wife, and we taught them too. we were able to visit some people that we haven't seen in a while, so it was really nice.

today we had one of those 100% p-days. we really didn't have a ton of stuff to do at all. we went and played football in the morning (we lost...) then ran some errands and took in some lunch and then got a quick nap in before going to family home evening. we had two members who invited us to come, but one cancelled last minute, so we went to the other. it is maame danso and her family who are really cool. they love missionaries and missionaries love them. some former missionaries have taught them how to play the game 'mafia,' so after some scripture study we played mafia and it was really funny.

it's been really nice to have a couple of days in the area, and we have a few appointments for tommorrow that i'm excited for. but then we go on another little road trip. every transfer we go on splits with all of the 9 zones in the mission. this transfer, we're trying to knock them all out at the front end, so that when president shulz comes, we won't have a ton of other stuff going on and we'll be more available to do anything he needs us to do. so after tomorrow, we'll be traveling like crazy.

also, thanks again for sending me that nice copy of Jesus The Christ when i got here. i've been saving that one for the end of my mission, and i started it a week or two ago. it's freaking sweet. do you guys have any particularly favorite parts of that book? just a random question.

anyways, love you!

elder mackay

Shorter and farther between

Jesse's not writing as often lately due to being too busy, and when he does write, they're pretty short e-mails. So although we didn't heard from him today, we'll post some recent photos.  : )

Losing his desire to write

hello family,

holy cow i can't believe jerm's back already. that one caught me off guard. (Jesse's buddy Jeremy just returned from his mission in Rome, Italy) well done kevo. you too lisa. (Kevin just completed his first year of law school, and Lisa just complete her second trimester of carrying twins!) (you don't get a summer vacation though, do you lis?)

sounds like shauna's life is crazy now. here's an idea, you could wait on shauna's graduation geisha dinner until i come home. or better yet, you could just not wait for me then go a second time when i get home - just joking (but seriously...)

man it's really weird that my homecoming stuff is already planned. thanks for doing that. i like that idea of me taking the elantra to school then coming back the next weekend, i'll probably do that.

i'm glad you guys enjoyed the cd. what are your favorite pic's and video's?? mom, i've ultraprocrastinated sending you information about the pictures that i've sent home. so i'm sure you have no idea who's in most of the pictures and videos. would you like me to send that information now or just tell you when i get home? i'm assuming you'd want me to give you that info now, but let me know what you want me to do and i'll do it.

sorry i wasnt able to write last monday, i was in sunyani and we were doing stuff all day so we didn't have time to email at all.

my last couple of weeks have been good. we left cape on the 13th and went on splits until that sunday then had zone conferences this past week. it went well.

to be honest, i love reading your emails, but i'm losing my desire to write back. i find it more difficult to find things to tell you and i don't know why. if you have any questions for me that'd probably help. or if you want me to tell certain kinds of stories you can request them, i donno. give me advice on my email writing.

well, i love you all and miss you!

have a good week, love

elder mackay

Time for some fufu.

No e-mail this week : (

Although we didn't receive an e-mail from Jesse this week, we did get a CD in the mail full of photos!! It's got pictures of his mission from June 2010 to March 2011. Yay! These are a few pictures he sent.




In Ghana, MOSQUITOS = MALARIA.

 

Elder Darrow takes a well-deserved break.

Nice sandals.

Overlooking Sekondi.



More favorites of Jesse - Elder and Sister Lamb who just finished their mission.



Las Vegas boys! Jesse and Elder Colby Evans at the beach.

With Elder Darrow, Jesse's barber.

Jesse and Elder Christensen with some recents converts.





Ghana has the CUTEST  kids.



With Elder Jaggi.

 


The GCC missionaries LOVE the senior missionary couples. They are wonderful and take very good care of the elders and sisters. Here's Jesse with Elder and Sister Kiffer who have completed their mission.

 

Good friends! Here's Elder Rogers and Elder Harris.

Happy birthday to President Sabey from the Bantama Zone.

On Sunday at church.

More cute kids.

Enjoying a rare treat with Elder Hoffmann- pizza!



New Yamoransa chapel.

  

At the construction site for the new chapel in Yamoransa.



The wonderful Saunders, senior missionary couple, with Jesse and Elder Wright.

Jesse and Elder Wright's sweet ride.

Our last phone call of the mission

It was great to talk to Jesse yesterday on Mother's Day. All 12 of us joined in on a conference call together. Mylie and Jacob also each sang him a Primary song which he loved. He sounded good and very happy. Today Jesse just wrote a short e-mail discussing a few classes he may take in the Fall.

On the topic of finishing his mission soon, Jesse said he feels two things. He said "I can't wait to come home to America" and also "I really don't ever want to leave Ghana." So it will be bitter-sweet when the time comes. His release date is August 24th and he'll be sitting in a Statistics 121 class five days later. (!)

One-stop shopping for spiritual healing!
I think in this economy I'd choose #5.
(Who's tennis shoe is that?)

Happy / sad times

hey how are ya??

i think this'll be a shorter email cause we'll talk on sunday.

my week was good. we went to takoradi, sekondi, and swedru zones for splits. then we came back to cape coast for the last couple of days of the week.

i'm gunna tell you about a couple of people right now. they are emma eshun, laud essel, and frank tewiah jr. they are three of my favorite people in ghana.

emma eshun is from moree. she just got back from a mission at the end of last year. the whole time i was in moree, i never met her but i heard about her. laud is from sekondi ward. he is a returned missionary and he's like four foot something tall. he has a high pitched voice and is very smart and funny. i got to know him while i was in sekondi. i found out later that they were dating, and since emma has come home from her mission, they've been preparing for their marriage. they are so sweet.

let me tell you something about ghanaians, they're so freaking awkward when it comes to relationships. they don't go on dates, they don't kiss, they don't hold hands or anything like that. they pretty much act like they don't know each other when they are in public. they won't talk to each other in public, or sit by each other, or interact with each other any differently than any other of the people there.

but laud and emma are so tight. they'll hold hands and flirt and you can just tell that they love being around each other. so anyways, they had their wedding at the yamoransa chapel this weekend. we helped them with transporting some stuff to the chapel and giving them some rides on saturday and sunday and it was so cool. at the wedding as we were setting up and cleaning up, i got to see a ton of my moree people, and even alot of the sekondi people came over. it was a cool day.

then the next day, laud asked us to give them a ride to church at moree ward. so it ended up being an eventful day at moree. first of all, laud and emma were there in their tux and dress and that was exciting. also, it was the return of elder adams and mackay.

and then some not so exciting news also. there is a guy named frank tewiah jr. from moree. he is a returned missionary from ivory coast. he is a teacher at the mtc and he's the type of person that knows everyone. he is in his latter twenties, and is just the coolest guy. he knows the gospel so well and lives it. he makes everyone feel like he's their best friend. he honestly is one of my favorite people in ghana. well, long story short, he was coming back from the mtc on a tro tro a couple of weeks ago and the tro tro crashed and he died.

it was a very odd experience at moree chapel. on the one hand i heard about frank. meanwhile, i am seeing people that i havent seen in almost a year who i'm super happy to see but... you know. so frank's been on my mind alot these past couple of days.

about the phone call, there is a seven hour time difference right now. so what i'm thinking is that if we do it at 2:30 pm your time, or 9:30 pm my time, we could talk. if that doesn't work, the other option would be for us to do it before you go to church. let me know what you think. i'll be back in the office a little later. also, do you want to do that same conference call thing we've been doing or another way?? lemme know.

thanks for the engagement updates you know i love those! haha its so weird. man that's crazy about lisa's due date and osama's death date!

anyways, i'm outta time for now, we gotta go somewhere. hey mom, thanks for all that you do for me. i'm really thankful.

thanks love you
elder mackay

Great experience at the Ghana temple

hey guys

i hope your week was good. my week was really good. we went to accra to send off the departing missionaries on tuesday. i had some good friends go home this transfer. but it actually ended up being one of the sweetest days of my mission.

we got to go to the temple on tuesday, which was soo awesome. then, afterwards, we had a little down time waiting for president to take care of some stuff, so we were just waiting around the temple for a bit. we had just finished our session, and elder adams and i were talking to elder lamb and the temple president's wife, when a woman from moree (sister mackay, actually) walked in really fast. she kinda glanced at us and quickly greeted us then continued on for a couple of steps before freezing. she turned and saw elder adams and i and was soo excited. then soon after her comes most of the leaders of moree ward. moree ward had their temple trip that day!

we went into where the young men and women were waiting to do baptisms and we saw more members, then went outside and saw more, then went to the area they have for the kids and saw a bunch of the moree kids. haha it was so cool. all in all, between elder adams and i, we probably had about 15 of our recent converts who were there. it just made me feel sooo good to see how these people are still strong and it made me feel like i actually made a difference in their lives.

among those finishing their missions were two of my companions. elder kamara and elder yapo. i'll attach pictures. elder yapo ended up going back to ivory coast on thursday morning with some other ivorians who've been stuck in the temple housing for about a month. i heard that they all left super early that morning, and i heard from a woman here in cape coast that her friend was among those at the temple and her friend got back safely. but as for elder yapo specifically, i havent heard anything. it's not easy.

we spent the night at the mtc then woke up early the next morning and left for cape coast with the two new missionaries coming to our mission (one ghanaian elder and one zimbabwein sister). we came back and did orientation then sent them off to their areas and companions. then we helped with transporting missionaries around cause that was also transfer day. there are two companionships in bakaano branch, and elder bahme is now in the other companionship with us so that is sweet.

the rest of the week we were able to spend doing some stuff that we haven't been able to do cause we'd been out of cape coast for like 6 of the last 7 days, and we got to spend a little time in our area.

well, i'm short on time. i did a little bit of signing up for classes this morning. didn't get all that far though. i've attatched my recording about my coming home date also. let me know what you think.

thanks for everything love you.

love, elder mackay


Saying goodbye to Elder Kamara - a great companion! 04-20-2011


 

And also to Elder Yapo - another great companion! 04-21-2011

A long transfer

dear fam,

that's so sweet that it's busy at work right now! it's really lifted my spirits to hear that. i hope hope hope it continues.

ya ...i'm sure fhe was a little too much for rei and hwaran. they probably learned some new english swear words while they were there.

thanks dad for the advice on when to come home. i don't really have enough time to write it all out right now. i'll see if i can find some time to make a voice recording with all of my thoughts about that for next week.

isn't that sweet about the accra elders! oh man we were soo happy when we found that out.

also, i was able to see the woodhouses. i had dinner with them in the mission home, and they were in bakaano area alot since that was his last area. it was really cool to see him again. i didn't get a picture with them though...

we also got your letters, thanks for them. we were amazed at how fast you got those here since elder adams has been here.

well, this week was kind of a long one. we had interviews with the president for cape coast zone on tuesday then drove up to kumasi for splits that afternoon. the plan was, 2 days of splits in kumasi, then the next day drive to asin foso for splits, then come home and the next day go to swedru for splits. BUT we had some car trouble so we ended up having not as many splits. only one day of splits in kumasi, then on the way back on saturday we got to go on splits in asin foso.

i have to say, so much stuff has happened this transfer that it's been one of the longest transfers of my mission. it's definitely the longest one i've had since my first transfer, and maybe even longer than that one.

i also have to say, though, that i'm ok with time going too slow. only because it's been going too fast for about a year and a half now.

we only had yesterday in our area, but it was a productive day. we were able to meet with the branch president about helping the lang family to prepare for the temple. they're getting classes organized and stuff for them to prepare.

we also went around and saw a few other people (a couple of young investigators, but mostly members we are trying to get to know) after church.

i love sundays, cause it's almost always just church, followed by normal prosolyting hours until the evening time.

anyways, that's about all i have for today. thanks

love, elder mackay

Real Men

I know what you're thinking; "Wow, Jesse actually sent home some pictures!" Nope. We received a nice letter from Elder Darrow this week, and in it he included this photo. We don't know the names of the young Ghanaians in the picture, but we loved the t-shirt!


Random fact for the day. . . As shown in the following photo, Ghanaian men wear their ties very short for some reason. Maybe to avoid dipping it in their fufu & ground nut soup when they eat! This second photo was taken a year ago when Jesse was first companions with Elder Adams.

Are you kidding me?

This week we asked Jesse if he knew his release date yet.

man, that's so crazy that lisa's due date is august 20. that'll be right when i get home. it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

wow, that's sweet to hear that about bro. harvey. it kinda hit me as i was reading it. he would be very welcome at the airport when i get back.

well, mom, while we're on the topic - about my release date, i don't really know yet. let me tell you what i do know. normally, in the week that the transfer ends, on monday the missionaries who are going home go to the mission home and have their final interviews and do some other stuff. then on tuesday they drive to accra and go to the temple and eat food, etc. then, depending on when their flights leave, they'll leave on tuesday or wednesday.

so for my mt group, that week would fall on like the 22-24 of august. now i also know that president sabey asked (soon to be president shulz) about it, and wants to have missionaries either go home 6 weeks early, or else on time, so that they will just go home at the end of a transfer. so, mom, my options are like the 23rd of august, or else july. i think you could guess which one i prefer... :) but i'm also open to your ideas about it all...

(Are you kidding me? Jesse wants to come home on August 24th and start school in Provo August 29th? Are you kidding me? Please say you are kidding me.)

well, this week was nice. we had interviews with the mission president. normally the assistants instruct at those, but this time the zone leaders instructed and they did well.

i don't really have too much to say. a ton of stuff happens every day, but i'm not convinced that it will all interest you. do you really want to hear about how we took some bikes to get repaired and took them out to the makessim missionaries to use?? haha maybe a better way to do it is for you to ask me questions about what life is like for me now.

one sweet thing did happen yesterday. there is a guy that i might have mentioned in a recent email named samuel laing. he is a sweet guy, and i love their family sooo much. anyways, alot of his family have been baptised over the past few years. when elder wright was saying bye to samuel's mother, mary (a woman in her 60's or 70's, baptised by elder woodhouse a couple of years ago.), we asked her if she had gone to the temple yet (she hadn't). then we asked her if she wanted to go. she responded with an emphatic "yes!" we then asked her if she wanted to be endowed. same answer! we next asked her if she wanted to be sealed to her husband in the temple (he died some years ago), and she gave us a very flat "no." we were kinda caught off guard, but didn't have much time to talk to her, and we had to go. so yesterday, elder adams and i sat down with her and her daughter (samuel's sister) and just resolved their concerns about the temple. they were really concerned about it, and their countenances really lightened as they began to understand what it is that we are doing there. man, if you could have seen nana mary's face when she understood that she could live with her husband again...

then later on, we found out that samuel's wife, rhoda, hasn't been sealed to her parents (her brothers and sisters have but for some reason she hasn't) who are the afrifra's (old, solid members from takoradi. all the members in the takoradi area know that family). so samuel had the idea to go with all of the laings and the afrifras to the temple so they could have one big sealing party. how sick would that be?? you don't know the way i was happy when we were walking away from that house.

well, it's late here, and i'm really tired. i asked permission from president sabey to sign up for classes , but i'm just too tired to do it tonight, so i think i'll start on that next monday. i'm really excited for this week, were going on alot of splits.

love, elder mackay

p.s. greet the zolls for me and tell them we're really excited to have them come.

Back with Elder Adams - go Nevada!! : )

well, this was not a normal week for me. on friday, my companion got transfered to kumasi. and you'll never guess who my new companion is... elder adams! how crazy is that? we were together for three transfers before and now we'll be together again maybe until i finish my mission. i really enjoyed being with elder wright - he was just a great companion, and its sad that my time with him was so short. but it'll be sweet to be companions with probably my best friend in the mission, again. i've only been here for 3 weeks, so we're learning together right now...

(president decided to make a big splash so he moved out almost all of the missionaries in a district in kumasi, and sent elder wright there to be the district leader. so president decided that elder adams would be my new companion!) so besides that, we had zone leader council so all the zone leaders were in town on wednesday.

the trend of awesome people that are baptised AFTER i've left my areas continued this week... both maame and mother were baptised in bantama and i am sooo happy about it. also, a long-time less active that we were teaching named brother morgan came to church too.

here's a sweet quote from samuel lane. he is a member from bakaano that works around the mission home reparing stuff when it gets broken. his young family is one of the sweeeet ones in the branch. he's a stake high councilman. anyways, he was teaching sunday school yesterday, and was talking about the people who passed by in the story of the good samaritan. he said "they thought that they didn't have time to help because they were going to do the work of God. but they didnt know that the work of God was along the way." i liked that one.

well, that's all for today, i love you.

love, elder mackay

P.S. mom thanks for organizing all that stuff for school in fall, i'm sure it took quite a bit of time to take care of. as for the classes, maybe i'll just ask president sabey to give me permission to go to byu's website and sign up for my classes or at least look at some of them. could you send me my username and password and the websites to do that maybe??

Here's Jesse with Elder Adams a year ago.

Dog eat dog world

thanks for forwarding the email from last week. i was able to read it today. that was a pretty powerful first paragraph to that email, dad. it's actually kinda crazy that you decided to talk about it this week - i experienced exactly what you talked about in the last half of that paragraph this past week. thanks for the small sports update too.

mom, to answer your question about bakaano, it's actually in cape coast itself. the branch is named after an area of cape coast that is called bakaano. so that's why it wouldn't show up on a map. (just like summerlin wouldn't appear on a map of the u.s., but would appear on a map of vegas, i guess).

mom, you never cease to amaze me with how much you know about this mission. i'd say over 90% of the missionaries in the mission aren't even aware that the new senior couple is coming, yet you have managed to learn about it. my understanding is that they'll be coming in june, not may.

i normally see elder nzuki about once a week or so now that i'm in cape coast. he's such a good guy.

i saw elder ekaette last week for the first time in some months, it was pretty cool. he told me (again) how much he loves you, and that he wouldn't be able to write you this week. (i'm not sure if he's mentioned to you that his area odoben, is a proper village. it's far away from everywhere and there is no internet in the village. so he and his companion will go once every couple of weeks or so to email cause it's so much of a hassle to leave odoben).

so this week we had specialized training. we went with president and sister sabey around to each zone of the mission and did some training with all of the missionaries. president decided to combine the doctrine of Christ (part of the fundamentals of "preach" that the bretheren came out with last week) with our commitment pattern that we have developed in the mission and call it the "covenant training pattern". it's really powerful - we're excited about it.

it was cool to be able to see all of the missionaries in the mission. i met a few new people and saw some people that i haven't seen in a LONG time. i've started driving now, which is a whole 'nother experience in ghana. it's a dog eat dog world on the roads of ghana.

you don't have to take notes from general conference, but if you'd like you can let me know some of the parts that were powerful to you. also, maybe try to send the new ensign as it comes out if you have the time.

my companion is elder wright from thacher arizona. he's a grade younger than me, but came on his mission right after high school. we came to ghana on the same plane. he's an athlete - he did alot of wrestling and tennis in high school, and is good at most sports. he's a good missionary. he just does the right things for the right reasons. we're really enjoying being companions.
 
let me know if you have any more questions about anything. well, it's late here and i'm dead tired. we just got back from kumasi a couple of hours ago and i gotta get some sleep!

love you,

elder mackay

Jesse didn't get our e-mail this week : (

wow, this is the first time mom and dad have both not emailed me on a p-day for my whole mission i think. that's pretty impressive that you went a full 1 1/2 plus years with out missing ONE week. don't worry about it, my sisters emailed me this week so i still got mail.

well this week was a good one. on tuesday we were able to have most of the day in our area after district meeting, which was really nice. on wednesday we went on splits with some missionaries in ola, an area outside of cape coast. i was with a missionary named elder mcfarland, who is from new zealand. he's really sweet.

on thursday, we had to go to a place called swedru (about an hour east of cape) and pick up some stuff and drop some stuff off. then we came back and were able to spend a couple of hours in our area before driving out an hour west of cape to takoradi. we were there in takoradi from thursday evening to sunday afternoon. we stayed at the lambs house, and they took wonderful wonderful care of us while we were there. they are going home in like may, and we're gunna miss them alot.

on friday and saturday we went on splits with missionaries in the takoradi area. then on sunday we had a couple of sweet meetings that we went to. we first had an hour long meeting with the missionaries from sekondi and takoradi zone. the takoradi stake president (president davis) spoke to us for a bit, then elder mensah, who is an area seventy spoke to us. finally elder dicksen, from the first quoram of the seventy spoke. it was really cool. he talked about how much God loves each and every one of us, and how essential it is for us to have the spirit with us as we do this work.

after that, takoradi had their stake conference, so we stayed for that. the accra temple president and wife, stake presidency, and elder dicksen spoke along with others, it was cool. the best part of it, by far, though, was seeing all my old sekondi people. oh man i was just smiling the whole time as i saw some of my favorite people in ghana. joel ran up to me through a group yelling "this is my man!"

christy sackey was called as the secretary in the stake relief society. sarpong is preparing to put his papers in very soon. the niquay (nee-quay) family is all baptised (father, mother, and the three children who are old enough). they also brought a friend to church who was recently baptised, and that person brought a friend to the stake conference.

laud essle and his new wife emma were there all happy and holding hands (who is from moree but was on a mission and got back right after i left moree). it was a pretty fulfilling afternoon for me. after that we went back to cape coast and made some preparations for our instructions for our meetings we're having thisweek.

so you can see we're busy! it's cool though, and as you are well aware by now, i love ghana and i'm really happy here.

i think that's about all i have for today. thanks for the packages by the way (shauna and mom) i'm enjoying them. love you!

love, elder mackay

Back to Cape Coast Zone

hey family,

long time! sorry i wasnt able to email last week...last monday was the day that i was transferred so i didnt have even any time to email.wow, dan reynolds is married that's cool. thank sister thuet for me, it was nice to read that email from jake. and thank bro harvey for his email i loved that too.

i've been hearing some pretty scary things about that earthquake in japan. sounds like it was REALLY bad...

it's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks for me. as you know i got transferred again this past week. (kinda crazy, but elder adams took my place in bantama when i left. so he's enjoying teaching all of my old people now!) i've been in my new area for one full week now, and it seems like it's been like three weeks at least ha. my new area is called bakaano branch. i am in cape coast itself now (cape coast zone too). there used to be two wards in cape coast (1st and 2nd ward) then they created another branch out of them and called it bakaano branch.

i know a few of the members already from when i was in moree, just outside of cape, a year ago. we prosolyte in the same area as the cape coast zone leaders, so we work together on our people. if we get too busy to visit our people, we'll send them. so it works out nice. it kinda sucks coming from bantama, where we had solid ward support and had found sweet people to teach...now coming here the branch isnt as solid and we don't have many people to teach, but we're working on that.

my companion's name is elder wright. he is from my same mtc group, and he's from arizona. he's a sweet kid and a sweet companion. we have been pretty much unified from the moment we were made companions.

well, it's pretty late here, so i gotta get off to bed. thanks a ton for everthing, i hope all is well at home.

love, elder mackay

No mail

No e-mail this week.      : (

It's transfer week so maybe Jesse's moving to a new area.

Bob Greensville

(There's a funny story in our family involving Jesse and a certain Bob Greensville. It's too long to explain here, but ask one of us about it sometime!)

dear family,

hye. i hope everything's going well. that's cool and also kinda random that the ELS student is coming to stay with you. invite dustin over so he can speak her language.

thats cool that j and lis are moved in now. i was kinda surprised when you told me that they sold ruby. not because i didnt think they'd sell her, but because i have no idea who ruby is. i'm assuming that's a dog?? haha

sorry mom i always forget to let you know when i receive things from you. i gotta start doing better at that. thanks a ton for the motab cd's. it's crazy how many OTHER missionaries in the mission recieved them also. you're awesome. i think you and elder darrow's dad are two of the most well known parents in the mission haha!

earlier today i got a random out of the blue text from elder ekaette that said
"(How is Bob Greensville?) Hi Father how are you doing? Hey that is a nice joke. your mother send me a nice email last week, she is doing well and she send me a nice mormontab also extend my greeting to her. love you, i hope kumasi is sweet." i love that kid.

so here's an update on the goals of our mission lately. as you know, our last goal was to have every missionary baptise one referral from a recent convert, and also to have every missionary help a recent convert to prepare and go to do baptisms at the temple. well, as usual it went down to the last minute, but we finished this past friday! we had lots of problems with wards and branches postponing or canceling their temple trips. but the last 3 missionaries that needed to send someone to the temple had their converts go to the temple friday. president sabey ended up driving them to accra himself!! haha he is everywhere.

so yah, our new goal is pretty crazy. i think i told you about it last week (1. baptise a family and 2. help a family to be sealed). elder christensen and i gave an instuction at our zone district meeting this past tuesday about how we can work properly with the bishops and branch presidents on this. it's kinda an odd goal because it's honestly not in our duty to prepare people to be sealed. it can come across very easily to bishops that we are trying to tell them how they should do their own calling, but that's not what we're doing. our mission president has received revelation that we are in a position to help these people be focused on the temple, so that's all we're doing.

we really need to work well with the bishops if we're gunna accomplish this one. all of the missionaries in our zone are all going to individually have a meeting with each of our individual bishops. we had ours on friday, and it went sweet. after we told him about the goal, bishop koomson got a huge smile on his face and we couldn't even finish explaining the goal to him before he had taken a paper and pen and put it in my hand, and started naming some members that he wants us to visit. he's really excited, as are we. we are going to start working on them this week.

well, this past week was a cool one. we made some good progress with maame and mother. we met a couple of new people. we had a couple of meetings with our bishop and one with the stake presidency where we discussed the goal and some other stuff. we have alot to do nowadays.

we went to sunyani for splits again on saturday & sunday. i gave a talk on the temple. one of the first people baptised in sunyani is a woman named aunti mary. i just have a good feeling whenever i'm around her. you can just tell she's a good person. anyways, she came up to me after the talk and gave me the most warm, heartfelt "thank you for your wonderful talk."

sunyani is a really cool place and they are having some special experiences up there. the work is not easy up there but it seems to be really rewarding. well i'm about out of time. maybe i'll explain one more thing. our mission is receiving 3 missionaries who have been serving in the ivory coast mission. they are having some kinda civil unrest there. there are two guys that want to be president and it's not going well. (by the way mom, would it be possible to get any news on that stuff in ivory coast? elder yapo really has very little sources as to what's going on and is kinda worried i think. he goes home in a couple of months.) so anyways, because those elders are coming today, there are some changes being made today, so we gotta run to pickup some missionaries who are coming to kumasi and we'll get them on a bus to sunyani where they are being transferred to.

thanks for everything i love you!!

love, elder mackay

Pictures and 18 month mark

hey fam,

well, i don't have too much to say this week, so i decided to send some pictures.
  

i know a told you about rita, the runaway girl that we met a month or two ago. here is a picture of her. a couple of weeks ago we randomly ran into her as she was coming home from school. we were on the other side of kumasi in the sister missionaries area, it was nuts. On the left is my companion Elder Christensen.

 

a couple of weeks ago (february 6th) i had one of the sweetest sundays of my mission. here is our investigator's class that day!!



left to right: me, elder darrow, elder holmes, & my comp. elder christensen



here's a picture of the stake president, president samchi (that is sam-chee) and his family. they live in our ward, and we go to their house often. we are really close with them. their daughter, dora, just turned eight and was baptised that day.

 

here's one of francis, fredrick, mcallen, and me. they are three SWEET recent converts that were baptised into the other bantama ward just before elder lehr was transferred. you could send the mcallen picture to the darrows cause they know about him, he's from sekondi.  



out doing what we do best - walking!



i was walking through a very busy market one day and i saw a guy wearing a red jersey that instantly caught my eye and i knew what college it was. so i raced through the crowd over to the man and asked him if i could take a picture with him. he looked real confused as to why this random white man wants to take a picture with him, but accepted.

 

here i am outside of elder and sister bennet's apartment in sunyani.

well, we had another super hard working week, it feels really good. on sunday we had all of our sweet people come to church. maame and mother came again. isaac amponsah came and even brought his wife, beatrice. isaac yebaoh also came with his wife akos again. they're all in that picture (except for amponsah's wife) i'll point you out all of them sometime.

today is my 18 month mark! it's crazy.

we are finishing up our goal. my companion accomplished it with a baptism yesterday, but two members of our zone need to accomplish it by the end of the week. pray for us!


we got a new mission goal this week. every missionary is to baptise a family AND help a different family to go to the temple to be sealed in four months.

that's all i got for today. i love you, thanks for everything.

love, elder mackay