It's Ghana Be a Great Two Years!: Fireworks and Fufu

Thanks everyone for your awesome emails! This week was sweet! Lots of people gave us food! (Pictures attached of fufu with groundnut soup) We also found a couple of sweet investigators and are excited to continue to teach them.

First off I just want to congratulate my Grandparents on their mission call!!! I can't believe you are both going to Uganda! Woot! It will be sweet to have a relative living and serving on the same continent as I am! It will be such a great bond to share with them the love I have for the African people!

This week was kind of weird but good! Around new year’s people were just shooting off fireworks everywhere! On new year’s eve me and my companion were biking through a busy road and there were fireworks going off at the same time! It was just really funny how crazy everything was! New year’s was fun though some people fed us fufu and there was a fireside at the church. Apparently at midnight on new year’s eve they set off a ton of fireworks at once, but I slept through it! My companion was just saying "You didn't hear that?" it reminded me of when Shandee slept through the fire alarm at the house. It's really funny how tired you can be as a missionary! When your asleep your asleep!

I can't believe I will be out six months this week! That's a big piece of the Pie! It's cool cause I've been in the same area my whole mission so it's been fun. Teshie is a great area, it's where I grew up on the mission, where I learned how to eat, where I spent Christmas, Everything! So It's been great. This week was a little better teaching wise! Elder Tawodzera also finished his training this week so I had him take lead in the area all week. So when lots of our appointments failed he just said "Let's go this way." then we walked up to a compound and knocked on the door. A guy came out with chairs before we even said hello! His name was Nana and is a really humble guy. He really wants to preach the gospel like we are doing so it was fun to tell him that every member of the church is expected to teach their friends and loved ones. While we were teaching like 14 kids surrounded us just to watch me... So that was distracting but fun. I just love how prepared these people are for the gospel. At church this one guy just came to church on his own. No one invited him or anything, he just felt that he should come. He came to sacrament and our investigators class where he participated a lot. Then we saw that he lived in the other ward's boundaries so we gave him to the other missionaries so he got to go to sacrament meeting twice in the same day! The missionaries said that he already wants to be baptized. I just am so amazed that someone can just feel impressed to come to a church that they've never been to before! I am just so grateful to be here! I just wish those kind of people would be in our area. But it's all the same work :)

I really learned this week that God really knows us. He knows what we need to do to become like him. I also found more fully that whatever we do to help people is the same work to build up God's kingdom! Every day I feel my testimony grow. I love being a missionary! I am so grateful for this opportunity and for all the experiences I’ve had and will have! I know this church is true and that God loves us more than we can imagine!

Thanks again for your emails everyone! I love you all so much and I am grateful for the love you send me! Have a great week and try to do a good deed towards someone! Even if it's just to make someone smile! Have a great week!

-Elder Ballard

Pics: Fufu and Groundnut soup!