Independence Day

America! Sweet...America! God shed his grace on thee--eeee

Hello everyone! Happy Independence Day! It's a really cool year to know that America has been independent for 240 years! We are so blessed to live in the country that we do! Believe me I know ;) Everything is so clean, efficient, secure, reliable, and beautiful. So I hope today you can celebrate knowing that other places aren't as blessed as we are. I know I will. :)

Also I looked on my awesome calendar and saw that on Friday the 8th it said that it was "Hump Day!". I seriously can't believe that I'll be half way done with my mission this week. It has gone by way too fast! I feel like I should know way more than I do! But at the same time I also have seen how far I have come and how much I have been blessed. I have learned and grown so much I can only give the glory to God and thank him for this great experience. Man, I can't believe it... HOOOOOA I'm half way there... WHOAA Livin on a prayer! I'm excited to make the most of this next year since I kind of know more of what I am doing and I already love the people, food, and culture like the dickens. Anyways here's too the first year and on to the next!

This week was actually kind of tough for us, whenever we have a baptism the next week the devil wants us to be discouraged and stuff. But we beat him this time. It was also a Ghanaian holiday called Republic Day which was the day that Ghana became a republic like 56 years ago or so. So lots of our investigators traveled this week. But we still went out and did the best we could! We also killed a goat, and pounded fufu for service this week!

The biggest blessing of the week though was Sunday. We were able to fast and go to church. The testimonies this month were really really powerful and it was just such a blessing to hear these wonderful people bear their testimonies about going through hard times and about how the church helped them. We also had a great investigator class about the Atonement. One of our great investigators named Michael came and is super ready to be baptized. He is the only person in Ghana that I have seen that has gone to the website and contacted them to send missionaries to his location. He will be baptized in two weeks. Anyways during church I felt the spirit exactly as I felt it at home and it really reminded me that the church is the same everywhere you go, the same spirit of truth is there. It is such a blessing to know that we are in the true church and that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. I know that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

I hope all of you will have a great Independence Day and celebrate with great food and explosives. Today we splurged and went to the Accra Mall and got Pizza Hut! Man it put a bad feeling in the pit of my wallet, but it sure put a smile on my face :) I also taped an American flag on the outside of our apartment since all of us living there are American! May God bless America. As long as it is obedient to his commands :"D I love you all and hope you have a wonderful day!

Twi of the week:

since we eat a lot on the 4th of July...

Bra Edidi (Brah-Eh-Dee-dee)

" Come and eat"

Love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Ballard

 Exchanges with my MTC mate Elder Bodily, where we went to the Ashaiman Dam. He's a cool guy and we were able to talk about being a year old and stuff :)

Michael