4/03/2023

This week was the last week of the transfer. I am staying here with Elder Ncenga for another transfer. I'm actually really excited about a fee of the people we are working with. We will have at least two baptisms this transfer!

General Conference this weekend was awesome and I hope you all were able to watch or listen!!

This week was very very simple. Nothing crazy happened we just got to see our friends everyday and teach lessons. Sister Doris, who we are teaching is awesome. She understands everything and we invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon last time we taught so we will see how that went tonight. She is a senior in high school, and her family traveled for three weeks. We told her that we want to meet with her family and teach them as well when they are back. We pray the family will also accept the teachings. We have met her mother before and she is very very cool. 

Brother Evans is progressing still and we will baptize him! He's a good guy who is very humble and eager to learn the words of Christ.

We were finally able to teach our referral from our member. Her name is sister Vivian. She said she wants to meet again this week so we will see if she kept her commitment to read from the Book of Mormon

We still have brother Alex as well. He started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning without and invitation. He can never meet though, he is always so busy. It seems that he would progress faster if we were able to meet with him. I pray we can get him to church this week. 

We still have sister Cynthia and her family as well. We want to get to know the father of the family better as well and find out why he doesn't like to go to church. I pray we can get sister Cynthia and her kids to church this week, and if possible her husband too. 

We met another family in police estates as well. We were able to meet with them for the first time yesterday and get to know them better. The husband had some questions for us and was very interested in why we are here and what we do. They are Presbyterian. At the end of our visit I told him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon because the Book of Mormon will be the only thing to get him to leave his church. He actually was very interested in the Book of Mormon.

This week I learned something that I am going to start using. Throughout the week I've been feeling prompted to us the Book of Mormon as early as possible in teaching. Its what makes Jesus Christ's church unique. Preach My Gospel tells us it is the most powerful conversion tool we have. As me and my companion have tried it out its been good so far, but we will see the results of the people we are teaching will progress. We have a few more people we have contacted and haven't started teaching yet, so we will use the Book of Mormon as early as possible and see how it goes!

-Elder Willden 

3/23/2023

This week was very good. I didn't eat anything sus so that was good. All the Muslims here are fasting sunrise to sunset now for a month, so they are always pressed cause they're hungry. It's kind of annoying not going to lie. 

Brother Evans came to church again on Sunday. He is a slow learner when we teach him, but I am confident that he will be baptised next transfer. We finally were able to meet with our referral from one of our members. Her name is Vivian and she hasn't attended church in a year. She said she wants to start going to church again though which is great. We also went to teach one of the people we found in police estates name Doris. We met two of her neighbors, one named Ike and the other is named Dorin. We've talked with them a few times and both want to meet with us and learn. I'm excited about all three of them. For Doris her family traveled for three weeks, but when they get back we want to teach her family as well. We also have another family that doesn't like their church and they want to switch. The mother, sister Cynthia wants to join a Saturday church because her father is a Saturday pastor. Yesterday we taught her about the Sabbath and why it is now on Sunday. She struggled to understand and ask questions in English, so when we meet again her daughter is going to translate for her. After they come to understand the Sabbath I am confident they will come to church. 

It was a good week. I learned that when you pray and search for things you can repent for and improve the Lord will lift you up and strengthen you. He also blessed us with people to teach. Two scriptures this week that helped me a lot from my personal study are D&C 24:12 and Ether 12: 26-27.

Till next week 🥷🦧

-Elder Willden

3/20/2023

For my family, don't tell Ollie about this one haha... but this week we ate some nice dog. JK, it wasn't nice. It tasted terrible hahaha. Then I definitely fed the bones to a dog...

This week was good though. We did a good amount of finding, and we were able to find some solid people. I'm most excited about one of these families we found in police estates. They are looking to switch churches right now, and are super friendly and want to learn with us so let's see how this goes! The father of the family doesn't like any churches though so we want to meet him and find out why. We also met a few other people in police Estates who are interested our message that we will meet with and teach. We also made friends with a lady in our area who me and elder Akwa contacted awhile ago, and she told us she would not come to our church so we never went back. We decided to talk to her for awhile one afternoon and now she's super friendly and actually said she wants to come and visit our church. We also found out that one of the young men in our ward named Abrahim had a twin named Abraham, who isn't a member, and attends soke random church by himself so we will work on that as well.

We've been praying for people to teach and work with and the Lord had blessed us. 

A miracle happened yesterday at church as well. A man named Evans came to church and we had no idea who he was. He really enjoyed and took notes the whole time. We found out he just moved to Tamale from Bolgatonga two days before. He was looking for Church of Christ and somebody directed him to our chapel. We have an appointment with him tonight and he's excited to learn more about the church.

-Elder Willden

3/13/2023

This last week was good! We had Zone Conference on Wednesday and I definitely learned a lot. We also found out that we are getting a/c in our apartment. Its about 105 everyday here so I'm way happy about that. We are gonna be sleeping good from now on haha. 

Our branch is getting better which is awesome. Our branch president has really stepped it up the last couple of weeks. He's been getting people callings and doing priesthood interviews. It's been amazing. We had a good amount of people at sacrament meeting on Sunday too which was awesome. 

We are still teaching sister Mary very slowly right now. She is cousins to one of our members and is living with her right now. She's slow to understand but uts been good being able to help her learn. She doesn't know English the best, but she's getting better and better. Her baptismal date is on the 25th. That could change though depending on how long it will take to get her to  understand everything.

We are also teaching a man named brother Alex. He was a referral we got from Facebook. He has been way cool to work with. He has a busy schedule though so we meet with him when he can. We introduce the Book of Mormon last time we met on Friday. I have high hopes for brother Alex to be baptised. He doesn't go to a church right now and he wants to know the truth. We will find out if he has read and prayed about what we asked him to this week!

Another one of our members says she has a friend for us to meet with. I wrote about it last week, but it still hasn't happened. She's been very busy. I pray we will be able to meet with her friend this week.

On Saturday we passed by a place where three recent converts stay. We call them "the boys" because they are all around 13 and 14 years old. We reminded them of church on Sunday and played some football with them. Because of that we were able to meet one of there sisters, (not sure which boys sister it was haha) but she told us that she is Muslim, doesn't really know why though, and wants to visit our church. We will go see her this week and find out if she is serious or not!

We'll have to do some finding this week for sure. We need to add some people into our teaching pool because most everyone isn't serious.

-Elder Willden

3/06/2023

This week was a good week! I've enjoyed getting to know my new companion better. We've been able to find some new people to teach, and we received three referrals which is big time being in Tamale. 

We started teaching a Facebook referral this week named Alex Yeboah. He is way cool. He doesn't attend a church right now and is looking for the truth. We were only able to teach him once, but this week we would be meeting with him almost every evening. 

One of our other referrals is from other missionaries in Tamale. When they met him they said he told them he wants to learn more about the church and worship with us. He hasn't been picking our calls tho so pray he will pick our calls haha.

The third referral is actually from yesterday. One of our members, sister Esther said she has a new Nigerian friend who said she wants to join our church as well. 

I pray that we can get all three of these people into the waters of baptism...

We also did some finding this week and it went well. We found a hair dresser in a place called police estates who's husband just passed away. We taught her about the spirit world and made a return appointment for this week. She has four sons all under twenty so I hope she likes the teachings and that will will be able to teach her kids as well. We are friends with a few people in police estates. A couple of our friends, sister Vida, and sister Anita, just had their younger sister pass away at the age of 15 last week. We were able to teach Anita a plan of salvation and she loved it and said she feels so much better now and she understands where her sister is. We made an appointment to teach sister Vida a plan of salvation as well. We are really good friends with Vidas 12 year old son Rexford as well, who loves the Book of Mormon and wants to come to our church so I hope this will get his Mom!

I also had a bush accident this week as well hahah. I was trying to find a place to go and I tried two spots but they were to open. The third spot I found work just fine. Three was our lucky number this week hahahahahaha.💩

-Elder Willden

2/27/2023

Alright so thus email will be short because I sat around for 3 days this week waiting for my new companion cause traveling to Tamale is tough.

Anyways president capped. He told the zone leaders I was going ti get Elder Bayles as my comp. I guess he changed his mind last second because my new comp is Elder Ncenga, from Botswana. He's pretty cool!! Still getting to know him and I'm excited for what we can get done this transfer.

I'm a little stressed because our branch is broken, and I thought we were going to get a missionary as our new branch president, but I guess not yet. It's been approved by the area seventy so I don't really know why it didn't happen. It's alright though. Whatever happens is the Lord's will. Maybe they will bring the branch president missionary up here to replace me I don't know...

We finally got water at the ZL's apartment so that's good. 

We have a new social media referral who said he wants to be baptized which is awesome!! We will meet with him this week. 

We are also teaching Mary, the cousin of one of our members. She stays with them, and comes to church with them so we will baptize her no problem. 

Other than that we are going to see if one of our other investigators mama Gladys is serious or not. We are going to Clea our teaching pool other than that. Tamale is hard because of all the Muslims, and when you find Christians they are either super deep into their church, or they aren't serious at all. So yeah. Time to find some new people to teach!!

Also I don't have any pics with my new comp yet. He just got here so this week we will get some!!

Love you all!

-Elder Willden

2/20/2023

Sooo our apartment is still muffed so we are long suffering haha. No electricity, and then at the ZL's apartment we have ran out of water and who knows when it will come so it's been hard. We go and fetch water from out apartment and bring it there. Hopefully all of this will be worked out soon, because transfers are this week and I'm getting a new companion!!

On Thursday Elder Bayles is rolling up to Tamale. Welcome to the North haha. Elder Bayles was the ZL in University zone while I was in Konongo and we had combined zone conference so I got to know him pretty well. I'm excited to be companions with him!

Thus week was somehow rough, but we have some new potential. Sister Martha and her family aren't going to work out... it's a long story, but to make it short she was not serious at all, thought she could baptize and go back to her church, and just wanted to have white friends. Gotta love Africans.

I'm excited about a few people though. Sister Jannette, sister Veronica, and sister comfort will finish school soon and they are all serious investigators. School is just keeping them from church right now. We also had an Investigator named Gladys who wasn't serious at all and we dropped her at the beginning of the transfer, but she just rolled up to church Sunday so that was cool. She said she really enjoyed church a lot so let's see if she will keep coming. We have been teaching her neighbor Rexford as well, he is a 12 year old genius. He knows the scriptures very very well. He love the teachings, but his parents are very serious SDA's so we will see where it goes with him. There is also another serious Investigator from awhile ago that Elder Akwa taught before I got here that just had his work schedule free up so he can come to church so I'm excited about that as well. We also have some few new friends that we will profile and teach this week. 

I'm excited for transfer number 6!!

-Elder Willden

2/13/2023

So the electricity in our apartment is still broken... it's been 5 weeks haha. It's okay we have just been crashing at the zone leaders. It's seriously so hot up here in Tamale I'm dying haha. We put a fan in the bathroom cause if you go in there its a sweatshop haha.

Anyways we had a week full of ups and downs. We have taught sister Martha everything and put her on date for baptism, but there have been a fee challenges for her and we probably will have to push the baptismal date back. If we do, it will make the baptism next transfer and Elder Akwa won't be there for it. We will see what happens this week. We are going to finish teaching her kids and get them prepared as well. I love this family and I'm super happy for them. Definitely have had some of the coolest teaching experiences with them.

Nobody else we are teaching has really been progressing so we will probably drop some people this week. 

This last week we actually found some solid people and started teaching some of them. We had an exchange with the ZL's this week, and during the exchange Elder Akwa and Elder Clegg found a Christian compound in our area. There's a twist though. Basically in all the families living in this compound, the mothers are Christian  and the Father's are Muslim. It's honestly kind of weird, but we've started to teach a few of the people living there this last week. We'll see if any of them will pull up to church Sunday. There's also an insane amount of kids in this compound that we will play games with. It's always fun to play some games with them!!

We also have a referral who seems very serious, the only problem is that they are very busy with school, and can only meet on Sundays. They said they will come to church though so that would be cool.

We found some inactive members this week as well and invited them to church. It was four siblings, and the mother is a hard-core catholic. When we found them only one of the members was there. Her name was sister Ruth. We helped her pund pepper, and that was honestly nuts. The pepper dust gets all up in the air and in your eyes it was terrible. Anyways she ended up coming to church on Sunday and enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully as we continue to visit her she will completely reactive and hopefully bring her siblings along.

I'm enjoying the missionary work and happy to be here. Love and miss you all. 

-Elder Willden

2/06/2023

RUSSELL M. NELSON IS A TRUE PROPHET!

Here's an audio for this week. It's late and I'm tired haha. This week was awesome though and we had a powerful experience so I hope yall will listen.💙

Hope you enjoy the pic of Elder Akwa with his head in the freezer... it is too hot in Tamale lol.

-Elder Willden

1/30/2023

So there are a bunch of Mango trees in Tamale so we are enjoying haha. You'll see the video of me doing some athletic mango snatching here at the end of the video. 

This week was awesome. Like I said we had an exchange and I got to go with Elder Gilbert which was awesome. I missed that guy when he left me in Nkawkaw. Anyways we taught an awesome lesson to one of his investigators and extended a baptismal invitation and she accepted. I'll have Elder Gilbert update me on her progression! After her lesson she let us chop mangos from her tree it was awesome. I also had to hit Gilbert with a fresh fade...

This week our power has decided to go out every night from about 12pm til 8am. That means no fan. Here in Tamale sleeping with no fan causes you to sweat plenty hahaha. Me and Elder Akwa suffered. We started crashing at the zone leaders apartment though so it's good now. Our electricity will be fixed tomorrow.  Lights Out lol.

As for the people we are teaching it has actually been really good. We found a family that is way cool. The mothers name is Martha. The cool part is she said at the end of the first lesson we had with her that she had a dream a long time ago that two missionaries like us came and taught her and her family under the tree. She knows we were sent from God. She committed to coming to church this week with her three kids. I'm excited to continue teaching her and her family. 

Sister Comfort is progressing well and keeping her commitments. We hope to get her to church on Sunday as well. We also started teaching her coworker sister Mary as well. She's been way cool and we hope to get her to church too. 

A miracle this week happened yesterday. Sister Elizabeth, who contacted us and said she wanted to join our church, completely ghosted us for a week and a half. Anyways yesterday morning she called and asked where the chapel is and told us she was coming to church. It was awesome. We will start teaching her this week.

I got muffed by the sun today during our ultimate frisbee district activity haha. 

-Elder Willden

1/23/2023

This week was super chill but man this place will make you tired. It is so hot here in Tamale haha. Not to mention it is a biking area, and my companion loves to bike. It's been a workout everytime we go out haha. 

So when I first rolled up last week, we got a referral from one of our members. His name is a Emmanuel and he is 16 years old. Our member named Francis referred him and Francis is a stud, we will talk about him later. Anyways Emmanuel has been to church the past two Sundays, and is on baptismal date!! He is an absolute homie too. We have only taught him one lesson and he accepted the baptismal invitation. If everything goes smoothly he will be baptized in the next two weeks. 

We have another Investigator who is on baptismal date as well named Jannette, but she has been writing exams at school so I haven't even met her yet. 

So something crazy also happened this week. In Tamale it is straight Muslims, and it makes it hard to find. The people that are Christian are usually super faithful to their church here. Anyways we decided to drop the bikes off at the apartment later in the day on Tuesday, and walk for the rest of the evening. As we were walking to our last appointment a woman  approached us and asked where the church is. We told her where it was located. We asked her for her name. She replied her name is Elizabeth, and she would like to join our church. She also said she would like us to come meet her family. This week we've been trying to meet with her and her family, but she's been very busy at work. I pray we can find time this week. 

Another cool thing this week, we went to go see our relief society president this week while she was at work. She's a chef at a little restaurant in our area. We decided to start talking to her coworker named Comfort. We got to know her and decided to give her a restoration pamphlet and a brief explanation. She was super interested. We taught her the next day, and then introduced the Book of Mormon the next day. She has been reading everything we ask her to and always comes back with awesome questions. She is a Jehovah Witness, so I'm really hoping to convert her from that hahah.

Our member Francis is an absolute G. He climbs the mango tree behind the chapel and gets us fresh mangos. Love that guy. My companion calls them "Slappy Mangos" cause they are sour to him... I honestly don't even know but it's funny when he says slappy mangos. 

We found some other cool people last week that we hope to start teaching this week.

This week we are doing a two day exchange and I'll be with Gilbert. I'm excited.

Elder Akwa is an absolute homie of a companion. 

-Elder Willden

1/16/2023

Soooo I miss Nkawkaw and the people but my new area has its perks. My new area is Kalpohini, Tamale. I'm serving with Elder Akwa, and he is a beast! He's from Nigeria and its been fun for the first few days we've had together. Our branch is pretty broken but he had a good Sacrament meeting on Sunday. 

To tell you a little bit about Tamale... it's in Northern Ghana. Most of the people that live here are Muslim. I think it's like %90 of the people haha. Anyways it's a pretty big place tho. If you find Christians they are super devoted to their church. It's mad hot and dry up here as well. I feel like I'm in Pakistan haha. 

We have some solid members in our branch, and it's been good to meet them. To tell you about our branch president... we went to visit his house yesterday and he didn't even come to the door. Just told us from his couch no ones around and we should come another day. A big thing to do here is getting inactive members reactivated. 

This week we saw a lot of members. We have one sister on date Elder Akwa started teaching last transfer. Her name is sister Janette. I'm excited to meet her and work with her tomorrow. We have set a goal to baptise 4 people this transfer. Gotta go find them Christians that God has prepared for us in Tamale! 

Oh and I almost forgot. Elder Gilber is my District Babba. It's good to have my trainer around. I love that guy!! 😂 

-Elder Willden

 1/09/2023

Despite me and my companion begging president to keep us both in Nkawkaw for another transfer in last week's email to him, I am being transferred. His answer to my email was kinda funny. He just said my time in Nkawkaw is finished. Pretty sad to be leaving here to be honest. I really love the people here, and me and Elder Welch were having a good time serving here. I really feel like I spent two transfers here because of my last comp, but it's hard to believe I spent four here! 

We had our baptismal service for Sister Grace and Sister Florence on Sunday, and they will be confirmed next week. Made my last Sunday sweet to see two investigators that's Elder Gilbert introduced me to when I first got here, finally get baptised. I am so happy for them and their decision and the testimonies they have gained. 

We have a new investigator who's actually pretty serious. His name is Bernard and he has a member that's his friend. He's came to church twice and is loving it. We had a powerful lesson with him yesterday. I'm confident he will be baptised early next transfer. He only speaks twi which makes the lessons fun, but his friend is there to translate and help teach. It's been awesome. Sister Abena also came to church Sunday and got to see the baptismal service. I pray she will continue to progress. 

So on Friday we were fetching water, and we were both mad tired. Anyways Welch's bucket broke on the first run, I hit a wire and spilled a bunch on the second run, and on the thru run I was mad tired and spilled a bunch. I got frustrated and angry so I dumped the whole bucket. The water, now along with a bunch of dirt splashed back all over me. It was really funny, but there's also a lesson to learn. Everytime I get mad, and lose patience, whatever I do to let that anger out, instead of keep my patience, it will back fire and make things worse. Anyways, didn't take a pic of me covered in mud but it was mad funny haha.

So long Nkawkaw.🥲

Elder Willden