5/29/2023

We made it. I am back in the south and it is awesome. I got teansfer to a place called Sefwi Bekwai. It is the promised land. We found seven people in one day. While i was in Tamale we maybe could find seven people in one transfer. It rains everyday here too so it is much cooler. My new companion named elder Del Campo, from the Philippines. He is a BEAST. He is 5 months on mission and he has the fire and desire so its been awesome. I'll aslo mention I am now living in the same apartment as my trainer, elder Gilbert... I just follow him around the mission I guess haha. This place is also a village. The population is large, but other than the main part of town this place is bushy.

We had a miracle happen just today. On our way in tonight we met a lady named Ernestina. She tild us she is friends with one of our members and that she would like to attend church this Sunday. We will be meeting with her tomorrow. Another miracle is that we met a brother named Emmanuel, who me and elder Gilbert had actually contacted in Nkawkaw. He could never met with us there cause he was busy with work, but now hes moved here and hes free most of the time. Two of his brothers are also recent converts here.

Im really enjoying the new area. Finding here has been awesome. There are plenty people that want to talk with you and will let you serve them. Other than Emmanuel and Ernestina, there are two people right now that me and my companion are very excited about. One of our members brought her friend, sister Helena, to the district conference yesterday. She enjoyed and said that she wants to join us. The other one is the sister of one of our members. Her name is Anita. Her profile was awesome and three of her siblings are already members. 

In my studies I read Alma chapter 17, and I learned a few thibgs that in the past, I have never noticed. Ill share one example. Ammon commanded the servants to encircle the flocks in verse to encircle the flocks, so they dont scatter because of the wicked men. If the flocks are our recent converts, and we are the servants, how do we encircle them from the wickedness of the world. These were my thoughts: re-teaching, help build friendships with members, ministering or serving, take recent converts to teach, midweek.

-Elder Willden

5/22/2023

What an amazing week. Our miracle is that we were able to finish teaching Evans and baptize him just yesterday before the end of the transfer. I was filled with joy to be able to see Evans enter the waters of baptism before I leave Tamale. Evans gave his testimony after and thanked the missionaries for helping him down his journey. After walking back from the podium he shook all of the missionaries hands in the branch, even the senior couples. Because three of the four missionaries in the branch are leaving, it was a sweet sacrament meeting and a blessing to leave Tamale on a baptism. 

This week went by very fast especially because of the mission tour. We were able to meet a girl who had met with missionaries a long time ago and seems very interested. Because both me and Elder Ncenga are leaving this week we also started showing Elder Niacadie around our area to the members houses in our area as well as a few of the people we have been teaching. We will finish up showing him around on Tuesday and Wednesday. I will for sure miss the branch and the members here. Even though the branch is small, there are a few solid members. I pray the branch will be able to grow, and not collapse. Pray for Kalpohin branch to get Preisthood holders soon. I am afraid it might collapse when the senior couple goes home next transfer. I am definitely excited about getting a new area though. Tamale has been rough with all the Muslims, and people acting like they will progress but they never do. I was not easy but I love Tamale. 

I enjoyed my time in Tamale and I'm grateful for the things I've learned, and for the things I can look back on and learn from and do better as I continue through my mission. 

I loved being able to hear from Elder and Sister S. Gifford Neilson at mission tour on Thursday. I was able to learn a lot, and now I want to apply the things they taught, and access the blessings that they promised. As I was studying in Alma 17 one thing stood out to me. As we wax strong in the knowledge of the truth, search the scriptures diligently, fast, and pray, we will receive the spirit of prophecy and revelation, and we will the teach with power and authority. 1 Cor 2:4 says we should not preach with enticing words but tells us we should demonstrate the spirit and power. To do so I need to bury my weapons of war, bury my pride, bury my anger, bury the natural man, and use righteous judgment, and tune myself with the spirit.

-Elder Willden

5/15/2023

This week we were able to find a few more people to teach. On Saturday night we were planning on seeing a girl we have been teaching. She was not there. We decided to talk to some of the neighbors. We started talking to a lady we knew of named sister hati. She told us that she would love to meet with us and learn, and that she doesn't really attend her church. After talking to her for a minute she told us she was actually baptized a long time ago in Cape coast, around when I think she was a teenager, and she stopped going. She now is a mother and has a family. I'm excited to meetbwith her and hopefully she will come back and bring her husband and kids along with her.

We put brother Evans on baptismal date for this Sunday. I'm super excited for him and this step he will take. He has literally turned his life around. We also found a family this week, and one of the teenage boys named David is very interested in learning and coking to church. We also have another girl named Kimme who wants to be baptized but we need to talk with her dad about letting her come to church. We haven't been able to sit down and talk with him. I pray that we can find some elect. 

This week I was able to study about teaching by the spirit. I learned some amazing things. D&C 42: 14, 15-16 helped me understand that the spirit will be given to us by a prayer for faith (silent prayers during the lesson or when sharing a message or talking to people). Then we can lift up our voices by the comforter, and speak and prophesy what us good to Christ. The comforter knoweth all things, so when we do this, we will say what Christ would say. I desire to learn how to do this and learn how to do it consistently.

Sorry for not sending an email last week. The past two pdays have been crazy busy. 

Happy mothers day to my mom! Love you. Happy mothers day to all moms out there too. Especially my second moms, yall know who you are!!

5/09/2023

Sorry for not sending an email yesterday. We were crazy busy yesterday.

This last week was a fun week. Not much going on woth our investigators though. None of them pulled up to church except Evans,like usual haha. That guy is awesome. I really hope we will be having time to meet with him and finish teaching him so we can baptize him before the end of the transfer in two weeks. Other than that we gotta once again do some nice finding this week. 

We got of to a good start yesterday. We were in police estates, and we are friends with a bunch of kids there. One of the kids we are friends with, Asantewa, showed us where she stayed last night. Her house is one of the senior officers houses so it's not with the rest of the houses where we usually see her. We meet her family there where she has two older brothers and an older sister. The brothers seemed way interested in meeting with us. The mother couldn't really speak English, and the father was working so we still got to meet him but I'm happy about the find.

We had zone conference Friday and it was great. Always good to learn and find ways to improve. Elder Akwa, my last companion, came from Wa to Tamale for the zone conference and it was great to see him too!

On Saturday I got sick with a bad cold, and on Sunday it was even worse. I did everything I knew to do to treat it, and everything the mission nurse told me to do. On Sunday night I asked my companion and the zone leaders to give me a blessing. I slept like a baby that night and yesterday morning I was fine. 

Please pray that we can find the elect this week!

-Elder Willden

(I'll upload pics from this week on next week's email cause I don't have WiFi right now😂)

5/01/2023

It's safe to say we won't be seeing the pastor again. We clapped him and it was awesome. Long story short I was on exchange with Elder Niacadie and we put down our scriptures and testified to brother Nat. His wife was there too and she was bugeyed. The spirit was there for sure too and we could tell they both felt it. There was a long moment of silence and then brother Nat got prideful and denied the spirit testifying to him. 

Other than that I don't have too much to write about. Brother Evans is a G and is going to be baptised. We decided to teach him about the nature of God, which was awesome because it opened up his mind and was able to understand the restoration clearly. Before that he struggled with the importance of the Book of Mormon and didn't understand that Joseph Smith restored the church. 

Everyone else we have is not serious and won't keep commitments so more finding this week!

I still have a lot to learn and a lot I can improve on.

-Elder Willden

4/24/2023

Alright so basically the email title speaks for itself. Me and my companion lowley got clapped this week.

It started out as a miracle. We had an appointment fall through on Thursday. As we were walking to a members place I said a silent prayer asking for an opportunity to meet someone new and talk to them. Almost immediately after this old man off the side of the road called us over. Long story short he is a very nice man, was baptized a long time ago by missionaries, but fell inactive and became a pastor because he couldn't find answers to his questions in the bible. His problem is that he never had a firm testimony about the restoration. He won't let us use Book of Mormon or D&C when he asks his questions, just the bible. It's okay tho he lowley dominated the first two meetings with us. It helped us get to know his concerns and we will go clap him this week no problem. He thinks that D&C contradicts the bible but we'll let him know what it's all about haha. 

We had some other dope miracles. A young girl chased us down the street and said her and her brother want to be baptized into our church. They live in another set of elders area so we referred them there and they are already on date. Also sent a referral to another set of elders who me and elder akwa taught all five lessons to without knowing she actually stayed in their area so if she goes to church there they will also baptize her. 

Brother Evans is still coming strong to church and will be baptized eventually. He just has limited availability and he learns very slow. 

We have high hopes for Sister Vivian and Brother Alex to come to church this week. Other than that we gotta go find some new people.

Had to write this email fast but I hope yall had a good week!

4/17/2023

This week was pretty simple. I did a bad job at taking pictures and videos this week to my fault. 

The work here in our area is going great and I'm super happy about the improvements of the branch and our teaching pool. 

We started teaching the two sisters we found last Sunday this week and they are awesome. They don't rely like the church they go to or attend it very often. Their names are Dora and Mabena. They are from a place called Kratchie which is by lake volta. I hope I spelled Kratchie right hahaha. They are awesome though and I enjoy teaching them. 

Sister Vivian committed to coming to church then bailed an hour before and said she got a call to go somewhere.😥 We were on our way to pick her up and almost to her house when she texted so we just decided to go by her house. She wasn't around so I guess she was telling the truth. Hopefully she will come this week. 

Brother Evans is a G. The homie asked me after church on Sunday when his baptismal date will be. We have only taught him a Restoration because his schedule is very busy. He's awesome though. It was his third time at church. 

I made a goal to say more prayers in my heart throughput the day, not just in the morning and evening. Wow I saw answers and miracles. One experience was when we came to teach Dora and Mabena. Dora has a three year old daughter who is HYPER. She was acting needy and hyper and disruptive. I said a prayer asking for an opportunity to share anything with Mabena and Dora even if it was short. Almost immediately her daughter stopped, and went to go play with a toy with a neighbor. We were able to teach a whole lesson. Her daughter came back but she was acting chill. 

Another week, another email.

-Elder Willden

4/10/2023

I'm a magician now. Fooled some of the member kids with a good pulling off my finger trick. It was awesome.

This week was slow but the weekend was awesome. A lot of the people we are teaching were busy or traveled. (Evans, Vivian, Alex, Doris.)

We were able to meet with sister Vivian on Saturday and she accepted a baptismal invitation which was awesome. She hasn't been to church yet though so we pray she will keep her commitment to come Sunday. If she does then fill the font hahahaha. 

Brother Evans traveled to Bolga, and missed church for the first time in three weeks.😥 Its okay though. He called us early in the week to let is know he wasn't going to make it, and he also called us throughout the week to let us know how he was doing. He's awesome. 

Sister Doris vacated from school this week and she traveled with her family. She will come to church if her family is cool with it though so we asked her to share what she's learned with them, and when they return we will meet with them and she agreed. 

Sadly sister Esther, who we've been teaching for about three weeks now, will have to be dropped. She likes her church too much. 

Yesterday we were on bike for the first time in awhile, and we zoomed through the people we had to see. We were close to the apartment, and there was an hour left to proselyte. There were some people we passed by the day before that I felt like we needed to go and talk to. We decided to ride down to their place and talk to them. They were awesome people and I'm excited to get to know them more and teach them. Their names were sister Dora and sister Mabena. They were interested in our message and very friendly. 

This week I've been studying about charity, and by accident, it couldn't be more fitting to study during the week of Easter. Because of his love for us, we will live again, and can be forgiven. It's simple as that. Christ like love can move mountains in our lives and solve problems before they start. I've set too goals to improve this Christ like attribute for myself. 

1. Always have a smile on my face 

2. Never say anything negative about another person.

As I've started this this last week, I've felt more joy in the work, more love for the people here, felt closer to Jesus Christ. Something I've had to realise on mission is that I can't be perfect. If you know me sometimes I stress myself out and it's hard for me to let things go or forgive myself for not doing my best. This week as I've studied Charity and trued to do my best, I've felt that stress being lifted off my shoulders. The Lord loves effort and his yoke is easy!!

-Elder Willden

 4/04/2023