It's a boy!

Greetings dearest friends and family!

Transfer news came this last Friday. Elder Otieno will be leaving to Techiman and I will be staying here in Offinso and training! #imgonnabeafather That, by the way, means I will be staying in Offinso until at least August. #weird President Cosgrave told me that there are only two new Elders coming to the mission this transfer, an American and a Nigerian. So this should be interesting. The only other Elder who is training is Elder Porritt who just got released as an Assistant to the President. President told me that the only requirements for training are that you must:

1. Be EXACTLY obedient

2. Have PERFECT love for you companion.

#noproblem #highstandards

So for those of you unaware to this fact (probably all of you) what constitutes lawful marriage in Ghana is super relative. We have this investigator, Mary, who has been prepared and is ready for baptism. But we, for the last several weeks, have been trying to work out whether her marriage to one of our branch members is actually considered lawful and can be recognized by the church to help qualify her for baptism. A traditional Ghanaian marriage consists of:

1. The Knocking (When the prospective husband asks for permission from the bride's parents)

2. The Bride Price (The bride's parents determine a price which the husband must pay to marry their daughter)

3. The Ceremony itself.  (Optional and not necessary to be considered lawful marriage)

The requirements for marriage we are given to judge by as missionaries is that the Knocking must have taken place and at least some of the bride price must be paid. That binds the marriage legally. The issue here is that a lot of people are moving away from the primitiveness of the Bride Price and that's case here. In which case the Knocking is the only real step that can be taken towards marriage. (Which in the eyes of the law is sound as long as both families are agreed on the notion of no Bride Price.) That's the case with Mary right now. What we've been trying to determine is if she is "married enough" to be baptized. Confused? So am I! But it should all work out fine in the end. #neverfearbaptismishere

Also, funny story, we were at an FM (free meal) at the Relief Society President's house and she asked us why missionaries are always so excited to get free food even when it's not very good. Elder Otieno responded by saying, "Because all missionaries are terrible cooks." #truestory.

You guys, that's all I've got for you today. Don't worry I'll have lots more for you next week with my new companion. Much love!

Elder Henderson

I'm on the GKM weight loss program

Hello children!

Fun stuff was happening out here in Offinso this week! First off, it was Mother's Day (which is evidently not celebrated in Ghana) but no problem, I still got to call my mommy! #mommasboy  I also learned an important lesson about why Skyping is somehow discouraged in the Ghana Kumasi Mission. #aintnothingwrongwithaphonecall But I'm like totally rejuvenated now. It was a great little refill before next Christmas. #Ithinkicanmakeit

Johnson got baptized this Saturday which was amazing! I think my baptismal numbers are almost caught up to Elder Tervort up in England now. #britishsuccessyo But it was powerful! Johnson got invited to bear his testimony just after his confirmation on Sunday and he spoke powerfully about how since learning and reading from the Book of Mormon he says he wants to run away from anything sinful and wants to do nothing but good continually. It was amazing to witness his mighty change of heart take place. It's proof that I'm not doing a dang thing. I just live worthy and work diligently and the Spirit makes up the difference between conversion and my imperfection. 

We find out transfer news this week which should be interesting. Apparently, we are losing a large handful of missionaries this transfer who aren't being replaced. The word from President is that I should be expecting some changes on Friday or Saturday. #willistayorwilligo

Also, we had zone conference this week. Our focus was on the Christlike Attributes (Chapter 6) in Preach My Gospel. I also got 4 comments about my weight loss from other missionaries and Sister Cosgrave. You guys, this is real life... haha. #imdisappearing 

That's all I've got for you guys this week. Catch you next week! 

"Holy Ghost!" "Fire!" "HOLY GHOST!" "FIRE!"

May 8, 2017

Hello friends and family!

We had a pretty normal week this week. Lots of lessons and lots not very serious people letting us have lessons with them. #culture Not that I'm complaining but it would be nice if people would just be straightforward about whether they are actually care about what you are saying. #ohwell

Johnson is getting baptized this week! I'm super excited about it! He told us this week that ever since he started meeting with us he, "Doesn't want to do bad things anymore." #YEEAAAHHHH!!!! So that's conversion folks... he has no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. 

The Pentecost church that we live next to had a week long program this week that was continuously all day and all night. And it was very... VERY loud. Kept us up until all hours of the night. It consisted mostly of the pastor screaming into a microphone, "Holy Ghost!" and then the congregation would yell, "Fire!" over... and over... and over again. #getajobpeople 

Quite honestly I'm coming to really love this place. It has it's quirks but ultimately, I wouldn't want to be serving anywhere else. Love you all!

What even is punctuality? No one in Ghana knows.

Well, leave it to a Ghanaian to show up an hour and a half late to his own baptism, but nevertheless, Osei was baptized on Saturday! I'm so happy for him. He was so excited and thrilled to be getting baptized into a church that he firmly believed was true. We learned the day before we baptized him that he has been trying to go around and share the message of the Restoration with all his friends. #Imsoproud

Unfortunately Ishmael did leave town to meet his father for the first time... He'll be in Techiman for the next three weeks. So his baptism will be postponed at least another month. #notpowerfulkraa But the good news is that one of our other investigators, Johnson, told us just before church yesterday that he had come to discover that the Book of Mormon was true and that he wanted to be baptized by the end of the month! #holyghost #FIRE #spirit! We scheduled his baptism for 13 May.

This is in strong contrast with another one of our investigators, Lucinda, who instead of reading and praying to know if the Book of Mormon was true, decided to talk to her old pastor about it who was able to convince her that the Book (which she hasn't even read) must be false. Unfortunately, she has started avoiding us and we have canceled her baptism, which was scheduled for this up coming Saturday. #don'ttrustinthearmofflesh But it just shows the importance of prayer and scripture study in the conversion process. Conversion cannot happen without it.

This was sad because it's throwing a wrench in our mission-wide goal of each companionship averaging one baptism per week. Obviously right now that is impossible for the mission to accomplish, but since President Consgrave set that goal for us in January, the general stats for baptisms have increased in the mission and it's now within the realm of possibility to have us be accomplishing that goal by the end of the year. #holyfreakthechurchmustbetrue #thatsalotofbaptisms

Now that we have two Kenyans in the apartment (Elder Otieno and Elder Mbithi) we hear a lot of Swahili, so Elder Christiansen and I have tried to combat it by speaking extremely broken Spanish to each other. It hasn't worked so well. So instead we reverted back to our extremely American accents, which the Africans can't understand. #ha #got'em One benefit to having two Kenyans in the apartment however is that we get lots of japotti which is like a Kenyan flat bread. It's really nice, they taught us how to make it. I've got pictures.

That's about it for this week kids! Things out here in Ghana are pretty great! Shout out to Kellett Cook and Colton Condie who I heard got their mission calls recently! Congrats guys! Also I heard the Blast was a massive success. Good work Show Choir! I love you all! #hashtag