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

I guess we are right up there with the maximum security prisoners.

Dear friends and family,

Earlier this morning I was listening to a BYU devotional where the speaker mentioned how she had recently spoken at a sacrament meeting held in a maximum security penitentiary. She happened to be speaking on Mother's day which is one of two days a year (the other is Christmas) that the inmates are permitted to sit with their families. And it came to pass that I thought, "Huh, what other functions in the church only permit contact with family on Christmas and Mother's Day?" And behold, it came to pass that I looked and beheld my missionary tag sitting on my desk in front of me. And it was placed atop a copy of the Book of Mormon, beside a small card that read, "Forget yourself and go to work." #godhasasenseofhumor

Mission tour is coming up. Elder Stanfill of the Seventy (Also in the Africa West Area Presidency) is coming to speak to us. It should be really good. The major theme of the material that we've been asked to study in preparation has to do with Repentance. I'll let you know how it is.

It is sounds like we might have two baptisms this week but we aren't sure yet... #thisiswhatitslikeinghana Our two potential candidates, Ishmael and Osei, are both anxious to be baptized but Ishmael might be going out of town and Osei... Nah Osei should be baptized this Saturday, it's really just Ishmael we are worried about. We find  out today if he is leaving town so pray for him!

Many of you have been asking so I'm just gonna come out and say it. Yes! KFC was delicious. And yes I miss it already.

Other than that I don't think I have anything to report. The work is tough but it's definitely moving forward. I will say that being a missionary in this mission conditions you temporally probably better than any other mission. I'm gaining lots of skills I didn't know I would need and will most definitely never need again after my mission. #poundingfufu #repairingfans

#handwashingclothes #keepinggoatsoutofthekitchen #theworks

Much love to you all!

Elder Henderson

Pounding Fufu

Apostate Easter... (Yes it's exactly what it sounds like)

Dearest family and others,

I'm emailing from Kumasi this week at Kofi's Cafe because we are sleeping over at the zone leader's apartment tonight for zone conference tomorrow. #sleepover! I'm sorry my email last week was written so hastily but luckily I can put a little more thought into this week's email. #letsgetrealforasecond

 

First of all let me just say that Easter in Ghana is unlike anything I have ever experienced before... ever... like ever... like it's kinda scary. #scarredforlife So out here Easter is actually a three day holiday starting on Good Friday. The countless apostate churches begin their continuous (and VERY loud) programs on Friday morning and they continue all through the night until about 1:00 a.m. on Monday morning... #satansmethodfordeprivingmissionariesoftheirsleep It wouldn't be so bad if our apartment building wasn't right next door to a Pentecostal church.

 

Basically I haven't gotten any sleep in like three days. The icing on the cake was last night when an entire congregation was marching down the street in the middle of the night with palm leaves shouting who knows what... #apostacy #theholyghostgoestobedat10:30 Aside from that, though, Easter was powerful! It opened the door to some really powerful lessons and some really strong spirit felt with a lot of our investigators, so that was good! Especially since lots of really weird rumors about the church get spread around Ghana so helping people recognize our devotion to Christ is really a special thing.

 

Also, I've been getting lots of comments about this so I'll explain... haha. So the reason I've been using the word powerful in place of the word awesome is because awesome sounds really similar to the Twi word aasumo, which means problematic. So everyone here substitutes the word powerful. #ghanaianenglishyo

 

Well kids, life in Ghana is pretty sweet. I must say that most of all I miss American food, but that's okay because we're in Kumasi so I'm going to KFC today!! #yes! As far as proselyting news goes, progression is kind of at a stand still right now so I've got nothing to report. The biggest problem is that most of our investigators aren't keeping any of their commitments. We have several that are really powerful but to put it simply they haven't experienced a "mighty change in their hearts." (See Alma 5)

 

Also, during one of my sleepless nights in the past few days I was studying and I came to Moses 6-7, which tells the story of the prophet Enoch from the time of his call to be a prophet, to his ministry, to his translation and his walk with God. Everyone should, but especially if you are serving a mission soon, I'd encourage you to study these chapters. I was an emotional wreck after reading them the first time. #spirit! But they're super powerful and contain a message that is essential for missionaries to know.

 

Love you all very much! I'm attaching some pictures from my exchange with Elder Christiansen last week and from this last week. Elder Otieno and I attended a graduation rehearsal at the JHS that some of our investigators teach at. So enjoy!

 

Exchanges with Elder Christiansen

 

Pounding fufu at the Relief Society President's house

Mosquitoes, Monsoons, and Miracles

Hello Dearest Family and Friends!

The power has been out for almost 3 days and it's been off and on for the past few hours so this is going to be really short just in case. Sorry no pictures today.

Vida and her daughters, Portia and Abbie were confirmed yesterday! #wahoo!

The rainy season brought mosquitoes and now I'm getting eaten alive. #thankyoudoxy And I went on exchange with Elder Christiansen this week in his area. #beautifulnamong

As we were walking back from proselyting we still had one copy of the Book of Mormon left with us but we weren't planning on giving it out. As we were walking back we got overtaken by a huge rainstorm that seemed to come out of nowhere. It made everything pitch black and very dangerous so we sought refuge under a pavilion in the nearby market. There we bumped into Patrick who is very passionate about Jesus Christ and doing good to all men. Our communication consisted mostly of yelling but we were able to place the Book of Mormon to him and as soon as we did the rain let up and we were able to continue home. We took his number and invited him to church. He didn't come but it was very obvious that the Lord wanted that man to have a copy of the Book of Mormon. Who knows, it could lead to something powerful down the road. Sorry this email was written so hastily but I wanted to make sure I shared this cool experience we had.

Love you all!

Henderson is up by 7 at the end of the first quarter!

My dearest family and friends, how far? #pidgeon

 

This week was pretty special as a Swahili speaking Kenya man and an American oburoni helped a Twi speaking Ashanti familiy enter the waters of baptism! #mentibrofo Vida and her two daughters were all baptized this Saturday and it was really special. #Dontworrymomimattachingpictures I love this family so much and I'm so happy for them and their decision to be baptized.

 

Also, I hit my six month mark this week which is just crazy to me! Like, that means Camilla only has a year left on her mission! #yesthatishowimmeasuringmythisthing But wow, half a year living in Africa... one year ago I never thought I'd be able to say that. And here I am. #Imadeitma!

 

I hope all of you watched conference yesterday! I sure did and I thought it was so powerful! We only got to watch the Saturday afternoon, Priesthood, and Sunday morning sessions so I'm just glad we got to see the prophet speak and make some pretty cool announcements. #mycompanionwasreallyexcitedaboutthetempleinkenya

 

But also I hope everyone was able to watch President Eyring's address in the General Priesthood Session. That one had particular relevance to me as it was the answer to a recent inquiry I made to the Lord. Watch it carefully and really listen because his advice is incredible. Other honorable mentions were Elder Holland's "Songs Difficult to Sing,"  Elder Bednar's "Be Worthy, Stay Worthy," and Elder Rasband's "Follow the First Prompting." Honestly, conference was so good this year, every talk I thought was incredible. These are just the ones that had personal relevance to me.

 

That's all I've got for you guys this week! I love you all so much and I hope you all take the words of the General Authorities as seriously as you possibly can. These men are truly the Lord's servants.

 

Stay safe all of you! #mycountryissaferthanyours

Vida and her two daughters