"Dear Family and Friends,
This week has been pretty promising. We
have 2 investigators progressing very fast, and the building should be finished
in two weeks.
Meanwhile, we've been cooking up a storm. I'm having a blast. I got your last envelope this week,
thanks a ton for the dictionary! I need to hold on to me English roots, Ghana
has a way of making you... furgete eenglishe. Also, the Chex mix made it
okay, just a little smashed. I'll have to eat it with a spoon. Oh, you should
send more tootsie rolls, they held up fine, and they're amazing.
The pictures you send in that envelope
about made me die! Sam got married??? Holy smokes, you have to keep sending me
the wedding announcements and invitations of people I know when you get them.
Also, the picture of Zach and Tyson at Zach's farewell killed me. Tyson and his
lame goatee, ha, ha. That guy still hasn't written me back. But thank you, the
pictures are great.
Recently, we've gotten pretty close to
the members here, and we found out some cool stuff. Two guys, Brother Myers and
Brother Ampiah, were some of the first members in Ghana, or as they say, 'Black
Africa'. They were part of this preacher's congregation back in the 70s, his
name was Patriarch Johnson. Apparently he went to the USA, found the Book of
Mormon, and brought it back. He baptized his entire congregation the right way,
by immersion. They tried to follow the teachings the best they could. Then,
when missionaries finally came, they taught them about authority, and everyone
was baptized again, and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. Some of these guys
down here are pioneers, seriously. Brother Myers cracks me up, the guy has to
be like 65 years old but he acts like a teenager. Most Africans have a pretty
good sense of humour, and these guys are ridiculous. But, they do know
there is a time and a place.
So the meeting on Wednesday was really
uplifting. President Shulz and his wife spoke, and so did Elder Curtis and his
wife. We met for about 4 hours. Elder Curtis is a powerful man. A few
things he talked about stuck out to me. First, he was talking about filling the
shoes of your calling. He related a story about him being called as the bishop
of his ward. He said, 'You know how sometimes the Spirit just whispers to
you that you need to be better? I think sometimes the Lord gives you a calling
to tell you that you need to be just a little bit better.' He talked
about how even being a Seventy, he gets the feeling he should try harder. I
was thinking back, on how I felt about being a missionary before I came and
stuff. I felt that same way, I felt that I couldn't live up to it or
something. But you just learn as you go. I definitely agree, the Lord gives you
callings to shape you up, and make you better than you were before--- only if
you let Him.
Elder Curtis also gave a commentary on
the 'eye of faith' mentioned in Alma 32. He explained that 'looking forward
with an eye of faith' is to look at people and situations as they COULD be.
Look at situations asking, 'What is the Lord's eternal purpose for
this?' And try to imagine people how they could become. It reminded me of
President Monson's talk this last October, 'See Others as They May
Become'. There was a missionary who had great success, and one of
the general authorities asked him how he did it. He said that he pictured
everyone he met in a better situation--- clean shaven, standing in white
clothes in the temple. I guess when you look at people like this, you are
seeing a person who is still yet to be. You have to look forward with an eye of
faith, trusting that through the Lord's will, and influence of the Holy Ghost,
people can change for the better. I think it's a powerful tactic, I'm going to
try and employ it more in the future.
So, last time I said that we wouldn't be
meeting with Elder Cook. Psych! Apparently, since he is down here, he will be
doing all that he can while he's in Ghana. He's meeting with bishops and stake
presidents, and touring all three missions. We will have a meeting with him on
Wednesday. Elder James suggested that we go to the meeting fasting. I think
that's a good plan, you don't get to meet an apostle every day. I'm really
excited, I got a lot of good insight from Elder Curtis, so I'm expecting more
from Elder Cook.
Now I want to talk a little bit about
our investigator, G. We met him back in December, and it's been okay. When
you teach a lesson with G., it's kinda more like a wrestling match. You're
wrestling for him to keep focus on the subject, mostly. Since we are white
guys, he likes to show off his vocabulary and try to say everything a different
way. He just doesn't understand that it's so much easier for us to get
straight, simple answers. He's been to Europe a lot, and so he loves use huge
English words, that he sometimes doesn't even know the meaning of. But that's
not the most interesting part. Something about G. is a little... off. It's
hard to explain. Some few weeks ago, we had an absolutely terrible lesson
with G. He wouldn't listen to a thing we said. Whenever we started
talking, his eyes just glossed over and his mind disappeared. Then when he
started talking or trying to answer our questions, he went extremely off topic
and talked for 20 minutes. We had a member with us, and he tried to help out,
but to no avail. We were teaching repentance, which is one of the most
important lessons. After giving a small example of stealing a pen, Elder James
said, 'Ok, so if Elder Dogget repents of stealing the pen, and returns it
to me, then immediately goes out and kills a man on the street, will he be
forgiven? Is that good?' G. just smiled and nodded, and said, 'Yeah, yeah that's good.' Elder James said, 'If Elder Doggett
kills a man, its ok?' G. said, 'Yes.' So his mind was
absolutely gone. We asked the member if he noticed anything, he said, 'yeah, I think he's been drinking or something.' So we decided to ask
more about G., because he grew up here. We ended up asking President
Thompson's wife if she knew anything about him. And, to our surprise, she knows
him pretty well. To make a long story shorter, this is what happened: G. was into lottery and drug smuggling, in and out of Europe. Hard drugs,
too. Once, he swallowed a bag of cocaine to smuggle it on the plane, and it
burst inside him and overdosed him hard. So since then, he's been a little
strange. That stuff will scramble your brains. Once, Sister Thompson even saw
him get randomly violent. He smashed a bottle and threatened someone with it or
something of the like. She has known him for a long time.
At first, we were annoyed that nobody
warned us about any of this, because we thought that everyone knew. But really,
Sister Thompson is the one who knew the most, everyone else just had
suspicions. We've been very careful since finding this information, and we
immediately taught him Word of Wisdom. He didn't come all the way clean, but I think he did well. During the Word of Wisdom lesson, I payed extreme attention
to everything he said and did. Elder James payed attention to how he felt,
looking for spiritual promptings. We came to the conclusion that he really
wants to change. He is ready to move forward. We are taking it slow with him
though. And we spoke with the ward council, about how we really need help on
this one, G. has special needs. So the members are helping a ton with
fellowshipping him and making him feel welcome.
Mom, don't worry, he won't get violent with
us. The guy loves us like brothers. He's really a good guy. We decided that
just because he has a past, it would go against our purpose to stop teaching
him. Everyone has a past of somekind. He's actually progressing well, I have a
good feeling about him. The gospel changes lives, truly.
Well, I'm outta time, update next week!
Love,
Elder Clinton Doggett"
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