SWEET INVESTIGATOR & OPEN GRAVES

Dear Family and Friends,

             Last week right as we started emailing, the power went out in Takoradi. As well as the water. This past week was just full of power and water problems in our apartment, so much so that I don't care to detail. It really put a damper on our work this week, though. We had to borrow water from the neighbors' wells to even do our wash. I even took a shower in a rainstorm this week. Again, we won't go into detail, but I'll say it was an experience, haha. You have no idea how good you have it in the States.

            Also last Monday, we had a District Activity at the Julanders' place and we watched Ephraim's Rescue. (Sorry Mom, you don't get the pleasure of a grand reveal) It was a powerful movie. I remembered many of the stories of my third great grand-daddy that Mom had told me. I had tears in my eyes multiple times. I was impressed that they were able to make the movie more light-hearted than the previous one, yet retain the severity of what the pioneers went through. In light of our own problems that we've been having, I know that there is a reason I was not an early saint. I will take all the spiritual, mental, and emotional stress over the physical, haha. 

            So something that people do here, and have done in the past, is build villages and things over old graveyards. Mpintsin is a good example of that. While proselyting with a ward missionary this week, we passed along a road and found a hole broken into a cement box in the ground, with big tracks from a truck tire going over it. You could see that the driver was trying to cut a corner, and did so a little too close. I commented, "Well, this one has a head start on the resurrection." I was about to keep moving when our ward missionary said, "Whoa, wait, look." You know how you're supposed to dig graves 6 feet deep? Yeah, they didn't do that for this one. You know how you're supposed to bury someone in a coffin? Yeah, they didn't do that either. It was a very old grave, so we saw nothing TOO gruesome, but it was a tad bit surprising.

            I read the allegory of the olive tree in Jacob chapter 5 sometime this week…..the chapter that everyone despises. But as I read, I realized how perfect it was! It exactly details the history of Israel: scattering, gathering, restoration. After reading the Old Testament, everything in that chapter made so much sense. Actually, EVERYTHING in the gospel makes sense if you've read the Old Testament. It gives you a real solid background on the history of things.

            I have an observation to make about our sweet investigator, I. He is seriously being led by the Spirit. It teaches him more than we do. He often says something along the lines of, "I was reading (or thinking) and a thought came to me that..." then he proceeds to detail some gospel truth that we know, and he's just figured out. It's pretty impressive, really. A few times he has quoted modern-day scripture almost word for word, and he doesn't even know it. We've started reading 1st Nephi with him and he is absolutely loving it. He enjoys history, so he's picking out all these connections to the Bible, like King Zedekiah, Jeremiah, and stuff. He's good at likening scriptures to himself, too. He's progressing swiftly, and has a baptism date for the end of March.

Love,

Elder Doggett

Funny, we actually had a lot of rain this week.... coincidence? [His mom told him she was praying for rain in West Africa!]

 

A Ghanaian wedding

Renegade hen...and another sweet baptism

Baptism of J., Feb 23, 2014

  Dear Family and Friends,

   I heard this week that Swedru became a stake. I remember they were pushing really hard when I was there, so that's cool for them.
    Funny story this week. We closed our day one night and we spent some time discussing and planning. We said a prayer, then as I began to undress I saw a chicken spying at me from behind the door in our room. It just stood there without moving a muscle or making a sound. Elder Ma'afu saw me staring, so he glanced over and casually said, "Well how'd that get there?" Suddenly I remembered how the lights had gone off when we came home for lunch, and I opened the front door wide to get a breeze coming in. The hen clearly moseyed on in at that time unnoticed by us. Haha we had locked it in our bedroom all day. My comp got a broom and began to push it into the hall, then out the front door. It drunkenly staggered around and gave a few pathetic squawks. It was probably starving. Ooops. When we pushed her out the front door she tried to come back in, but ended up passing out on our porch in a very homeless manner. Needless to say, she left little presents all over our floor that I had to seek out and mop up, haha. So that was amusing.
    There are many people here that set up shops without license. A few times since I've been in Takoradi we've seen all the shops along the road just obliterated. There are some guys that go around with red spray cans and mark, "Remove or produce license by 'such and such date' " on all the shops that are illegal. Then randomly, they will come with a backhoe and wreck all of them if they don't comply. It's kind of unfortunate for those selling, but I guess it's just how they have to enforce the law here.
    We had one candidate baptised after church yesterday, J. She's a 13 year old from a part member family. We've been working with her for some time now, since I got here. She's progressed a LOT in that time. The baptism service went very well. Everyone played their parts and we had member support. We were a bit worried the day before because the water wasn't flowing to fill the font (a common problem here). But in the morning it was running just fine.
    We have been beyond busy these past two weeks, it's so fun. We've been improving member relations and we're starting to see fruits of our efforts. We received two solid referrals and we're contacting people on the daily. Elder Ma'afu is a machine; a very hard worker. And holy smokes, that man can eat! We have just mountains of rice everyday for lunch, haha.

Love, Elder Doggett

P.S.  Often in lessons I share some things that Mom has told me about her conversion. Actually, thinking back, I quote you and Mom a lot in lessons, just phrases that you guys have said that stick out to me. Especially your chastising, "You NEVER shirk your duty onto other people". I like that one, and I've used it a lot!

Chilling at district meeting in our apartment

February....the hottest month in Ghana

Proselyting in the Haunted Jungle:  "It's scarier than it looks in the picture...... there were giant spider webs everywhere."

Dear Family and Friends,

            This week was incredibly busy. I slept like a baby this week I was so tired after every day. This month of February is the hottest in Ghana, so if you are in the sun for even one hour, you're exhausted. I'm glad this is my last hot season here.

            Our ward is picking things up. We've started having meetings again, and they finally got out the home teaching lists yesterday. Home teaching is a challenge in every ward and branch here, but it is so important! Don't neglect your home teaching; that's when people slowly start to fall away. Also yesterday the bishop called two more ward missionaries, so I believe that will help us out. I pray that our members will help us get the ball rolling for 2014, even though we've had a late start. 

            One of our investigators, from a part member family, is preparing for baptism this coming Sunday. We've been teaching her since I've got here and we've had a few rough patches, but she is progressing well. Her name is J; and she's 13 years old. Story of this ward, haha. There are so many youth! We want to start giving the priests in the ward the opportunity to perform baptisms when we have them; we think that will strengthen their testimonies and up their zeal for missionary work.

            Another investigator we contacted on the street last week came to church! That's kind of rare, but he is receiving our teachings very well. His name is I., and he is 67 years old. He looks like he's 45 though, haha. Ghanaians don't really age... This guy is so full of energy it's almost stressful to teach him. He gives us respect and time to teach, but you will see him start squirming in his seat as we teach, just dying to give his contribution. I swear he talks a mile a minute. Haha his brothers and sisters and some of his kids are all pastors in different churches. He says he feels left out, so he wants to join up with us. He had been to many churches, and in all of them he says he had found things that are not in harmony with holy writ, so he had stopped going to church for some time. When he came on Sunday, he was received so well by the ward! Everyone was talking to him and getting to know him, which he just loved because he's a social butterfly, haha. I pray that he comes to personal knowledge of the truth.

Love,

Elder Doggett

I was talking to an American member in our ward and she said I have a dry sense of humor. I said, "Yeah, I'm from Idaho, everything is dry!  Dry weather, dry land, dry people......dry humor!"

Elder Doggett's subject line said, "check out this ENORMOUS scorpion we found in our apartment".   He got his mother on this one.....I was thinking it would be the size of his fist! :-)

FORGING NEW ROADS IN GHANA...........

Many hands make light work!

Lots of shoveling......

and more shoveling!

E. Doggett, E. Reihle, E. Stoddard

Mission accomplished.....level road!

Dear Family and Friends,

            My new companion is called Elder Ma'afu, from Tonga. He's a sweet guy and he's full of energy! Haha I have to work hard to keep up with him. He was trained by Elder Carstens in Assin Foso, so he just came from there. He had been in his first area for 8 months.

            This morning we had a service project that went very well! I love service projects here, because we don't get to do them very often. A while ago, the Zone Leaders told us to watch out for a project that we could do as a zone. We contacted our bishop and he suggested we fill in the holes on the big road leading up into Mpintsin. He provided the filling and we gathered tools from members yesterday. We got up early and met up to start our work. As we were going, we had some people join us, two people in particular. They were just local residents of the area, but these two guys worked harder than some of us, haha. Some of the members threw in their hands as well and we had a really great time. As we filled the holes in the road, cars kept passing and in doing so, they packed down the dirt for us. We received some nice compliments, and made a few contacts, since it was in our area. One guy, however, pulled up next to me, Elder Reihle, and my bishop. At first it seemed that he would thank us, but there must be opposition in all things, right? He asked which organization was doing this, then proceeded to trash talk America and England, saying that they were the ones who caused problems like this. He said, "You know, some people may notice this, but most people will not be impressed. Why are you people coming to fix this road while your countries are stealing from us Africans?... blah blah blah." He just wasted his breath on us. Elder Reihle said, "We believe that when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are in the service of God." (he loves to quote scriptures at people who don't even know where they come from, haha) We told him that whether or not our efforts are appreciated, we will still serve. The guy didn't care. All I have to reflect about it now is D&C 75: 21. (We found out that we is a Pentecostal minister, who clearly does not understand the definition of true religion)

            So I was reading in Lance Richardson's "The Message", that you sent to Elder Ormond, Mother. I like the chapter where he talks about service and how important it is in a Zion Society. He explains how service is the action form of love. You just feel so warm inside when you give service, it's not something you can easily describe.

            So our 'Apostasy Week' just ended, which is the last week of our subsistence period. This is when missionaries are out of money, haha. Normally I budget pretty well, but I enjoyed a bit too much with Elder Ormond. Miraculously though, we were fed or given food by members a few times this week, which kept us afloat. The Lord looks after His missionaries, even when they're slightly short-sighted. But, President Shulz just raised our subsistence by 20 cedis due to all the inflation. Fuel has gone up over 4 times since I entered the country. Prices are going up, up, up.

            Otherwise, transfers went well, but we had a really slow week in the area. We do have 2 people who are preparing for baptism, though. Both are young women who were referred by members. There are SO many young men and women in our ward, I daresay they make up half of our numbers.

Love,

Elder Doggett

P.S. Actually I was told that snake will "give you a bit of a fever if it bites you, but you'll be okay."        

 

New companion, Elder Ma'afu

BEACH FUN AND A S-S-S-SURPRISE GUEST

F. before his confirmation last week

Boat ride to Shama Island

Dear Family and Friends,

            This week was pretty slow in terms of missionary work, but some notable events occurred. One day, all our lessons failed before noon, so we had nothing to do. We ran into a good member friend of ours, D. she loves missionaries and tries to have us over all the time. She's 38 and she acts 18, haha. The other day I was asking if she could show us how to make 'bankye kakro', which is basically fried cassava balls with onion and pepper. Really good snack food. I didn't want to go during proselyting time, but she kinda forced us, and we went to her place to she could show us how to make it.

            While we were doing so, D.' neighbor came from her room with a frightened look on her face. She said an animal had entered her room, but she didn't specify what. She was so upset she couldn't even speak English, haha. We said, "Well, we'll kill it for you." So we went down and found a 3 foot long snake chilling on the window sill of her kitchen. We called for a cane (small stick used to beat impertinent children), and I tapped at it from the outside, and it stuck it's head up a little. I then passed the cane to Elder Ormond, he lined up his aim through the door, and in one fell swing he dropped the thing. He nailed it right behind the head, it fell from the sill and just slowly writhed on the floor. We swept it out the door crushed it's head to seal the deal. It proceeded to slowly convulse, for even like 15 minutes afterward. But we started taking pictures with it, while the African ladies just giggled at us. Haha, but the woman whose room the snake was still so afraid, she was almost in tears. Elder Ormond was really buzzing about it all, apparently there are no snakes in New Zealand. He said he'll add that to his kill list.

            On a different note, we had a lesson that went pretty bad (in my eyes) this week. It had been a while since we had seen this particular investigator and we needed to follow up on the Book of Mormon we had given him. We had the feeling he was dodging us.  We started discussing what he had read and he started firing questions, which seemed honest at first, but soon we were just going around in circles and it was getting a bit heated. There were some things we said that he absolutely refused to accept, and I could just see his heart hardening. It was all over his face. We found out he had gotten on the internet and read some unfavorable material about the church, which made sense. I'm sure this happens all the time in state-side missions, and I feel for those missionaries. This situation was so frustrating for me, because normally when we cease teaching someone it is due to laziness, apathy, disinterest, or absence of time. But this man was out right refusing our message, for whatever reason. He would not even consider the possibility of its truthfulness; it was saddening to me.

            Afterwards, I was wondering if it was my fault, "Did I say something wrong? Did I not have the Spirit?” It was the typical self-blaming stuff. But the Spirit cannot enter a closed heart. I hope the future allows this man to honestly consider what we know to be true.

            Now, transfer news. We get a call this week from President Shulz. I just look at the number as it rings, thinking, "Aww man, President is calling right before transfers, I know what that means." It means Zone Leader. So I answer the phone, President greets me small and asks about the area, then says, "Elder, can I speak to your companion now?" I just hand over the phone with a smirk. On my end, I only hear, “...getting up at 6:30 AM?.... gotta be an example... leading missionaries..." Then Elder Ormond says, "Yes, I'll do that for you. I accept." ZONE LEADER! Hahahahaha. I had dodged the bullet, and I was poking fun at my companion over it, until the phone rings again. I hear it in my pocket and Elder Ormond says, "I'll bet that's the Assistants" (BTW the Assistants extend calls to District Leaders.) Yup, it's the Assistants. "Elder Doggett, I'm calling on behalf of President Shulz, the Lord needs you to be a DL, do you accept?" Suuure. Haha.

            Now don't get us wrong, the opportunity to serve is very welcome in our eyes. It just... adds to the stress. :) I'm not surprised I was called as a DL again.  I was always telling President in my letters how much I enjoyed conducting splits and baptism interviews. So I'm staying, and my comp is going. I'll miss him, he's a sweet guy. He's very easy to get along with and loves pretty much everybody.

            So that's what is going on in my little corner of the vineyard!

Love,

Elder Doggett

P.S. we had a pretty fun district activity today. We went to Shama Island, and we had to take a boat ride there. Elder Ormond taught us how to play rugby (touch) and we zipped a frisbee around. I'll send pictures.

Snake ALIVE.........

Snake DEAD.  (Mother begs to differ....this slithering reptile was at least FIVE feet!!!)

Snake-killer E. Ormond

FRESH ORANGE JUICE, STORMS AND A BAPTISM

Orange juice party!

Dear Family and Friends,

            This week was super busy and stressful. My companion had to go on splits twice this week, because he is the DL. We had a Zone Conference which was pretty cool, all about being a consecrated missionary. We had full days, and we were preparing F. for baptism, which happened right after a ward conference.

            The baptism took place yesterday after church, and it went ok. ___________ didn't fulfill his duties like he said he would. Once again, this is a big challenge here. Most people have no sense of responsibility, everything usually ends up falling on somebody else's shoulders. It's extremely frustrating for me, because I do everything I can to do what I've said I will do, and so many people here simply don't care. I don't want to complain too much, but that has been bothering me all week. The baptism was good though, we had a sweet member from the ward perform the baptism. He's a really nice kid, he was just made an elder a few months ago, and he is goaling for a mission. I love to work with the prospective missionaries, they're always so ready to help teach.

            Our Saturday was interesting this week. We were in the middle of a lesson when we suddenly noticed how dark the skies were. It started raining and we kept teaching until it started blowing in through the screens. We were just in this little porch that didn't have real windows. The rain blowing through the screen was just pushing all the dirt through it and getting it all over us, haha so we had to abort the lesson and take cover. It lasted just over and hour, and it flooded like crazy. It was fun to watch though; extreme weather is always exciting.

            As we were passing the church one day this week, we saw the scouts out in the car park, standing at attention. So we went over to watch their meeting a bit. To my surprise, there is a big African scout program that they run here. It was amusing, because they were all standing at attention, and the leaders were teaching them how to properly march and stuff. I thought the whole regimentation of it all was funny, because back home it is so casual. They were there at the ward conference putting up the flags and stuff.

            Last week we found a juicer in the apartment! It was tucked away up in the corner of one cabinet. We were so excited that we bought a bag of 50 oranges for 5 cedis and juiced them all yesterday. It was a sweet deal, it made 3 litres. Where if you buy juice at the store for 5 cedis you'll get like 1 litre. Anyways, we soon realized how pathetic it was that we were getting all jazzed over a cheap China juicer, haha. Missionaries...

            So back to the Zone Conference we had. President Shulz gave a lot of insight as to how to become a consecrated missionary. I've been reflecting on his instruction, and another talk I've read recently, and I've been setting personal goals. There is always something you can work on to become better. D&C 31:5 states that if we thrust in our sickles with all our might, we are forgiven of our sins. That's a powerful prospect and it is what is driving me to become better.

            Mom, Just remember that no effort is wasted in missionary work. Every Book of Mormon handed out goes somewhere, and will be found by somebody; every testimony gets heard. I just heard a story from Elder Miskin, where one of his EFY counselors handed out a BOM to a non-member girl at a soccer camp. She wrote her testimony and everything in it. She never heard from her. Fifteen years later she gets a Facebook message from some woman saying, "Thank you so much for your testimony and sharing the BOM, here's a picture of my family sealed in the temple." It wasn't even from the same girl, just a stranger that her BOM fell into the hands of.

 Love, 

Elder Doggett

Ghanaian scouts

Add caption

".... this marks a momentous event in my life--- I've now officially finished the complete standard works of the church for the first time consecutively. I've studied them deeply, comparing one with another. All I have to say is the Church is true."

Dear Family and Friends,

            I finished reading the Doctrine and Covenants this week, so I will list a few reflections: I learned a lot about the organization and responsibilities of the priesthood, especially from Section 107. The priesthood is divine, no man could invent such a complex, precise, and everlasting ideal. Also, there are some portions of the D&C that are not direct revelations, such as minutes from a meeting or letters from Joseph Smith to the whole church. Every time I read those portions, I could sense the difference between them and the direct communications of Jesus Christ to His prophet. It just made me realize how divine the writings really are. No mere man could write the Book of Mormon, we know, let alone subsequently claim 280 pages of admonishing instruction from the Savior himself. The notion of fraud in the matter is preposterous. Jesus is the Christ. Joseph Smith was His prophet, end of story.

            Now this marks a momentous event in my life--- I've now officially finished the complete standard works of the church for the first time consecutively. I've studied them deeply, comparing one with another. All I have to say is that the Church is true.

            Speaking of scriptures, Elder Ormond and I found a sweet chapter in the Book of Mormon to illustrate the way the adversary tempts us. We taught it in a lesson to a recent convert to show how the BOM applies to us. Go read Alma 47: 1-19 with this key: AMALICKIAH=SATAN and LEHONTI=YOU. I was nerding out about how awesome this was, and how it would make a pretty good screenplay...

            So there is a huge granite quarry not far from our proselyting area near the ocean, and this week we could hear them blasting. A few days this week we would hear the blast, and a bit later see huge clouds of dust billowing into the ether from the explosion. It was cool.

            We have one investigator who is progressing very well. His name is F., and he is 17 years old. He's a referral, from his uncle who is a strong member. Yesterday we had  a lesson with him planned at the same time as another lesson, so my comp and I had to split. I went to teach F. the Law of Chastity with two other teenage boys, which was just dandy, haha. I thought they handled it pretty well, there were only a few isolated giggles. Anyway we are planning to baptize him this coming Sunday. He's already really active and has lots of friends, so we're not too worried. He's a good listener too.

Love,

Elder Doggett

PS (we had a water fight this morning, and I am sad to report that while my nerf gun does well against the crawlers, it can't hold out against water pistols.)

Taxi, anyone?