Date
December 16, 2019
Area
Cape Coast
Companion
Elder Osaretin
We had our Christmas Zone Conference two days ago and it was absolutely amazing!
Well hello there everybody!
Well, it's p-day today and it's been pretty productive. We've already finished doing all of our shopping, washing, and cleaning. So all that we have left is our emailing and then we'll get out there and try to get some work in. This was a pretty solid week overall. We had our Christmas Zone Conference two days ago and it was absolutely amazing!
To start it off, our mission president began with relating our missionary work to basketball. He began to explain how the best teams work together and take shots from everywhere on the court, not just simply one spot. It's the same in our work. We need to do it all. We need to be able to work with the members and ask for referrals, but we also need to remember to still be open and talk with everyone in our path. We talked about the importance of asking for referrals from not only members, but also from less actives, leaders, other missionaries, part-members, and also even checking our area books. We need to remember to always take every shot. He even quoted the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Being a basketball lover myself, I was very happy to hear this comparison. Another big piece from him was also the importance of being "all in." By this, he meant the difference between the normal missionaries and the fully consecrated missionaries. There is a scripture that talks about how many are called, but few are chosen. Well, after hearing what our mission president had to say... It's going to change where in the Ghana cape coast mission, few are called and many are chosen. It was pretty cool to hear.
Something that I have seen is becoming a very popular subject of lately is Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon. Last general conference talked about that in a few talks, I've been reading about it a ton in the last few Liahonas that they have released, and even at Zone Conference, they talked about it quite a bit as well. The piece our president decided to focus on was the point of the iron rod. We always hear the phrase "hold to the rod." But he explained that there is more to it than that. We need to do more than just hold it. We need to "love the feel of the steel" We need to love living the gospel and rejoice in doing what is right. If so, we will be able to make Christ become a bigger part of us. Not just a bigger part of our lives, but a bigger part of us.
Our mission president's wife talked a lot about the gathering of Israel. She made a lot of connections from the Book of Mormon to the importance of receiving our patriarchal blessing all the way to the promised blessings to us for doing so. I wish I could say things word for word as she said it. It was wonderful to hear and learn about the need for a gathering and how that time is now. As we are gathering people here in these latter days, we are allowing more and more people to come back to the fold.
After the instructions, we re-enacted the nativity. Both last year and this year, I was chosen to be the inn keeper that doesn't have room in the inn, but I do have a stable that can be used. Now a few missionaries think that I must be destined for hotel management or something haha. We also enjoyed some nice cooking from Sister Hillam. It was a solid day.
Well after our zone conference on Saturday, Elder Osaretin and I got out of there very quickly so we could rush to our chapel so we could have a baptism for our dear sister Rita. She's around 60 years old or so and she was waiting at the chapel for us. Well, thanks to the luxuries of Ghana, there was no electricity and no water at the time... But that didn't stop us. Elder Osaretin and I started to take buckets and fill the font little by little until it was filled enough. It was blazing hot in the chapel because none of the fans could work and we were all sweating but Rita was baptized nonetheless It was a nice service. Rita came to church yesterday and received the gift of the Holy Ghost as well. I am very happy with the decision that she has made to take Jesus Christ upon her.
Well, we are continuing to make progress with others as well. We hope to continue to progress with Rita's daughter, Mabel, as well as another sister named Naa. We will continue to work hard this week and help them along the right path.
Well, that's about it for this week! I hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season! Love you all.
-Elder Woolner