Elder Stevenson Visits and Office Life

Dear Family,

This has probably been the most interesting week of my mission. Tuesday was my last day proselyting for a while. The new Elder came to replace me Tuesday afternoon and I slept in Effiduase for the night. On Wednesday I came down with the rest of the Koforidua zone to see Elder Stevenson speak. It was really good.  Ulisses S Soares and his wife spoke, and so did Marcus B. Nash and his wife. Both President Heid and the Accra West Mission President spoke. It was a really wonderful program all together.

Accra and Accra West Mission Wide Conference

Afterwards I came back to the mission home and a whole bunch of other people were here for the program and transfers and such. It was a little stressful because everyone expected me to know what I was doing but I didn't really have any idea. So many people made office elder jokes and stuff. That night we had all the trainers and trainees sleep here in the bunkhouse and on Thursday they got them processed and assigned and sent out.

Friday everyone was tired so President gave us an Office P-day. Me and Elder Harris went and played tennis! First time in 1 year. It was a lot of fun and we will be going several times a week because the Heid's play tennis and have court time there that we can use. Then I spent the rest of the day cleaning because there was nothing else for me to do. I also went to this place called Shoprite which is just like a normal grocery store back home. I hated it. Everything was labeled and stuff and there are too many options and too many white people. I was really missing the simplicity of the life that I used to live and the lives that the Ghanaian people live. I just sat in an aisle an stared at everything for a minute. Anyways on Saturday Elder Harris and I went out and bought tennis stuff and got lost somewhere in Accra. When we got back Elder Falk and I went to Teshie to drop off some bikes for some Elders.

Sunday we went to church. My area is called Cantoments. It is a really sweet ward. We worship at the temple site. I am used to having to communicate and get to know people in Twi. Sunday people were coming to me and telling me about their trip to Salt Lake and stuff. Super awesome people though that know how the church is supposed to be run and have been members since the beginning of the church here in Ghana. It is really enjoyable though to be right by the temple and have so many great members. I bore my testimony and I realized that I have heard three apostles - David A Bednar, Ronald A Rasband, and Gary E Stevenson - all speak from that same pulpit. It is also the ward that people visit when they come to Accra and I met the Relief Society President from Oyoko there. It was really awesome to see people from old areas. Sunday I also learned how to drive stick shift. It was crazy because there are no church parking lots here. I had to drive across like the busiest, tightest road in Ghana after like 2 minutes of practice!

Questions from home:

You live in the actual mission home - with the President? How is that? Are the living conditions better than most? Yeah, so I live in the mission home with Elder Falk, who is my companion, and the 2 AP's, (Assistant to the President) Elder Harris and Elder Osei-Brobbey and President and Sister Heid. Elder Falk is cool. He lives close to us in Salt Lake so I know everywhere he is talking about back home. He was a baseball player for Olympus. Elder Harris is my good friend. We were trained by the same person. He plays tennis as well as I do and he reminds me exactly of Uncle Bart. Just this really goofy guy that is really smart and friendly. Elder Osei is a Ghanaian that is going home next transfer. He is also pretty cool.

What kinds of things are you doing? I don't know actually, this week was abnormal. Mostly I just sat around this week. I understand it like this. I do all of the mission statistics and office work. Give reimbursement. Fix problems. Run supplies. I have heard it explained like this: We are not proactive, we are reactive to all of the problems that come from running the mission.

Do you get the chance to do any teaching? This week we didn't. We have an area that we share with other Elders. Elder Falk said we will teach maybe 5 lessons a week. I think we can put in some good missionary work though.

I love you so much. I can tell whenever you email me now because I get notifications on my Iphone.

Elder Shelton