March 19, 2012

Family,

Everything is going so well! Elder Ikoro and I are like best friends. He's really helped me to get back on my feet after struggling with Elder Sankah, and I love him for it. The work is going great here! We had Zone Interviews/ Zone Conference this last week in "Adenta", which is like a one-and-a-half to two hour drive from where we are in Nsawam. President Judd gave us some instructions as well as his assistants and Sister Judd. We all got interviewed by him and it was nice to talk to him again, he really reassures me that I'm not the only one who has thought what I've been thinking. We saw him again this last Sunday because we needed a "special interview" that can only be done by certain authorities for one of our baptismal candidate. We didn't have any baptisms this week, but we're planning on three baptisms next week. They're a family that loves the church a lot. we've been working with them for almost 3 months now, but it's all working out now and they're really putting in the effort towards baptism. They're a younger couple and their oldest child is only nine. I bought him a tie because he said he didn't have one and I might say he was looking very nice Sunday at church, ha. So we have been teaching another man who is an elder in the Pentecostal Church (I may have mentioned him before). His name is Samuel Ayisi (eye--ee--see). I know he's felt the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and those things we've taught, but he's having a hard time with the idea of leaving his church. The last time we talked to him was 2 weeks ago or so and we've been having difficulty meeting with him since because he's always being called to help in his church. He's a very humble man and he's probably over 50 years. We finally sat down and met with him Saturday and the first thing he said to us after the opening prayer was that he wanted us to keep coming and teaching him because he likes what we teach him, but that he couldn't leave his church. I felt a little discouraged when he said that, but we let him talk it out and we only talked a little bit and after reading some scriptures with him and explaining some things, he told us on his own that he would keep trying to find out if the church was true, and he said that although it would be very difficult, he would leave his church and be baptized. It was a heavily spirit filled lesson, and I'm glad we didn't lose him. He knows it's true. He says that right now there are a lot of priests and others that follow him, so it's hard for him to just get up and leave, but he told us that he would do it when he found the truth. I know he already knows it's true, it's just a matter of helping him to recognize it now. It's a gentle process and we're not going to force him to do anything, but I know that it's undeniable the feeling of the Holy Ghost people receive. You can think you're being tricked into it, but I think that's you're own deranged mind. This church is all about agency. You can choose, no one can brainwash you. It takes faith, but once you've received a witness, you can't deny it. It's not a witness from men in the church, but instead a witness from God. We can all deny what prophets and apostles say because they're not God. But when God gives you an answer after you've "diligently" searched for it, you can't deny that.
                 You asked about Nigeria or Ivory Coast. There has actually been missionaries in Ivory Coast since I got here and probably before too, I don't know when exactly there wasn't for a time. The ones that had planned possibly come to Ghana instead of Nigeria ended up in Nigeria, and everything is going smoothly. My piano playing seems to be falling apart because they only like to hear the organ setting on the keyboards, so I have to play like I'm playing the organ, ha. As for my singing, I just hope I don't sound silly, because no one sings here like they do back home (I say that it that way to be polite, haha).
All in all, I'm loving teaching and I wish we could have perfect appointments the whole day and we could teach 8 lessons a day, that would be awesome and I'd be so happy all the time. I love teaching lessons. Anyways, everything is going well on my end, I hope everything is going well back home. I think about my family and I am so glad I have all the siblings and parents that I do. I love my family. Right now you all seem perfect to me. Everything just seems like it's perfect back home.

--Elder Littlefield