Family,
I might be kind of brief today, but we'll see.
This week was pretty darn tough. It got better the last few days, but
sometimes I felt like I was completely on my own and that I had no
support. I didn't know what to do with this area and I didn't want our
numbers to be low, but everyone was failing us and no one seemed
interested. It's different here. Everything is more fast-paced. It's
good and it's definitely a challenge I'm not going to half-way attempt
to overcome, but it sure is a different ballgame. President Le'Grand
Curtis' wife called us and gave us a referral which we had a very
interesting lesson with. We walked a way to get to her house, and when
we met her it was 8:00 at night. she lives in like the most compacted
area I've seen here. Everyone's houses, the roads, and everything is
just wall to wall and there's not much room. The sewage (bathwater and
possibly urine) runs down the little hallways in between the houses and
it reminds me of some kind of "black-ops" level on the X-box. We finally
found this woman. Her name is Hannah. We sat down and another man which
lived next door sat down and started listening too. To say the least,
he was pretty uneducated and unreasonable. The lesson went fine until he
started quoting scriptures from the bible saying things like "God is
three in one" and "No one has ever seen God". We told him what we
believed and tried to move on, but he kept interrupting us telling us
that the bible says otherwise. The branch missionary we were with wanted
to argue bible scripture with him, and he did that for a while until I
told him we'll take it from there. To be honest, I think Satan was there
and he really wanted to just break us down. It was hard to have
patience and not just say to this guy, "Man, keep your mouth shut and
let us explain!". He really wasn't someone to contend with because he
just wanted to contend, he wasn't so much interested in getting to the
bottom of the truth. I finally stopped him and told him and sister
Hannah that they need to pray tonight and ask God if Joseph Smith really
did see God. Because, I told them, if he did, then God is not "three in
one" and people can and have "seen God", and more importantly that the
only true church that is God's on earth is The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. As soon as I started saying this, the mood changed
rapidly. It actually even seemed to get lighter in the area we were in.
Everyone quieted down, and this guy sat and listened quietly. I just
about broke and told the guy off, but I held out a little longer and
everything worked out great. We ended the lesson on a spiritual high,
and everything felt really good.
I didn't
get a package, but that's because they didn't bring packages. We had a
zone activity today and played soccer and basketball at the MTC, which
is actually only a 30 minute ride from where I'm at. I saw the ocean
again, it was awesome.
We walk mostly in Nungua. Still send the deodorant, things
are the same price no matter where you go in Ghana, with the exception
of fruit or other produce. I got mail more often in the bush because Elder
Barney was the 2nd counselor in our branch back in Nsawam. But there's a
ton of areas and missionaries in the Greater Accra Region, we only get
mail if we ever come in contact with the office elders or assistants to
the president which happened today because they came to our zone
activity. That zone activity was great, I haven't played basketball in
so long, it was so much fun!
Thanks for those pictures. Man, McCall is cute! As grandma
Hatch would say, "You're gonna have to keep away all those boys away from
her!" or something like that. I think she said that to me every time one
of my siblings were born. Really though, she's really pretty! Connor
looks a little bigger in that hunting picture too like he's working out
or something. I'm gonna have to step it up a notch if I want to dominate
him when I get back. Football sounds awesome! That's way cool they're
blowing out every team and even more cool that I get to be there when he
plays full-on varsity his Junior and Senior year! I bet Kade is
enjoying Junior High, I'd keep the laffy taffies too if I were him,
those are good! We don't cook together here. Everyone manages their own
subsistence money, which is actually a little more difficult than you'd
think if you want to eat something that tastes somewhat good. So we just
eat individually. The area here is different. It's more like the wards
back home than the branches I've been in before. It's a good thing, but
the branch in Nsawam was especially good. Maybe it's just because
I spent so long there, but I really think that branch is great.
I've got some time left actually, so I'll talk about more. We
have a woman and her two children coming to church 2 weeks in a row now.
Hopefully they'll be baptized on the 15th of September. I love the kids
here. I don't want to be an elementary school teacher or anything, but I
wouldn't mind working with something with little kids when I get back,
they're just fun!
Well, that's about it, I'll talk to you guys later. Thanks for
the letters and especially the pictures, I loved it all! I love my
family, it's so great to always hear everything is going so well. I love
you guys. :)
Love, Dallin (Elder Littlefield)
Monday, August 27, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
This last week was great! 22 lessons, 3 investigators at church, and
then one baptism next week! It's going great! It was pretty strange, but
things just took a turn on Wednesday this last week. We had 6 lessons
that one day when we had just experienced a day with one lesson the day
before. President Judd even called us Wednesday to make sure everything
was going alright in our area, because of our numbers. I told him we
have been doing our best to turn things around, and that finally today
(Wednesday) we were having immense success! He said he wasn't worried
and that he had confidence in me, and that made me feel a lot better. We
had three investigators at church, and they were welcomed well by the
branch. We probably would have had as much as six or seven investigators
at church, but it rained Sunday morning, and that just shuts down
almost all activity for some reason. But the three faithful came! :)
It was cool to hear about the trek. When you guys mentioned the "flour" dust that was everywhere, it reminded me of here. During the dry season, sometimes it just piles up dust, especially on the sides of the highways. Sometimes it builds like snow up to like 3 or 4 inches on the sides of the highways. But it's not like that now, it's been raining pretty off and on this whole week. I like to hear that about my brothers and sister. I'm excited to see Kade when I get home, he does sounds like me. I remember the first few times when I first gave talks in sacrament meeting. One of them I told about how we had our Thanksgiving dinner in a Denny's in Idaho. At first I was pretty nervous and I wasn't sure how it would go, but after a while I always liked the challenge of writing a good talk that people would be interested in and listened to. Even today, I always love to give talks and I'll jump on every opportunity. Maybe I just like to talk, I don't know. Connor and Kade both sound like the trek was a good experience. It seems just like any youth conference at first, but when you're put in a family of people you've maybe never met or seen before and you have to stay with them, things get a little uncomfortable and you have to learn how to deal with it and still have a good time. I love you guys, thanks for the support and the letters, it means more than I really notice sometimes.
Love, Elder Littlefield
It was cool to hear about the trek. When you guys mentioned the "flour" dust that was everywhere, it reminded me of here. During the dry season, sometimes it just piles up dust, especially on the sides of the highways. Sometimes it builds like snow up to like 3 or 4 inches on the sides of the highways. But it's not like that now, it's been raining pretty off and on this whole week. I like to hear that about my brothers and sister. I'm excited to see Kade when I get home, he does sounds like me. I remember the first few times when I first gave talks in sacrament meeting. One of them I told about how we had our Thanksgiving dinner in a Denny's in Idaho. At first I was pretty nervous and I wasn't sure how it would go, but after a while I always liked the challenge of writing a good talk that people would be interested in and listened to. Even today, I always love to give talks and I'll jump on every opportunity. Maybe I just like to talk, I don't know. Connor and Kade both sound like the trek was a good experience. It seems just like any youth conference at first, but when you're put in a family of people you've maybe never met or seen before and you have to stay with them, things get a little uncomfortable and you have to learn how to deal with it and still have a good time. I love you guys, thanks for the support and the letters, it means more than I really notice sometimes.
Love, Elder Littlefield
Monday, July 2, 2012
Dad and Family,
That's pretty crazy about all the forest fires and stuff. It's been just about the opposite here. It's been raining every day here lately. It's not continual, but it's always cloudy. It's been nice as far as the cool weather, but it's kind of depressing to wake up every day and have it be a little dreary and damp outside. But I'd really rather have that than hot sunny death. This week, to be honest, was pretty junky. Almost no one wanted to listen to us. If we caught them for the first time just contacting, then they would sit down with us, but when we scheduled a return appointment, they were never there and they avoided us from there on out. So most of our week this week was spent riding miles back and forth to failed appointments. It was really a lot of fun..... not really. Towards the end of the week I just thought, "I'm done, there's no point anyway, we're just going to get to the appointment only to find that they've left to Accra and won't be back for a week". That's pretty frustrating. We're changing the way we do things. We're just going to go have fun with people. Get to know people and be more personable. Because whatever we were doing before made our investigators never want to see us again.
This evening we're going to host a Family Home Evening at a member's house with one of our missionary training DVDs. We're going to buy and pop some popcorn and just invite people in the compound to come watch. We'll see how it goes. discouragement has just been huge this week, and I can't handle too much more, so we're doing things different as to avoid to much of that. We just need to have fun and not be the two obruni's that come into people house and teach them "the word of God". The people here seem a little desensitized to someone sharing the gospel with them. No one will reject us because they've been told never to reject "the word of God", but at the same time, no one keeps commitments because they listen to us almost against their own will sometimes. It's weird. We actually get a lot of people who say "oh, won't you sit down and preach us small?". And I can tell they aren't really interested, they just have that instinct to say that or something so I just say, "No, like we're just passing by right now". That sounds wrong, but believe me, it's right.
Transfers are this Wednesday, but I won't be transferred because I'm training still. Unless something strange happens. It's crazy to think it's already July. Next month I'll be a year out. I think I gave up on counting the months a while ago and just decided I should just get used to living here. I saw a monkey leashed to the back of someone's car yesterday. Good thing too, because I don't think I could have gone to Africa for two years without coming back and saying I saw a monkey. It's just part of the whole stereotypical experience.
I've got a lot of time left, so I'm just gonna keep writing. No pictures this week. I probably should just take some random pictures that I don't think are all that great, because you guys will probably like them. The power has gone out like 4 times while I've been trying to write this letter. I really hope it doesn't go off again. If it does, I'm going to die. Every time it rains the light goes off. So since it's been raining a lot this week, we've been having a lot of light off. That means a lot of mud too. There's a lot of pot holes in the roads, so they fill with water and you have to time your walking right or else a taxi comes flying by and hits one of those potholes and just sends the mud puddle flying everywhere. Because everywhere is so muddy lately, I always seem to end the day with mud on the bottom of my slacks. We've even been taking our umbrellas around a lot because of the rain. If it rains, it cancels any appointments. That really doesn't make it easy for us. We're all ready to go, but when we call them or show up at their house and it's raining, they just say "oh, it's raining, let's make it next time". Ha ha, it's great. I'm glad I get to be with Elder Strong for another 6 weeks because it's so nice with him. Everything is just great! Things get hard, but it could be so much worse when you don't get along with your companion.
I've really been loving the Banku here lately. I don't think I liked it at the beginning of my mission, but I really like it now. I'll even buy it at a shop and take it home and eat it. Eating with your hands is the best. I think secretly Connor knew better than the rest of us. It's so much more convenient to eat with a spoon or fork, but it's just fun to eat with your hands. There's not too many rules to eating with your hands, and you just kind of suck everything off the best you can and swallow it whole, especially with Banku and Fufu. I'm actually just really hungry right now.
I hope you guys know how true this church is. To go anywhere else is just a joke to me now. This church is just complete, or "restored". It has everything. It's definitely from God. It's one thing for a church to teach something, but it's another thing for you to find out that that thing is really true from God. The church is like that. It's not a scam, it's up to you. But I can tell anyone that it's definitely God's chosen church on earth. I really don't like the idea of people saying that we brainwash people into the church. I think that's a load of junk. You can choose for yourself. You can't be brainwashed past your own control, that's ridiculous. We have agency, and although other churches may not emphasize or teach that as much, it doesn't take away from the fact that we can choose. And we can choose to know the truth even. It seems that it's all about diligence and faith. Those people who keep "trudging" (like dad said") hoping for something better, always find it. But those that don't put their faith in anything and just criticize things around them hoping for something to just magically happen, never get anything. I really started thinking more about the scripture in D&C that says "...ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith". That's absolutely true. I think so many people give up faith right before they receive a witness. After they give up, it takes some time again for their faith to be tested, and if they give up right before the witness part again, they could do that over and over again their whole lives and never get anywhere. Things won't be hard just one time, and then one day it all clicks and it's never hard again. That wouldn't make any sense. If you work out a muscle and the muscle gains some strength, that doesn't mean you can lift anything you want now. There's always room to grow, always room for improvement and greater happiness. There's always a bigger "mountain to climb" (from a talk in the last general conference).
Well, I could go on and on, but I'm hungry, so I'm going to go get something to eat. I'll answer Mom's questions in her e-mail before I go, but know I love you guys. The thing that gives me the most security on my mission is knowing my brothers and sister and doing well. It's so nice to hear they're succeeding and stuff like that. It would really take a toll on me if something bad happened to them. I love you all.
Love, Dallin (Elder Littlefield)
That's pretty crazy about all the forest fires and stuff. It's been just about the opposite here. It's been raining every day here lately. It's not continual, but it's always cloudy. It's been nice as far as the cool weather, but it's kind of depressing to wake up every day and have it be a little dreary and damp outside. But I'd really rather have that than hot sunny death. This week, to be honest, was pretty junky. Almost no one wanted to listen to us. If we caught them for the first time just contacting, then they would sit down with us, but when we scheduled a return appointment, they were never there and they avoided us from there on out. So most of our week this week was spent riding miles back and forth to failed appointments. It was really a lot of fun..... not really. Towards the end of the week I just thought, "I'm done, there's no point anyway, we're just going to get to the appointment only to find that they've left to Accra and won't be back for a week". That's pretty frustrating. We're changing the way we do things. We're just going to go have fun with people. Get to know people and be more personable. Because whatever we were doing before made our investigators never want to see us again.
This evening we're going to host a Family Home Evening at a member's house with one of our missionary training DVDs. We're going to buy and pop some popcorn and just invite people in the compound to come watch. We'll see how it goes. discouragement has just been huge this week, and I can't handle too much more, so we're doing things different as to avoid to much of that. We just need to have fun and not be the two obruni's that come into people house and teach them "the word of God". The people here seem a little desensitized to someone sharing the gospel with them. No one will reject us because they've been told never to reject "the word of God", but at the same time, no one keeps commitments because they listen to us almost against their own will sometimes. It's weird. We actually get a lot of people who say "oh, won't you sit down and preach us small?". And I can tell they aren't really interested, they just have that instinct to say that or something so I just say, "No, like we're just passing by right now". That sounds wrong, but believe me, it's right.
Transfers are this Wednesday, but I won't be transferred because I'm training still. Unless something strange happens. It's crazy to think it's already July. Next month I'll be a year out. I think I gave up on counting the months a while ago and just decided I should just get used to living here. I saw a monkey leashed to the back of someone's car yesterday. Good thing too, because I don't think I could have gone to Africa for two years without coming back and saying I saw a monkey. It's just part of the whole stereotypical experience.
I've got a lot of time left, so I'm just gonna keep writing. No pictures this week. I probably should just take some random pictures that I don't think are all that great, because you guys will probably like them. The power has gone out like 4 times while I've been trying to write this letter. I really hope it doesn't go off again. If it does, I'm going to die. Every time it rains the light goes off. So since it's been raining a lot this week, we've been having a lot of light off. That means a lot of mud too. There's a lot of pot holes in the roads, so they fill with water and you have to time your walking right or else a taxi comes flying by and hits one of those potholes and just sends the mud puddle flying everywhere. Because everywhere is so muddy lately, I always seem to end the day with mud on the bottom of my slacks. We've even been taking our umbrellas around a lot because of the rain. If it rains, it cancels any appointments. That really doesn't make it easy for us. We're all ready to go, but when we call them or show up at their house and it's raining, they just say "oh, it's raining, let's make it next time". Ha ha, it's great. I'm glad I get to be with Elder Strong for another 6 weeks because it's so nice with him. Everything is just great! Things get hard, but it could be so much worse when you don't get along with your companion.
I've really been loving the Banku here lately. I don't think I liked it at the beginning of my mission, but I really like it now. I'll even buy it at a shop and take it home and eat it. Eating with your hands is the best. I think secretly Connor knew better than the rest of us. It's so much more convenient to eat with a spoon or fork, but it's just fun to eat with your hands. There's not too many rules to eating with your hands, and you just kind of suck everything off the best you can and swallow it whole, especially with Banku and Fufu. I'm actually just really hungry right now.
I hope you guys know how true this church is. To go anywhere else is just a joke to me now. This church is just complete, or "restored". It has everything. It's definitely from God. It's one thing for a church to teach something, but it's another thing for you to find out that that thing is really true from God. The church is like that. It's not a scam, it's up to you. But I can tell anyone that it's definitely God's chosen church on earth. I really don't like the idea of people saying that we brainwash people into the church. I think that's a load of junk. You can choose for yourself. You can't be brainwashed past your own control, that's ridiculous. We have agency, and although other churches may not emphasize or teach that as much, it doesn't take away from the fact that we can choose. And we can choose to know the truth even. It seems that it's all about diligence and faith. Those people who keep "trudging" (like dad said") hoping for something better, always find it. But those that don't put their faith in anything and just criticize things around them hoping for something to just magically happen, never get anything. I really started thinking more about the scripture in D&C that says "...ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith". That's absolutely true. I think so many people give up faith right before they receive a witness. After they give up, it takes some time again for their faith to be tested, and if they give up right before the witness part again, they could do that over and over again their whole lives and never get anywhere. Things won't be hard just one time, and then one day it all clicks and it's never hard again. That wouldn't make any sense. If you work out a muscle and the muscle gains some strength, that doesn't mean you can lift anything you want now. There's always room to grow, always room for improvement and greater happiness. There's always a bigger "mountain to climb" (from a talk in the last general conference).
Well, I could go on and on, but I'm hungry, so I'm going to go get something to eat. I'll answer Mom's questions in her e-mail before I go, but know I love you guys. The thing that gives me the most security on my mission is knowing my brothers and sister and doing well. It's so nice to hear they're succeeding and stuff like that. It would really take a toll on me if something bad happened to them. I love you all.
Love, Dallin (Elder Littlefield)
Monday, May 28, 2012
So a lot has happened since I last e-mailed. Like I said before, I got malaria
on Thursday, not last week, but the week before. It was pretty much hell again.
I had a headache that just throbbed and throbbed for like two days straight.
Pain medication didn't really take it away, even 800 mg of Ibuprofen wouldn't do
anything. I am being really careful now about taking my doxycycline every day
and making sure my mosquito net is covering my bed really well. So two Tuesdays ago President Judd called me to be a trainer. So this last Wednesday I said goodbye to Elder Ikoro and went to pick up my new companion from the MTC. His name is Elder Strong, and he's from West Jordan! I'll be training him until August 15th! So that means I'll stay in Nsawam for another three months! That'll make it 9 months in this same area by the time I finish training. Elder Strong is a little taller than me, I'll send a picture. He's really cool though. Humble, doesn't feel homesick, and is a hard worker. I feel like I can relate to a lot of what he's going through right now and I'm trying to help him out as much as I can. I'm taking every companion I like as a huge blessing now and never for granted. It's been fun to help him out and explain the really different culture to him. In the end though, it's just really drained my energy for the day and by the time we finish at night, my brain just feels fried. We're kind of starting new as far as the work goes. Me and Elder Ikoro had been working with the same investigators for a long time and they just didn't quite progress and keep commitments like I had hoped they would, so we dropped a lot of them. But the Stake President has been out to preside at our branch every Sunday since we became part of a stake and he's really focusing on reactivation of less active members as well as giving us missionaries member referrals, so that's really nice. We even met with one of the referrals yesterday. Hopefully through all these referrals we'll keep the missionary work flowing.
Those pictures from the Grand Canyon are pretty sweet. Connor's muscles are...... kind of big...... ;) just let him know that his are weak compared to mine now......no big deal though....... It looks like you guys had fun! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Dad! I know it's like a week late, but 45 just about puts him over the "old" line. I'll give him until 50 though until he's officially "old".
Everything is going pretty well with training. I'll admit that it's not easy to lead around someone who comes from the same culture as me, it takes a little more confidence and surety in myself. Sometimes I just get really scared and discouraged of whether or not I can do all this. Because it really is a big responsibility. I usually just find somewhere quiet at those times and just pray. I don't pray like I'm hopeless, because I've found nothing really goes well when I don't feel like I can do it, but I do pray for strength and blessings as I continue. Often times when I do that, the fear is just swept away and it feels so good. That's when I know for sure that Heavenly Father hears my prayers. I think I went through a lot of the hard times on my mission so far so that I would learn to depend on my Heavenly Father more. Honestly, I think I was pretty prideful before I left. I think I thought a lot of myself and that I could do it all on my own. Ha, boy was I WRONG! It's really not an easy thing, especially to take the lead as senior companion in a culture that I just don't quite fully understand. I'm glad I'm in the area I'm in and I've made really good relationships with the members here. It makes it really comforting when they're so helpful to me.
President Judd told us all, as we went to a trainers council meeting the Thursday after the Tuesday he called us, that Jeffery R. Holland said that the most important decision a mission president would make would be choosing the trainers who would train his missionaries. He told each of us (there were only 6 of us this transfer) that he trusted us all very much to train. That made me feel pretty good, and I've been able to draw confidence from that when I'm feeling down. Elder Strong kind of reminds me of Jake Kartchner in a way, ha, and not just because he's tall. He's pretty humble, and he's trying his best to adapt to the culture and to learn more about how to teach the people here. I'm glad I got him as a missionary.
Well, I don't have too much else to say. If you guys have any questions, let me know. I think I could use a bed sheet with elastic on the corners, I can't seem to find one here, so if you get the chance, and it fits in a package, please send one :) I also ran out of black pepper, which you guys send me, If you can send that again, that would be nice. I use it a lot for my stews :) Thanks, I love you guys and I really am just enjoying my mission. I'm already 9 months out now! Can you believe it! It almost feels like I'm on the downwards slope now, but I'll try not to think like that, ha ha :) Mom, I know I promised President Morris before I left that I wouldn't miss a week sending you a letter, and I felt bad that I missed last week! I hope everything is going well back home! I love you Mom! I love you Dad! I love my brothers and sister too, I think I'll always be a little bit homesick for my siblings. Anyways, talk to you next week!
Love, Dallin (Elder Littlefield)
Sunday, April 29, 2012
April 23, 2012
Mom,
Thanks for your letter! It was a really good one. It helps
to hear things like how people are asking about me. I think I probably
thrived on those compliments and feelings of acceptance from others
more than I should have when I was at home. Everything I was good at
back home is difficult to apply here, so sometimes I feel like I'm
just like any other missionary on a mission. But I know there's
strengths I have that make me a special instrument as a missionary, as
compared to just an instrument. Right now I'm trying to figure out how
best I can use the talents and strengths I have in missionary work. I
can't really just sing for people every lesson we have, or play a
piano. Service is hard because if you do service for people without
asking, some get offended like you think they can't manage their own.
Elder Ikoro and I are starting to find more ways we can serve people.
One of our goals this week is to stop what we're doing and go help
someone if we see an opportunity to serve. We'll see how it goes.
Rugby sounds sweet for Connor. I don't exactly remember the
crocheting thing at conference being a tradition, but I think I did
that because I can listen to people better when I'm doing something
simple to occupy my attention span, ha ha. That bed looks way nice to
sleep in too, ha ha. Sometimes I wish I think back to home and wish I
was sleeping in those kind of covers. When I sleep here, I'm on the
top bunk, and I just sleep with 2 sheets (one for the mattress, and
one for myself if my fan makes me cold at night).
This last week has been pretty good. We got to go see Tad R.
Callister in a huge national conference hall that the church rented in
Ghana for the Conference. They invited 4 stakes and some other areas
that were all going to be reorganized into 6 stakes in Ghana now. Our
branch is one of the new stakes they created. Elder Callister's talk
was nice. He talked about his wife not knowing how to talk to their
son because all he would talk about was sports and she grew up in a
family with no sports talk or anything of that kind. Whenever she
asked how school was, he just said "fine", or how football practice
was he just said "fine". She finally decided to pick up a sports
magazine and read through some of the articles. Then when he came home
she talked to him about some of the things she read. They eventually
started talking more and he became more open to talking with her. She
continued to read more and more sports magazines, and Elder Callister
said, as we was taking his son to a sports practice in the car, his
son said to him "Dad, mom knows a lot about sports.". I really like
stories like that. They always make me feel really good.
We were able to teach a little more lessons this week. But
I decided that's not what it's about. That's why we've decided to find
more service we can do. The church has a huge name here and people all
around town always know what's going on with the church. The news
about us missionaries (good or bad) spreads incredibly fast. Elder
Ikoro accidentally hit a woman riding his bike at night and knocked
her down one night. The news was all over in another town we work is
that's at least 4 miles away. Gossip is a problem here, but we've
decided to use it to our advantage. We're going to do more service.
We're going to take every advantage of every opportunity. Now, as a
disclaimer, we're not doing our "alms to be seen of men". But we know
that whether in secret or not, the news will spread and we'll have
more people to teach the more service we render. We'll do our acts of
service in secret the best we can, and I've already discussed that
with Elder Ikoro that we're not there to show off or look good. Mom's
questions: We're about an hour away form the temple. If you can just
keep money in my account just in case I need anything like shirts, i
should be good. i can just buy white shirts here, they're a little
less thick and bulky like the missionary mall ones, and they only cost
maybe 2 dollars a shirt. I just took out a hundred cedis (66 dollars)
just yesterday just in cast I need anything for the next few months,
so I should be good.
Well, I've got a few pictures to send, so I'll send those after
this. Thanks for the letters. By the way, The office couple don't come
from Accra anymore because they've been assigned to a different
branch, so I won't get letters or packages on a weekly basis anymore.
I love you guys! I don't remember much from home, but I do remember my
family!
---Elder Littlefield
Thanks for your letter! It was a really good one. It helps
to hear things like how people are asking about me. I think I probably
thrived on those compliments and feelings of acceptance from others
more than I should have when I was at home. Everything I was good at
back home is difficult to apply here, so sometimes I feel like I'm
just like any other missionary on a mission. But I know there's
strengths I have that make me a special instrument as a missionary, as
compared to just an instrument. Right now I'm trying to figure out how
best I can use the talents and strengths I have in missionary work. I
can't really just sing for people every lesson we have, or play a
piano. Service is hard because if you do service for people without
asking, some get offended like you think they can't manage their own.
Elder Ikoro and I are starting to find more ways we can serve people.
One of our goals this week is to stop what we're doing and go help
someone if we see an opportunity to serve. We'll see how it goes.
Rugby sounds sweet for Connor. I don't exactly remember the
crocheting thing at conference being a tradition, but I think I did
that because I can listen to people better when I'm doing something
simple to occupy my attention span, ha ha. That bed looks way nice to
sleep in too, ha ha. Sometimes I wish I think back to home and wish I
was sleeping in those kind of covers. When I sleep here, I'm on the
top bunk, and I just sleep with 2 sheets (one for the mattress, and
one for myself if my fan makes me cold at night).
This last week has been pretty good. We got to go see Tad R.
Callister in a huge national conference hall that the church rented in
Ghana for the Conference. They invited 4 stakes and some other areas
that were all going to be reorganized into 6 stakes in Ghana now. Our
branch is one of the new stakes they created. Elder Callister's talk
was nice. He talked about his wife not knowing how to talk to their
son because all he would talk about was sports and she grew up in a
family with no sports talk or anything of that kind. Whenever she
asked how school was, he just said "fine", or how football practice
was he just said "fine". She finally decided to pick up a sports
magazine and read through some of the articles. Then when he came home
she talked to him about some of the things she read. They eventually
started talking more and he became more open to talking with her. She
continued to read more and more sports magazines, and Elder Callister
said, as we was taking his son to a sports practice in the car, his
son said to him "Dad, mom knows a lot about sports.". I really like
stories like that. They always make me feel really good.
We were able to teach a little more lessons this week. But
I decided that's not what it's about. That's why we've decided to find
more service we can do. The church has a huge name here and people all
around town always know what's going on with the church. The news
about us missionaries (good or bad) spreads incredibly fast. Elder
Ikoro accidentally hit a woman riding his bike at night and knocked
her down one night. The news was all over in another town we work is
that's at least 4 miles away. Gossip is a problem here, but we've
decided to use it to our advantage. We're going to do more service.
We're going to take every advantage of every opportunity. Now, as a
disclaimer, we're not doing our "alms to be seen of men". But we know
that whether in secret or not, the news will spread and we'll have
more people to teach the more service we render. We'll do our acts of
service in secret the best we can, and I've already discussed that
with Elder Ikoro that we're not there to show off or look good. Mom's
questions: We're about an hour away form the temple. If you can just
keep money in my account just in case I need anything like shirts, i
should be good. i can just buy white shirts here, they're a little
less thick and bulky like the missionary mall ones, and they only cost
maybe 2 dollars a shirt. I just took out a hundred cedis (66 dollars)
just yesterday just in cast I need anything for the next few months,
so I should be good.
Well, I've got a few pictures to send, so I'll send those after
this. Thanks for the letters. By the way, The office couple don't come
from Accra anymore because they've been assigned to a different
branch, so I won't get letters or packages on a weekly basis anymore.
I love you guys! I don't remember much from home, but I do remember my
family!
---Elder Littlefield
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
April 16th, 2012
Family,
This last week was a little rough. We worked all day and just walked from house to house with failed appointments. I'm not sure why it's that way, we aren't doing anything crucially different, but people have just been very hard to meet with. All of our 9 Recent Converts from last month are awesome and they all are strong members in the church, but as for new people to find and teach, it's not been so easy. That has made these last week's days very stressful. Some days I wake up and don't feel like working at all. I imagine that's just part of missionary work though. It's not easy, and I don't think it should be. I'm gaining a great respect for every missionary who even FINISHES his mission, let alone have been the best missionary he could have been. Being honest, two years is a long time to do this work every day! But I won't quit, partly because I've always planned my life with a full-time mission in it, so coming home early kind of devastates any of my other future plans. This next week we're going to a Stake Conference and "Tad R. Callister" of the seventy will be there to organize some 2 new stakes. There probably will be a ton of people there because 4 stakes from Accra will be attending. That's interesting about Mitt Romney, keep me updated on that stuff, because sometimes I hear things about him here too. So the City Creek Mall is church owned? that's sweet!
The missionary work really is going well, and I'm always learning something new, EVERY DAY. The Ghanaian people are so different from what I'm used to, and I'm always trying to figure out how to best relate to them so I can teach them better. We had a really nice lesson that was filled with the spirit where we taught a woman and her two daughters about families. I wish I could just teach about families only, I feel like I have more experience with that than anything else. The woman even said that she liked the teachings we brought and how they were so focused on love. She could feel the spirit and it was real neat to see her bear her testimony. I'm noticing that our recent converts can bear their testimony better than the members of the church. It's always neat to hear them say things that they've come to know are true. Next week we'll have 5 of our recent converts be ordained to the Aaronic priesthood, it's pretty sweet! Anyways, I love you guys! Thanks mom and dad for your letters, they're always nice to read.
This last week was a little rough. We worked all day and just walked from house to house with failed appointments. I'm not sure why it's that way, we aren't doing anything crucially different, but people have just been very hard to meet with. All of our 9 Recent Converts from last month are awesome and they all are strong members in the church, but as for new people to find and teach, it's not been so easy. That has made these last week's days very stressful. Some days I wake up and don't feel like working at all. I imagine that's just part of missionary work though. It's not easy, and I don't think it should be. I'm gaining a great respect for every missionary who even FINISHES his mission, let alone have been the best missionary he could have been. Being honest, two years is a long time to do this work every day! But I won't quit, partly because I've always planned my life with a full-time mission in it, so coming home early kind of devastates any of my other future plans. This next week we're going to a Stake Conference and "Tad R. Callister" of the seventy will be there to organize some 2 new stakes. There probably will be a ton of people there because 4 stakes from Accra will be attending. That's interesting about Mitt Romney, keep me updated on that stuff, because sometimes I hear things about him here too. So the City Creek Mall is church owned? that's sweet!
The missionary work really is going well, and I'm always learning something new, EVERY DAY. The Ghanaian people are so different from what I'm used to, and I'm always trying to figure out how to best relate to them so I can teach them better. We had a really nice lesson that was filled with the spirit where we taught a woman and her two daughters about families. I wish I could just teach about families only, I feel like I have more experience with that than anything else. The woman even said that she liked the teachings we brought and how they were so focused on love. She could feel the spirit and it was real neat to see her bear her testimony. I'm noticing that our recent converts can bear their testimony better than the members of the church. It's always neat to hear them say things that they've come to know are true. Next week we'll have 5 of our recent converts be ordained to the Aaronic priesthood, it's pretty sweet! Anyways, I love you guys! Thanks mom and dad for your letters, they're always nice to read.
---Elder Littlefield
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
April 9th, 2012
Family,
Man, that Kayaking sounds like a ton of fun. We hiked up a HUGE mountain this morning and it really reminded me of all the times we would do stuff outdoors and up in the mountains. It was an awesome experience. The whole mountain is just covered in jungle and some parts look like Tarzan where all the vines hang down. No animals though. I took a ton of pictures, but I'll just send a few of my favorites. We probably walked a good 8 miles to get there and then maybe 1.5 miles up the mountain on a very steep incline. They didn't have the back and forth trails like we do back in Utah, so we just hiked straight up the mountain. We talked with the chief of the small village at the bottom of the mountain and he insisted that he pray for us before we go up. So he took a shot glass, poured some alcohol into it, and said a prayer while he shook the glass a little bit at a time until he had thrown all the alcohol out onto the ground. It was pretty dramatic and I had to get a picture with him. After he did the little ritual he poured his glass full again and started drinking. One of the members hiked up the mountain with us and he gave this chief guy 2 cedis for praying for us. The member tried to say we were fine and that we didn't need the prayer, but the chief insisted. The chief (Ohene [oh-hee-nee] in Twi) assigned two 10-year-old boys to take us up the mountain. When we got so far up the mountain we found a man who had a corn field up in the mountain. He had a machete and offered to take us to the top because the little boys led us the wrong way. Turns out he didn't know the way and just forged his own path by chopping everything down with his machete as we followed behind. Eventually we came to some huge rock wall that we couldn't get past. By that time we were all tired so we just went back down the hill and finished. It was a lot of fun and I probably sweated my weight's worth in water.
So I got the packages from home; two from you guys and the one from Goo and her mom. I wore the shirt that they sent me in the package, it's nice! Tell them thanks! I'll send pictures. The chocolate was and still is awesome! I appreciate the cookie dough mixes too. We have oil that I can put small in the mix to help it be better. i even found out they make margarine here too. You have to buy it in huge bucket quantities, but it's here. Pretty much anything they make here can be set out in the sun for months and you can still eat it; like their fried fish....gross. Those pencils were great, just the kind I needed! Thanks!
This last week proselyting was a little hard. We went from 11:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night going from place to place, from appointment to appointment, and no one would sit down with us. Mondays and Thursdays here are what they call "market days". On market days, every one lines the streets with things to sell. You can usually buy things for cheaper on market days too. But amongst all this, NO ONE IS AT HOME. It makes it very difficult to try and go around and teach lessons. Even after they all finish around 6 or 7, no one will meet with you because they say they're tired. So we went the whole day with no lessons. That was hard, but I imagine other missions have it worse, so I'll be grateful for what I got. The sun is difficult to work with here, It's just always so hot and it makes you tired, so sometimes I'm sure other people think we look like we're about to drop dead as we ride our bikes down the streets with our helmets on while the sun beats down on us. My companion is awesome though, I hope they keep us together next transfer. We find out tomorrow. Elder Thom, our district leader is training a new missionary, so at least one person from our apartment is leaving.
Mom mentioned something about rain causing depression. It doesn't rain nearly enough here to do that, but it does have it's occasional heavy, but brief, rainstorms. Almost all the time everything is bright and sunny. My companion says it's not that way in Nigeria. He says it's usually cloudy and cool during the rainy season and he says Ghana is even more hot than his place in Nigeria (Aba State).
Well, that's what's been happening this last week. The work is starting to slow a little bit and we're having to work harder because people aren't just flowing into the church like they were last month, but it's all good. I can't tell you how much the Book of Mormon is loaded with brilliant patterns that solve life's problems. Captain Moroni is the bomb. Just to re-tell a story in the Book of Mormon: Captain Moroni leaves Zarahemla (the main city) and goes out with his armies to re-capture some Nephite cities that had been lost to Lamanite armies. So while he's working hard and fighting with everything he and his armies have, he sends an "epistle", or a letter, back to Zarahemla to Pahoran (the chief judge) and pretty much tells them off for not sending provisions to the soldiers that were defending their freedom. Then Pahoran sends a letter back explaining that we had been kicked out the judgement seat because of some political up-rises and that's why he hasn't been able to send any provisions to Moroni's armies. So Moroni sends his armies back up to take over Zarahemla again, and ultimately kill everyone who is causing trouble. Moroni then makes a law that anyone fighting against/ preventing the cause of freedom in the land would be put to death immediately. Just to quote a couple verses, it says, "...he was exceedingly wroth because of the stubborness of those people whom he had labored with so much diligence to preserve; yea, he was exceedingly wroth; his soul was filled with anger against them." (Verse 14) Then after he kills and imprisons all the people causing these up-rises against their freedom it says "for there was no time for their trials at this period". He just gets things done! He doesn't have time for those people who are being stupid. ha, anyways, I really love the Book of Mormon.
I hope everything is going well at home, everything is going well here! I'll send the pictures now. I love my family! Thanks mom and dad for the way you raised me, I really could have ended up different if my parents were weird. ha
Love, Dallin (Elder Littlefield)
Man, that Kayaking sounds like a ton of fun. We hiked up a HUGE mountain this morning and it really reminded me of all the times we would do stuff outdoors and up in the mountains. It was an awesome experience. The whole mountain is just covered in jungle and some parts look like Tarzan where all the vines hang down. No animals though. I took a ton of pictures, but I'll just send a few of my favorites. We probably walked a good 8 miles to get there and then maybe 1.5 miles up the mountain on a very steep incline. They didn't have the back and forth trails like we do back in Utah, so we just hiked straight up the mountain. We talked with the chief of the small village at the bottom of the mountain and he insisted that he pray for us before we go up. So he took a shot glass, poured some alcohol into it, and said a prayer while he shook the glass a little bit at a time until he had thrown all the alcohol out onto the ground. It was pretty dramatic and I had to get a picture with him. After he did the little ritual he poured his glass full again and started drinking. One of the members hiked up the mountain with us and he gave this chief guy 2 cedis for praying for us. The member tried to say we were fine and that we didn't need the prayer, but the chief insisted. The chief (Ohene [oh-hee-nee] in Twi) assigned two 10-year-old boys to take us up the mountain. When we got so far up the mountain we found a man who had a corn field up in the mountain. He had a machete and offered to take us to the top because the little boys led us the wrong way. Turns out he didn't know the way and just forged his own path by chopping everything down with his machete as we followed behind. Eventually we came to some huge rock wall that we couldn't get past. By that time we were all tired so we just went back down the hill and finished. It was a lot of fun and I probably sweated my weight's worth in water.
So I got the packages from home; two from you guys and the one from Goo and her mom. I wore the shirt that they sent me in the package, it's nice! Tell them thanks! I'll send pictures. The chocolate was and still is awesome! I appreciate the cookie dough mixes too. We have oil that I can put small in the mix to help it be better. i even found out they make margarine here too. You have to buy it in huge bucket quantities, but it's here. Pretty much anything they make here can be set out in the sun for months and you can still eat it; like their fried fish....gross. Those pencils were great, just the kind I needed! Thanks!
This last week proselyting was a little hard. We went from 11:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night going from place to place, from appointment to appointment, and no one would sit down with us. Mondays and Thursdays here are what they call "market days". On market days, every one lines the streets with things to sell. You can usually buy things for cheaper on market days too. But amongst all this, NO ONE IS AT HOME. It makes it very difficult to try and go around and teach lessons. Even after they all finish around 6 or 7, no one will meet with you because they say they're tired. So we went the whole day with no lessons. That was hard, but I imagine other missions have it worse, so I'll be grateful for what I got. The sun is difficult to work with here, It's just always so hot and it makes you tired, so sometimes I'm sure other people think we look like we're about to drop dead as we ride our bikes down the streets with our helmets on while the sun beats down on us. My companion is awesome though, I hope they keep us together next transfer. We find out tomorrow. Elder Thom, our district leader is training a new missionary, so at least one person from our apartment is leaving.
Mom mentioned something about rain causing depression. It doesn't rain nearly enough here to do that, but it does have it's occasional heavy, but brief, rainstorms. Almost all the time everything is bright and sunny. My companion says it's not that way in Nigeria. He says it's usually cloudy and cool during the rainy season and he says Ghana is even more hot than his place in Nigeria (Aba State).
Well, that's what's been happening this last week. The work is starting to slow a little bit and we're having to work harder because people aren't just flowing into the church like they were last month, but it's all good. I can't tell you how much the Book of Mormon is loaded with brilliant patterns that solve life's problems. Captain Moroni is the bomb. Just to re-tell a story in the Book of Mormon: Captain Moroni leaves Zarahemla (the main city) and goes out with his armies to re-capture some Nephite cities that had been lost to Lamanite armies. So while he's working hard and fighting with everything he and his armies have, he sends an "epistle", or a letter, back to Zarahemla to Pahoran (the chief judge) and pretty much tells them off for not sending provisions to the soldiers that were defending their freedom. Then Pahoran sends a letter back explaining that we had been kicked out the judgement seat because of some political up-rises and that's why he hasn't been able to send any provisions to Moroni's armies. So Moroni sends his armies back up to take over Zarahemla again, and ultimately kill everyone who is causing trouble. Moroni then makes a law that anyone fighting against/ preventing the cause of freedom in the land would be put to death immediately. Just to quote a couple verses, it says, "...he was exceedingly wroth because of the stubborness of those people whom he had labored with so much diligence to preserve; yea, he was exceedingly wroth; his soul was filled with anger against them." (Verse 14) Then after he kills and imprisons all the people causing these up-rises against their freedom it says "for there was no time for their trials at this period". He just gets things done! He doesn't have time for those people who are being stupid. ha, anyways, I really love the Book of Mormon.
I hope everything is going well at home, everything is going well here! I'll send the pictures now. I love my family! Thanks mom and dad for the way you raised me, I really could have ended up different if my parents were weird. ha
Love, Dallin (Elder Littlefield)
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