Choose Joy

My heart is full of gratitude today after speaking with Conner.  The last couple of weeks have been a little hard for him.  Serving a mission is one of the most rewarding and most challenging things one can do. Conner is resilient and full of optimism.  We had a wonderful gospel conversation as we spoke about challenges in life and the blessings those challenges can bring.  So often we pray that things will go our way but in reality we should be praying for the Lord's will and to know what we should be learning from the obstacles that are before us.  We are all here to grow, to learn and be refined.  Jeffrey R. Holland said in reference to our Savior, "How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never easy for Him?"  Life is full of challenges but there is peace and joy to be found in each day regardless of those challenges.  
That peace comes form an eternal perspective and comes as we set ourselves aside and focus on lifting others.  That is exactly what Conner is doing and I am grateful for his example.  Conner is missed and thought about everyday.  However, he knows and I know that he is exactly where he should be striving to live his best life as he serves those around him.  Today and everyday we will choose joy as we focus on our blessings and on He who gave us all things! -Mom

Conner's email home:

The last week was pretty average for Ghana.  This week was drier, but it is dumping right now.  The rain here is very unpredictable.  I thought it was not going to rain here this morning when I hung up all my pants on the clothes line before I left this morning.  I guess that is just life here in Ghana.  The last Sunday we had several new people come to church.  One of them spoke to another pair of missionaries last week and they hadn't given us her information yet.  She did not know were the chapel was, but she felt like if she got in a taxi and told him to just drive she would find it.  It worked!  She went straight there and had a great experience at church.  Things like that just happen all the time here.  Someone else who came to church yesterday for the first time was a Rastafarian, I think that is how you spell it! They are Ghana's equivalent of a hippie I guess.  They study the Bible a lot.  They also wear a stone in their beards that they never shave. They drill a hole in the stone and tie it onto themselves using beard hair under their chin.  It is supposed to be a fulfillment of some sort of prophecy in the Bible or something.  They typically love missionaries but almost all of them have two major issues that keep them from joining the church.  This man rode a bike for an hour one way to our chapel.  He is going to be meeting with the bishop here and is working hard to give up his two addictions.  The atonement and the grace that comes from it is really working within him.  Being here in Ghana can be exceptionally hard, but to be able to help the people here change into better people, makes it all worth it.  Happy Halloween!  I hope everyone back home enjoys it!  Halloween marks the 3 month mark since I left home.  In some ways it has gone by slow but I still can't believe it has already been three months.  I am grateful to be out here!

Elder Garrison

A good couple of weeks!

Conner with some missionaries at Zone Conference

Baboons!

Zone Conference-  Missionaries from all over the World singing the mission song!

Below is Conner's email update:

Sorry I didn't email everyone last week.  We had some things we had to get done.  The highlights for last week include roasting pig over a fire and getting my first baptism!  We had been working with a 10 year old named Julia for the last couple weeks.  Her parents are members and she had been active in church for a while now.  We are going to confirm her on Sunday.  We had more people scheduled for baptism, but they were out of town for the interviews.  We will hopefully get them into the water next week.  Today we roasted two pigs.  We bought them Friday and kept them alive at the zone leaders apartment.  It was comical running around trying to catch them today.  We then killed and gutted them.  We had a big fire so the pigs only took a few hours to cook.  Tongans sure know how to cook pig good.  We also cooked chicken underground.  We also had zone conference last week.  We learned a lot about how to better fulfill our duties as representatives of Jesus Christ.  We also saw baboons on the road getting there.  It was in the "Bush" so I saw a little different scenery.  I want to serve there.  I hope everything back home is going great.  Let me know how you are doing.  Hopefully I can get me photos sent this week too.

Elder Garrison

 

Ether 12:27

We always look forward to hearing from Conner each Monday.  He spent his day doing lots of laundry and cleaning his apartment before heading out to the internet cafe today.  He said our washing machine at home is so nice and is one of the things we take for granted.  Below are a couple of pictures from the training he mentioned in this weeks email.

Conner's email:

The other trainees that have been out one transfer and I went back to Accra

and received further instruction from President Keyes. It was great. I was able

to fix a few things and I could see the difference in my ability to teach this last

week. I am certainly not perfect, and that is very evident here in Ghana. At first,

I found it very discouraging. As I have been out here though, I have found the

promise in Ether 12:27 ring true. “And if men come unto me I will show unto them

their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble, and my

grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble

themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become

strong unto them.” I not call my teaching strong yet, it has become stronger. The

things that I struggled with at first being out here continue to become easier. This

has become exceptionally true as I have called upon the Lord for help in prayer.

Another highlight this week was general conference. We watched all the sessions

except Sunday afternoon on Sunday. It was a very long day, but it was worth it. I left

feeling more inspired and encouraged. I hope everything is going well for everyone

back home. I realized today that there are 37 people in this group email.  If anyone wants out, if you want me to add anyone, or if you have any questions please sent me an email.

Love,

Elder Garrison