So, this week ended amazingly! Eleven of our investigators came to Sacrament! And what's more, is that 4 people - Christiana Brown, and then a family of Aku (mother) and her two kids Helen and Roland - all passed their baptismal interview and will be baptized this Saturday! And, even more, two of our old baptismal candidates - Gabriel Marquaye and Albert Amartey - both were able to fix their schedules and everything else in their lives and are now scheduled for the 26 of March! So, we should be able to baptize 6 people this month, and are already getting some good candidates for April!
I thank everyone for their prayers and fasting that helped us with this. Another thing that really helped us was that we really improved our contacting. We spent the week studying Ch 9 in PMG [preach my gospel - "textbook" for missionaries] for companion study, and worked, trying to perfect it, and now do a much better job with what we say and how we present it. At the end of the week we both felt that, although our contacting itself brought no fruits (yet), the effort we put into improving and growing there allowed the Lord to bless us in these other areas.
As for Elder Nembaware, he's really progressing well. He can already give most of the senior missionaries a run for their money, me thinks; haha. He's already getting to the point where he needs to work on polishing his skills, rather than just developing them. He's mentioned that he's really thankful for the insights that I have, and the lessons I help teach him, and that he feels that if he had been given anyone else for a trainer, he wouldn't have had those blessings. I feel blessed because I feel the same way about my father back home. Just about everything I share with Elder Nembaware has, at least in some part or degree, a relation to a story or insight that my father has given me at some point in my life, and as such I am able to share them with my "son." For that, I am very thankful and blessed myself.
One thing that happened this week that I really liked was, on Saturday, some of our people failed, and we were - once again - having nothing to do but contacting, which we had already done a lot of; haha. Thus, we stopped, and I thought of what we could do to make better use of our time (both normals and backups failed for the next two hours...). I couldn't think of anything, except got a strong impression to ask Elder Nembaware. So I did. He said he has no idea, and that I should decide. All I could think is that I really want to see how he handles the situation, and remembered that Pres. told us to train them to be Senior Companions as soon as possible, so I figured this would be a good chance for him to learn how to lead a companionship a bit. So I asked him again, what did he think we should do. He said the same thing; he had no idea, I should come up with something. For about 5 minutes we just sat there doing that, as all I could think was 'get him to do something.' I gave the idea that we get Alvaros (an amazing drink here) and re-examine things, and then asked him where we should do that go to get the drink to talk about what we should do. More debate, until finally, he came up with the suggestion that we head to the beach - something I would never have thought of, since Alvaros are 50 Gp more at the beach (that's like 50 cents more), and I am quite frugal. But, I said ok, and we started heading to the beach - complete opposite direction of where I would have had us gone. As we were going, Elder Nembaware saw someone sitting on the side of the road, started to break to talk to him, and then decided against it. Next thing we knew, the guy was hissing as us (common Ghana thing to get someone's attention) and asked us to come back. We did, and he told Elder Nembaware "I got the feeling that you wanna preach to me, man." He said "Sure, if that'd be ok," and then we sat down, had a great lesson, and got a new investigator that is very, very promising. Afterward, I asked Elder Nembaware what happened there, and he said he had no idea. I then said "See why I wanted you to decide where we go? I would have never picked the beach; all I knew was that I was suppose to have you decide." He was really happy afterward, he was able to see that his random trip-to-the-beach thought was inspired, and that he listened. I think it really helped his confidence in himself, and was a great learning experience - more-so than what I had been expecting; haha.
Anyways, things are going well otherwise. We're working hard, and I'm very much enjoying the blessings of being able to train him. I couldn't have asked for a more humble and obedient trainee.
I know this Gospel is True! I have seen it bring peace into the lives of many, and I have seen the healing effect is has upon families who, previously, had known practically nothing about God, and were separate and alone, but now have drawn close together and are blessed in all things. Read the Book of Mormon; it will draw you closer to Christ and to God than anything else on this planet. Just read it once; that's all that is asked. Then pray, and ask God in the name of Christ if it is True. You will know it is by the power of the Holy Ghost, if you are willing to listen for the answer. I know these things are True.
I love the work, and I love you all! Take care, and God bless!
--Elder Collings
I thank everyone for their prayers and fasting that helped us with this. Another thing that really helped us was that we really improved our contacting. We spent the week studying Ch 9 in PMG [preach my gospel - "textbook" for missionaries] for companion study, and worked, trying to perfect it, and now do a much better job with what we say and how we present it. At the end of the week we both felt that, although our contacting itself brought no fruits (yet), the effort we put into improving and growing there allowed the Lord to bless us in these other areas.
As for Elder Nembaware, he's really progressing well. He can already give most of the senior missionaries a run for their money, me thinks; haha. He's already getting to the point where he needs to work on polishing his skills, rather than just developing them. He's mentioned that he's really thankful for the insights that I have, and the lessons I help teach him, and that he feels that if he had been given anyone else for a trainer, he wouldn't have had those blessings. I feel blessed because I feel the same way about my father back home. Just about everything I share with Elder Nembaware has, at least in some part or degree, a relation to a story or insight that my father has given me at some point in my life, and as such I am able to share them with my "son." For that, I am very thankful and blessed myself.
One thing that happened this week that I really liked was, on Saturday, some of our people failed, and we were - once again - having nothing to do but contacting, which we had already done a lot of; haha. Thus, we stopped, and I thought of what we could do to make better use of our time (both normals and backups failed for the next two hours...). I couldn't think of anything, except got a strong impression to ask Elder Nembaware. So I did. He said he has no idea, and that I should decide. All I could think is that I really want to see how he handles the situation, and remembered that Pres. told us to train them to be Senior Companions as soon as possible, so I figured this would be a good chance for him to learn how to lead a companionship a bit. So I asked him again, what did he think we should do. He said the same thing; he had no idea, I should come up with something. For about 5 minutes we just sat there doing that, as all I could think was 'get him to do something.' I gave the idea that we get Alvaros (an amazing drink here) and re-examine things, and then asked him where we should do that go to get the drink to talk about what we should do. More debate, until finally, he came up with the suggestion that we head to the beach - something I would never have thought of, since Alvaros are 50 Gp more at the beach (that's like 50 cents more), and I am quite frugal. But, I said ok, and we started heading to the beach - complete opposite direction of where I would have had us gone. As we were going, Elder Nembaware saw someone sitting on the side of the road, started to break to talk to him, and then decided against it. Next thing we knew, the guy was hissing as us (common Ghana thing to get someone's attention) and asked us to come back. We did, and he told Elder Nembaware "I got the feeling that you wanna preach to me, man." He said "Sure, if that'd be ok," and then we sat down, had a great lesson, and got a new investigator that is very, very promising. Afterward, I asked Elder Nembaware what happened there, and he said he had no idea. I then said "See why I wanted you to decide where we go? I would have never picked the beach; all I knew was that I was suppose to have you decide." He was really happy afterward, he was able to see that his random trip-to-the-beach thought was inspired, and that he listened. I think it really helped his confidence in himself, and was a great learning experience - more-so than what I had been expecting; haha.
Anyways, things are going well otherwise. We're working hard, and I'm very much enjoying the blessings of being able to train him. I couldn't have asked for a more humble and obedient trainee.
I know this Gospel is True! I have seen it bring peace into the lives of many, and I have seen the healing effect is has upon families who, previously, had known practically nothing about God, and were separate and alone, but now have drawn close together and are blessed in all things. Read the Book of Mormon; it will draw you closer to Christ and to God than anything else on this planet. Just read it once; that's all that is asked. Then pray, and ask God in the name of Christ if it is True. You will know it is by the power of the Holy Ghost, if you are willing to listen for the answer. I know these things are True.
I love the work, and I love you all! Take care, and God bless!
--Elder Collings
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