November 24, 2014

Elder Taylor, Elder Bowring,

Dear Family,
Well this week has been a pretty crazy week, i mean who would of 
thought i was going to see you guys yesterday haha. That really was a
nice surprise and made my week Well, to start off this week, we had a 
really good week. We had our district meeting on Tuesday and the Berretts
 joined us again. Well we got quite the specail treat from them after wards,  
Some how they were able to snag some A&W rootbeer and we made some 
root beer floats with  some fan ice. It was so good, i almost forgot what it
tasted like. They were really sweet though, i literally cant eat that
much sugar now,its been so long. Well Wednesday was the day we had
planned for our baptism for Big shoe (daniel) and Caius. It was really 
miraculous. The whole week we have been having a hard time with our light.
They just kept taking it for some reason.  On Tuesday night we had light so 
we were just praying that it would last at least until morning so we could fill
 the baptism font up for the baptism.  Well about 4 in the morning we 
had the light taken away from us and when they take it they usually
take it for at least 12 hours so i was just laying in bed thinking
about what to do, well some how miraculously the light came back at about
6:20  in the morning so we rushed over to the chapel and started to fill up the
font, so we got the font all filled up and was feeling pretty good about
our selves , but then came the actual baptism that night. We came to
the chapel around 6 and we had no light, the funny thing was that
every one else around us had light but for some reason they took the light 
away from the chapel and there was no way to get it back. Luckily , the 
member, Bro Braun, who stays in our compound had a really nice
lantern type thing that we were able to bring that lit up the relief
society room and then we had somebody stand on the side steps of the
font holding a Flashlight to spotlight the people being baptized. All in all
it was a really unique baptism but it was a very good one. I was just happy
that it went through and Daniel and Caius are just happy as can be now.  
THis week was stake Conference and so we had our 2 days of it.
On Saturday they asked all missionarys in our zone to go into town to the 
stake center so that we could come together and sing that song we had been
learning in Twi. It actually turned out pretty good though (even though this
Language is a joke haha ) and i think that everyone enjoyed it. For some
reason the locals here just get the biggest kick out of white guys trying to 
speak twi. So because of that we didnt get to much proselyting done 
but we still got some good lessons in. Saturday night we got transfer news.  
We had to stay up until like 11 to recieve it but the news is that i am staying  
here in Nsawam but i am getting a new companion. They are taking Elder
Taylor to Tantra hills. ITs really wierd to see him be going, i really
enjoyed my time with him and loved being able to train him. He is just a hard 
working missionary and i have learned alot from him. He will be a great
missionary. My new Companions name is Elder Mbeka or something like
that haha, i will have to spell his name right next time, i think he
is from Kenya, not many people know much about him so i guess we will
see. This next transfer is only going to be 3 weeks so it will be really short
and i could be gone after that but i guess we will just see what the lord has 
in store for me.  Sunday was a really good day, we were able to
have a stake conference and in the stake conference we got a specail
broadcast from the General Authoritys . Elder Uchdorf and Elder Bednar
spoke to all of africa and it was just really spiritual. I love listening to our 
modern day prophets. Today was really fun, we went hiking on a mountain
here in Nsawam. The Elders Quroum 1st councilor took us. It ended
up being like about 19 missionaries who came. We had about 8 sister
missionarys come to so me and another Elder took it upon our selfs to
help them out so it was a little slower paced than i would of liked but we all
 had a good time and it was fun. I forgot how nice it is to just be out in nature
its been so long. It was awesome though. Well this week is definitely
going to be a big week of changes. But so mission life goes on. Sure
do love you all, i hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving . Love
you all
Elder Bowring

November 17, 2014

This week was a really good week to say the least. The work is
definitely moving forward. On Tuesday we had zone meeting which was
good. Honestly I am still getting used to the differences between
Liberia and here. The way things are run here are just a lot different
and I am just trying my best to go with the flow I guess you could
say. Something that we did that was kind of cool was that we learned a
Christmas song in twi so I guess that was alright haha. Other than
that twi just frustrates me, it’s the dumbest language haha. Anyways, 
Wednesday  was a good day as well. I had an exchange with Elder
Bianucci in my district and I went into his area. It is always cool to
see the other side of the area because you know all the people in the
branch who live there but you don’t really know where they live so
that is always good to get to know the other side of the area. We had
a good day though, I always enjoy going on exchanges , you get to know
the other elder a lot and get to learn things and always get a chance
to help them out as well. That is one thing that I have noticed on my
mission, is there is just always so many opportunity’s to help people
here , whether its members, investigators, less actives or just other
missionaries, I just always love the feeling of being able to help
somebody else. It was really sweet that day to because that was the
first time that Elder Taylor took the area on his own and was leading
on his own and he did a fantastic job. He had a really good day in our
area so I was really excited for him. He was pretty pumped up about it
to.  The next day on Wednesday was pretty normal, Elder Taylor had his
first chicken foot this week, they are not as common here as they were
in Liberia so I was pumped when I saw the chicken feet and I bought
them strait. While we were eating them to I had a Jehovah witness come
up and contact us and just tried to like convert me. What I ended up
doing was asking her for her bible (which is a different translation)
and I pretended to just be flipping though it just skimming it but I
knew that it was missing some verses because they had taken some out
and I went to a place in Mathew and found that it was missing and I
shut her down haha, just told her I didn’t want to listen to any one
who took away from the word of god and then I left her with a
pamphlet.  Friday was a really good day, finally got to see Joshua and
Alex that day. We were having a lesson with Joshua’s friend and then
somehow Joshua asked a question to us, he said that he had a dream and
he wanted to know the meaning of the dream. He said that he went on
his knees and prayed a few nights ago to know if the church was true
and then he described to us the dream that he had that night.
Basically what the dream was , was it was a very specific part of the
endowment session. I honestly didn’t know how to awnser him because we
just don’t talk about those things but the only thing I could tell him
was that it came from god and that he would find out what it meant in
the future. I am starting to think that god has something special for
Joshua in store, he is a really deep thinker and even yesterday we
were sitting with him after church and some how we got onto the topic
of angels appearing and then we talked about how to recognize an angel
from the devil and from god. The crazy things is is that my companion
for some reason had the feeling before going into the lesson we should
talk about that, so idk if god is about to send an angel to this guy
or what haha. He had chicken pox this week though so I felt bad for
him. Church yesterday was really good, Caius and Big shoe both showed
up looking like studs. Caius came in a full suit and was there before
the break of dawn and big shoe had a nice white shirt and tie on, I
was so happy to see them and everything is looking great for their
baptism this Wednesday. Another sweet thing that happened this week
was that we had a LA family come who we have been working with for
some time. Its been 8 years for the wife to come to church and we
totally got them to come yesterday. I was so jacked up to see them and
we are even going to have a family home evening with them tonight.
Their 14 year old daughter isn’t baptized either so we are going to be
working to get here baptized as we work to reactivate the family. The
thing that is hard is that the husband is a chainsaw operator and is
gone on Sundays a lot but he said that he is going to try hard to come
back home for weekends to go to church. Anyways, really exciting
successful week. Only thing that sucked this week is the amount of
light out we had. We literally had light ratio of probably 30 % on to
70 % off. It sucks so bad when the light is out at night to because
you cant sleep with your fan so you just sweat all night long. Plus
our water doesn’t run when light is off either so it just sucks.
Worldly problems right ? Anyways, we are looking forward to some
baptisms this week, we also get transfer news Saturday, so
anything can happen. Half of me wants to stay and half of me wants to
go so we will see which half will win. I hope that you all have a
great week , sure do love you all, Love Elder Bowring

November 10, 2014

Dear Family,
Well this week was a pretty good week full of a lot of things but I
guess that is just how everyweek is. This week was sweet, to start off
I forgot to tell you last week that Alex and Joshua got callings in
the branch. Joshua got called to be a helper for family History since
he is really good with computers and then Alex got called to be the
Keep fit instructor. What Keep fit is , is it like on Saturday
mornings we always go for cleaning the chapel and after we are done
cleaning we do keep fit or just like a little bit of excersie , its
more just like stretching but its still good so that is really sweet
that they got callings so fast. Even I heard that a few of mine and
Elder Tolars converts got callings in Liberia to. The Desmonds both
have callings now, Richard is the 1st councilor in the Elders Quorum
and his wife sister Deconte is the 1 Councilor in the Relief society.
Then Abraham is the Young mens president and is starting on his
mission papers. It seriously such a good feeling to see your converts
excel and keep in the church. Cant compare it to anything. This week
was focused on getting our two guys ready for there baptism. We had
Caius and then Daniel (Big Shoe) All week long things were just going
great to helping them prepare. We sat with them and everything was
great. They were both very excited about being baptized. We even had
Caius coming to institute and he was loving it there. Well , then
Sunday hit. Yesterday was such a stressful freakin day. We got to
church and there was no sign of Caius or Big shoe. I gave it some time
but it got to about 9:15 so I decided to give them a call. Well Caius
told me that he got stuck at work all the way in Accra because
somebody didn’t show up so he couldn’t leave early to come so there
was no way he was going to make it, then Alex showed up to church and
told us that big shoe wasn’t coming because he didn’t have a white
shirt and didnt want to come unless he had a white shirt and felt like
a member. I was so frustrated yesterday I was about to the point I was
going to drop kick the next person who walked by me. Anyways, I am
doing my best to learn patience and learn gods timing on everything.
Because they missed church this week we just pushed there baptism back
to next week so it isnt to big of a set back and we will make it all
work. I just really was looking forward to seeing the baptism this
week but its cool. That’s missionary work for ya. This week was really
good still though, at the first of the week we decided that we need
find some more investigators and its amazing when you set a goal and
do all you can how god can just make up for the rest. We really found
some really good new investigators this week that we are excited for.
One guys name is Stephen Gilo. He is Joshua’s good friend. We have
been seeing him around for some time and he even came fishing with us
last week. Any time we would come around he just didn’t really mind us
and didn’t seem to interested in us so we didn’t mind him to much.
Well this week Joshua made a comment that he was giong to bring him to
church so we asked stephen if we could meet with him and we did right
there on the spot. Turns out this guy has been pretty well prepared by
the lord. His little brother is a member of the church and is even
serving a mission in Kenya. He just moved from in Accra and so he
hasn’t had a church he is going to. He has some really good quesitons
and is just really open to our message and even better he came to
church with Joshua this week and he loved it. He even told us that he
was going to be bringing one of his friends to church this next week.
It just came to show me , you never know who god is preparing to
receiev the gospel and sometimes we need to be willing to just open
our mouths and have the courage to share what we know, even if the
person doesn’t seems like they care or not.  Well this week I got some
devestating news, President Hill relayed a message to the Berretts
that I needed to get some new shirts.  I have worked so hard to get my
shirts the shade of yellow they are now , I just don’t want to restart
, those shirts have my testimony built inside of them to how great and
hard missinoary work is haha. So I got to get a few new shirts today
so I will be poppin in some brand new white shirts this week.  Well, I
hope all goes well. Brittain, keep your head up man, everything will
be good. I know how it feels like to be in your shoes but you got a
lot more things ahead of you in life to look forward to. Anyways, I
sure do love all you. I hope you all have a great week. Love Elder Bowring

November 3, 2014

Dear Family,
Well this week was a pretty normal week. This morning was fun, Joshua
or convert took us fishing. Holy crap its been a long time since I
have been fishing. This is the second time I have tried to fish on my
mission but it went just like last time. No luck, it kind of sucked
but it was fun. The way that we were fishing was we got some long
bamboo pieces and just tied some nylon string to the end with a hook
and a piece of Styrofoam and dug up some worms and fished like that. I
guess he usually does pretty good fishing but we didn’t have any luck
today, we might have to try again. Anyways, that was something fun we
did this morning, just reminded me of the good old days slaying fish
out at powell haha. Anyways,Started off the week just burned from our
last p-day. I hadnt been out in the sun with a cut off shirt for a
long time so my shoulders just got fried. I was in pain the first few
days of the week and my shoulders were oozing something fierce haha .
Anyways, the reason that I am telling you this is that is one of my
miracles this week. On Wednesday morning I knew that I needed to get
something on my shoulders so I decided to go look for some aloe vera.
I was walking down the street and I walked by a small shop that I
noticed sold some skin care stuff and so I asked for some aloe vera
and the women had no idea what I was talking about but after
explaining it she went and brought out a big bottle of Aloe vera
Lotion that was really nice, so I considered that a big miracle to be
able to find some and it did wonders for me and my shoulders are doing
good now.  Like I said this week was a pretty normal week. Something
funny that happened on Thursday, it was late at night about 9 and we
were riding our bikes home from one of our farther areas so we were
going pretty fast trying to get back home and out of no where a
freakin dog just came running out in front of me and I totally ran it
over haha. Put me right over the top of the handle bars but I think
the dog got the most of it.  It was pretty funny. So this week, we had
a good week with one of our investigators named Ciaus. He came to
church last week and he is just totally in love with the church. We
knew he was serious but this week made us to determine that we are
going to baptize this guy on the 12th along with Big shoe.  It sucks
though because Ciaus works at a filling station (gas station) and he
has to work every other Sunday so he wasn’t able to make it to church
this Sunday but he is really devoted. He keeps on telling us that he
is going to die in this church and that his children’s children will
be here as well.  He also requested for a hymn book and when we gave
it to him I would of thought It was a little kid on Christmas from the
shriek that he gave out haha. It was really funny but I am excited
because we now have 2 people that we are going to be baptizing next
week. I was talking to Elder Taylor on Sunday just about how god
really provides us with people to teach as long as we are doing all we
can do. I honestly on my whole mission never felt like I have done
anything special to have success as a missionary. All I have done is
my best and work my hardest and I just really know that god is taking
care of the rest. He is just putting those people who are prepared to
hear the gospel in our path so that we can help them and I am just so
greatful for that. Sunday this week was kind of a mess, we didn’t have
to much success, we only had 1 show up, our deaf guy and on top of
that we finally got to watch general conference but it was just a
mess. They first tried to do it on a projector but that didn’t work so
they brought out the TV and it worked for a bit but then something
went down so they had to keep trying to reset it like 12 times,
finally the only thing they could get to work was the Twi translation
so we sat there and watched Conference it Twi. It was miz haha. I was
more than happy that church finally ended. Not sure if that is the
right thing to say as a missionary but still. Anyways, we are looking
to have a pretty good week this week, just getting our two guys ready
for there baptism. I hope that you all have a great week this week. I
sure do love you all. Love ,
Elder Bowring

October 27, 2014

Sister Berrett, Elder Bowring, Fairwell, Tolar, Elder Berrett

Dear family ,
Well it’s a miracle that I am even emailing you right now. We have
been searching for a place with internet for about 4 hours because in
Nsawam, the internet is down for the whole town and wont be fixed
utnil  tomorrow so miraculously we finally found a place, that is why
my email is so late. Anyways, this week was a great week.  Today was
really fun. We had a Bi zone get together and it was with Tolars zone
so I got to see him. We got together and just played some basketball.
It was fun, we went hard and all got new basketball jerseys . I got a
sick Andrew Wiggins Clevland jersey that I repped and tolar got a
Clevland Lebron jersey. I hope I can get some pics off so you can see
it but it was fun. I got fetching fried today to though, The top half
of my arms hasn’t seen the sun in about a decade haha. Anyways,
Wednesday was probably the best day of the whole week. We had the
baptism of Joshua and Alex and it was just so great.  It was kind of
stressful getting it all together. Our BML was giving me a hard time
with a few things. He was trying to get some random Priest to do that
baptism for Joshua and Alex (they didn’t even know the kid) when
joshua and Alex had asked me and Taylor to do the baptism.  I sat and
argured with him for ever and finally I just told him me and Taylor
are going to change so we did and that pissed him off haha he even
told me that I was pissing him off so I told him he was pissing me off
and we left it at that haha anyways, with all that crap before the
baptism, it was a successful baptism. Elder Taylor was able to baptize
Alex and I was able to baptize Joshua. While Taylor was baptizing I
was outside the font out side and I just felt like I was in like the
locker room back home before a big game haha but then I just had such
a calming peace come on me.  Spirit was defintly there at the baptism
and it was awesome. I am so happy for Alex and Joshua, they are just
like bro’s to me now. IT was really cool to be with Elder Taylor for
his first baptism to. I was glad that we were able to get a baptism
together and we are hoping for another one on the 12 of November. He
was so happy and to see him so happy just pumped me up to. To add onto
the excitement on Wednesday, I got two packages as well so we just
enjoyed on Wednesday. Since the baptism was on Wednesday we had to
wait until Sunday to get them confirmed and they came a little late on
Sunday but they were still able to be confirmed. I didn’t think that
Alex’s face could fit as big of a smile as I saw on his face walking
back from being confirmed. It is just so awesome to bring peole this
happiness that the gospel brings us.  We had a great day on Sunday to,
we had 3 investigators come on top of our two Recent Converts.  One of
them was phillip . HE is the one who we have been seeing with the
Berretts who lives freakin far away, but he came to church so we were
pretty pumped about that. We taught him again with the Berretts again
this week and that was awesome to be able to do.  I am just trying to
think of anything else that happened this week. Honestly the Baptism
just dominated everything else and was just so great. I cant believe
that it is already November this week.  The next person who we are
planning on baptizing , his name is Daniel but we call him Big shoe
haha. He is a shoe maker and is really sweet and is actually Alex and
Joshua’s friend so they are bringing him to church and he has come to
church about 3 times now so we are excited for him. Well we got some
mid transfer news yesterday and Elder Mybia is leaving and we are
getting a Ward Misisonary so that will change things up for us this
week. We only  have 4 more weeks in the transfer so that could bring
some change for me as well. I don’t know if I am ready to leave Nsawam
or not, its such a sweet place but I guess we will see in 4 weeks.
Well I sure do love all you guys and I hope you all have a great week.
Love
Elder Bowring

October 20, 2014

Dear Family,

This week was actually quite a long week but it was a really good week. Maybe I will just start from the top of the week. Tuesday we had district meeting and we doubled the size of our district meeting because we had the Berretts join us and then the Zone leaders also joined us. It was a really good district meeting though and then the ZL’s went on an exchange with the other companionship. Elder Bigler came here with Elder Mybia and stayed the night so it was cool to be able to get to know another missionary. It’s still so weird being used to this mission because being 14 months on my mission I should know most people in my mission but I know like nobody still haha so in that aspect is still feel new on my mission. Wednesday sucked, we had a member come to our apartment who was contracted to come and paint our apartment and he said it was going to take him 3 days to do it, we decided to take turns on days so we got stuck in the apartment on Wednesday and were there until 5. I wanted to kill myself, I hate staying in the apartment. Luckily I had some cards so that killed a little time and I also learned how to play some chess but there was still a lot of reading a nap or two while we just had to sit there and watch these guys paint. We did get to go out and saw Joshua and Alex and a few other people that day though so we atleast ended on a high note. Thursday was just a normal day and so that was nice. Friday, the painter was only supposed to take until 2 but he didn’t finish until 3 so we also had to stay in the apartment until 3 that day as well.  So staying in those two days really made the week go by kind of slow but we survived. Here on Saturday we had a funeral for a women who was a member of the church. When they do funerals here , its no small thing. They do things so differently here though, after the person dies, they will keep the body for about 2 to 3 months until they have the funeral and they just keep the body on ice, so this women whose funeral it was has been dead longer than I have been here in Ghana haha. Our branch president got with us a few weeks ago and wanted us to attend the funeral and help out and use it as an opportunity to find people to teach. So what we did was we got about 200 copies of the plan of salvation and wrote our names and number on the back and we passed all those out at the funeral with the program and we literally handed them all out. I think it was over 200 pamphlets that we handed out though. I know that a lot of the people that we handed them out to wont do anything with them but if I get just one person to teach from handing out 200 pamphlets, it was worth it. I was really cool though, there was so many people at the funeral that there was a lot of people outside sitting on the side and at a point , they all had the plan of salvation open and reading it so that was cool. We made a few contacts so we will see how that goes. The high light of this week is probably just seeing Alex and Joshua getting ready for there baptism. They are just beyond ready and it was really sweet to see them this week. They came to sacrament meeting on time and they got presented in sacrament meeting and there baptism got announced to the whole branch. I am just really excited to finally have a baptism. Everything went so smooth to get them prepared to be baptized as well. We were having to have a special interview for Alex and come Sunday, we still didn’t have anybody to do it but miraculously we had the Berretts come and President Hill gave Elder Berrett the permission to interview him so that just worked out great. Our baptism is on Wednesday and so I am really excited for that to happen. Other than that, there was nothing really special or out of the ordinary this week. We were in affliction week this week (last week of subsistence) if that is anything you care about haha so it was great to finally get some more money.  Anyways, I hope that you all have a great week this week, sure do love you all. Love Elder Bowring

October 13, 2014

Dear Family,
This week was a fantastic week, probably one of the best weeks I have
had in Ghana so far. We are starting to see some success here and that
just pumps me up more than anything haha, well maybe this week I will
just take it day by day. Tuesday was a really good day, we started off
with Zone meeting so we had to go and do that. At the zone meeting a
RM attended for some reason, and when we were having a break he came
up to me and asked if I was the missionary from Liberia and I told him
I was and he told me that he had served his mission in Liberia. I
guess he left in May 2013 right before I came out. We served in a lot
of the same areas and he knew a bunch of the missionaries I had served
with so It was really cool to talk with him. Also it was the birthday
of one of our serious investigators Joshua, so he invited us over that
night to come and do something with him (we are basically just bros)
So we sat down, taught him a good lesson on the priesthood and then we
ate and had some really good rice and chicken with some really good
Nonalcoholic drinks (I was pumped to see that because he used to
drink) Some of his friends were drinking but him and alex just stuck
with the nonalcoholic stuff so that pumped me up. I basically just
counted that as my own birthday celebration and I can’t think of a
better way to spend it. 

Elder Taylor, Bowring & Berrett

Friday was such a sweet day. I really cool experience. On Thursday night Elder Berrett called me and asked if me
and my companion could show them around Nsawam because they were new
and they wanted to know the area, so they picked us up at about 10
that morning and we hopped in there truck and took off and showed them
around. It was really fun just to be with them, I love them so much.
Anyways, we were getting to the far reaches of our area and for some
reason I felt like I should show them one small community they call
Sam Sam. Its very far out and on like the back side of a mountain.
Just on Tuesday we received a referral from a member and they referral
lives out at sam sam. When I called him to set up an appointment for the first time , all he told me is that he has read our pamphlets and knows its true and that he just wants a Book of Mormon. So that was sweet, and we had a lesson with him on Tuesday and he is dope, name is phillip. So anyways, back to when we were with the berretts, I just felt like I should show them that area. We got up there and I just felt like we should go see phillip so I asked the berrets if they would be willing to come and teach with us and they jumped all over that so with out an appointment set , we walked out to phillips house and he was there. The miraculous thing is though, is he told us that he had some work he had to do that day, but for some reason he just felt like he needed to stay in the house and not go any where, and
then we came rolling up out of no where. We had such an awesome lesson with this guy with the Berretts help and it was really cool. I think the Berretts are planning on going out with us on tomorrow to go and see him again. The only problem we are facing with him is that he lives so far away from the church but I am pretty confident we will work through it. That was awesome. Then Friday day, Alex and Joshua were at the church and they are getting enrolled into institute class already and they aren’t ever baptized.  So Saturday was my birthday, I freakin cant believe that I am 20. It feels so weird to tell people that I am 20 years old. Anyways, we started off the day great, the branch was having a soccer match against another branch here and Alex and Joshua came to go play with them again. We were able to go with them because we had a lot of teaching appointments but I seriously
just get so pumped up to see my investigators mingling with the branch and just acting as members. We are going to have there baptism next week on the 22nd so I am really excited for that. Yesterday was a really good day at church, we had 5 people to church so that was just a great way to cap the week off. 4 out of the 5 people have already come in the past to. We had Alex , Joshua, Daniel (big shoe) , Darius (deaf guy). The area is really looking like its on the up and up and I am just so happy that god has blessed us after all our hard work, its
just really making the work enjoyable right now. Me and Elder Taylor are doing really good together and we are just working hard and enjoying the hot sun here. We are still getting a little rain here and there but for the most part its warming up. I hope I can come back with a wicked tan haha. Well , I hope that every body had a great week this week and that everything back home is great. The gospel is true.
Love you all,
Elder Bowring