Last Week in Kenten! One More Week in Africa!

Hey!

My last week in Kenten was great. We accomplished a lot and really enjoyed the last little bit. It's weird it's coming to an end, it still hasn't quite hit me yet. I'll share some highlights from this week

As we were proselyting we ran into a pastor. He was an older guy and we just got talking about our missionary work, and his church and how he started it. He established two branches in our area and left one to a woman who is the main pastor and he himself was the main pastor of the other branch. Well he went to Accra for some months and left the church to someone else while he was away. He said that the guy spoiled the church and that he was trying to bring it back up. In our conversation he mentioned that his eye sight was getting worse, and that he wasn't able to read the bible to preach on Sundays. He then followed and asked if we wanted to combine churches, as his was failing. He wants my companion and I to be the head pastors. He said he would give us both plots of land, we would be in charge of everything, he would buy us a car for our missionary work, and that he would still be a member of the church and that whatever calling we wanted to give him, he would do it. My companion and I laughed a little bit, but the man was very serious. We had to explain that we were simply missionaries and that wasn't for us to decide, we couldn't make that decision. We told him our purpose and politely declined his offer. My companion keeps joking that I can extend my mission and be a head pastor in Techiman.

Another day we went to an investigators house and visited with her. She was kind enough to feed us. She put the bowl of food in front of us, she had prepared rice and stew. We prayed over the food and as I liked at the rice I could see little black spots all over. I took a bite and looked a little bit closer. There were these big ants all through out the rice. I looked at my companion and he was thinking the same thing as me, what the heck lol. We thought ants had gotten into the rice and she didn't know so we called her over and told her there were ants in the rice. She didn't look surprised at all, come to find out that she put them in herself. She told us that the big ants are good for you and that we needed to eat them to grow strong. That was one of those meals were you just close your eyes and eat the food, you don't think about what you are eating, all that matters is that you finish it as quick as possible. After we left my comp said that was the first time he had had that happen to him and he is a Ghanaian. You would think that it wasn't a big deal, as I have eaten dog, cat, cow intestine, stomach, skin, etc. But I'm telling you these ants were big.

Well I said my goodbyes to all of my people in Kenten, it was very sad. I will miss them very much. I was able to take a picture with my favorite kid, his name is Kwaku. This little boy gets so excited every time he sees me. He is like 3 years old. He can't speak English but when he sees me coming down the road, he smiles so big and starts screaming "obruni coco matche! obruni coco matche!" Which means white man good morning! He screams this as a runs down the street to greet me. Every single day this is what he does. Whatever he is doing, as soon as he sees me he will stop, get so excited, smile and sing that song. I will miss this boy very much.

This week I will head down to Kumasi, I will be with Elder Nielson for my last week in Ghana. We will stay in a place called Nkoransa and work in my last area Kwanwoma, which I am excited for. It has been so much fun serving in Techiman and I am excited for my last week in Ghana. I am trying to eat as much mangos, banku, and fufuo as I can before I go home. Because I know when I get home I won't have this kind of food.

I hope everyone is doing well, and is enjoying their summer. I'll probably send just one more email before I get home! Super exciting. I sure do love you all

Love Elder Morgan 

Baptisms and Learning to Cook

Hi everyone!

It has been a great past couple weeks! Every single day goes by way to fast. I'll share some highlights 

We had our baptism on Saturday! We were able to baptize Cynthia and her kids, and their friend comfort. It was such a great service and the next day we had the chance to confirm all of them. It is so neat to see a whole family come into the gospel. They are such a wonderful family and will do so well in the church. After sacrament meeting our Branch President took Ma Cynthia aside and called her to be the 2nd counselor in the relief society presidency. She is nervous but really excited. I can't wait to see how they will all grow in the Church.

We are teaching lots and are meeting some really good people. We are teaching a family of five right now. Bright, Rosie, Collins and their parents. Their dad is a taxi driver and works every day, and their mom travels to Tamale to sell kasava on the weekends. Their kids are great, and the parents are super supportive. Their baptism is going to be on 11th June. I am really gonna miss all of these wonderful families, and especially the kids.

I sent a picture with our typical lunch that my comp and I eat. I usually buy fried yam, plantian and peppe. My comp usually gets gobbe which is beans with ghari and red oil with plantian. It's an easy and cheap thing to buy on the road. We enjoy it.

The branch President's daughter has been teaching me how to cook Ghanaian food. This past week she taught me how to make ockro stew. I now know how to make egg stew, Kontombre stew, and ockro stew. She has taught me how to make fufuo, and banku as well. I'm not sure how useful it will be when I get home, but out here it has been super helpful. All of the Africans are surprised that I can cook Ghanaian food. They said they have never seen an American cook. Even the missionaries in my apartment, they are all African and they are surprised I can cook. They say that Americans (missionaries) don't even know how to fry egg. Which sadly is true, a lot of the Americans serving out here can't cook.

This past week we helped three of our recent converts. We helped one with his testimony, one with a talk on sacrifice and the other on blessing the Sacrament. On Sunday Richmond  bore his testimony for the first time on Jesus Christ, Ella gave her first talk in sacrament meeting and did a great job, she also invited her friend to come and watch, and Emmanuel blessed the Sacrament for the first time! It is so neat to see the growth of new converts, and to be apart of it. I love seeing new converts grow and learn and really become part of the church. Sunday was really good.

Well I have two weeks left in my area, so my comp and I are going to make it count! There is still lots of work to do so we are staying busy. 

I hope everyone is doing well, and has a great week this week! Love you lots 

Elder Morgan 

Baptism and Learning English Again

Hi everyone!

I had another great week this week. Elder Abakah and I are really putting the work in. There are some great things happening in Techiman.

On Wednesday we traveled 4 hours back to Kumasi, because we had mlc the next day. We got to the mission office and spent the night there. The next day we had a wonderful meeting with all of the zone leaders in the mission. After the meeting was finished we had some time so the Assistants took us into their area. It was so fun to go back to my old area and see so many familiar faces. Elder Yeboah and I went out and saw everyone again. I was able to see Rose and her family, Brother Kwesi, Stephanie and so many more. I really love that place and the people will always have a place in my heart. We left on Friday to come back to Techiman.

After a long tro ride, we made it back to our area. That same day we met with Cynthia and her family and put them on date to be baptized this Saturday. We then met with Christabel and put her on date to be baptized. Friday was a good day.

Our Branch President asked for my help on Saturday. We had a branch conference coming up on Sunday and he wanted to say the first part of his talk in English. The problem is, he doesn't know how to read or write English, but he can speak very well. Our mission President was coming to this conference and so he wanted to impress him by having his talk all written out. He had his daughter type up a rough draft and then on Saturday wanted me to come and fix the English. For those who know me back home, English and I don't get along the greatest. Especially having been out here in Ghana for the past year and a half, my English has gotten even worse. But everyone pictures the American to have perfect English. So I got his talk and started to type it up. Man I think this is God helping me get ready for when I return home. Because I struggled typing up that talk with correct English lol. This is God slowly helping me get back to life in America, I'm gonna have to learn American English again lol

Yesterday we had conference and it went so well. The spirit was strong, and all of our investigators were there. Our Branch President also gave a great talk. 

This week we have zone conference on Thursday, my last interview with Pres Kunz on Wednesday! And our baptismal service on Saturday. It will be another great week.

I'm excited to be able to see all of you soon, I sure do love you guys.

Love Elder Morgan.

The Last Transfer

Hi everyone!

Sorry I didn't write an email last week, things were crazy with transfers. 

Well it's crazy to say I have 6 weeks left! So crazy that I'm coming down to the final stretch of the mission. Before I forget I will share a cool experience I had in my last area right before I left.

A couple days before I left Kwanwoma, Elder Yaboah and  I visited with Rose and her family again. We had been meeting with then a lot, and we have really come to love their family. Rose and her siblings had been coming to Church about 4 times, and they were enjoying the lessons. We had talked to Rose about baptism and asked her to pray about the decision to be baptized on May 1st. She kept saying she was praying and we honestly thought she was just saying that. But this last day together Elder Yaboah was teaching some of the family about the Plan of Salvation in twi, and we had already taught Rose about it. So I pulled her to the side and we sat down and just had a heart to heart talk about the gospel and how she felt about the church. It was one of the simplest but one of the more powerful conversations I have had with an investigator. The spirit was definitely there. We started to talk about her experiences coming to Church compared to her other experiences with other churches. We talked about her life and her journey with God. She told me that her old pastor pulled her to church last Wednesday. She told me what happened. She told me that she got there and she just didn't feel comfortable. They were doing their prayers, and had loud music playing, and they were all dancing. She told me that she went and sat down, crossed her legs and started to read the Book of Mormon. She also told me she is starting to teach her kids at school about the church (she is a school teacher) and that she wants to teach the teachers as well. After hearing these wonderful experiences, I knew that she knew it was true. So I asked her what would be stopping her from being baptized. She said Elder Morgan I have been praying to God, I asked him about May 1st like you said and he said ok, I can go ahead. But then you decided to push the baptism back to the 8th of May so now I have to go tell God that the Elders pushed my baptism back! I have to ask him if it is okay for me to get baptized the 8th. She was just baptized yesterday. I will miss Rose so much and meeting her really has helped grow my testimony.

We had transfers! On Wednesday I got on a tro tro and headed to Techiman which is about 4 hours outside Kumasi. Its the first time I have been outside Kumasi and I am so excited! I have a new companion, Elder Abakah, he is a Ghanaian. He goes home the transfer after me. I love him, he is super chill. I am a zone leader out here, and our zone is our district. We have 8 Elders and 4 sisters. It is a lot smaller which I am loving. It is so weird not having President call me, or missionaries call me with problems, or me having to plan for mlc or zone conferences. It's weird not having any stress, but I am definitely not complaining. It is so nice to just worry about me, my companion, my area and my zone.

I got to the area on Wednesday and we have been working hard ever since. Right before I got here my companion and his previous companion met a wonderful family. Ma Cynthia is the mom and she is so good. The first time I met them, you could just feel how good they were. There are about 10 in the family and we have started teaching them all! They all came to church last week, and loved it. We are in the Bush, and everyone out here is just very humble and the nicest people you will meet. I will miss the people the most when I go home. I have really come to love them. 

Our area has a lot of potential this transfer! I'm excited for what these next 6 weeks will bring and the experiences I will have. They are going to fly by! But I will surely make the most of them.

I love you all and I am so grateful for the love and support. I hope you all had a great mother's day. Have a great week!

Love Elder Morgan 

Bed Frames and Upcoming Assignment Changes

Hi everyone!!

These past couple weeks have been great! Last week We finished zone conferences and they went really well. It's nice to have them finished because now we get some time in our area. 

We have really met some great people in our area lately. If you all remember Rose, we have been getting closer with her family and have a really good relationship with them now. On Sunday 4 of them came to church. We will continue to work with her and her family, we met another family the son is Jr and the daughters name is Enrita. We have another family we have met and we are teaching their son Dennis. In total we have 6 that are ready to be baptized this transfer! We had two baptisms at the beginning of the transfer so we have been working hard. May 1st we are planning to have the baptismal service. 

These next two weeks will be my last in Kwanwoma so Elder Yaboah and I will finish strong. We have a lot to do in our area, so everyday we are busy. I love it though, great things are happening

A cool little miracle that happened this week: Saturday morning Elder Yaboah and I were planning for an instruction. We left our apartment to go to our area and we saw I man who had fallen over on the side of the street. He was having a seizure. The spirit prompted us to stop, so we stopped. We got out of the car and there weren't any people around. The man was lying in the middle of the street. We decided to move him because he could have been hit if someone didn't see him. So we picked him up and started to take him to the shade. As soon as we touched him, his seizure stopped. He came back to it and he started to respond back to us. He told us his name, he had hit his head really hard and was bleeding, he had bit his tongue really bad, and fell onto his wrist. We don't know how long he had been there prior to us arriving. As we were talking with him, he told us that this was the second time today, this happened. He said that he was grateful we came when we did because no one else was around. He said that even if people were around they wouldn't have helped because the people think that if they touch someone having a seizure that the "disease" will be passed onto them. He said that he simply needed someone to touch him for him to snap out of it, and if we hadn't been there he could have died. We were grateful we were there at the right place at the right time.

Everything else has been going great! We are having great experiences together and are finishing the transfer strong. President told me I will be released on May 3rd and will be a zone leader for my last transfer. He hasn't told me the place yet, but I'm excited for the change. I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for me. I sure will miss Kwanwoma though. Mission is slowly coming to an end! I am excited, but I am also really going to miss the people of Ghana, I have come to love them. I'm trying to make the most of my last little bit. 

I forgot to mention! Elder Yeboah and I found some bed frames in a room in our apartment. We were excited because all of our mission we have just slept on a mattress on the ground. We got them out and set them up. We are living like Kings now with our bed frames lol. Doesn't seem like much but out here not many people have actual bed frames to lift their bed off the ground. Even my comp was saying that we are living the high life now. And in America it is just normal so it doesn't mean as much to all y'all, but to us it's a big deal! 

I hope everyone had a great Easter, Ghanaians don't really celebrate it like we do in America. Most just have a party, or a dinner. It's pretty relaxed. But I hope back home it went well. I love you all, and I am grateful for the love and support 

Love Elder Morgan

Teaching Moments in Zone Conference

The following is taken from an email Malachi's Mission President, President Kunz, wrote in his weekly email. Malachi has had the wonderful opportunity to work closely with President Kunz for many months. It's been a great experience and he has grown so much.

The Assistants led a marvelous discussion about being ALL In as a missionary. This topic is a follow-up to the wonderful devotional with had with our friend Kevin Ball on February 4th where he talked about what it means to be born again. Elder Morgan and Elder Yeboah “hit it out of the park” (an American colloquialism) with their discussion focused on 3 main sub-topics.

Elder Morgan and Elder Yeboah

1. Born again moments – Alma the Younger and Ammon and King Lamoni were highlighted. Scriptures used were Mosiah 27:17-18, 28,29,32; Alma 18:41,42 Alma 9:6. The concept of being born again was also highlighted using 1 Cor 11:28 (let a man examine himself) and D&C 88:40 (light cleaveth unto light)
2. “I will give myself to Him” – This is the title of a talk given by Spencer Osguthorpe who was then serving as the General Sunday School president of the Church. In that amazing talk, he asked three questions which Elder Morgan and Elder Yeboah repeated in their discussion. 1 – What does the word “will” mean? (Hel 3:35 and Mosiah 5:3). 2 – How do we give our will to God (change of behavior vs. a change of nature). 3 – How do we know if we are succeeding? (Alma 5:26 – singing the song of redeeming love)
3. Eternal Perspective – Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (for God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing….) Alma 5:14 (Have ye been born of God?)

“All In” whiteboard discussion

While the content of the discussion was excellent, the spirit with which they delivered it was the most powerful part of the conference. These elders are two of the finest missionaries I have ever known. I do not tell them what they should teach. They seek inspiration, present their ideas to me and then they study and prepare the topic. They always teach at MLC and then the rest of the rest of the Leadership Council decides who will teach the same topic at zone conferences, themselves or the Assistants.

The End Swiftly Approaches, but The Work is Not Slowing Down!

 Hey oo!

Wow what a crazy couple weeks. We have finished yet again another transfer. These past two weeks have been great, they have been filled with faith and miracles. I'll share some experiences 

I hope you all remember our powerful recent convert Brother Yanka. We have been continuing to meet with him and his family. He is so solid, and his family is going to be a great addition to the church. Our branch president has been having trouble with his consolers, not being able to reach them or they have moved a bit far away. It has just been him running the show. This Sunday the stake president came to our branch and released his two counselors. They called a new first counselor and they called brother Yanka to be the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency!!! He is super excited. Its crazy to think about how new the church really is, it puts it in perspective when the 2nd counselor was just baptized 4 weeks ago and his wife is getting baptized this coming week! We are so excited for him and his family. Our other recent convert, Stephanie. She was called to be the young woman's president. She is also really excited and we are happy for her. We are helping them both as they are still fresh in the church. Exciting things are happening in Kwanwoma! 

As assistants we have limited time in our area. We have to balance it with missionaries, zone conference, meetings, exchanges, and proselyting. Well we set a goal to find 4 of God's elect this transfer. We had found two in the second week of the transfer. Week 3 and 4 were takin by zone conferences so we weren't able to go to our area. It got to week 5 and we were coming down to it. The commitment we made to the lord was to find 4. This really drove us to our knees. We knew it was getting close to the end of the transfer, and that we couldn't do it by ourselves. We had been praying everyday to find these two people. We were focusing in Kwanwoma were we meet for church, we really hadn't explored outside of that because we were having a lot of success. All week we had been feeling prompted to go to a town just before Kwanwoma called Abuabo. To be honest we kinda just pushed it off, again because of the success we had in Kwanwoma. We came to the end of the week and the feeling to go to Abuabo kept coming back. It hit us, we had been asking for help and God had been trying to give us help all week. We finally acted on the prompting. It was Saturday that we went to Abuabo in the morning. As we got there we started to walk, just going wherever the spirit led us. At the end of the day we had found 4 solid families. Turns out Abuabo was a business town. Most people are busy during the week and are home on the weekends. Most people in the town are educated, meaning they can speak English, have jobs, smart, etc. All of the people we found spoke great English and were just solid. We met a teacher and her family, we met a guy named clement and his sister rose and their family of 6, and two other families that we have come to love! 

When we met Rose and her family, just before we got there rose had asked her family which church she should attend this week. She was trying to decide between 4 different churches. Right after that we showed up! We talked with the fam and had some fun. We invited Rose to come to church and she came! She has now been to church twice since that day. So many more miracles happened that day, I could write so many more. Maybe another time I will share. Ill just add one more thing. We just went back this last Saturday and the two families I mentioned have been reading the Book of Mormon! The teacher said she reads it at her breaks, and clement has started to read it as well. They asked questions about Lehi and his family. Again great things are happening! God is good and he always provides, we needed two and he gave us so much more then that. We are not in this work alone, and there is no way we can do it by ourselves. 

We experienced another miracle yesterday. Yesterday we had church and our stake president joined us like I mentioned earlier. We started with three of our investigators at church. As we started church we saw another one come through the door, a couple minutes later another one walked through the door, and then another one! They just kept coming! We ended sacrament meeting with 9 investigators at church! Some we had invited the day before and some we had never seen before. We filled our members living room. We even had to bring some more chairs out because of all the people we had. We are outgrowing our members home, we are really looking for a building to rent to have more room. I mean again it's a great problem to have but we have our hoped up of finding a building soon. 

Elder Yeboah and I are having such a great time. We are having great experiences and are meeting some really great people. We will be staying together again for this next transfer. Two more transfers to go! Which is so crazy. Every transfer goes by as fast as the one before. We had interviews this past week and president said that he has no clue if I will stay as an assistant until I go home or if I will go somewhere else my last transfer. He said if it was his choice he would keep me but he knows I have been here a long time. So he simple said he has no clue. He said as we get into the transfer he will know what we will do. I told him I will do whatever the Lord wants. So this could be my last transfer as assistant or it could be my second to last, we shall see. Either way I am loving it. 3 more months to give it my all, and finish strong. 

I love you all. Thanks for the love and support 

Love Elder Morgan