Dear Family,
You all are so great! its so awesome to see a family rally around each other and help one another out when things are crazy and there is always so much to do! strong families also really help a ward be strong. we dont have so many out here, but we are extremely grateful for the ones that we do have.
This week was a pretty slow one for us but i have learned a lot and the work is moving forward! This week was mostly full of goodbyes for my companion. He is going home this week so we had to see everyone before he went.
Through out the course of the week i realized that i had lost one of my memory cards with all of my pictures on it from the first year of my mission. i looked everywhere for it! i picked up the apartment and dumped it upside down, and even asked any members or investigators if they had seen it. eventually i realized it was gone. i prayed to Father in Heaven that i would be able to recover the pictures. 3 days later one of the Elders in my Apartment was walking around the outside and he found it on the ground! some may say coincidence but in reality it was an answer to my prayers and it strengthened my testimony that Heavenly Father listens to and hears All of his children.
We had stake conference this weekend in our stake also and it was great! it was a broadcast from Salt lake recorded on a dvd for us. the messages were directed towards africans specifically and they were great! they addressed a lot of issues that are prevalent in ghana.
Also this weekend we got Transfer news!!! dun dun dun!!!!! hahaha transfers are the thing all the missionaries in the world are excited for, stress about, and lose sleep over. For us in our zone we actually dont have to many transfers. My new companion is going to be Elder MNGOMA he is from south Africa and has been on mission for almost 18 months now. he is sweet! he is coming from the zone right next to ours. the big news with this transfer is that the zone my new companion is coming from is combining with our zone. this is huge because it will make us to be the largest zone in the mission! were going from having 16 elders to having 30!! and 6 of those are going to be sisters so we are bucklin up for a wild ride! hahahaha im excited though. All i can say is lets do it!
Also i have now sent all my christmas packages off to you guys so hopefully youll see it soon! it might be a little late for christmas and if so i guess itll be a nice new years present hahaha.
Anyway i hope you all have a great week and that you all have a great Thanksgiving!! im thankful for all of you!!!!! i love you!
love,
Bradley
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Pictures!
Hey Everyone!
Bradley's Mission President posted a couple of pictures of him on his blog. Here is the link (The stories are pretty great)
http://stevensons-in-ghana.blogspot.com/
And here are the Pictures!
Bradley's Mission President posted a couple of pictures of him on his blog. Here is the link (The stories are pretty great)
http://stevensons-in-ghana.blogspot.com/
And here are the Pictures!
Monday, November 17, 2014
I am Thankful!!
Dear Family,
I think that i am going to copy mom this week! First of all Im thankful to hear from a family each week that loves me and supports me and means everything in the world to me!. I am thankful for hints from my mom to send pictures( i promise next week i will!)
Im thankful that the lord has prepared people for us to teach here in my area and for their progress. Im thankful for little miracles that allowed us to have 3 amazing baptisms this evening. That members have the courage to refer a friend and in turn that friend brings 2 other friends with him and they are all baptized together. That is progression! that is missionary work! that is what the lord wants! Things never happen on accident everything that happens everyday can be learned from and i am learning so much!
Im thankful for Cars! haha Cars that the assistants and the mission couples can drive as we go to District meetings all over kingdom come. im thankful for 4 wheel drive that can take us over the most treacherous roads that ghana has to offer! Im grateful a wonderful mission president who cares and takes time to listen when needed and works so hard for each and everyone of his missionaries. Pres. Stevenson is so great!
Im thankful for technology/Electricity! in all its forms! like when you are showering and just as you pull out the bar of soap the power goes out and the pump that is pumping the water shuts off and all of the sudden there is absolutely nothing to rinse your body with!(hahaha im also thankful that that was just a prank played by a missionary in the apartment!) Im also grateful for Computers.1 so that i can talk to my family every monday. 2 so we can create a report that makes reporting at stake meetings sooo much more simple and effective!!!
Im thankful for Saving Ordinances, With The baptisms tonight and the confirmations of our previous converts yesterday i have been able to think a lot about these important saving ordinances. IT is such a special thing! and I love being able to work towards those ordinances with investigators and myself. I got a call earlier today from Prince Baidoo. In case you dont remember Prince was my first baptism here in Ghana. I learned about 8 months after i left he had fallen less active. i wrote him a letter and encouraged him to come back. Today he told me that 3 weeks ago he went to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead!!!! soo sweet!!! now we just gotta get to the Endowment!!!!!
Im Thankful Good people in the ward and also in the Zone that can make a Preparation day memorable. Today we roasted 2 pigs and a goat and ate a ton of food after doing a service project to level a road that is absolutely horrendous leading up to a church in Swedru. Then those Same people after working and sweating all day Turned out for an amazing Baptism/YSA Family home evening! these are the moments that i will never forget!
Finally Im thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. For the ability to be comforted by his Everlasting sacrifice which was not only for our sins and transgressions but also for any kind of pain or suffering that we will ever endure. When appointments go all wrong. nobody wants to listen to you, and it seems like there is no way things can get any worse. A light shines through and the Atonement of Jesus Christ is there to help us all! im also thankful for the way the Atonement helps us to let go of things of the past and with faith look toward the mysterious wonderful future in front of us!
Family i love you so much and i hope you all have a great week!
love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire
P.S. Dont Freeze to Death!
I think that i am going to copy mom this week! First of all Im thankful to hear from a family each week that loves me and supports me and means everything in the world to me!. I am thankful for hints from my mom to send pictures( i promise next week i will!)
Im thankful that the lord has prepared people for us to teach here in my area and for their progress. Im thankful for little miracles that allowed us to have 3 amazing baptisms this evening. That members have the courage to refer a friend and in turn that friend brings 2 other friends with him and they are all baptized together. That is progression! that is missionary work! that is what the lord wants! Things never happen on accident everything that happens everyday can be learned from and i am learning so much!
Im thankful for Cars! haha Cars that the assistants and the mission couples can drive as we go to District meetings all over kingdom come. im thankful for 4 wheel drive that can take us over the most treacherous roads that ghana has to offer! Im grateful a wonderful mission president who cares and takes time to listen when needed and works so hard for each and everyone of his missionaries. Pres. Stevenson is so great!
Im thankful for technology/Electricity! in all its forms! like when you are showering and just as you pull out the bar of soap the power goes out and the pump that is pumping the water shuts off and all of the sudden there is absolutely nothing to rinse your body with!(hahaha im also thankful that that was just a prank played by a missionary in the apartment!) Im also grateful for Computers.1 so that i can talk to my family every monday. 2 so we can create a report that makes reporting at stake meetings sooo much more simple and effective!!!
Im thankful for Saving Ordinances, With The baptisms tonight and the confirmations of our previous converts yesterday i have been able to think a lot about these important saving ordinances. IT is such a special thing! and I love being able to work towards those ordinances with investigators and myself. I got a call earlier today from Prince Baidoo. In case you dont remember Prince was my first baptism here in Ghana. I learned about 8 months after i left he had fallen less active. i wrote him a letter and encouraged him to come back. Today he told me that 3 weeks ago he went to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead!!!! soo sweet!!! now we just gotta get to the Endowment!!!!!
Im Thankful Good people in the ward and also in the Zone that can make a Preparation day memorable. Today we roasted 2 pigs and a goat and ate a ton of food after doing a service project to level a road that is absolutely horrendous leading up to a church in Swedru. Then those Same people after working and sweating all day Turned out for an amazing Baptism/YSA Family home evening! these are the moments that i will never forget!
Finally Im thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. For the ability to be comforted by his Everlasting sacrifice which was not only for our sins and transgressions but also for any kind of pain or suffering that we will ever endure. When appointments go all wrong. nobody wants to listen to you, and it seems like there is no way things can get any worse. A light shines through and the Atonement of Jesus Christ is there to help us all! im also thankful for the way the Atonement helps us to let go of things of the past and with faith look toward the mysterious wonderful future in front of us!
Family i love you so much and i hope you all have a great week!
love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire
P.S. Dont Freeze to Death!
Love November!!
Dear family!
Wow you all sound so busy! im glad to hear that amid the chaos and the
fun and school and everything that you are all happy and safe. It
helps to know that my family is happy, it makes me happy!
This week has been a great week for us in Swedru. This week we went to
Mission Leadership Council and it was great! we talked about the way
we contact in the mission and how it can be improved there were a lot
of great things shared and i think some good things are going to be
done to help the missionaries to better understand the importance of
contacting. We also had a bit of fun. Elder Moleme, my trainer, is
still a zone leader in the mission and he is going home this transfer,
Wednesday was the last time i got to see him so i and a few other
Elders tried to make it memorable. We got the office Elders to tell
him that he had a package with a duty of 25 cedis from america. He was
obviously surprised since he is from south africa and has never gotten
a package from america. So he was so excited the whole entire day. He
thought he was getting a package from some mystery family in
idaho....In reality he was getting an old pair of shoes and an old
broken music player that he had left in our apartment before he was
transferred. We used an old package box of one of the Elders in our
Apartment and made it look real and put a new address on it and
addressed it to Elder Moleme. So After we had closed our meeting it
was time for us to get our supplies and mail...he was seriously so
excited! he got his package and gave Elder Larsen(one of the
assistants) the money for the package and took it. Everyone was asking
who could possibly have sent the package and they wanted him to open
it and he was protecting the thing like a mama bear protects her cubs!
hahaha eventually they convinced him to open it while we were still
there....When he opened it he pulled out his old shoe...looked at
it.....and through it on the ground then pulled out the note we had
left for him. The second he finished and everyone had realized what
had happend and i tell you there was not a dry eye in the place!
everyone was laughing so hard they were crying!!! sorry that was a bit
long...it was so funny! back to real missionary work;)........
......All day Thursday we were traveling going to 2 areas doing
baptismal interviews and splits with the missionaries there. One of
the Elders i Split with wasnt feeling good so we took him to the
hospital and they tested him for malaria and he tested positive so
they gave him and IV and some drugs and then we went home. i felt bad
for him Malaria is so common out here! luckily ive avoided it my whole
mission(dont worry im knocking on wood right now!) and i hope it stays
that way!
Friday my companion had caught my cold in full force and he lost his
voice as a result so teaching was funny. luckily we had a ward
missionary with us so i wasnt teaching solo and by the end of the
night his voice was mostly back.
Saturday has turned into Cleaning and Soccer for the ward and of
course us missionaries were there to support every step of the way. we
even had 2 investigators come so we were really happy. im getting
better at soccer all the time although im nowhere near these guys but
its a lot of fun and a great way to bring people together out here.
Sunday was Awesome. Church went well and we had a lot of investigators
come. It was great because we had a baptism after church for two of
our investigators and the rest got to stay and watch! i love having
investigators come to baptisms because every time, afterwards, whether
they have a baptismal date or not, they always ask "so when is my
baptism?" that was the case for 3 of our investigators on Sunday. So
now they all have dates for the 22nd of this month! the work is really
moving out here!
Those 3 investigators were Issac, Kweku, and Prince they are all
friends and they live in the same neighbor hood so they help each
other out a lot when it comes to learning and also keeping their
commitments. We were able to teach them after church and they are all
so excited to be baptized. i love it when people just get it! they
understand the gospel and they want to follow out of a desire to do
whats right and to follow Jesus Christ. this work is amazing!
Anyway i hope you are all doing well and are happy! keep it up! i love
you all!!!
love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire
Wow you all sound so busy! im glad to hear that amid the chaos and the
fun and school and everything that you are all happy and safe. It
helps to know that my family is happy, it makes me happy!
This week has been a great week for us in Swedru. This week we went to
Mission Leadership Council and it was great! we talked about the way
we contact in the mission and how it can be improved there were a lot
of great things shared and i think some good things are going to be
done to help the missionaries to better understand the importance of
contacting. We also had a bit of fun. Elder Moleme, my trainer, is
still a zone leader in the mission and he is going home this transfer,
Wednesday was the last time i got to see him so i and a few other
Elders tried to make it memorable. We got the office Elders to tell
him that he had a package with a duty of 25 cedis from america. He was
obviously surprised since he is from south africa and has never gotten
a package from america. So he was so excited the whole entire day. He
thought he was getting a package from some mystery family in
idaho....In reality he was getting an old pair of shoes and an old
broken music player that he had left in our apartment before he was
transferred. We used an old package box of one of the Elders in our
Apartment and made it look real and put a new address on it and
addressed it to Elder Moleme. So After we had closed our meeting it
was time for us to get our supplies and mail...he was seriously so
excited! he got his package and gave Elder Larsen(one of the
assistants) the money for the package and took it. Everyone was asking
who could possibly have sent the package and they wanted him to open
it and he was protecting the thing like a mama bear protects her cubs!
hahaha eventually they convinced him to open it while we were still
there....When he opened it he pulled out his old shoe...looked at
it.....and through it on the ground then pulled out the note we had
left for him. The second he finished and everyone had realized what
had happend and i tell you there was not a dry eye in the place!
everyone was laughing so hard they were crying!!! sorry that was a bit
long...it was so funny! back to real missionary work;)........
......All day Thursday we were traveling going to 2 areas doing
baptismal interviews and splits with the missionaries there. One of
the Elders i Split with wasnt feeling good so we took him to the
hospital and they tested him for malaria and he tested positive so
they gave him and IV and some drugs and then we went home. i felt bad
for him Malaria is so common out here! luckily ive avoided it my whole
mission(dont worry im knocking on wood right now!) and i hope it stays
that way!
Friday my companion had caught my cold in full force and he lost his
voice as a result so teaching was funny. luckily we had a ward
missionary with us so i wasnt teaching solo and by the end of the
night his voice was mostly back.
Saturday has turned into Cleaning and Soccer for the ward and of
course us missionaries were there to support every step of the way. we
even had 2 investigators come so we were really happy. im getting
better at soccer all the time although im nowhere near these guys but
its a lot of fun and a great way to bring people together out here.
Sunday was Awesome. Church went well and we had a lot of investigators
come. It was great because we had a baptism after church for two of
our investigators and the rest got to stay and watch! i love having
investigators come to baptisms because every time, afterwards, whether
they have a baptismal date or not, they always ask "so when is my
baptism?" that was the case for 3 of our investigators on Sunday. So
now they all have dates for the 22nd of this month! the work is really
moving out here!
Those 3 investigators were Issac, Kweku, and Prince they are all
friends and they live in the same neighbor hood so they help each
other out a lot when it comes to learning and also keeping their
commitments. We were able to teach them after church and they are all
so excited to be baptized. i love it when people just get it! they
understand the gospel and they want to follow out of a desire to do
whats right and to follow Jesus Christ. this work is amazing!
Anyway i hope you are all doing well and are happy! keep it up! i love
you all!!!
love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire
Monday, November 3, 2014
November is Here! Along with a bunch of Pictures!!!
Dear Family,
Halloween sounds like it was great for everyone and with fall coming on i can imagine things are starting to cool down finally! for us things are just warming up and soon we will be baking in the oven!! Hahaha i was reading the email and when mom mentioned AFV in my head im like "What is that??" it took me like 5 minutes of thinking hard to remember!! hahahaha i love that show! i guess its been a while huh?;)
As for me this week was a good but rough one but i am happy overall. I was fighting a cold all week long which was no fun but it didnt slow us down too much. The big thing that slowed us down was our surprises. Our investigators that we were planning on baptizing didnt make it. Some up and traveled with no notice and others just had things they needed a little more time to work on but we are okay and im confident they will be ready before the month ends. This work is so great!!! out here its easy for missionaries to get into a routine of pushing people through the process of teaching. but we are doing more than that we are helping these people understand eternal principles and the fact that their
Father in Heaven loves them and wants them to be happy. So we are working on it!
The Iveys took a trip into Accra this week and while they were there they were able to get me a new camera that is great! its so nice having a couple in the zone they help with the work so much! hahaha so now im sending pictures everyweek so even if i do get robbed again i dont lose any pictures!
This week the work has been great but we have been missing one of our recent converts. Kwesi just kinda disappeared and we dont know where he is at all. we we havent seen him in 2 weeks and he hasnt contacted us or anything. we hope and pray everything is okay.
In happier news hahaha well maybe it only makes me happier, members came and helped us clean the church this week!!! hahaha usually its us and like 3 other members cleaning every week but this week all of the youth came and a lot of others! it was great it only ended up taking us 45 minutes so it was just enough time left to play a football game with the youth. im actually not that bad anymore;)
Also for church this week we finally got the Conference DVDs so we got to watch the Sunday morning Session!! it was so powerful!! my favorite talks were the first 3 about sustaining the prophet! with Pres. Eyring talking about receiving personal confirming revelation. Elder Nelson about sustaining leaders and also Sister McConkie about sustaining leaders!!!! all i can say is i sustain my leaders!!!! but obviously there are a lot of ways we can all improve. Its sad to think that people have problems sustaining those called by God to lead. Its a good thing we know God blesses us with out reservation when we keep his commandments without reservation.
I hope that was a good update for the week im gonna cut this one short so i can also send some pictures!! i hope you all have a great week and are ready for a blast of cold coming your way!!!! i love you!!!
love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire
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Halloween sounds like it was great for everyone and with fall coming on i can imagine things are starting to cool down finally! for us things are just warming up and soon we will be baking in the oven!! Hahaha i was reading the email and when mom mentioned AFV in my head im like "What is that??" it took me like 5 minutes of thinking hard to remember!! hahahaha i love that show! i guess its been a while huh?;)
As for me this week was a good but rough one but i am happy overall. I was fighting a cold all week long which was no fun but it didnt slow us down too much. The big thing that slowed us down was our surprises. Our investigators that we were planning on baptizing didnt make it. Some up and traveled with no notice and others just had things they needed a little more time to work on but we are okay and im confident they will be ready before the month ends. This work is so great!!! out here its easy for missionaries to get into a routine of pushing people through the process of teaching. but we are doing more than that we are helping these people understand eternal principles and the fact that their
Father in Heaven loves them and wants them to be happy. So we are working on it!
The Iveys took a trip into Accra this week and while they were there they were able to get me a new camera that is great! its so nice having a couple in the zone they help with the work so much! hahaha so now im sending pictures everyweek so even if i do get robbed again i dont lose any pictures!
This week the work has been great but we have been missing one of our recent converts. Kwesi just kinda disappeared and we dont know where he is at all. we we havent seen him in 2 weeks and he hasnt contacted us or anything. we hope and pray everything is okay.
In happier news hahaha well maybe it only makes me happier, members came and helped us clean the church this week!!! hahaha usually its us and like 3 other members cleaning every week but this week all of the youth came and a lot of others! it was great it only ended up taking us 45 minutes so it was just enough time left to play a football game with the youth. im actually not that bad anymore;)
Also for church this week we finally got the Conference DVDs so we got to watch the Sunday morning Session!! it was so powerful!! my favorite talks were the first 3 about sustaining the prophet! with Pres. Eyring talking about receiving personal confirming revelation. Elder Nelson about sustaining leaders and also Sister McConkie about sustaining leaders!!!! all i can say is i sustain my leaders!!!! but obviously there are a lot of ways we can all improve. Its sad to think that people have problems sustaining those called by God to lead. Its a good thing we know God blesses us with out reservation when we keep his commandments without reservation.
I hope that was a good update for the week im gonna cut this one short so i can also send some pictures!! i hope you all have a great week and are ready for a blast of cold coming your way!!!! i love you!!!
love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire
This is the corn we planted with kwesi 2 weeks ago! its already growing up
This kid is so cute!!! his name is Nii Nortey and he is a fire ball!
Our iron broke this week so we had to improvise! (it didn't really work)
We were gutting our watermelons!!
My watermelon-o-lantern
I was a baseball player for Halloween!
My companion and i in our Halloween costumes
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