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