Christmas!!!!!!

Dear Family and Friends, I'm SO SORRY that I have been so slow in updating this blog the last couple weeks! It has been crazy! Here is the letter from this week, and below it I will put the letter from last week. Once again, there's no pictures. Sorry! Elder McGuire told us while we were on the phone with him (Which was FABULOUS by the way), that in his area of Ghana the internet is so ridiculously slow because they only have one internet network and the whole village could be on the internet at any given time! That's what makes it so slow that he can't send us pictures!

Dear Family!!

This week was amazing!! i loved being able to talk to all of you and hear your voices! Im glad to see that everyone is doing well! The work this week was awesome too!

Christmas was Great we spent most of the day in praso for district meeting and calling home. We made it back to nyenasi just in time for Midweek to start. We werent expecting anyone to come but a lot did. Elder bannerman and i ended up teaching and it was an awesome lesson. A lot of people called it Xmas here instead of Christmas, so we talked about the difference and about how important it is for us to have
christ in our lives.

Thursday was a sweet day we were able to have a lot of great lessons and one very interesting one too. We showed up to teach a guy named Michael and before we started teaching he said he wanted to tell us
about a dream he had. We said okay. He said in his dream he saw our apartment, he said inside he saw that there was a whiteboard with his name on it and next to the whiteboard was a table where me and elder
bannerman would sit and discuss about him and other people on our board. Now this guy has never stepped near our apartment or the church before. He came this sunday and got lost on his way so he had never
seen our apartment or anything but he described our study room in perfect detail.....So yeah that was a little weird! hahaha the lesson went great and he is progressing well.

Friday was basically the same, great lessons and we were able to accomplish a lot. The sweet thing for friday was we had a chance to sit down and talk with a disabled man named brother Baidoo. He can barely walk or talk and is old. His impediments are a result of a car crash he was in some years ago. But he bore his testimony to us that because of his garments he survived the crash. He also talked about his years of being a soldier and how he felt protected because of the covenants he made in the temple. This man had such a strong testimony of the temple and he also told us of how he was sealed with his wife and with his family. The Really cool thing thing about this whole experience was that he was saying everything in Twi, but i was able to understand everything! So that was fridays highilight.

Satruday morning we woke up and went to farm with a guy that we were friends with but hadnt had the opportunity to start teaching him yet so we decided to do some service in order to break the ice a little. It worked and we'll be teaching him this week. Also we were able to find a guy that we have been looking for. His name is Edward, he has come to church twice and is friends with one of our investigators. He is really smart and earnestly seeking for the truth. So we found him but he was busy and said he would try to meet us later. He was unable to make it later but that night we were having coordination meeting at the church house. All the sudden edward walked in....hahaha needless to say we were surprised. we talked with him for a while and gave him a restoration pamphlet and a book of mormon.

Sunday was sweet too! hahaha we had a lot of people come to church this week and we had 4 investigators come to church too. After church we were able to go to edwards house and really sit down with him to have a lesson. We shared about the restoration of the gospel and the book of mormon. He loved every second of it and he committed to be baptized on the 18th of january! We are so pumped because its been a while since weve had anyone with a baptismal date. Things are moving again! We also had another good lesson with michael that night. We sat down and asked him if he had recieved an answer about the church or not, he said that he hadnt. So we started talking about his prayers. We discovered that he wasnt asking specifically about the truthfulness of the church. we then asked him that if he did recieve an answer that everything was true, would he be baptized? he said no straightway. He said that he really liked the church he was in and it would be too hard for him to leave it. We then helped him understand that in his search for the truth that god was not going to answer him if he is not willing to act on the answers he would receive. So he promised to change and committed that he would listen to the answers if god gave them to him. So yeah sweet lesson! We could have totally lost him there but thanks to the spirit he is still around. The spirit is so essential in this work and has been helping us so much! I just have to do my best to stay worthy of his companionship.

Today has been a good day, weve done our washing, relaxed, and went to a field and threw my football around a little bit. So yeah its been an awesome week!

I love all of you guys and i was soo happy to talk to you this week! i hope you have a great week and ill talk to you soon!
love you!

love, Elder Bradley McGuire




Dear Family!!!

Afishia pa!!!!! thats merry christmas in twi! so ive been saying it to everyone the last few days!! It sounds like you have been hit by a lot of snow! hahaha it just gets dustier and dustier by the day out here but its okay im still loving life!

My week this week has been amazing!!!!! i will try to explain everything but if i miss it i guess ill just tell you tomorrow when i TALK TO YOU!!!

alright So monday after i emailed you last week we did some shopping and then we did our best to catch a tro tro back up to praso. it took us forever to get one so we didnt get back there until late and we had to spend the night in the praso elders apartment.

Tuesday we woke up in the morning and went to nyenasi, showered, and cleaned up and packed a few things and came back for district meeting. It took us forever to get back to praso because tuesday is market day and everyone wanted to go to praso. And when a taxi or a tro tro pulls up and says hop in! everyone just mobs it and its ridiculous to fight for a tro. so we didnt make it back for district meeting until the very end. After district meeting elder bannerman and i did some shopping. then at 3 i left elder bannerman with the elders in praso and traveled by myself to cape coast. It was so weird being alone! so i made it to cape coast and the APs came and picked me up and took me to the Office Elders place.(its right next to the mission home). So i spent the rest of the night with the office elders and we proselyted and had some fun.

Wednesday i woke up and got to the mission home by 8 to meet up with president and sister shulz. Now the reason i was able to come to accra with them is because they were taking some elders to the airport so they could get home before christmas. Now in this mission when elders go home they all wear the same tie to match. Its always one of the ties that we get from our christmas present from president and sister shulz. So we just barely all got new ties for this christmas. I forgot that the elders that leave always wear that tie when they go home. I just wanted to show sister shulz that i was wearing the tie she gave me. SO i like the elders going home wore the tie we got for this christmas.......hahaha i realize what i just said doesnt make a whole
lot of sense but if you could get the just of it....so i was wearing the same tie as the elders going home hahaha. Anyway....So we left for accra around 8 and its a 3 hour drive plus traffic so we finally made it to the Accra temple around 11:30. we had a lunch of pb&j that sis shulz made us and it was sooo good! then we finished just in time to make the 12:30 session. I have needed to go to the temple for some time now! i have missed it so much!!!!! they didnt show the new film but i still loved it!!! i received some much needed guidance and it has helped me so much!!!! So after the temple session we walked across the parking lot to the area office where the area doctor is. So i went and visited him, he just numbed up my toe and cut out the in grown part of my nail and it was super easy, it only took 5 minutes!! and it is so great now! After the doc fixed me up, we took the elders going home to a mall in Accra that was sweet! it was just like a mall back
home! and inside they had KFC!!!!!!!!! so President shulz took us all to KFC!!! this whole time i thought i was dreaming! hahaha sister shulz also likes to take pictures. everytime she would want to take a picture of the elders going home and i would be with them, she kept getting confused cuz i was wearing the same tie as them. So we finally dropped the elders off at the airport and then drove about 45 minutes to the MTC and we spent the night there. it was weird to be back there but it was fun, i got to talk to all the new
elders there.

Thursday we woke up and i went with the APs to the south african embassy. Our new AP is from south africa and he needed to get a drivers license, it took forever but eventually we finished and left. So we started our way home to cape coast. On the way we stopped at a city in the mission called Swedru and we went to an Orphanage. We gave all of the kids Some stalkings that our aps grandma made and sent to him. The kids were so happy and it was an awesome experience. This was probably the biggest christmas gift that these kids have ever gotten in their lives and it was amazing to see the joy come into their countenance as they each took one. I was really lucky to be a part of this all. After that the aps dropped me off at a tro station and i came back to praso, picked up elder bannerman, and we went home to nyenasi. Then we had some talking and planning to do and we are picking up our act. Its not like we have been being disobedient or anything but just havent been doing effective work, so we talked and made some changes and everything has just gone up from there.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday were pretty normal days except for the fact that our work has been improving every day.

Monday wasnt pday for us because christmas is wednesday and was supposed to be transfers that day. So they did transfers on monday and we proselyted. IT was a fun day because everyone is happy and thinking
about christmas. We had FHE with a family in our branch and i brought my guitar and we sang christmas songs and hymns and it was a blast. So today is pday for us and we are all getting ready for christmas. We
have district meeting on christmas so we are kinda havin a party. We are also staying in praso so that we can call home and actually hear you! so 9 sounds great! i will be calling then.

Also While i was with president shulz this week he asked me to ask you to get me an international drivers license. You have to go to www.idlservice.com. and just follow the instructions. then once you get it i need you to send it to me with my drivers license(my new one that shouldve come right after i left). If you could do that asap for me that would be great!!! Thankyou so much!

Anyway thats my week!!!!! i hope you guys have a fun time at grandma and grandpas tonight!!! ill talk to you tomorrow!!! i love you!!!!

love, Bradley