First week on the Job

Dear Family!!!!

Another week has come and gone and i am happy as ever! the work here is awesome and im glad to hear that you guys are all doing well too!!

tuesday was an awesome day. we had a combined district meeting in takoradi and we had a nice lesson. the elders that were all being transferred stood up and bore their testimonies. then we went to this place called Garden Mart and it has a bunch of american things in it and i found blazing buffalo ranch doritos!!!!! i was soooo happy!!! then we came back to tarkwa and had a good lesson to finish off the day.

Wednesday was transfers so since wednesday ive been the district leader!! for us though in our area nothing changed. we taught a bunch of lessons. one in particular was really cool. So we were going to teach this guy named Shadrack and he is way cool! this was a big lesson for us because we were trying to decide whether or not to drop him and this lesson would tell us what to do. so he lives in a furniture workshop and when we walked in everything was loud, there were sanders, saws, and radios. but we sat down with him and just kinda started to talk. we got to a point that we wanted to pray to begin the lesson and i realized that everything had been turned off and everyone was gone but us. We had a great lesson and he started off by telling us that he knows the book of mormon is true!!!! needless to say we were so excited and he is going to be baptized in the next 2 weeks! it was a great lesson.

Thursday was a busy workin day with lesson after lesson. we also had 3 people give us food and it was all yams with this stuff called contombre. it was good the first time...after that we just had to force it down. it is very rude to refuse food here, you might as well slap someone in the face. so we ate and im heavier now hahaha not really;)

Friday i had my first interview to do as district leader for a baptismal candidate. it was in a place called Axim which is about 2 1/2 hours away so we left around noon and had the interview at 3. it went really well and it was interesting to be on the other side of an interview but it was great and the young man was more than ready to be baptized. we made it back to tarkwa just in time to have 1 last lesson to finish off the night.

Saturday we were tired. from the traveling and the lessons we were just tired. but the lord took care of us. from the way our lessons were planned out it looked like it was gonna be a long day of walking. but we had 2 cab drivers pull over and tell us they would take us where ever we wanted for free. i was so greatful! heavenly father really does watch out for us. so we had some amazing lessons that day and it was great. also that night i made a grill out of bricks and a metal grate and we had grilled chicken and rice for dinner and it was sooooo good!!

Sunday was also great as usual. church was nice. we had a confirmation and 5 investigators came. after church we went to a members for lunch and then to a lesson right after and it was a good lesson and helped us understand better what we need to teach. after that the branch president had us over for dinner and it was also great! then to finish off the night we taught a guy named eric. we were introduced to him by a member but he didnt seem too keen on meeting with us. but we called him and he told us to come over. so we came and i brought my guitar. the first time we met i had noticed he had a guitar and he told me he wanted to learn how to play. so we came and had a good lesson with him and after i taught him guitar for a bit. i played dream big and he loved it! everyone likes that song out here. but i was happy i could use my guitar to help the work along.

Today has been great. we came to takoradi today and played basketball and we had a great time. now we are emailing and after we will go home and shop and do our washing. i love you all and hope you are ready for school to start!!! hahaha

Love, Elder Bradley McGuire

Here's another one! AND HE'S A DISTRICT LEADER!!!!

Hey guys! Sorry I've been really slow at getting this one up here this week! Here's the latest and greatest from our friend in Africa!

Dear family,

Wow it souds like you guys are having a great time! it seems like summer is starting to wind down and school is winding up! i didnt realize just how fast this "summer" has gone! here the weather is always the same so its weird to call it summer hahaha.

so on tuesday we had district meeting as usual and it was good. it was the last time we will be together as this district because transfers is this coming week and we have some elders who have been here for a long time including our district leader...ill talk about that one in a bit;) so we came back from district meeting and we had some nice lessons to finish out the day.

Wednesday, thursday and friday were all basically the same just work work work. we taught a bunch of lessons this week and we walked all over the place just like usual! but the awesome continue to be awesome and i am absolutely loving every second of it because i am growing so much!. there was an exception for friday, one of the pipes out side our house burst and water was going everywhere! thankfully to all those times dad took us boys out to fix the sprinklers on the mow strip i was able to fix it up in just a few minutes after we got some supplies. so thanks dad!!!!

Saturday was a crazy day!! we woke up and studied like normal and went and taught 3 lessons for the first few hours. then a member had us come over and she taught us from start to finish how to make fufu and everything that goes with it and it takes about 3 hours!! but it was awesome and i gained a whole new appreciation for fufu. hahaha and now you all have to prepare yourselves because i am an expert on making and eating fufu so all of you are going to enjoy when i come home;) hahaha. at 5 we came back to the chapel for cleaning and for seminary and we had a lot of fun. Saturday was also the day for "Transfer News" where we find out who is getting transferred in the zone and how it affects us. be fore we got any news i got a call from the APs......they said that they were calling on behalf of president shulz and they said that they had a new assignment for me. they told me that my district leader was being transferred to another are and that i was called to be the new district leader!!!! what the heck!! i haven't even been here for 5 months yet!!! so needless to say the next little while is going to be interesting!! im gonna need your prayers! but i am going to do my best to fulfill the assignment the lord has given to me. Also, president shulz likes the district leaders to stay for a while once their called so i think that means im probably gonna be in tarkwa for at least a few more months, so i might not be goin to a new area till christmas or something but i guess we'll just have to see!!!

Sunday was also a great day. we had an awesome day for church but only a few investigators showed up. but after church we were able to meet with some people and give them baptismal dates so that was exciting.

today has been great too and we are going to the branch presidents house for FHE after this:)

Keep having fun everyone with the last couple weeks of summer and be safe and work hard!!! i love you all!!!

Love, Elder Bradley McGuire

Working Hard!

Dear family!

It sounds like everyone is doing well and im happy to hear it! keep it up!

the week here in tarkwa was great and we got a lot done!!

tuesday was district meeting as usual and it went well, we came back to our area and just worked hard and had some really good lessons that night.

Wednesday was sweet. it was work work work. we found some new people that are awesome and i hope we can get somewhere with them. Wednesday morning when we were planning what to teach an investigator we both had no idea what to do so we got down on our knees and prayed and it was awesome!!! we came up with a few ideas and they ended up being perfect for what he needed and the lesson was powerful!! prayer is amazing and heavenly father really does hear and answer our prayers.

Thursday was a good day. we have this investigator that we have been teaching since before i got here and he knows everything about the church and he knows its true but he doesnt come to church!! so finally we layed it down and said that we wouldnt come anymore unless he started coming to church. i hated doing that because i love the guy to death and he is awesome. but guess what?! it worked!! he came to church! if he keeps coming the next couple weeks he will be able to be baptized! i really hope he makes it!!

Friday was a great day we had some good lessons. one in particular stood out, i was probably as bold as i have ever been when teaching a lesson. we have been teaching a guy for the last month and he has done well. but he doesnt really take the book of mormon seriously because he loves the bible and says everything in the bom is in the bible. so i went and read 2nd Nephi 29 which kinda rags on the bible and people who say that only the bible should be used. it was bold but i think he got the message and actually it ended really well. Friday was also Samuel's interview for his baptism and he did great!! after the interview elder keetch and I went with our district leader and his comp to a resturaunt and got PIZZA!!!! it was sooo good and i  was soo happy!

Saturday was long!! we woke up studied and then went with a member to a village about 30 minutes away to teach a lesson and when we got there the guy we were going to teach didnt even show up! and we had to hurry back to the church for sams baptism. but when we got back the town was completely out of water!! the branch president thought we should wait for a while to see if it would come but it never did. so we decided to have the baptism on sunday. so we went out to teach some lessons and everyone we planned to see didnt show up and we ended up contacting for 3 hours! then we came back to the church and had seminary and we had fun!! the lesson was on unity so i taught all the kids how to do the human knot. they figured out that they had to work together to get untangled and they all had fun.

Sunday was a great day. church was awesome and we had a bunch of investigators come, including raymond so we can keep seeing him. after church there still wasnt any water so we headed to takoradi to the stake center to do the baptism. we had a whole 5 people there and we had a nice little baptismal service. it actually was great and sam was sooo excited to be baptized and i was soo excited too so i got to baptize him and it went great. we came back and went to a members house and had fufu with sam to celebrate and then taught a couple lessons to finish out the day.

Today has been good and they came and Fixed our font AGAIN so hopefully it wont be leaking again. ive got my fingers crossed!!! thanks everyone for being so amazing and supporting me out here!! i love you all!!!

HAve a great week!!

Love, Elder Bradley McGuire

Busy Week!

Elder McGuire is on fire! He is really doing great, and we are so grateful that he's doing so good! Here's the new update for the week! I can't believe he's teaching seminary! It's all so exciting.

Dear Family,

Im glad to hear that everyone is doing well and that you are all happy and smiling! i was really sad when i heard the news about grandma but i was also relieved in a way she is definitely in a better place now:)

the week here in tarkwa was great!
Tuesday we had district meeting and since we were traveling all of monday we came back and did all of our shopping and washing and luckily we still had time to teach 2 lessons before the end of the night

Wednesday was a sweet day and we taught a bunch of lessons. We have a lot of people to teach right now and we are working our best to prepare them for baptism. this coming saturday we are having another baptism for a young man named Samuel who is just amazing!! he is like my brother out here and im sure we knew each other really well before we came to this earth. i am so excited!!!!!! he is incredible and is totally ready! since we had so many people to teach we missed midweek with the branch and taught instead.

Thursday was just like wednesday all teaching and all work, and our members are giving us referrals like crazy!! we are having a hard time keeping up with everything and are doing our best to stay organized with it all, i really hope president shulz decides to send more missionaries soon!!!! tarkwa is too big to only have 2 missionaries here!

Friday we did splits with the zone leaders and it was awesome!!!! i got to stay in tarkwa and Elder Durfey came and worked with me. it was nice to learn from him. i love splits because you get to see different styles of teaching and learn new ways to present things. Elder Durfey loves country music so we spent the whole day singing our favorite songs walking to different lessons. it was a lot of fun!

Satruday we switched back and since we are 2 hours away from the ZL's area it took us till noon to get back in to our area, but we worked hard and still had a nice day of teaching. then at 5 we came to the chapel for cleaning and also for seminary. the branch seminary teacher moved about a month ago so i am the new seminary teacher and i actually love it! we have some awesome youth in the branch and they are all awesome!!

Sunday was a great day. it was fast and testimony sunday and there were a lot of our investigators who came to church. We also Confirmed Abigail a member and she was sooo happy. after church we went to a members for lunch and we had fun talking with the whole family (who arent members) after that we went and taught a few good lessons and made some visits to people we havent seen in a while. we also got more referrals!! man i love it when members help us!!

Today has been nice and relaxing and i am ready to get back to work!!!! As for package requests, i would love some maple so i can make syrup, any candy i would love!! also maybe beef jerkey??:) i think that would be great!!! i love you all and hope you have an amazing week!!!!!

Love, Elder Bradley McGuire

Another "AWESOME" week!

Dear Family!!!

This week has been.......what do you think im gonna say??!!....It was Awesome!!! we have just been so busy we are having a hard time keeping up with everything but it is all going awesome!!

Tuesday we had district meeting in Agona, about an hours tro ride away, and it was really good. we talked about goals and heard some good instruction from our district leader, then afterwards we all went and got fufu and talked. when we were in getting a tro back to tarkwa we saw some younger white girls and it was really weird. seeing white people is not normal here so we didnt know what to think....hahaha but then we looked at our selves and said "oh yeah! haha i forgot!" i guess thats what everyone else thinks when they see us!

Wednesday was full of surprises. i woke up in the morning and just felt like i should go check on the chapel up stairs. when i got inside the entire place was flooded!! on of the toilets had been leaking since sunday and there was water all over the floor!! so we spent the next 3 hours mopping and cleaning up and we still managed to study and get out to teaching by 11. Its been raining a lot lately but we have just been truckin through it and we have been teaching a lot of lessons so the rest of the day was just work work work.

Thursday Rained almost the whole day. sometimes it does this cool thing where the rain is really misty and it actually falls almost exactly like snow! so we just walked through it all day, we still got pretty wet but it wasnt too bad. we have started getting a bunch of new investigators and they are all super awesome!!!! elder keetch and  i are working well together and we have been able to teach and teach with the spirit and it has been amazing!!!

Friday we went on splits because we had a baptism coming up and the candidate needed to be interviewed so elder keetch went to nkroful and our district leader elder beck came and we had a fun day and worked hard. the interview went well and the girl was ready for baptism. her name is Abigail Arthur and she is awesome!! that night we went to the hotel by our place and got pizza!!!! it was incredible!! i miss pizza so much!haha

Saturday we woke up early and went to nkroful. i picked up elder keetch and we came back to tarkwa. now that trip is about 2 hours one way so i was traveling for almost 5 hours saturday. so we worked hard for the rest of the day and that night i taught seminary for the youth.

Sunday was sweet!!! we Had a baptism and it went well. They have tried so many things to fix our font but its still leaking. but it was okay because we had enough water for sitting baptism. Abigail wanted elder keetch to baptize her so he was way excited and so was i! it was awesome!! then after church we went to a members and had lunch. After that we went and visited a guy that we had talked to on the street a week before and we had an Awesome lesson!!! the spirit was sooo strong and we will definitely be working very close with this guy. after the lesson we did some visits with members for the rest of the night and it was all awesome.

Today we are in takoradi and we played basketball today and had a blast!!! i got a letter from krissy today!! and i cant wait to read it tonight! I also got 2 letters from shar that ive been waiting for for a long time so i was pretty dang happy:)

I was sad when i read that Grandma Bradley passed away today but i am also happy. she really has gone to a better place and her and grandpa are very happy right now. and now im sure she is working hard sharing the gospel. i hope you are all doing that back home!!!  i love all of you!!! please send me pics of the reunion and the funeral this week:)

Love, Elder McGuire

Great Week!

Another GREAT week in Ghana! Here's the details.

Dear family!

So another week come and gone haha and what am i gonna say........it was awesome!!!! it sounds like you guys are having a great time at home!!! tell everyone hi at the reunion for me!!! and i will ask for the same thing. letters from everyone!!!! i want to hear how they are all doing!!!!

So heres the week. On tuesday we went in to takoradi for a combined district meeting again and president shulz came and instructed on repentance and it was soooo awesome!!!! it helped a lot for how we should be teaching our investigators. after the meeting was over we went and got this food called red red which i love! its fried plantain and beans with this stuff called Gari(basically the same stuff as farofa) and it was awesome. then we headed back for tarkwa. when we got back we taught some good lessons and the day was over all a success.

Wednesday was great and we were super busy!!!! we had a lesson for every hour that we were proselyting and only 1 of them fell through so we didnt even have time to breath! and all the lessons we had were great!!! we are finding a lot of new people and we are preparing a lot for baptism. august is going to be a big month for us and im excited!!!!

Thursday was a sweet day because President and Sister Bybee came out to tarkwa and they gave us haircuts and fed us lunch and it was Chicken salad Sandwiches and it was soooooo awesome!!! definitely the best meal ive had so far out here!! then we took them all over tarkwa!! tarkwa is huge and they didnt know just how huge so we showed them the entire town and showed them a few places that new groups will be starting soon. the work really is moving along at a fast pace here and i cant wait to keep working for it. so after a few hours the bybees had to head back to takoradi and so they dropped us off, and once again we were busy teaching lessons for the rest of the day.

Friday and saturday were also hard working days too. teaching lessons doing small acts of service and talking to everyone in sight!!!! we have gotten a ton of contacts and a bunch of potential new investigators that we are optimistic about and are excited to begin teaching.

Sunday was awesome! and a little interesting too.....so i woke up to the phone ringing at 5:30 in the morning and it was a guy that we had contacted the day before and he was drunk when we met him. He called and told me that he was at the gates of the church(also out apartment) and that he was ready for church and he was just soooo excited!!! I told him that church didnt start for almost 4 hours!!!! he said he didnt care he wanted to wait so we let him in to the chapel and suprisingly he was dressed in slacks and a white shirt. we decided to change really quick and take advantage of the time we had and go teach him. so we taught him the entire first lesson and committed him to baptism. I was worried at the start because i thought he might be drunk but he was wide awake and very serious about everything so we are cautiously optimistic about him. so he ended up being at the church for 7 hours yesterday!!! church went well and we got to teach some of our investigators in the third hour and also prepared a 14 year old girl for baptism. she will be baptized this coming sunday and i hope that everything goes well for her!! im excited! after church we went to a members house and had lunch then a few of the ysa came over and we had a lesson with them. then one of them showed up late and he brought a friend with him and we ended up talking with him for 2 hours about the church and about questions he had for us!! we will be meeting with him again on tuesday and hopefully we will be able to teach him. by the time that was all over it was time to head back to the apartment. when we were adding up numbers for the week we ended up teaching 23 lessons this week!!!!!! that is crazy considering the norm to be 15-17 lessons. we have been working hard and its starting to pay off!!! i cant wait to see where it all goes!!!

Mom i had to read the email a couple times when you said you rode 40 miles!!!!! holy cow thats awesome!!!!! you are going to have to help me get back in shape when i get home!!!!

i hope everyone is happy and doing good!!! keep it up and be safe!!! love you all!!!

Love, Elder McGuire

He's Training!

Sounds like he's had an awesome week, especially hanging out with his new comp! It's so cool that Elder Keetch knows our cousin Jennie!

Dear family!!!!

Okay so this week has been AWESOME!!!!!!! so ill start from monday

Monday night we had fhe with our branch president and then came home. elder moleme spent a long time packing up all of his stuff and getting ready to go.

Tuesday morning we woke up early and left with all of elder molemes bags and headed to takoradi for combined district meeting. we had district meeting and it went awesome! then afterwards we got food and shopped around takoradi for a while then. elder moleme and another elder from our district who was being transferred left and went and stayed with the Zone leaders so me and the companion to the other elder who was leaving went back to his apartment in Nkroful where elder cardon is. i spent the night there and we had fun talking and playing games. then wednesday morning came and. Elder ighama and i went and proselyted in his area for a little while and then around 3 we had to head back to takoradi to pick up our new companions!!

when i got there my trainee was waiting for me. His name is Elder Tyler Keetch! he is from highland utah and actually knows Jennie!!! his father is also Elder Keetch who is the area authority in northern utah so Dad might know him!!!! oh yeah he is also 6' 5". the whole time i was with elder moleme i was the giant one but now ive become the shrimp hahaha. so anyway i met up with elder keetch then President and Sister Bybee drove us back to tarkwa. we made it back around 7:30, just in time for something we call midweek.(its like mutual for the whole ward but only about 10 people ever come). So elder keetch got to meet some of the members that night and start learning the language out here. that night i also made Hamburgers!!!! they were super good and it was the first time we had anything like it here! elder keetch was super happy

So the last few days have just been work work work and i am training so it has been pretty fun!! but i do have a lot more responsibility now and its a lot of work. but elder keetch has been awesome and we are already super good friends. we get along really well and we are teaching a lot. we have this couple that we have been preparing for baptism for a while now and we found out that they arent married. we thought the whole time that they were because they act like it but they actually arent so we had to push their baptismal date back. Marraige here is a big problem here because they have to perform all of these traditional rights and its a super long process and it is really really expensive! but hopefully they will work it out soon.

So something incredible is happening. i can speak the language and i am actually doing really well! when elder moleme was here things were hard and i couldnt say very much but all of the sudden in the last 2 weeks i have been able to say a ton and i can understand almost everything people say so i am super happy about that! it makes things a lot easier and the people are way more willing to talk with us when we speak.

This week has been awesome and i hope you guys are doing good! i was sitting studying saturday morning when i realized that the westfork opener was this weekend and i freaked out!!!!! i hope you took some pictures!!! kait sent me one but you guys should send some more!!! hahahaha I hope dan caught something this year! hahahaha jk bro!!! anyway have an awesome week!!!! i love you all!!!

Love, Elder McGuire