Hey people hope everyone is doing great this week. I myself am doing great right now, but I got hit with an ear infection last week. I don't think I've had an ear infection this bad, but it was not fun and basically immobilized me on Thursday. I couldn't really think of anything to do for it either so I told our mission nurse and she told me I could come to Area office in Accra to get it checked by the area office doctor, but I didn't want to have to waste a whole day traveling just for my ear hurting so I took some Ibuprofen and went on for the day.
This week was really frustrating for teaching. The first couple weeks I was doing most of the teaching and just letting Elder Siafa testify and add any comments he had. This week I let him take the lead in most of the lessons and he did a whole lot better then I would have when I first came on mission, but we got in a couple of arguments in lessons over doctrine which resulted in bible bashing which is never really fun. Our first instinct is to prove people wrong of what they believe using scripture, but that's really ineffective. One instance was with a woman who was a seventh day adventist that we contacted. She absolutely loves her church and says she will never leave. I asked her what are the things she liked about her church and was able to teach her some doctrine of our church without it feeling like we were trying to pull her away from her church. It went really well and then at the end of the lesson Elder Siafa pulled out some scriptures that talked about how the sabbath day was moved to the ''Lords Day'' or Sunday after Christ was resurrected again and the whole feeling of the lesson changed from getting to know each other to both of us defending our faiths. Oh well! It's a good experience for him and he's learning same as me. Another frustration this week was teaching Ruth about the Book of Mormon. We tried to teach her why the people in the Book of Mormon weren't named in the Bible and spent about 20 minutes explaining it and at the end she said ''Ohhh okay I understand!'' and then 5 minutes later after reading 1 Nephi 1 she asked us ''Why aren't these people named in the Bible?'' She's really sweet, but it's so frustrating teaching people something knew because they hold onto what they grew up knowing. I think a lot of the less educated people in Ghana believe that the Bible is the complete worlds history and if they here something that wasn't written in it, then it didn't happen.
During the week I felt like my ability to testify about the Book of Mormon has decreased. So I prayed a lot about it and studied a lot from the Book of Mormon. During church I was reading 2 Nephi 25: 20-30. Which talks about the purpose of the Law of Moses and how it was just the temporary law until Christ comes. My favorite verse is 25 which says ''And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.'' It made me really think that everything they did back then was to point people to Jesus Christ whether it was burnt offerings or anything else. Everything points to Jesus Christ. Everything they were commanded to do by the law was to point them to the coming of a Christ. I was thinking it's kind of the same way right now. When we are asked to do something by our leaders it's to point us to Jesus Christ. It is to lead us unto repentance so we can have a remission of our sins THROUGH HIM. Our callings in Elder's quorum, relief society, primary, home teaching, visiting teaching. All of these are to help the growth of the church, but if we look deeper it's all to point us to Christ, because as we more fully magnify our callings we talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ, preach of Christ, and prophesy of Christ. I'm so grateful that our church has a correct understanding of Jesus Christ so that we can more closely follow him and his example. As I'm serving a mission it's not only to serve the people of Ghana, but it is to lead me to Christ and to gain more knowledge of him.
This passage in the Book of Mormon really helped me with helping me be able to testify of it stronger and I know as I continue to read and learn new things that I'll continue to testify stronger. Hopefully all of you are reading the Book of Mormon every day so that you can do the same!
Sorry I don't have pictures this week I'll take some more next week!
Love you all!
Elder Little man Pudge Smith
This week was really frustrating for teaching. The first couple weeks I was doing most of the teaching and just letting Elder Siafa testify and add any comments he had. This week I let him take the lead in most of the lessons and he did a whole lot better then I would have when I first came on mission, but we got in a couple of arguments in lessons over doctrine which resulted in bible bashing which is never really fun. Our first instinct is to prove people wrong of what they believe using scripture, but that's really ineffective. One instance was with a woman who was a seventh day adventist that we contacted. She absolutely loves her church and says she will never leave. I asked her what are the things she liked about her church and was able to teach her some doctrine of our church without it feeling like we were trying to pull her away from her church. It went really well and then at the end of the lesson Elder Siafa pulled out some scriptures that talked about how the sabbath day was moved to the ''Lords Day'' or Sunday after Christ was resurrected again and the whole feeling of the lesson changed from getting to know each other to both of us defending our faiths. Oh well! It's a good experience for him and he's learning same as me. Another frustration this week was teaching Ruth about the Book of Mormon. We tried to teach her why the people in the Book of Mormon weren't named in the Bible and spent about 20 minutes explaining it and at the end she said ''Ohhh okay I understand!'' and then 5 minutes later after reading 1 Nephi 1 she asked us ''Why aren't these people named in the Bible?'' She's really sweet, but it's so frustrating teaching people something knew because they hold onto what they grew up knowing. I think a lot of the less educated people in Ghana believe that the Bible is the complete worlds history and if they here something that wasn't written in it, then it didn't happen.
During the week I felt like my ability to testify about the Book of Mormon has decreased. So I prayed a lot about it and studied a lot from the Book of Mormon. During church I was reading 2 Nephi 25: 20-30. Which talks about the purpose of the Law of Moses and how it was just the temporary law until Christ comes. My favorite verse is 25 which says ''And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.'' It made me really think that everything they did back then was to point people to Jesus Christ whether it was burnt offerings or anything else. Everything points to Jesus Christ. Everything they were commanded to do by the law was to point them to the coming of a Christ. I was thinking it's kind of the same way right now. When we are asked to do something by our leaders it's to point us to Jesus Christ. It is to lead us unto repentance so we can have a remission of our sins THROUGH HIM. Our callings in Elder's quorum, relief society, primary, home teaching, visiting teaching. All of these are to help the growth of the church, but if we look deeper it's all to point us to Christ, because as we more fully magnify our callings we talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ, preach of Christ, and prophesy of Christ. I'm so grateful that our church has a correct understanding of Jesus Christ so that we can more closely follow him and his example. As I'm serving a mission it's not only to serve the people of Ghana, but it is to lead me to Christ and to gain more knowledge of him.
This passage in the Book of Mormon really helped me with helping me be able to testify of it stronger and I know as I continue to read and learn new things that I'll continue to testify stronger. Hopefully all of you are reading the Book of Mormon every day so that you can do the same!
Sorry I don't have pictures this week I'll take some more next week!
Love you all!
Elder Little man Pudge Smith