Week 26

Hi all,
I am doing really good! I've had a really great week! Elder Goje and I worked really hard to contact new investigators and it paid off. We were able to find and teach 13 new people and 6 of them came to church  yesterday so that was really SWEET!
We ended up getting a referral from the Stake President's daughter. The referral just happened to be a friend of hers and they go to school together. Her name is Sarah and she is 14. Sarah's little sister, Precious is also very interested in becoming a member of the church. We met them for the first time on Thursday and we invited them to church and they both ended up coming. Sarah heard some people bare their testimonies and so she wrote her own testimony down. After church we went to visit them and asked if they had any questions. Sarah told us that she had written down her testimony and wanted to read to us. So we listened to her read her very simple but powerful testimony.
I gave a talk in sacrament meeting and my topic was "The joy that we get from service". I shared the parable that Jesus taught about service found in Matthew 25:34-40 and Mosiah 2:17, 41. As we keep the commandments from God we will be blessed in all things. We are all here on earth for the same reason and we all go through different trials. We need to help each other along the way and we can do that by making someones burdens lighter. We need to serve each other and show our love for our neighbors and for our Savior and our Father in Heaven.

-Elder Rasmussen

Elder Holmes and I went on exchanges this week.

All the little shops by our house look like this one. 

Before we came to town this morning.

By Brooke

Week 25

Hi All,
This week Elder Goje and I had a tough time finding new people but were able to find 4 new investigators so that was good but not good enough. We aim for 8 new investigators each week but normally we get around 6-7 a week. I think one of our baptisms will go through but we are going to have to push it back. This baptism would be for Tabokah but we haven't been able to meet up with him because he has been out of town.
Yeah I do see all my recent converts all the time. They always come to church which is good.
The bugs are starting to get worse here. I have been sleeping with a bug net over my bed at night just so I don't get bit.
I really love being a missionary even though sometimes it is tough. I know the Lord really does help us and guides us. The Spirit is so helpful and we wouldn't even know what to do if we didn't have the Spirit with us. It is important that we strive to be obedient to the rules so that we will always have the Spirit to be with us.

Elder Rasmussen

Elder Goje and I waiting for a taxi. 

I climbed the water tower at the church.

 By Brooke

Week 24

Hi everyone, I am doing really good. We did end up staying inside on Thursday and Friday morning.
We stayed busy by playing some games and our mission president told us we could watch movies that were put out by the church. There wasn't much that happened in our area but for safety precaution we had to stay in just in case something were to happen.

A little background on my comp Elder Goje...
he is from a place called East London and he is the only child from his mother and father but he has 10 siblings that his father has had with other ladies. He is the only member in his family. Before the mission he ran his own company that did yard cleaning and maintenance.  He also has a degree in Civil Engineering.

Transfers were this weekend and I found out that I am staying with Elder Goje in the same area for 6 more weeks.

On Tuesday we meet taught a guy named Tahbokah for the first time. Normally when we teach someone for the first time we take most of the time getting to know each other and then we share what we are there to do and then we share a little message with them. This time was a little different, when we were talking to him I had the strongest impression to give him a baptismal date. Then I started to talk about authority and how we can trace this church back to Jesus Christ and that we need to be baptized by someone with that authority and then I asked him if he wanted to be baptized by someone who held that authority from God and he said... yes! We are planning to baptize him on August 18th and we will continue helping him so he will be ready by then.

The Spirit is so helpful and always guides us in the way God wants us to go to find those who are seeking the truth.

Love,
Elder Rasmussen

Me with some donkeys.

Our last Sunday with Elder Banks and we all wore the same tie.

Elder Goje 

Week 23

This week has been pretty good and I'm doing great! The lessons with the investigators are going really well. We have been working with about 20 investigators and we picked up 7 new ones and three of them have baptism dates. The three who have baptism dates are Walter who is 25, Wayne who is 20 and Prosper and he is 15, they are all brothers. We contacted them by just knocking on their door, they wanted to here more so we set up a time to come back and teach them. We are planning to baptize them on August 18. We also meet this Baba and his name is Earnest, he is about 60 years old and seems really interested he loved the message we shared with him and he wants to know more. We are confident that he will be a solid investigator. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and we just mentioned Joseph Smith and he told us that he had a Bible that says Joseph Smith in it and so we were a little confused because we thought he was trying to say Jon Smith. He is a guy that was a big pastor here along time ago. And he has had bibles published so that is who we thought he was talking about. He went to grab his Bible and it was the King James version so we thought that was pretty cool.
We still have hot water to shower in and it is so nice!
P-day has been good we went to play pool and then to buy some trinkets.
We had zone conference  this week and the mission president has made some more changes.
This week we will be doing missionary work but we might have to stay inside due to the elections.

Me in my area.

I went on exchanges with Elder Basoah he is form the UK.

Last week on p-day Elder Goje ate a whole chicken by himself.