"I'm going to miss this place like crazy. It's going to be hard to leave, I love it here...."

September 29, 2014

Family,

Well this week was another good one for Elder Zaugg and I. We really

tried to contact and go places where we haven’t gone before. We have

definitely met some sweet people! 

Both Helen and Brother Jonathan were confirmed and received the Holy

 Ghost. Elder Zaugg confirmed Jonathan

and I confirmed sister Helen and then I conferred the Aaronic

Priesthood on brother Jonathan. He was so happy and even happy to find

out that he will be able to bless the sacrament next week! We gave him

a triple combo to start reading and gaining a better understanding of

the function of the church. He has also been really teaching his wife,

who is just as sweet as him, but doesn’t speak English and so the

process has been slower with her, but she came to church on Sunday and

told us that she has received her answer and wants to baptize on October

12th! So we are happy with that and grateful for her desire! Both her

and Jonathan were very active in their former church but once we started to

teach them their hearts were softened and they understood what they

needed to do! They received lots of persecution about leaving the

church but we really taught them about fearing God and not fearing

man. In fact, I forgot to tell you that Jonathan spoke

yesterday on that topic of "fearing God and not fearing man" he did so

good for his first talk in the church! He came with a sheet of paper

that had writing on front and back and talked for  20 minutes! He is

a stud and sister Helen was also happy! She is a little more reserved

but still great! We are going to get both families a picture of the

temple and set it up in their house and a couple of family guide

books! The members are all excited with how the Lord is hastening the

work but they are always super busy and so it’s tough to go out

teaching with them. We still get chance to meet with them for like 20

minutes a couple times a week but that’s about it.

This week we had water problems where there wasn’t any water at all.  But the

lucky thing is we had heavy rain storms.  Elder Zaugg and I were

outside catching water where it ran off from the house in buckets

and then we would run over and fill our poly tank (a 500-gallon

water tank) just so we could shower and wash our dishes. There was

light off (no electricity) quite a bit but it's chill I’m used to it.  I’m way down to

just sleep on Kraymer's floor with my mosquito net..... It’s going to be

weird not to have one. Gosh, for sure I’m going to miss this place like

crazy! It’s going to be hard to leave, I love it here....

Oh ya monkeys can carry Ebola but I didn’t think of that really... I

think you have to eat the monkey that is affected with it, but lets

pray I don’t get anything. haha. I actually got a mean cataarh(cold) and

it was making my eyes watery and sneezy... it was good for spiritual

lessons though. Haha. Elder Zaugg got it earlier in the week and he gave

it to me so I had it at the end of the week, but I’m ok now.... didn’t think

it was possible to get a cold in Africa!

Well family, I love you all and hope you have a great week! Remember

the small things!

Elder Eppich

The first baptisms EVER in Hoeho, Ghana

first baptism ever in Hoeho, Ghana

Elder Eppich

Elder Eppich and brother Jonathan

Brother Gameli and sister Helen

newest members of Hoehoe group

September 22, 2014

Family,

Well this week was a great week! It was a little stressful at first

but finished great!

Everything was going good until Tuesday when we

got a call saying that the older missionaries needed to be in Accra

the next day to renew their national non citizen ID cards. This

really messed up our plans because the next day Elder Cosgrave was

going to come up to Hohoe to do our special interviews for Helen and

Jonathan. Luckily we were able to figure out that Elder Zaugg would

be able to stay in Ho with another missionary and then go up to Hohoe

on Wednesday to do the interviews while I went to Accra, so that’s

what happened.

Tuesday night we went to Ho, spent the night, and then

embarked on our travels to Accra and back. Once we got the cards we

went to KFC (Elder West, Mackay, Fausett, Crandall and I) and then

Elder West, Mackay and I headed back up to Ho, spent Wednesday night in

Ho and continued our way to Hohoe Thursday morning. When I had asked

Elder and Sister Cosgrave about how the interviews went they said it

went superb! He said brother Jonathan looked like a future patriarch

of the Ho stake in the future years and Sister Helen was not a whit

behind him, so that really made us happy!

So the next problem we needed to worry about was the

 baptismal place.... we had the option to

travel 45 mins or so to Kpando to do it in their font but that would

be expensive and no support from the Group. The next option was

possibly a swimming pool, a not serious man that had a swimming pool

said it would cost us 1500 ghc to prep the pool for Sunday so we said

no to that and the next option was a small river that runs through

Hohoe. So Elder Zaugg and I kept looking around and finally found a

perfect spot for the baptism! We were both super pumped for Sunday!

On Saturday we went and visited sister Helen and she was ready for

baptism and wanted her husband, Gameli, to baptize her. Brother Gameli is

an accountant and super humble, loving man. He was baptized 8 yrs. ago

in Kpong but moved to Hohoe where there was no church. So he was more

then happy to baptize his wife! Then we also visited brother Jonathan

and we discussed about the procedures of baptism and how he needs to

be completely immersed for the baptism to be successful so that is when

he said he wanted me to baptize him because I was taller and longer

than Elder Zaugg and can ensure a successful baptism! haha He is so

awesome! He is loving and fired up for the gospel! He has found the

truth and it has set him free. My prayer is that we can ordain him an

Elder before I go home! He can progress and help the Group

out so much! (He was the man that we have no idea of who called him

and told him exactly where the church was at!)

 So Sunday came around and had a great service and we all headed to the river side after the

service and got prepared for the baptism! It went pretty well, the

only problem is that bro Gameli couldn’t baptize sister Helen all the

way so I had to hop in and help him out. Sister Helen is like 5

months pregnant, so that dang belly was poking out too much

haha... oh I almost forgot that the last week it had been raining so much

that it raised our small little river close to 4-5 feet and every one

was saying that we can’t do the baptism because the water is too high

and I’m like"the more water the better" John 3:23 haha (And John also was 

baptized in Enon near to Salim because there was much water there: and

 they came, and were baptized.” it was all great

and a day to remember! Jonathan was so happy and it all surprised us

when we found out that yesterday was his birthday!!! How awesome is

that to be baptized on your birthday! I think he is 74 yrs. old but

doesn’t look over 55 except his white hair! We got nice pictures and I

hope you will be able to get some of them!

Then to make everything

else even better today Daniel (the man that called you mom) Elder Zaugg

and I went to the monkey sanctuary today and the monkeys were crazy

comfortable with us.... right when they saw our tour guide

caring bananas towards them they all came running and jumping all

over him! We would have 2-4 monkeys on us at a time!(does he not know that the Ebola virus is carried in monkeys?! Ughhh) I can’t wait to

take mom and dad there! You will love it! hopefully Ebola stays away! (ya me too J)

haha then we returned from our little trip and we all went to the

market and made some nice jollof (special rice) and chicken! super fun

Pday! Daniel is an amazing man!

Well family, I love you all and hope you have a great week! Choose the right.

Elder Kade Eppich

Elder Eppich hopefully holding a non Ebola virus carrying monkey :)

"study the scriptures and apply them to your life"

September 16, 2014

Family,

Well this week was a good week for us again as we are trying to use

our time wisely and effectively. 

Brother Jonathan and Helen are both progressing very well 

and we are trying our best to prepare them for

next week! Brother Jonathan is set for his baptism and sister Helen is

still praying about it. They all came to church and enjoyed it and

have lots of questions. Both of them will have to have interviews

this week so were hoping that all the timing will be good and it will

all get accomplished! 

We were down in Ho at the beginning of the week

for a zone training and I’m not going to lie it was nice not to worry

about giving instruction and worrying about all of that stuff haha.

Elder Zaugg and I are enjoying together and it has been fun being his

companion. We are praying we stay together one more transfer but we will

see what happens!

 It's been raining a lot and also light off (no electricity) quite a

bit which is super lame but I’ve just kind of gotten used to sleeping

without the fan but then when it comes on at night it gets super

cold!!! (Its probably not that cold just feels that way!)

 We had 17 people at church this Sunday. It wasn’t what we

were hoping for but we will have to just work harder this week! 

I have been really loving my personal study the last month and have learned

so much! I pray I will take the time to study a lot when I get home.

When I was AP I never got a chance to have a good personal study and companion

study so this has really been awesome to get that back again! I continue to

hope that all of you are not taking the scriptures lightly and

reading them as often as you can and not just reading but studying and

trying to apply them to your life. Have a great week.... much

Love.... pray for sister Helen and brother Jonathan....

Elder Eppich

Africa Service Day - August 16, 2014
(I found this picture online)

"I’m so blessed to be serving in such a great area and learning from these wonderful people."

Hoeho

Wli Falls

Hoeho

September 8, 2014

Family,

Wow what a great week we had! It rained a lot but we were still able to work hard and have some sweet lessons! One of the lessons was with a member's wife named, Helen who is very quiet but smart. She asked us an inspired question when we were teaching the plan of Salvation and specifically the Spirit World. She asked us "is there anything that we can do here on this earth for those souls that are stuck in Spirit prison" and we were like what?? Are you serious? It blew our minds of her understanding and curiosity. So we taught her about baptism for the dead and it really helped her out! She is awesome lady and the spirit was super strong in that lessons. That just started our weekend off with a bang! Had a great opportunity to fast and then in my opinion, Sunday's Fast and Testimony service was probably one of the greatest sacrament meetings I have ever attended in my whole life! Elder Zaugg would agree!

It all started Sunday morning when we were actually worried about how it would all turn out because of our members not willing to stand up and bear their testimonies... We were both wrong. After I had shared my Testimony with the congregation of about 18 or so at the time, member after member was getting up and bearing their testimony of this great church! Every single member there were (6) stood up and bore an amazing testimony that really brought the spirit, but that wasn’t all, that was just the beginning. 

So To help you understand everything that is going on..last week we had a random man come to church whose name is Jonathan and he told us after the church service that a random number called him last week and told him about the new Group of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints had been started in Hohoe and that he wanted him to come... Jonathan has no idea who the man was or what number he used.... he tried to call him back but it wouldn’t go through.... interesting right? Maybe one of the three nephities has a cell phone because this man is correct and they knew this man needed the true church. We taught him about baptism that Sunday and he loved it and knew he needed to baptize so we gave him a baptismal date.

On Friday we went and visited him and his family in a village outside of Hohoe which we can only go out there once a week because of time and cost. We find out that he had 12 children and was an assemblyman (kind of like a mayor for a small village) all of his children are grown up because Jonathan is like 70...anyways when we taught him his wife and one of their daughters. They continued to love what we shared and the mother gave us four of their children’s phone number that we can go and teach them! Two live in Hohoe so we went and got a hold of them and one of them name is Celestine who is married and has two kids super nice lady and she promised to come to church.  

So let me get back to sacrament service...after all the members had bore their testimony,  there was like 15 mins left and Jonathan was the first investigator to pop up and let me tell you.... he bore a beautiful testimony of the church! You would have thought that he was a member already! He talked about the priesthood, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and everything. We have only sat down with him twice. The guy is super sweet! And almost brought tears to my eyes! Gosh I wish I could have recorded his testimony after that three  more investigators also bore an awesome testimony! And two of them it was only their first time, and one of them was Brother Jonathan's daughters (Celestine) who we received her as a referral from her father. We taught her on Saturday and she came to church Sunday! She just loved the feeling that she had when she walked into the church and is definitely going to come back with her husband. It’s hard to describe the feelings that we had at the end of that service! I’m so blessed to be serving in such a great area and learning from these wonderful people.

 But even that is not all.... Sister Celestine had invited us over to enjoy some fufu and teach her and her family and to our surprise her father Jonathan was at her house and we had a great FM but also a great lesson. Whenever she asked a question about the church we would let brother Jonathan try and answer it to the best of his understanding and he did great! It was like a member present lesson! He has been searching for a long time and is so worried about his salvation and what will happen to him, that he was truly prepared for us to come to Hohoe! The Lord sent us here at the right time! So hopefully sister Helen and brother Jonathan will be prepared enough for baptism on the 21st.....

Ya mom that was funny when he asked us for someone’s phone number back home because he had 5 mins of free call to the US and he loved talking to you. Daniel is a stud and is one of a kind. He will come and visit us in the states!' He just needs a visa!(I got a phone call from a member on Wednesday, It was awesome he said how grateful he is for Elder Eppich and that he is doing a "wonderful work"..needless to say, he made my day) That is awesome about Elder Dowuoana-Hammond he seems sweet and I cant wait to meet him! (Elder Dowuona-Hammond is an elder from Ghana serving in the Washington Kennewick mission, serving in Othello. Todd and I went and met he and his comp Friday night) Too bad I didn’t meet his father! (His father went to the mission home last week to meet Elder Eppich but he had already been transferred  He said he is going to travel all the way to Hoeho to meet him!)

Oh also to make Sunday even better is right before church started, I got a call from a RC couple who were walking to church and they just called and thanked me for helping them find the true church and it was the best feeling ever! It was an amazing Sunday and hard to express in words! 

That is awesome about the new stake presidency! It will be different to go home and get released by president Larsen but it will be great! Well family I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Eppich

Melt my heart....This is Nana, an investigators son

Cute Elder Eppich :)

Dinner at Sister Celestine's house. Fufu