Happy Easter

Elder Van Scheltema and Elder Eppich

April 1, 2013

Family!

Happy Easter! Well this was a good week for me and Elder Van Sceltema. We had two investigators baptized but it was very stressful haha we had to wait a little while (45 min) for both of our investigators to get there so they can be baptized! I was just praying the whole time for them to show up and they finally did! I was super happy for both Prince and Sterling! I know they made one of the best decisions of their life being baptized! Next challenging step is to getting them confirmed. Here in Africa people are on a different time schedule so when sacrament starts about 20 people are there and then when it ends it’s pretty much all full, but if the people who are being confirmed are not there before it starts then they can’t be confirmed and have to wait another week! But they will both be there next week! (They didn’t make it this Sunday). Oh and we had two of our other solid investigators that are supposed to be baptized for our next baptism date. And one of them his name is Greg and is Princes’ best friend so we’re hoping Prince can baptize Greg, which would be so awesome!!

Oh little side note we were walking to our apt and this police truck flies by us and pulls this motorcycle over and like 5 cops jumped out of the back with AK-47 ready to shoot Haha and they searched the guy and found marijuana on the dude and took him away, so it was kinda scary but cool at the same time!

Then on Saturday our ward had a temple trip and Pres Judd likes us going with our recent converts so we got to go and do baptisms for the dead!! It was my first time doing baptisms and the best place to do it for my first time!! It was funny we were waiting for people to change and one of the other set of missionaries investigator was there about to get her clothes to do baptism for the dead and she wasn’t even a member herself!!!!! Haha we were like wow she can’t be here she isn’t a member haha I’m not sure how she got past the front disk but she did and was ready to go lol but she just waited outside the whole time. But when I was doing baptism it was super hard because there were some crazy African names that I had no clue how to pronounce it but just had to a guess and I did pretty well I think! And to make it worse a few of the guys I had to baptized were afraid of the water or something so I had to literally drown them to make them go under Haha it was so hard to do!!

We finally had another crazy storm last night that was shaking our apt!!  Elder Ujifusa and I were going to sleep outside again because the lights were off but then a cold breeze came up and then it started to sprinkle so we hurry and ran inside and then it just started to pour!! But it’s about time it rained again!! I hope it will start to rain more often. But a lot of the times we will see huge/amazing big clouds coming from the north but they will never rain on us for some reason!! I guess when the clouds come from the ocean is when it rains only.

We went to a place called the art center in Accra and it is just like a market place but with art things and there was pretty much every African thing you can think of there!! I didn’t buy anything there because I’m going to wait till later in my mission so I can buy a lot of sweet African art things and bring them home in one piece. Oh and we saw an American from Idaho and I guess he is a bishop so we talked a little, I don’t really like seeing white people haha they’re lame. lol

So we met a new investigator that has his own chop bar. We started to teach him and he told us about his life story how both his parents died 15 yrs ago so he had to quit school and start working, he was sleeping along the side of the road for along time until he found his uncle who took him in for a little bit. Then he learned how to cook and slowly made enough money to start his own chop bar. It was super sad but he is still always happy! I can’t believe it. Once we finished teaching him (kinda hard because he can’t read very well) he said he loved how were we serving the Lord for 2 yrs, he dashed us a free meal!! I couldn’t believe it and didn’t want to take it because he doesn’t have much!! But it makes me absolutely love the people of Ghana and I know God will bless him because he is feeding his soldiers.

The ward is super awesome and they love all the missionaries! Especially because we’re white.

Washing is going ok, I use the little washing tool thing but it still isn’t good enough to get the neck stains out so I just scrub them. You just rub two pieces for the shirt together to get friction. A lot of the time it doesn’t come all the way out and I just leave it because I get tired of doing it Haha I’ll try and send a pic.

Our mission president is super awesome and loving! He is a professor at BYU and has his doctorate degree in psychology so he is super smart and he was an all American football player in high school! So he is just an amazing guy and will probably be a GA.

If you have any other questions just ask me and I’ll try to answer them! But I’m still doing awesome and I love all the letters so keep sending them J this last week I thought a lot about Jesus Christ and everything he has done for all of us!!! We would be helpless, wicked people without him and I’m truly grateful for his atoning sacrifice he has done for all of us! The church is true and Ghanaians are the best people in the world! Love all of you

Elder Eppich JR.

Washing clothes. The blue tool that looks like a plunger is what we sent with him to help wash the clothes. It replaces a washboard and saves his knuckles. This is the first day in the mission field....hence the white skin and "what am I doing here?" expression.

Top ramen and fried egg pizza. Kade said it is delicious but expensive

This picture is a heart breaker! A small child asleep on the side of the road. :(

Bus ride with the ward to the Ghana Accra temple to do baptims