First Christmas Away From Home

Well Merry Christmas everyone!! I will have to say that it was sure different being away from home for Christmas and I sure do miss everyone, but it was a Christmas I don't think I will ever forget.  Unfortunately this week, with all the Christmas celebrating, we didn't teach much because a lot of people travelled and we weren't able to see many people so the teaching was super slow..  I will say it was a good week still though!

Christmas Eve, we went with Moby to his brothers house, which is the only huge nice house i have seen in Ghana so far, and then his brother took us to a really nice hotel which is the only places you can get really nice American food here and we had Chicken and Beef Pizza on Christmas Eve which was sure awesome!!

Christmas morning, we had a zone activity and watched Elf which was awesome just because Elf is hilarious!! Then the zone went to the Station here in Techiman which is where you go if you need to catch a bus anywhere in Ghana. When we went to the Station, we all just started singing Christmas songs and you wouldn't believe how fast we had a crowd of people watching us!! People here usually just stare at us when we walk by because 1- we are white and 2 we are wearing shirt and tie with name tags so everyone thinks we are fbi or something haha. But if you take the first two things and then add us singing, wow... haha we had soo many people watching us and videoing us on their phones and it was just a great time. We even were able to find a pastor who was preaching into his microphone and we asked to use it and he let us and so we started singing and then the pastor got his huge collection box and put it out in front of us and started telling people to throw their money in it haha it was pretty interesting to say the least!  But then being able to talk to the family was so amazing!! It made me so darn happy!! But it also made me miss the comforts and everything about being home.. But there is nothing quite like being a missionary! It just is amazing and I make memories every single day!!

Another amazing thing with Christmas is the members basically beg you to come eat with them!! So on Saturday and today we had fufu which was obviously amazing just because fufu is so amazing!! and even tomorrow we are going again to a members for more!! WOOO! haha the members here are so awesome with meals!

That's about it for this week!! I am thankful for all of your love and support in my life and i want you all to know that I love you all so much!! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and i hope you all have a Happy New Year!!

Love 

Elder Porritt

A Grand Ol White Snowy Christmas Morning here in Ghana hahaha

 Merry Christmas!!!  Love Elder Madsen, Elder Snow, Elder Botha, and Elder Porritt

It was pretty good on the spaghetti to be honest.  (Fettuccine Alfredo in Ghana)

Some of the members after Church yesterday! The two kids are thee coolest ever.

Porritt Family Colorful Christmas

I wanted to share a couple of pictures of Elder Porritt's family in our Ghanaian "Duds".  We love the colorful clothing that Hunter sent to us this year.

Our Big Christmas Surprise

This is a post from Elder Porritt's Mom:

Elder Porritt had told us that he wasn't going to be able to Skype.  Which had some truth to it, he wasn't sure if it was going to be possible.  But when he found out that it was possible, he wanted to surprise his Mom and Dad, so he kept it a secret from us and only told his brothers so they could set it up.

So.. on Christmas morning while we were waiting for just (what we thought was a phone call), Logan asked us to come downstairs to see something he had for just a minute.  I actually was a little mad because I didn't want to go downstairs because I was waiting for the phone call and didn't want that phone to ring while I was down there.  So we all walked downstairs.  As I turned the corner and saw this cute, happy, beaming, son of mine, I couldn't hold back the emotions.  He had the biggest smile on his face I think I have ever seen.  Wow, was I ever surprised.

The reception for Skype wasn't the greatest downstairs so we went upstairs to talk on just the laptop.  I think Casey would have liked to set up the Skyping a little bit better, but it was fine and it was a surprise to him too.

We had a wonderful visit with Elder Porritt, and he got to visit with Grandma & Grandpa Oyler and Grandma Porritt, along with a cousin, Elder Carson Porritt, serving a mission in Madrid Spain.  That was pretty awesome in itself.

It was wonderful to see him and see how happy he really is.  It was also hard to actually see him and have to say goodbye.  We closed our conversation with a family prayer offered by Elder Porritt.  I will never forget that.

This Picture Says It All

Our Christmas Family Picture

Merry Christmas

Hola Family!!!

I am so excited for Christmas I can't even contain myself!!!!!! and this week was super great!!!

Well you all remember D, the high school kid who had Malaria and had to go back to Sunyani, well we have been praying for him so much and this week he came back to Techiman and told us that he still wants to be baptized but he and J are both going home for the Christmas holiday so when they return from holidays, we will be able to finish their teaching and baptize them which is awesome!!! I am so thankful for all of your prayers on their behalf as well!! you have no idea how much I appreciate it.

This week we also met two other really powerful guys. The first one, K, is a really good friend of a member who was in Accra for 2 years and has now moved up to a small village about 25-30 minutes from Techiman. The village is called Afrancho and it's in our area so we definitely get to go down there haha. But the member from Accra, G, has been a member for 2 years and is getting the Melchezidik Priesthood in a few weeks and is going through the temple soon soo he is a super powerful guy and has such a strong testimony.  So our first lesson with K was great and he came to church yesterday and he had prayed about the church and the restoration and he knew for sure that it was true and that he really wanted to be baptized so that is for sure great news for us since we haven't been having much luck here with teaching as of late.

The other guy, A, just showed up at out door on Friday night and wanted to hear about our church but it was too late and we were supposed to be getting ready for bed so we talked to him on Saturday and wow it was such an awesome lesson and he was really excited when he showed up to church on Sunday and he even had the same experience as K. He had prayed about everything we had taught him and he said that he knew for sure this was the right thing for him at this time and he wanted to know more. Both of them are set to be baptized in January along with D and J, so January could be a pretty sweet month for us!! I am really hoping!!

I hope all is going well back home and I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas. I love Christmas because we celebrate the birth of the most important Human to ever walk this earth.  Jesus Christ's birth is something that I am soooo happy about. He is our Savior and we truly should rejoice over Him coming to the earth!!

I love you all,

Elder Porritt

Me and Mobby

 We got a mouse this week hahahah elder snow smashed him

12/14/15

Hello Fam!!

It sounds like there is a lot of snow coming down back home and man you are lucky. what i would do for some snow here haha.  Its just hot and dusty and dry here which is super fun hehe...

But really it was a super slow week here.. We are still struggling to find new people, we don't have many people who are serious about learning the Gospel, and we just walk around and get called 'o brounie' which is oh white man... but once in a while we find a cool child who won't just yell at us the whole time we walk by them, those are rare though.

D still hasn't returned but their school is out for holiday anyway so we are really hoping and praying that he returns when they come back after Christmas!! I really am so thankful for everyones prayers on his behalf though!! It means so much!!

I know that the Gospel is true and that the Book of Mormon is true. Heavenly Father hears and answers your prayers. I promise you that!! It may not be when you want or how you want but He will answer!!

I hope all is going well for all of you though!!

I love you all,

Elder Porritt

We found this tree in our chapel in a closet. you know we put it in our room and decorated it!!! wooooo

not my favorite drink but hey at least i tried a fresh African coconut

you know.. fresh coconuts aren't that good.. they are super bitter

Thee zone of Techiman!! 

 Our new friend who didn't live long after this was taken.. he was the biggest one we've seen so far.

DRYYYYYY!

Hello everyone!!!

I hope all is going well back home! I have heard that BYU and Utah are meeting in Las Vegas for the bowl game so that should be a partay!!! Elder Snow's family said that people back home are calling it "The Holy War in Sin City" So that was basically the best thing i ever heard hahahaha!!

This week is transfers already again. It was a short transfer due to something happening with the Ghana MTC and I will be transfered to Tamale up north which is really close to Burkina Faso. The weather there is about 115 in the middle of the day so I may not be alive next week with that heat..... hahahaha just kidding I'm staying in Techiman and I am staying with Elder Snow for the next transfer which means I will be spending Christmas here in Techiman!! (I wasnt kidding about Tamale's weather though. its toasty up there and there is actually a decent chance i'll serve there someday.)

Anyway holy cow Hummatine is setting in very strongly and it is hot here. and man it is DRYYYYYY. I think the dryness is worse than the heat. Its really crazy that this place can be the most humid place ever during the rain season and then be soooo dry during the hot season. It really is some weird weather here in GH but I will live haha!!

With D and J..... man its just not going well. D got Malaria and had to go back to his home town in Sunyani and we haven't heard from him and can't contact him because he doesn't have a phone... so we have seen J a few times but haven't taught them and they weren't able to be baptized Sunday.. We don't know right now how the whole situation is going but I'm really glad I am staying here in Techiman so hopefully at some point he will come back and we will be able to keep them going and progressing. But we did have one lesson a few weeks ago that i forgot to tell you all about with D and J when they were not really sure if they believed what we were saying and they weren't sure if they were going the right way with us and we talked about how they can know for themselves and then we had them pray to close the lesson and to specifically ask God right there with us if what we were saying was true, if the Book of Mormon was true, and if they really should be baptized, and boom Shockalaka the Spirit was soooo strong.  I swear I could have taken a knife and cut a big slice of it off it was so thick in the room. man that was powerful.  After the prayer was said by D, he and J both kept their heads down for like a whole minute and nobody said anything and wow that was sooo spiritual. I knew for sure that everything was true and I know that Elder Snow was feeling the exact same as me. and then after the minute, they both looked up at us at the same time and they both said that they know its true.  wow that was easily the most powerful lesson i have had with anyone so far. and that's why i am really really concerned for them because i know that they have got a sure answer and I know that they want to join the church but man it just seems like everything right now is just hitting them right in the face trying to keep them from coming and being baptized.. so right now we are really praying for them a lot.

That is all that has happened with teaching.. the teaching is really slow right now because the people here don't like to be outside in this weather and they don't like to answer their doors when we knock cause they are sleeping a lot of the time.. So it's a struggle to say the least to find new people, but we are really focusing on finding new people this week and we really feel good about it.

 I hope all of you are doing great and know that you are in my prayers!! I love you all so much and I'm thankful for your encouragement and support!! Have a great week!!

Love, Elder Porritt

ps. only 18 more days til you know what

You can decide if this is a tan line or a dirt line from playing futbol last week:)

 heheh our futbol.  Everywhere and everything in Ghana has sayings like this on everything!!!

This is the sun at about 3 in the afternoon... now you see the smog and dust and smoke.. the effect it has here is huge and its seriously no bueno

Our buds In and Is rockin' their new CTR rings. (That Mom sent to them).

Thanksgiving!

Hello there everyone!!

I hope all is going well for everyone back home.  Ghana is sweet and Ghana is hot. Real hot. Right now, hummatine is hitting with full force and it is hot, dry and dusty. it hasn't been below 100 degrees in a few weeks and it just gets hotter every day so that is great.

Thanksgiving was sweet. We obviously couldn't have all the things on the menu i put together last week but we sure did enjoy!! We had some instant potatoes that Elder Snows mom sent, some rice, and a lot of candy and drinks haha! it was really nice! We had the Zone Leaders, Elder Botha and Elder Madsen over to celebrate with us and you will see the pictures!! it was sweet!!

Also another great thing that happened this week besides Thanksgiving day. The first one was Elder Snow reaching into the baptismal font to grab a lid that fell in and there was water in it still from a baptism that the sisters had last week, and our phone fell out of his shirt pocket into the water and luckily we have a nokia phone (seriously indestructible) and so we left it out to dry out the inside of the screen the next two days hahahah it was sweet!!

Anyway with the teaching this week. It started out rough. Elder Snow was sick again Tuesday and Wednesday so we didn't go out but D and J have been coming to the apartment/chapel for us to teach them still.

Every one of our appointments fell through on Friday and Saturday so that was crappy... But D and J are so ready for baptism and they were supposed to be baptized yesterday, but they couldn't come for their baptism interview on Saturday night because they couldn't get out of the school. and they also couldn't make it to Sacrament yesterday for the same reason.. But so we were really disappointed about that.. but on the positive note, today we spent the whole day with them and they are super super excited for their baptism Sunday!!! and needless to say Elder Snow and I are excited about it too!!

Today with D and J, we went to their high school's state tournament Qualifier game and WOW i have never been to anything more crazy in my life.... First of all, Their team's keeper went out to try and stop a ball outside of the goal box and he slid to get it and the other kid's knee git the keepers head and knocked him out cold. The keeper got a red card for the illegal slide but he was literally laying limp in on the ground and a bunch of people went out to look at him and they just started giving him CPR and i was like holy crap i might witness a kid die in a soccer match... but so Elder Snow ran out on the field and he said the kid's heart was still beating but they didn't even know to check that they just started giving him CPR cause he wasn't responding... but so Elder Snow told them to all back away and of course everyone listened cause he is white and people here see white man and think doctor or pastor so they listened and the kid woke up and he was super in shock and they had a car on the field and they took him to the hospital.. But man its probably a good thing elder Snow went out and had them stop with the chest compressions because he was fine he was just knocked out soooo that was super interesting i guess! but Their team won in a shootout so that was good!! Then the four of us went and played some futbol of our own at a park and wow i got sunburned big time. Plus i got a haircut today so my head is really red.... but man today was just such a great day!!

I love all of you so much and i want you to know that i know that the Church is true. If it wasn't, then i sure wouldn't be here right now. I know that Heavenly Father loves us all so much and He wants us to follow Him and His commandments. He will bless us so much if we live how we know we should!! I love you all! have a great week!!

Elder Porritt

Our feast baby!!!

The crew. Botha-front left. Madsen-back left Snow-back right & Me

  Our coconut tree in front of our apartment has been dropping some branches hahaha and they are not small..