Baptism is sweet

Well good morning to everybody!! Ha I know its pretty early back home! But yesterday while I was typing everything up, the internet completely crashed soooo I wasn't able to send anything yesterday to all of you, but here it is! 

This week was pretty slow for us compared to the last few weeks. We weren't able to have the baptism of Sister Gy and so we hope that that will happen next week. Also sister Dora should be baptized next week. Both of the ladies are ready for baptism and they are strong in the Church and have awesome testimonies, but both are just waiting for interviews with President Cosgrave before they will be able to be baptized. Also Gre was unable to make it to Church yesterday and we don't actually know why because nobody would answer their phones yesterday so  she wasn't confirmed yet. Hopefully next week for that. 

Another sweet experience did happen this week though. For the last month and a half, we have been teaching a guy, Mats, who was born in Ghana but went to school in Burkina Faso so he grew up learning French and not English, so he is fluent in French and in Twi, but isn't very fluent in English, so it has been  hard teaching him for sure but he has been improving a lot over the course of while we have been teaching him! Anyway, Mats lives in another area and actually goes to a different branch here in Techiman, but he works all day at a shop in our area so we taught him and I was even able to baptize him yesterday which was another awesome experience for sure. Mats is sweet, he is in his early 20's and is actually getting married next week so his life is going good. He has been telling us that he wants to bring his wife to the Church as well so he is surely an awesome guy that we have been able to teach and baptize and he has a strong testimony about the Church and even though he hasn't been able to read much from the Book of Mormon, he has had an awesome feeling about it and he knows that it is true!

Not much other news for this week other than a big big big accident that happened here in Ghana about an hour north of Techiman on the road to Tamale where a bus full of people went head on into a big truck and unfortunately not a person survived.. We saw a picture of the bus and wow... It was basically torn in half. It was so sad...

That is about all that happened for this week! Thank you for all the love and support that you have been giving me! I love you all so much and hope you all have a great week this week!

Love Elder Porritt

Some Good Breakfast, bread and strawberry jam, and chocolate oatmeal haha!

This is a pile of garbage... quite unfortunate, but there are A LOT of these here... and there are always animals in them eating, and yeah not good...

Us and Brother Matthias!! 

Another "Death" in the Family, "Old Blue"

This letter was sent to Elder Porritt this week:

So I guess the biggest news from home this week, is another death from home. And yes it's a family member. OLD BLUE!!! She's been in the fam for a long, long time. The transmission is shot. It would probably cost over  $3000 to get a new tranny. SOOO we are going to try to sell her for parts. Sad day. She was also known as, Old Reliable. And you may know many more names than me. I'm sorry she couldn't last til you got home, but she is literally falling apart. Levi said she had $326,000 miles. Now what? I don't know yet. At least we have the Suburban.  

Picture of Old Blue

And Elder Porritt's response was this:

"Well glad you just made me cry because ol blue is gone:( I'm seriously so sad right now... before you sell it or anything, please take a picture of the odometer and send it to me so I can have the final mileage on the glorious piece of work that thing is". 

The Waters of Baptism

Hello everyone!!  I hope all is going well for everyone back home!!

All is well here in Ghana! This week was pretty special because we finally put someone in the water!!! Sister Grace was baptized yesterday and that was the most awesome experience I have had so far on my mission!! I can now tell you that D&C 18 verse 15 is a very very very true thing. I have experienced soooo much joy the last day that I cant even describe it. I will say that yesterday I think i recited the baptismal prayer like a million times in my head so I wouldn't mess it up hahaha!! But now Grace is baptized and will be confirmed next Sunday so I am so excited about that.

With our other investigators, we have Gf who is the wife to our 2nd councilor in the branch presidency and she is sooo awesome. She is about ready for baptism and will be baptized either this week or next for sure! Their family is so amazing and they have twin girls who are juniors in high school who are already preparing for missions so I guess you could say they have a pretty powerful family!

We also have Sister Da who is the wife to another way powerful member and we have been having to travel for like 30 minutes in a tro tro to their house out in a small village but she is so powerful and has been talking about how excited she is to be baptized and to go to the temple with her husband and be sealed!!  The work here in Techiman is for sure looking a lot better right now than it ever has since I have been here!!

Here in Techiman, it is starting to get humid again and man it feels sooooooo dang hot all the time.. I don't know which i like less, the dry heat, or the humid heat, they both aren't my favorite thing ever but that is just Ghana for you hahaha!!

Elder Khumalo and I are getting along pretty well! He is such an awesome guy and he always seems to be happy no matter what happens so that is a pretty positive thing for sure!! Plus we are having a lot of success together right now so that is for sure a positive thing as well!!

I hope everyone back home is just having an amazing day and I hope you all have an amazing week!! I love you all so much and I'm thankful for all of you in my life!!

Much love,

Elder Porritt

My New Pillowcase!!!!

 You would never guess how many people we had inside this tro tro........ 25 human beings.... these tros are about the same size as a standard suburban back home, maybe a tiny bit bigger. 25 people...

The people of the Dwumoh branch... we have some legendary figures here for sure

 The Yeboah family and Grace. Grace is the cousin of Sister Yeboah.

 Elder Khumalo and I with the Valentines day ties!

 Fufu. Glorious Fufu.

Saying Goodbye to Elder Snow

Well hello everybody!! It has been a great week here in good old Ghana!! the heat just continues and the sweat keeps pouring but the work is amazing and there truly is nothing i would rather be doing than serving our Heavenly Father!!

Well on Wednesday, I said goodbye to my man, Elder Snow which was hard, and to be honest i was kinda scared because I didn't know anything else than being with Elder Snow, but me and my new companion, Elder Khumalo (pronounced Koo maw low) are getting along very well! a little bit more about him... He is from Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a convert to the church which is pretty sweet!! And he has been on mission for 1 year and like 7 months. There is a good chance that this area in Techiman could be his last place, but man Elder Khumalo is a powerful guy and a powerful teacher!! I am really enjoying everything with him and everything here in Techiman is going alright!

We still are struggling with Aw, he will always show up to meet with us during the week and we will teach him and everything goes awesome with him and then Sunday I even call him to make sure he is coming to church and he will say that he is coming but doesn't ever show up.. So that's pretty discouraging, but this Sunday the 14th, we will baptize Grace!! She is so excited for her baptism and we are also just as excited as she is!! 

That is about how this week went! It was a good one for sure! I just want to share my testimony about missionary work this week.  I know that there truly is nothing more important than this work. Nothing. There are how many members of the church on the earth? like 15 or 16 million? and how many people are on earth? over 7 billion.So that means that more than 6 billion people don't have the truth in their lives and that is a bad thing for sure.. It is our duty as members of the church to help those around us to know of the truth and stay in the church because this truly is the only way to make it back to live with our Father in Heaven and our Savior Jesus Christ!!! I know that missionary work is sooo important because we are able to inform people and hopefully bring them to the only true church on the face of this Earth. I love being a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ. I absolutely love it. There definitely are hard things about it and its not easy but so far in my life this has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done.  I know the church is true and I know that Joseph Smith saw and talked to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. He translated the golden plates into the Book Of Mormon by the grace and power of God. And I know that we have a true prophet on the Earth today in Thomas S. Monson.

I love you all and hope you all have such a great week!! I look forward to next week when I get to hear from you again!!

Love Elder Porritt

Mine and Snow's last picture before he left! 

The Yeboah boys again. These two are the biggest studs. and they are mission ready haha

Who needs a new net when you can just duck tape all the holes!!! 

My New Brother (Elder Khumalo)! feat. Chelsea Football Club in the background!

Elder Porritt & Snow's Last Day Together

Well hello there everybody! I hope all is going well for everyone back home!! Everything here is going good! It is still hot... haha surprise surprise!

Although there is one surprise that's happening this week.  Elder Snow has been called to be a Zone Leader in Obuasi which is about an hour and a half south of Kumasi, and I will be staying here in Techiman. My new companion will be Elder Kumalo who is from South Africa. Elder Snow and Elder Madsen both tell me that Elder Kumalo is a sweet guy so that is pretty cool and I am excited! It will be different not being with Elder Snow but i think it will be good for me and good for the area just to have different people in there. That's one thing that I have noticed a lot, is that when different missionaries go into different areas, the area just seems to take off, so I guess we will see what happens here! I just have the rest of today and then tomorrow with Elder Snow and then he be gone. 

This week was a good week of teaching for sure. We don't know what's going on with Aw, he just seems like he is starting to be not very serious, but we do have three people who we are teaching that will be baptized in the next couple months. Two of them, Da and Gf, both have husbands who are active members and both are very powerful members who want to be sealed in the Temple, so teaching with them is certainly powerful. And then the third investigator, Gre, is a lady that stays with one of our members but its her cousin.  The member is probably the most powerful female member in our branch and she hasnt been a member for six months yet. She is seriously so awesome. But man teaching all three of these ladies has been so awesome because there is so much potential for them to be strong in the Church and to be sealed to their families so that is for sure awesome. We think that Gre will be baptized next Sunday the 7th or maybe on the 14th but she will probably be my first baptism!!

Another cool thing that happened this week was that we got bikes for our area! We were so excited to get them and we took them out the day we got them and holy crap there was about a trillion problems with them... We ended up having to get a new pair of brakes for one of the bikes and the pedal on my bike fell off like 5 times and nobody in town could fix it to where it wouldnt just fall back off 30 minutes later. Sooo the bikes are a work in progress for sure haha! Even though they are sweet to have to get to places faster!

Thats about all that happened this week!  I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I hope all is going well for everyone back home! I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Porritt

Us and our bikes.... and the helmets that the mission gave us.... gotta love that

Primary Kids!! (aka the disruptance)

Selfie With Brother Andoh... this guy is hilarious

 This is Andoh and his wife Gifty who we are teaching, she is the sweetest lady ever!

  On the Primary Control.