Decisions Determine Destiny

Well first of all, Happy 24th of July to everyone!! I always loved Pioneer day back home to celebrate good old Utah and to have a fun day!! I hope all of you have been able to have a great 24th!!

For me, things are going good here in GKM, It it still hot every day but this last week it has rained like crazy, and when it rains here, its not like at home where sometimes it just rains for a little while and its not that heavy, here it is insanely heavy rain and its usually for a good amount of time. I love the rainstorms here. 

This week was mainly full of teaching, we do have a few people who are getting serious and coming to church now, we have been struggling to get anyone to come to church the last few weeks but this week we had a few people come, Brother Phillip, who is part of a big family that we are teaching, most of the family members weren't able to come though cause they were busy. But they will certainly come next week, there is about 7 or 8 in the family that we are teaching so we are really hoping that they will progress. But This week we were  able to have the confirmation for Sister Cynthia which was great as well! So things are going good for Agona right now. 

Another great thing that happened this week was that one of the members here in Agona, Brother Elvis Antwi got his mission call and he will be serving in the Nigeria, Benin City Mission. He leaves in one month exactly. Elvis has been through a lot and has really gained a STRONG testimony of the Church, the Restoration, and the Gospel, and I have enjoyed serving here with him in the Branch, and I know that he has taught me a lot. 

I hope all is well for everyone, there is one thing that i want to share with you all, and it came from us listening to President Monson's talk again from this last may, the thing that he said that i want to share with you is 'decisions determine destiny' and that is a very special declaration cause it is true, the decisions you make yesterday, today and tomorrow will determine your future life, future family, future everything, so make sure your decisions today are good ones cause they will affect more than just you right now. 

I love you all.

Elder Hunter Kenneth Porritt

Here are some pictures of Elvis opening his mission call and reading it in front of the Branch.  Elvis is a special young man and has become "Elder Porritt's Brother".  We, Elder Porritt's family, love Elvis too.

 Elder Porritt and Elvis

 yeah found a lady who has real mtn dew... best thing of the week hahahahah

The young guns of Agona. The best future missionaries in the world right here. These guys would have smoked me in Book of Mormon trivia when i was their age 

10 months in Service

Well time continues to fly here in the wonderful Ghana Kumasi mission, yesterday i hit 10 months serving as a missionary. It is crazy to think where the time has gone to, but i love every day that goes by.

First off, my toe is healing quickly, just for anyone who might have been wondering haha!! 

But This week was another good one. The big big big highlight of the week came about 30 minutes after I emailed you all last week, and it came in the form of a news phone call from my good friend Elder Hill. I thought he was kidding when he told me but then I got a phone call as well from Elder Snow, my trainer, and then i realized that it was real. But on August 13, we will have the AMAZING privileged of having David A. Bednar come to GKM. Oh man when i heard that I about flew out the window of the tro tro that we were riding in hahaha! I am soooo excited to have an Apostle of the Lord come to the mission!! That was for sure the best news I could have gotten that day, and I cant wait for that. 

The other highlight of the week came yesterday with the baptism of Sister Cynthia, a sister we have been teaching for quite some time now. The tough thing is that she speaks about zero English so it  has been really hard for me to get to know her or talk to her much, even with Elder Adjei who speaks the Twi, he has taught all the lessons in Twi, and i know that she is a powerful woman and we are very fortunate to have her here in the Agona Branch.  

Other than those things, this week was a week full of teaching and serving, helping people to hear more about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary, and I love helping these people to learn about this gospel. I am thankful for all of you and the love and support that you send me and show me each week, I hope that you are all striving each day to become more like our Savior Jesus Christ, truly that is our purpose on this earth, to "Prepare ourselves to meet God" (Alma 34:32)

I love you all,

Elder Porritt

Sister Cynthia's baptism yesterday, Brother Michael, an elder in the branch baptized her.

This was Tuesday night, one night after the surgery

 This morning's results, I'm getting better

Surgery on the Mish..

Well folks, i am alive, but it didn't come easy that's for sure. One piece of advice to all who may read this, avoid ingrown toenails at ALL costs, cause someday it might get so bad that you have to have surgery on it, and I now know first hand how painful that surgery is... 

But before we get to that, this week was alright ha! Wednesday was a good day, due to a sweet service project we did for Sister Mary who is just a random old lady we met one day at her house, she doesn't speak a lick of English, she doesn't have any family at all that she even knows about, and she now is basically not able to walk more than 20 feet or so before she gets so tired and painful that she has to sit down again. We didn't ask how old she is, but she has got to be at least 90-95. Even with all of this opposition, she still takes care of herself (i have no idea how) but she does.  She is an amazing lady. But outside her house there is a field that is about the size of a baseball infield, and that field had weeds up to your knees all around the whole thing and it looked plain out horrible... So we gathered our District and on Wednesday, and went and weeded that thing with cutless, i don't know if anyone back home knows what a cutless is but its like a big knife, somehow like a machete. I wish i would have thought to take a picture of the field, but unfortunately i forgot... We had a good time and it felt really good to help her out especially since she cant really do anything for herself and she doesn't have family with her. 

The rest of the week was us teaching and me somehow suffering with this ingrown toenail that has been bugging me for about a month now.. i have been trying to take care of it myself cause all my life when i have had ingrown toenails, i have been able to take care of them, even though it hurts like no other. But so what has happened in the last few days, i talked to Sister Wardle, our mission nurse, that was on i think Saturday the 2nd July or something like that. She said that i should try and see if it would go away in the next few days, well on Wednesday after the service project, i could hardly walk it hurt so bad so i called her again, and i was going to come to the mission home to get it worked on, but President was too busy so i had to wait from Wednesday clear til yesterday.. That was a painful few days as well. But yesterday we went to the UST chapel for a soccer activity, but i didn't play obviously, after that, the Wardles took us to the mission home and we proceeded with what ended up to be literally the most painful thing i have ever felt in my entire life. 

The first thing that happened was one of the worst for sure. In the pictures you will notice that the side of my toe was so swollen, well that was the most painful and tender part of the whole thing, and that is the exact place where President Cosgrave stuck me twice to try and numb my toe... oh my goodness, i just remember being in a whole lot of pain and i think i was yelling... Then he took some little scissors and had to pry up the toenail and he cut a straight line down my toenail about not far away from the skin, and he had to cut all the way down the nail, then when he got to the bottom i was already bleeding pretty good, but he then grabbed the ingrown part of the nail and pulled out a LOT of toenail, a lot more than i thought was there.. and that's when i started to feel some relief from the pain, cause the nail that had been in there was now out. But next came the worst and most painful part of the whole operation.When President cut down the toenail, it left a little hole on the side of my toe going down, and he pulled out this big long stick thing that looked like a giant match stick. And he went on to push it down through that hole and down into my toe. Wow, at first i thought i was supposed to be numbed up but i felt that worse than all the rest of the whole thing. When he pushed that down into my toe, he left if there for a minute for people to take pictures, and then he started to pull it out really slowly, it was supposed to be releasing medicine inside my toe, and that was just awful, it felt like my toe was on fire!! But that was about it, he then threw a bandaid on it and sent me on my way haha. I am really grateful that my mission president is a doctor and knew what to do with this situation, even though i am still just feeling some real nice pain.. i might be limping around for a week if this doesn't go away. But I will survive haha:) 

I know that the church is true, and I hope all of you will continue to learn about the Gospel and the scriptures each and every day! I love you all and im thankful for all of your love and support you give to me every week! I hope you all have a good week!

Love,

The Crippled Elder Porritt

This was taken on July 4.. so a week ago this is how bad it already was..

The piece of toenail that he is holding with the clippers is what he pulled out of the side of my toe... not easy..

 Elder Porritt bearing the Pain

The piece of nail taken out

Most painful part of the whole thing, even though i was numbed, this one hurt the very most...

This stick has silver nitrate on it to kill the nail bed, so it won't grow back.

It's done

 Monday night after all was done...

 Our service project crew from left to right: Elder Adjei, Elder Porritt, Elder Amponsah from Ghana, Elder Mkandla from Zimbabewe, Sister Mary, Elder Udoh from Nigeria, and Elder Mpisa from Zimbabewe

The result of using a cutless for 4 hours

Finally found one haha!!! absolutely amazing

Happy Birthday to the Promised Land!

Well Happy 4th of July everyone!! 

Happy birthday to the promised land!

Today has been a sweet day for us as missionaries, especially with all the missionaries who we always see in town when we go to Kumasi. Today we drove down to come to enjoy small and so we could get some stuff from Melcom (a somehow decent grocery store) we don't have anywhere in Agona to buy stuff like that..  But we enjoyed some KFC and that was pretty much how i celebrated my 4th of July. All of you will probably be at fireworks tonight so i hope all that goes well.

This week was another good one full of teaching and that sweet stuff. We were also able to have the confirmation of Brother Opoku and that was another very amazing experience!  That guy is one of the happiest i have ever seen to have the gospel in his life. He really wants to help his family to have this in their life. He really understands the importance of the gospel and wants to share it with all around him. He is really a powerful guy. He will bring many to the knowledge of the Gospel i really feel.  

Other than that, I dont have a ton that i have to share about this week. Not too much that stuck out, just another great week here in the mission field. There is nothing better than serving a mission and serving the Lord. But the great thing is that you dont have to be on a mission to serve the Lord, that is according to Mosiah 2:17. I hope all is well with all of you. Things are good here in Ghana, hotter than ever.  Have a great week!!

Love Elder Porritt