Elder Porritt in Ghana: Jesus, Listening, can hear the songs we cannot sing

Today's letter is quite long, but wow, what an awesome week it was here in the heat of Ghana!! Last time you heard from me, I was in the real heat of Tamale, in the Northern Region of Ghana. Well since then, we have been on exchanges up there, and returned back home here to Kumasi on Wednesday. Thank goodness we have been getting some HUGE rainstorms too! The lightning and thunder here is actually quite scary though. If you think back home we have big storms, well I'm sorry for your imaginations, because any small storm here puts a giant storm back home to shame. The big storms here are ones where you are scared to even be outside at all. In fact, I believe it was Thursday evening, a big bolt struck either right on the mission home or right next to it and the power blew out right as the lightning and thunder boomed, and now some of the appliances don't even work here in the mission home, pretty crazy.

Well there have definitely been some great highlights to this week, the biggest was definitely having the wonderful opportunity and blessing to be able to watch all 5 sessions of General Conference!! I am so thankful for modern technology that enables us to be 7,000 miles away from Salt Lake City and still be able to watch live the counsel and words of Prophets and Apostles of God!! I would be lying if I told you I had a favorite talk from this Conference because so many of the talks were so amazing!! As always, Elder Holland blew the roof off, and President Uchtdorf had some amazing words, but just a few quotes I wrote down really are sticking with me up to this point that I would share.

-Elder Bednar shared in Priesthood Session to 'love being worthy and remaining worthy' as we prepare for blessings that will come to us through service in the Church and especially coming through the Temple.

-My other favorite quote is the line of the hymn that Elder Holland shared, that really hit me hard as he talked about it. 'Jesus, listening, can hear the songs we cannot sing'

I hope all who didn't listen to or watch the Conference will go back and watch, and all of you who did watch it, go back and re-listen to it cause you probably didn't catch all you could have while watching or listening for the first time, I know I didn't. We are so privileged to live in a day where we have living Prophets and Apostles who like the Twelve of Old, they converse with our Father to know His will for us in our day. Those men, though we may think that they don't know what we are going through, they really do, they receive divine revelation from the Father of us all. The words they speak are meant for you, they are the words of God to us.

The other highlight of the week was one of the greatest lessons and moments that I have had as a missionary in the last year and a half. I'm sure you may remember Brother Yw, the guy we have been teaching now who has been an investigator for years. Well we have been seeing some progress with him lately the last few weeks with him reading the Book of Mormon, coming to Church, and even watching the Church videos that we give to him, but Elder Hill and I could tell that there was still a few things holding him back from going all in. So Friday evening, we went there and followed up on a few things that we had given to him to read and watch while we were up north and he did it all. He also watched the Restoration Video and loved it. About 20 minutes into that lesson, we started just asking questions about what was holding him back from being baptized and giving up his addictions and a bunch of stuff, and you wouldn't believe it, but he went on and talked for a good 30 minutes or more with no pause. He literally let EVERYTHING that was holding him back. By the time he finished, my mind was spinning thinking what to say, but he then asked us "does God even care? does he have something there for me or is it just imagination and I'm wasting my time here?" Well when he asked this question, the Spirit overcame us both, and quite honestly, I don't remember the words I spoke, but I know that I bore powerful testimony to him that God does live, He does love him and that He is there for him. The Spirit was so powerful in Yw's room at that time. We then expressed our own love and care for him, and that was another amazing feeling that came into that lesson. No doubt, that was one of the most Spiritual lessons that I have had on my mission and during that, I felt closer to my Father in Heaven than I have in a long time! I felt His love for me and for Yw.

I don't know if Yw will be able to overcome all of his problems very quickly, maybe not even while I am here in Ghana. I may not be here to witness his baptism, but I KNOW that man will be baptized eventually. He felt the Spirit testify to him so strongly that he too cannot deny what he felt. I love that man, but more importantly, I know that God loves him and God loves every single one of you so much more than you can imagine. Our Savior Jesus Christ died and suffered for our sins that we would be able to repent and be forgiven, He is reaching out to all of you, in whatever problems you may be having, big or small. He is There!! I know He loves us and He will be there for you when you finally take the step of faith to kneel down and invite him into your life. Remember the hymn 'when your life gets dark and dreary, don't forget to pray'

I love you all,

Elder Hunter Porritt

This was last week at the Bolgatanga branch, this was about half of the youth class