Final E-Mail

Good afternoon to you all!!

I hope everyone is doing great! I am doing great!! The work right now is so awesome!! Our area is really exploding with new people. We have so many people right now who we need to go and visit and teach that we literally don't have enough time this week to go see them all, and try to see our recent converts as well!!

We have so many people progressing right now that i don't know who to even write about.. I think the one that i would mention is the Odr family. Well i guess we wouldn't necessarily call them a family quite yet cause they are not actually married. Sister Es and Brother Akw have been cohabiting for years, they have 3 kids, and they are the sweetest ever! They found the missionaries a few months ago and they have been coming to church now every week for that whole time. They have such a firm testimony of the things that they have learned. They just don't have any money. Here in Ghana, you have to have quite a bit of money to get married cause the family of the woman demands quite a bit of money as a dowry or bride price. and So Akw has been working now since they found the church and found out the importance of them getting married so they can be baptized!! The reason i put them in here isn't cause they have got all the money and are now going for the wedding, but for them, they are one of the greatest examples of faith and prayer that i have seen here in Ghana. I can tell how discouraging it is for them to see so many people coming into the church after them and being baptized before them, people going to the temple to be sealed while they are still waiting.. its sad to me too. But they have been to church each week, continually praying and serving. Even Sister Es comes out and shows us to her friends around her house, they have such a great desire to share the Gospel that has already changed their lives so much and will continue to change their lives in the future when they have the opportunity to get married and sealed in the Lord's House!! I am so thankful for their example of faith and testimony!!

Well as stated in the subject part, today is my last email home as a missionary... I can't believe those words are coming out of my fingers. I am definitely anxious/nervous/excited/sad/happy. I have about a million different thoughts and feelings coming to me right now. I think the feeling that is most powerful in me right now is that I am just thankful for that opportunity that i have had to serve a mission.  I will miss the people of Ghana so much, I have come to love them so much as well!! To close my mission emails, I would like to share one of my favorite scriptures as of late. its Helaman 5 : 12, a very popular one:

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the ^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

I have been able to feel that power that comes from building our foundation upon Christ. I have felt the power of the Atonement in my life, and I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true Church, and we are led by living prophets and apostles who receive revelation from God. I love you all and I will see you soon!! My homecoming will be on August 20 @ 1:00 pm at the Bear River City Chapel. 

I love you all!!!!

Elder Porritt