"You may not know a lot, but you know enough."

This week we had our first Zone Conference of the year. President Sabey gave us a summarry of some the things the mission was able to do in 2009. He talked a lot about the goals and wrote the following:

"My reflections on this past year have led me to revise my thinking. We are not engaged in 'Miracle Assisted Missionary Work.' We are engaged in 'Missionary Assisted Miracle Work!' The Lord has said, 'This is MY work...to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.' This is not our work. He has shown us that it is his work and that He is very good at doing it. We are so privileged to assist Him in the miracles he is performing in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Ghana."

"Although we do not pursue numerical goals, you may be interested that in 2009, the missionaries of the Ghana Cape Coast Mission baptized 1,032 souls. President Snow's prophetic vision of missionaries with the faith to baptize thousands is unfolding."

"Of greater importance than the number of baptisms is the quality of the converts. The vast majority of those baptisms were families, future leaders, and member referals. They are the fruits that are likely to remain. The last quarterly report showing percentage of recent converts attending Sacrament Meeting in our mission showed that 87% of our recent converts attend Sacrament Meeting. That is fruit that is remaining!!!"

This week the Lord has pesonally showed me that this is HIS work and not mine. This week we met my first real "Golden Contact."

This week was hard. Many of the people we have been teaching are no longer serious so many of our appointments have been failing. Because of this we have been doing a lot of contacting, which is not fun at all. Last Thursday, EVERTHING went wrong ALL DAY LONG.

What I didn't realise is that we were slowing but surely being led to one particular spot at one particular time. If we had spent two more minutes at the Bishop's house, or a few seconds longer with Brother Andy, we would have missed him.

Elder Akoki and were walking along after another failed appointment with a less active. As we approached a fork in the road, we had to decide what to do. We were both TIRED and not very excited about contacting. We could easily have decided to return to Brother Andy's where Elder Lehr and his companion were going to teach a lesson. Instead we both decided to keep going. After wasting ten minutes with a contact who wanted nothing to do with us, we walked out of her compound into the road where we started that spinning motion associated with not knowing where to go. Neither my companion noticed a young man named Jerry who was returning from school but he noticed us. To our surprize he asked us if we were Latter Day Saints and we told him yes we are. It turns out that he had been given a Restoration Pamplet by a friend who didn't really care about the gospel and he had read it over and over again. As we sat down with him, he explained perfectly the details of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We didn't have to teach anything. When we asked him what he thought about it, he replied saying that the pamplet told him he needs to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it before he can really know it is true.

The next day we gave him a Book of Mormon and by Saturday evening he had read eleven chapters. When I asked him to tell me what he learned, I had to keep myself from laughing as he described all eleven chapters in detail better than I ever could. He then asked us if he could come to church on Sunday.

I have never seen someone who was this prepared to recieve the gospel. If anything had worked differently that day, we would have never seen him and he would still be searching for the truth. The Lord know how to do His work. We are just here to gain some experience for ourselves while we have the time.

I am so happy to be here in Ghana at this particular time and this particular place. I have a great companion and great roommates who help me through the hard times and lift me up when I fall down. I have been able to meet some of the most wonderfull people in the world and teach them about the gospel. I have never realized the joy the gospel can bring to a person's life.

I've only been on my mission for four months now and I hope to see a lot more as the time goes by. I am truly blessed with more than I can ever deserve.

I love you all and miss you!

ELDER HARRIS

LETTER FROM ELDER AKOKI (Andrew's companion)

Hi,
This is Elder Akoki, Iam the one who is babysitting Elder Harris, sorry who is training him. I receive the Christmas gift, Iam so so happy. You realize my greatest Musical dream. I will now ennjoy conducting with a baton and also singing in spanish who will be the third language that I am going to learn. My companion is doing very very well. He is very cool, amd willling to learn. Iam sure He would be the Best companion in my mission. We understand each other so much and we have a lot of fun. Iam pretty sure I will get transfert the next time but I dont to go because I really enjoy my companion. In one word He is a good Kid, He is powerful, which means that He is from powerful parents. You have done a great job 4 having taking care of Him, you should not worry right now Its my turn to take care of him. He is in good hands. May God bless you and your family.BYe. We shall meet.

MY TURN TO GET SICK

So this week I started my third transfer in Asokwa. Thankfully nobody got transfered in our entire zone so Elder Akoki is going nowhere. Once again this was a pretty slow week because it was my turn to get sick. Sister Sabey had me on malaria meds but I don't think it was that bad. I was out for 3 days though. It sucked hard core.

The African Cup of Nations started this week in the world of football so if you want to go contacting around 4 or 6 in the PM you can FORGET. Football is part of life here and we have to adjust to fit in. The Ivorians played Ghana on friday and killed them 3-nill. It was funny to see Elder Akoki hold in his emotions everytime they scored. We spent the night with a man named Kennedy in our ward. We go to visit him every once in a while, he really doesn't have any friends and just sits in his house everyday reading or watching movies. He loves it everytime we are there. He's a pretty funny guy. He always wants to 'cool our hearts' with a coke.

Now that we are done with the goal, we have given our backup goals to Elder Lehr and ELder Clemmens. Soon the whole district will have completed the goal and I have no doubt that the whole mission will complete the goal by the end of Febuary. For us, we have been trying to find more people to teach in our immediate area. Contacting is really a pain but it gives us experience and that is really what this mission is about. I've been told the average person baptized has been contacted 8 times. Sometimes we just do it to waste time.

So I'm pretty sure that Akoki will leave this next coming transfer so I've been trying harder prepare myself to live without my traineer. I've realised how easy it is to just follow him around but that wouldn't help me at all. I pray I won't have to train in five weeks but you never know in this mission. President Sabey does whatever the Lord tells him to do. No questions asked.

This week Elder Lehr ran into a crazy person who apparently knows who Elder Akoki and I are. He told them they were so powerfull that they could freeze the whole northern half of Africa and that their skin could not be peirced by mosquitos. As they were walking along to find a car back to Asokwa, he kept following them and everybody thought they were all crazy. When he got on the tro tro and the door closed he told everybody THAT MAN IS CRAZY. Everybody was cracking up. Well at least they don't think he's our friend. I just don't want to run into him any time soon.

So we are still working hard and the time is flying by. We are teaching Williams about the priesthood and soon he should be ordained a priest. We have dropped a bunch of people lateley but hopefully we will be able to find some serious investigators. Elder Akoki thinks the next goal will be a Family but we won't know for a while.

Thats all for now! Hope everything is all right back home! I love you all and miss you!:)

Elder Harris

DYING TO DANCE WITH A WHITE MAN

Hello! Sorry for making you wait so long. About half way through my powerful, weekly report on my doings in the continent of Africa, I accidentally blinked and all the power in Kumasi shut off. Don't worry I'm holding my eyes open with some staples I found on the floor of my apartment.

I hope everyone had a great new year! Mine was pretty funny cause there were a bunch of drunk people at Yaa's place who were dying to dance with a white man. I would just yell YEAHHHH in their face and they would usually go away.

This whole week Elder Lehr and Elder Akoki were dying in bed from some sort of African Flu that kept them there for four days. Elder Clemmens and I were stuck in the apartment with them. It was pretty horrible. Luckily I didn't catch whatever they had and my health is still good.

Even though we didn't really do anything last week, our goal was completed yesterday when Paulina came to church and William was confirmed a member of the church. Its perfect timing cause transfers are this Wednesday and there is a good chance Elder Akoki will leave. We will find out tonight. We pretty much gave up on Dominik. We just found out that he is having some problems we didn't know about. We are still figuring out how to help him but the situation is a little bit touchy. Hopefully we can figure it out.

Everything else is going just fine. I just got your package today! Elder Akoki was really happy about the baton. He had totally forgotten about it. He was taking pictures and stuff with it, haha. I guess its really hard to get one here in Africa. Thanks for all the other stuff too. Gushers are awesome! The picks and strings will really help too. I've been playing improvised chords with only 5 strings using a pick that feels like it was cut from a piece of paper. Thanks a lot! I also got some more mail from like a month ago.

So thats all for now. Sorry for not being around last week. Just remember TIA. I love you all! BYEBYE!!

Elder HARRIS AKA White Tiger Bruni (this is a joke between Andrew and his uncle Kevin)