NEW GOAL FOR THE GHANA CAPE COAST MISSION

Dear Family,

I am enjoying Achiase a lot. I saw Elder Lehr this morning and he said I'm just looking fresh. Well no wonder! My area is awesome, my new companion is cool, and my apartment is sweet. By the way my apartment is directly behind the Ebenezar Methodist Church, circa 1922. It's pretty sweet looking but I hate it soooo much. Every morning at around 4 (even earlier on sundays) they ring this big bell 15 times. DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING! Yeah, just like that.

Today, we journeyed over to Takoradi to play football against both the Takoradi and Swedru zones. It was a lot of fun with President Sabey acting as referee. I really love football a lot, even though I suck at it. I really feel like I am part of the missions now that I've been getting to meet the other zones. Kumasi really is an Island.

So football brings me to last week's Zone Conference with Swedru Zone. When President announced the last goal, he mentioned that he already knew what the next goal would be and that it was coming before the end of the family goal. Really? So for the past couple of months we have been thinking about this new goal. My guess was that we would be doing the Family with a Future leader goal but I was wrong.

President has been really pondering on what do to about a little event in South Africa called the World Cup. He knew that we would want to watch it, and he also knew that members and investigators would invite us to come watch. Football is absolutely huge here in Ghana and that really presents a problem for missionaries who aren't supposed to watch Tv at all. At first, President was trying to think of constructive way that we could watch the matches. For example if there was an investigator in the home of a member who we could then teach. He felt immediatley prompted to not do that. He can't lower the standard for any reason. As he continued to ponder the Lord made it clear to him what he should do. President Sabey told us that he is more excited for this goal than any other the Lord has given us.

The new goal of the Ghana Cape Coast Mission:

1. Every missionary will enter into a covenant to NOT watch any football from June 11th to July 12th.

2. Every missionary will baptize someone found DURING the time a world cup match was on by September 26th.

What a goal! This goal turns what could have been a serious distraction and hinderance to the Lord's work into a wonderrful opportunity to find some really peculiar and powerfull people. This goal will put us to serious work during the entire month of June. We really need to be finding people because once the World Cup is over, that's it! After that we have to work with what we have.

My heart really goes out to those in Kumasi, in particular those in the Dichemso Zone. This is really going to be a hard goal for them. Luckily for us, this goal comes from the Lord and he always provides a way for his commandments to be accomplished as we are faithfull and obedient.

As for the currant goal, we still have about 55 missionaries who have to baptize a husband and wife family before July 4th. Speaking about it, President Sabey said, "I really don't know how we are going to do this." The fact is that we are in a very tight position. If you were to ask anyone who is familiar with missionary work if it were possible for 55 missionaries to baptize a family in a single transfer they would probably ask you if you were crazy! President then gave us a little comfort concerning this. President Packer said that we should approach the edge of the light and step into the darkness. As we do so with faith, we will find that the light will follow and go before us.

We don't know how this goal will be accomplished. But it WILL BE DONE, as we excercise faith and continue work our hardest.

As for me, we have a man who's wife is already a member. He came to church yesterday and he is very excited to be baptized on June 26th. His name is Nana Kojo and he doesn't speak a word of English :) It will be sweet to see him enter into the Kingdom of God.

Everything else is going just fine. We all had to sign a Ghana flag indicating that we had enterered into a covenant with the Lord that we would not watch football during the World Cup. This will be hard for some missionaries but President made it very clear that even though he doesn't send missionaries home for breaking the rules, he believes this is much more important and he doesn't want someone who can't keep this covenant in his mission. At the end of the World Cup, how many missions in the world will be able to honestly say that none of their missionaries watched a single match of the World Cup? I'm willing to bet it will be one.

The work is moving forward in Achiase. The branch needs a lot of work but that's ok. I don't eat a lot of different foods, but that's ok too. Oranges are pretty freaking good here. I eat oats, indomie, rice, and egg sandwhiches. Fruit is hard to find but I eat it when I find it:) I also started taking those vitamins you gave me, lol. Sorry it took so long.

That's all for now, I'll tell you more about my area when I email next week. All I can say is that I'm happier than I've been for a long time. I love you all very much!

Elder Harris