6 month mark!

Sam's email this week:

"My Dearest family,

It was wonderful to hear from you this week . It sounds like everyone is doing pretty good. My week for the most part has been pretty good. The other day i reached my six month mark. That means i am now half way to half way. When i actauly reach half way i wont know what to do with myself! Mom thankyou i got a package on wednesday. it had a ton of facewash beef jeky and other food. Madasee Pa! ( thankyou very much)

On Saturday we had a baptism. My first one since i have been here in New Legon. We baptized 2 people. There names were V and A.

V is 25 years old. She is pretty cool girl. She has a strong desire about the church and really enjoys to come. I have never had one of my baptisimal canidates arive to there baptism before i did, but V did. She was so ready to be baptized she came plenty early.

A is little 9 year old girl that doesn't speak english. She moved in with her aunt and uncle about 2 months ago. Her aunt and uncle are strong members, so it was only a matter of time before she was baptized. It was pretty cute, on sunday she was nervous for her comfermation so she came and grabed my hand and made me sit with her. It was way before church started so i wanted to go and greet my investigators as they came in. Every time i stood up she would hold up her finger and say "Tinasee!" Which means sit down. So i just had to wave to them as they came in.

The baptism went great. We had a lot of members there supporting them. I miss Buduburam, but i definitely don't miss the baptisms there. Members would never come.

I am figuring out here in New lagon that you have to use the members to be successful. Sometimes Elder Ewudzie and I contact all day and we dont find any one serious. If we ask a member to talk to someone, they are atomatically interested in the church. For example there is this guy named C we are teaching. He is way tight. I love this guy like my brother. The way we found him was because a member had talked to him about the church and invited him to come. If it weren't for that member we would have never found him. C is a way cool guy that is from northern ghana. I love talking with him because his accent is so much different than everyone else's. Every time he sees me he comes up and gives me the biggest hug. I am hoping so much that we baptize him.

Our area is starting to turn around we have a lot of people to teach now. I think it was a little bit because i changed my attitude. When i first got here we had no one to teach at all. For a little bit i was irritated. It took me a little while, but i finally realized that it doesnt matter what the area is, it matters what the missionary does. When i starting thinking like that, things started to get a lot better. And now we are doing great .

Well thank you for all the Emails. I love reading them more than anything, and i love my family more than anything. I want you to know that i am really enjoying being out here. I have learned more in the past 6 months that i have my whole life. I hope everyone has a great week.

Love Elder Sam Beck!"

Rastafarians and Sign Language

Sam's email this week:

"Dear family,

Thank you so much for the emails and the packages you sent. I loved the Emails and i loved the packages. I got 2 packages. 1 was the DHL. Thank you a ton for the tape, i really liked it, please send more of those and if you send me Blank tapes i can send some back. I also loved the Doredoes, i ate them all in one sitting on Sunday night. Elder Ewudzie ate all the homemade cookies you sent, he loved them. I had some too, they were pretty delicious. I also got another package from dear elder.com, that had a ton of cookies, thank you they are great. I am way happy to hear that Dads cancer Markers are low. I am started to feel really good about the whole thing now, but dad, dont go back to work too soon. Mom i am glad your down visiting aunt Julie, tell her i also love her and say hello.

I had some pretty cool experiecnes this week. The other day Elder Ewudzie and i were taking a trotro back from our district meeting. This Rastafarian got in the trotro and sat next to me. I was a little nervous because Rastafarian's are known in Ghana for beating the crap out of white guys. So i was sitting there and i got the thought maybe i should talk to him. So i turned and faced him, but for some weird reason i didnt say anything. I sat there for a some seconds facing him not saying a word. He finally turned and looked at me, I immeditaly jerked myself back to facing forward making a little bit of noise while i did it. I sat there frozen in fear not knowing what to do and He kind of laughed and said "hey are you a latter day saint?" I responded "why yes, Yes i am." Well i ended up talking to him for a little bit and found out his name was TT. before i left i went ahead and gave him our phone number. I really thought he would probably just throw it away, but a couple of days past i heard the phone ring. I answered and to my surprise i heard " eeh, this is TT the Rosta Mon" It seriously made my Day. For some reason i was way happy to hear his voice. I think partly because he has a way cool accent, but mainly because i really think he has a strong interest in the church. We haven't been able to meet with him yet, but i am hoping that very soon we will.

Another thing that happened to us is that a member came up and told us he want us to baptize his 11 year old daughter. The catch was that she is deaf and doesn't know how to speak sign or any thing. So i called president smith to see if we could baptize her, he said sure as long as she can pass the baptismal interview. I tried to make the point that she doesn't speak English or sign. He got a little mad at me and told me that this was the only way. So on Wednesday we went and visited her, she knew a few signs that her and her family made up. I was there trying to teach her signs that i remembered from high school. The whole time I kept thinking gosh dangit i wish i would have payed attention in Mr.Selbys Class. We also showed her some pictures, and everytime she saw a picture of christ she pointed up.I think she was pointing to heaven. Now i have no idea how she knew that christ is up in heaven, but she knew. She honstly doesnt know her own name but she knows that christ is up i heaven. We also showed her a picture of a little girl that was being baptized, she pointed to the picture and then herself. It was a way awesome experiecne. We are going to continue to try and teach her with pictures using any signs i can remember.

I think i have now completley adapted to my new area, i wouldent be suprized if i was here a long time. It sounds like everyone is doing good at home. Sorry that i didnt get a Email off last week. Please let me know if this one is long enough. Thankyou so much.

Love Elder Sam Beck"

Flat Tires and 1000 Roaches

Sam's email this week:

"Dear family,

I am very glad that everyone had a great week. It sounds like Dad is doing really well. Like always i am fasting and praying for him and the rest of the family.

My week was pretty good this week. I don't know if i have told you, but my area is very far and all we have are 2 broken bikes. So we usually walk, but on Tuesday we decided to get them fixed. So we worked on them, bought new tires and fixed them out as best we could. We took them out for the day and my companions bike worked great, but my bikes tire popped about 4 times and we ended up walking again but also with our bikes. So then we were back to walking again, it reminds me of all the hikes i went on when i was back home. I think i could hike any mountain very easy now.

Oh yeah mom i will answer your question about the appartment. Our appartment is pretty nice compared to Kasoa, but its very smsall. To be honest i like kasoa better. The thing that sucks about this one is that we have 1000 roaches everywhere. We come home at night and before we turn on the lights i hear them crawling all over the table. When the lights come on they scatter everywhere and we go crazy trying to kill them all. I think the roaches are our fault for leaving our food out. There used to be 4 of us in the appartment , but as of today there will only be 2, Elder Ewudzie and my self. Elder Ewudzie and i are gonna try to clean the place up real nice and keep it way clean so all the roaches will go away. Well we hope they go away.

I didnt get the chance to watch conference out here, but i guess in a couple of weeks they will let us watch them in church. Im not sure if this man spoke, but there is a seventy in my ward. His name Ahadjie. He always invites us over to eat. He has a way nice house, the only one i have seen with a Basketball hoop. So i dont know if he spoke, but i know he went.

Well i am sorry, but i am running out of time. thankyou again for the emails. I am writhing letters describing my area in more detail and they should be there in a couple of weeks. I love you all so much.

Love Elder Sam Beck"