Dear Friends and Family!!
I am so glad to be able to write you today! i look forward
to my email time a lot :) bc of time i cant reply to all my emails (crazy eh?)
so im sorry, i will get more time when im out of the mtc (i hope) but thank you
all so much for your continued love and support! ash and clark, i laughed
pretty hard about your primary stories :) mom, your primary stories are great
as well. things kids say are crazy! funny part is that i say things
like that even as a missionary! haha just kidding... :)
i am still in the mtc, and its wednesday here. i said we
would leave tuesday, but in reality the elders and sisters going to Liberia arent
leaving till Friday...just the way the flights worked out... all of the
other elders and sisters left yesterday, but the 9 of us are lucky to have an
extra two days here in Ghana! haha it is quite weird without all of the others
guys. very empty here. and we have no planned schedule bc the instructors
were planning on us leaving yesterday. so they are coming up with things for us
to do. for instance, we practiced contacting anyone in the mtc or the courtyard
today. they are all staff and members, so they role played for us. that was
interesting.. haha anyone know why john or the three nephites didnt restore the
church to the earth? i mean they were on the earth and held the keys
right? thats the type of questions member investigators come up with. haha
I am loving the mtc so much! i was having some difficulties
adjusting last time i wrote, but within a day or so i had really come to
just love it here! i have made so many wonderful friends and so many close
companions! i love it so much! my testimony has been strengthened and
increased, i love it so much. i have been blessed so much! and i am grateful
that i am able to come to this mtc and experience the things here in ghana!
my companion and all my close friends left yesterday, so
that was a little sad. i am anxious to join everyone out in the field! as much
as i have loved learning in the mtc, im secretly tired of sitting in a
classroom all day. i am excited to get out and do some good damage on
Liberia!!! i am glad that i could get used to the english here in ghana, bc i
hear they dont even speak english in liberia. its called... koluka i think.
different than krio. but i understand that i will learn it within a month or
three if i work hard. but i have been promised that almost nobody speaks
english there, and that i will have no idea what people are saying for a
while... haha on the upside, im not worried about being the only white person
there. i hear in sierra leone there are lots of white people. not true
about Liberia though. when I introduced myself here i joked with the
elders that i was from nigeria. the entire mtc was pretty much rolling on the
ground laughing and hooting when i first did that. haha i didn’t realize what
the big deal was but apparently, if youre white and in nigeria you will be
kidnapped and killed. no joke. glad im not going there! haha...
mom u asked if i had gotten any letters, no i havent. I
haven’t received any mail. i do miss home and people sometimes. but not
terribly. i have come to realize how wonderful it will be in the celestial
kingdom when we dont exactly have to live in the same house, but we will always
be with our family and loved ones! you will never have to say goodbye. i am
looking forward to that a lot :)
you also asked how the keyboard was different... some of the
keys are smaller and some of them were broken. it was mostly that computer...
also, the best thing i brought was the mints and the heath candy that i
stuffed in my pockets at the last minute. there is no sugar here in the mtc,
only rice. so they are quite wonderful! i only eat one as a delicacy.
i used a mosquito patch and it makes me smell bad... nobody
mentioned that as a side effect. haha its ok. the doxy ( malaria medication) is
fine. havent missed a day yet!
i have gotten to become good friends with pres. graham here
in the mtc. he is the mtc president. i like him a lot! he is a very loving,
sweet man. he has helped me adjust and figure out the africans and whatnot. i
love him and his messages. i am also grateful for the americans here in the
mtc. without them, i would literally die. life is good :)
not much has changed the past week, other than my happiness.
the schedule is the same and the mtc is the same, but i have truly come to love
it. other than that, unfortunately, it has been pretty uneventful. the food is
the same, rice porridge/ oatmeal something for breakfast every day. rice and
some fish sauce for lunch every day. rice and some sort of meat for
dinner every day. my body is really feeling the effects of pure carbs all the
time. i miss my colorful diet so much. a salad and some fresh vegetables is
what i crave most oddly enough! haha everything here has so much butter/ grease
that it kills me. mom, you know how i hate butter and grease in cooking. well
here, its just gross! like a huge puddle of grease on your plate when you
finish (i rarely finish all the food).
i have eaten some weird stuff. its called garri, and i had a
hard time enjoying it. haha its this reconstituted cassava thats in the
consistency of dough. you dip it in this weird soup that has the consistency of
raw egg. literally i think it was mostly raw egg. you use your hands to eat it,
making a ball of the cassava stuff and scooping some soup stuff and then
putting it in your mouth. haha its interesting. oh, and you cant chew it or
else the yeast or something in it expands and then you choke swallowing. so you
just swallow it whole. its not bad at first. till you get comfortable and take
a bite too big and gag. haha
things are great here. tomorrow, we get to go to the temple
and spend some time there. i am very excited to get out of the walls of the mtc
and see something new! and to enjoy the beautiful temple! :) we leave for
Liberia friday afternoonish. mom, no worries about luggage bc i check two bags
free i believe. too easy :)
it is great serving here in africa! i feel help from the
other side of the veil all the time. i am always reminded of gma and gpa.
especially around the zimbabwe elders and sisters. one of the zimbabwe sisters
passed me in the hall and she was singing " i feel my saviors love".
that was just a little tender mercy to me from the lord. i know there is help
from my ancestors all around me. i am also grateful for an elder here, His name
is elder Ward. we have gotten to become very close, he is my best
friend in here. he reminds me of Josh, and i think it is a tender mercy
from the Lord saying that just because i cant serve a mission with my cousin on
this side of the veil, he is on the other side doing great work. i feel the
spirit so stong sometimes, its wonderful.
sunday evenings they show a movie here, and they have shown
us both the Joseph Smith movie (idk what its called.) its about an hour and a
half and i must highly, even strongly recommend watching it. i loved it so
much, please take time to find it and watch it. also, i believe the other one is called
"the testaments" about jesus christ's visit to the americas/ ministry
from the bible. must see! also, please watch the mormon message "lifting
burdens" as well as "mens hearts shall fail them". both of these
made my day. the church is wonderful at making these beautiful messages.
i am so ready and determined to serve!!! i loved a quote
from tad r calister which said, "i carry no white flags". that i have
decided to live by. i will give my all to this work! for it is the work of my
savior and my Lord, and i can do my best at all times. we should each decide
right now, that when trials and afflictions come that we will lean on the Savior!
for then, we have no reason to pull out any white flags! rid ourselves of our
fallbacks. we have no choice but to serve with all our heart, might, mind and
strength!! :)
i love the scripture d&c 24: 7-9. "thou shalt
devote all thy service in zion; and in this thou shalt have strength."
what a beautiful promise! when we have no idea how the end will work out, we
just give the Lord our all! and He promises that if we are giving our all to
build zion, we SHALL have strength to press on. im confident that this message
is similar to the promise of the law of tithing! that when we give our all, the
Lord will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings so much that we
will not be able to recieve it. trust that the Lord will help you, and give
your all to the building of zion.
i have finished both "our heritage" as well as
"our search for happiness" in my free time here and i love them both,
particularly the messages about the early saints and the faith that they
had. they faced so much and endured with so much faith, i love their
stories. i think that we all face challenges, often even greater in magnitude
than those of the saints, just inwardly. we do not suffer from crossing the
plains, but we suffer emotionally and from other worldy pains. my thought is
that saints today are facing great challenges all around us, but we may not see
them because they are inward. i love reading about the pioneers because we can
understand the magnitude of their challenges, and even our challenges, in
stories that humble us and help us understand that we are all going through
life and facing trials.
may we each do our part to build up zion :) and may we
attempt to do so with cheer in our hearts, for we have the peace of Jesus
Christ in our hearts! pres lee once taught, "the most important of the
Lords work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own home". i
like that. remember that as i am on a mission to introduce souls to Christ, you
each may be on a mission at home to convert souls to Christ. take care and
love one another my friends. life is good :)
-Elder Fairwell
ps since we have no classes nor anything to do, they are
giving us an hour for email today, thats why this is so long :)
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