May 23, 2011

Dear Family:

So Saturday morning, about 7:30 am, Pres. Sabey gave me a call and told me about Lito’s passing. He told me that Dad had called and told him about it. He gave me his condolences, but said that it was times like this that we are grateful for the plan of salvation and the knowledge and comfort it brings into our lives. He said that he told dad how great of a missionary I was and how he was glad that I was in his mission. He then just asked about the area and then again said he was sorry. It was very nice talking to him. After talking with him I was totally fine. I didn’t cry, I wasn’t really sad, I just knew that it was what needed to happen. It hadn’t really sunk in that he was gone. But reading everyone’s emails and it has now sunk in. But how blessed we were that he was our Lito. His righteous influence is one that we were all blessed to witness, and now, get to try and follow. He was a great man, and I am proud to bare his name! Just like I said in my last email: I know that even though he will not be there when I return from my mission, I know that he will be there to welcome me home after this life. I hope that the funeral all goes well! I will be thinking about it all day, but just as dad said I will be working hard because Lito will be watching!

So on Tuesday we had zone conference. It went great! We learned about how we can we can ask more effective questions when we first meet someone, and then President gave a really powerful teaching on the Doctrine of “oneness,” it was a really cool principle that I will have to teach you all when I come home. He talked about how a mission truly is to train and prepare us for when we are married. It was really great and powerful. Pres. Sabey will do one more zone conference right before he goes at the end of the month.

This week was really an interesting week. We struggled and are

struggling a little to find people to teach. Like our teaching pool is

on the smaller side, but we will find them. It is just a little tricky because we have really gone through our part of the area, but this

week we will just go through it all again. But things are ok! We are

still looking for a family to teach and baptize for the goal, and have about 5 weeks to do it, but just like Pres. told us, if we will do

our part and work hard and trust in the Lord, then He will provide a way!

The family we are working on right now is Brother Antwi. We met with him twice this past week. The first time we taught Lesson 3 and emphasized the importance of baptism. At the end of the lesson, he told us before we could tell him, that he would pray and ask God if the baptism he had prior was correct or not, like if the guy who baptized him had the correct authority to do so. It was awesome to see that he knew what he needed to do. The next lesson the Bennetts came with us and we shared the parable of the taxi with Bro. Antwi and he love the lesson. He said that he knows that the bike is the only way. He said he is still praying about baptism, but is confident that God will give Him and answer. Hopefully this coming Sunday he will come to church. We are meeting with him on Wednesday, and then Pres. is coming up to Sunyani to try and help everyone with the goal so he will also probably come with us to visit him on Friday.

Oh on another note, Elder Sitati is coming up to Sunyani on either Saturday or Sunday to just check it out and see how things are going so I will probably get to meet him again. I also forgot to tell you/ask you if they said the same thing in the US. But some guy had prophesied that the end of the world was going to be on May 21 haha. I was excited to see how everyone reacted here, but the cool/funny thing was that no one here believed him. They all kept quoting the scripture in the Bible that says not even Christ knows

the day that He will come again. It was great to see that everyone

here was not so keen to follow the advice of a false prophet. So May 21st, was not just Mom’s b-day, or the day Lito passed away, but also the day the world was supposed to end.

One of my recent converts called me earlier the other day. It was

Michael the 14 year old kid we baptized right when I came up here. He told me a cool story about how he had to defend the church with his old pastor and how the Holy Ghost has helped him know what to do and what to say. It was a really cool story and being able to help him as well. He will be a great missionary one day!

Alright so send my love to the entire Alba family and especially to

Lita. Tell her how much I love her and wish I could be there, but know that Lito will be helping me over here! I love you all so much! Thank you for everything!

Love your son and brother

Elder Ryan S. Alba