January 30, 2012

Dear Family:

Hey everyone! How are you doing? What's new? How is life? Anything exciting?

I am way happy and excited that you got the pictures and the papers. I have really wondered how long it would really take but I am really glad that you got them ok. Liked the pictures?:) I have been trying to take more lately, I realized that it has been sometime since I had taken some so I am trying to do better. I can't wait to one day tell you about each one and the experience attached to all of them. As for the papers I hope that it works... That is the best that Ghana can do haha so hopefully!

On Wednesday we had out interviews with Pres. Shulz. Mine went really well. He had Elder Hailemariam and me go first so I went 2nd out of the two of us. It was nice to be able to sit down with him and talk about the zone and how things are going. To be honest my interview was pretty short and straight to the point. That really is how like all of my interviews are. We just talked about the zone, the different areas, companionship's, and then just briefly asked how I was. After that we had our instruction. I went first and was asked to talk about the area book, difficult topic!!!! I really didn't know what to say, so I just talked about the three main reasons the area book is important: 1. To keep track of our investigators. We are shepherds watching over our Fathers sheep, we too need to know them, who they are, what their needs are, how they are progressing, etc. 2. It is a source of inspiration for us. As we keep it up to date, neat, clean, etc. it can be a source of inspiration. I talked about the Parable of the Sower and how James E. Talmage calls it the "Parable of the 4 kinds of soil, and how if we seek the inspiration from the area book we can see who's soil is rich and ready for growth, while others we need to help get out of the thorns and rocks. 3. It is a source of motivation. I used the quote from PMG under area book, in the red box about how others can be inspired and motivated by the work that you put forth in your area. I talked about how the current area book we have is full of pink baptism records from an elder I replaced. I talked about how I can look at each record and see people he found and baptized and how then on Sunday I see them sitting down in the chapel. To me it is inspiring! It motivates me to do all that I can so that one day it could be a source of motivation for another. "Learn from the past, inspire the future." I closed with a cool thought. I opened up to the bible dictionary and read the definition of the Book of Life. I said that ultimately as missionaries we are trying to help our investigators to have their names written in the book of life. But before that, their names are written in the Area book. It was a cool thought and helped keep things in perspective. Everyone said it was a good instruction, and the AP's said it was the best they had heard yet. I was happy about that! I just tried to take a different angle to something as simple as the area book. The APs also introduced the new theme for our mission. It was "Remember who you are!" That is from "Forever Strong" the movie we watched for our Christmas party, and they want to base the principles of that movie into our mission. Not just be forever strong on misison, but be Forever strong throughout our whole life. Just like it says in the movie, "Never do anything to embarrass yourself, your family, our your team (mission)." I like this quote a lot and the theme and believe it is what our mission really needs right now. We also talked about how we need to be more accountable. So we are now emphasizing be accountable in 3 ways, To God at the end of the day in prayer, being specific to our activities and names of people we saw; to our companions at the end of the day seeing if we truly did all that we could, and last to ourself, as we lay down at night look back on the day see if we can truly say "I have done all that I could." This is going to really help out a lot as well I believe and is truly preparing the mission for more blessings. All in all it was a great day, and a great interview! I don't really have any idea what will happen at transfers, but I think that I will stay.

We also had another baptism this past Saturday. He is a referral from one of our recent Converts. He brought him to church one time and he has come ever since. He is active in church and even did a training that the ward had to find jobs and the things that the individual could do to better their profile. He is a sweet guy and the baptism was sweet. His best friend performed the baptism and it was neat to see that. As he came out of the water he let out a big gasp of air, and it was just neat to think that yeah now he is truly reborn. He is a great guy and will be a powerful member! Our teaching pool is still kind of small, but we are working with the limited time that we really have apart from Zone Leader stuff to work with some referrals that we have. We are really lucky, the people we teach, 90% of the time will be baptized! It isn't really about trying to convert them and help them prepare, it is just teaching them and helping them to be baptized. They have already converted themselves and have the desire. The Lord is doing great things here in Kumasi! And I get to be a part of it:)

We went out to Bibiani also on Sunday! It was sweet and good to see all of them again! They are doing great!

Well family I have to go! I love all of you and appreciate what you do for me! You are the best!

Love your son and brother

Elder Ryan. S. Alba