First Email

July 6^th 2009

Hey Family,

Sorry I haven’t written, but they didn't let us email in the MTC, but I did send you a letter via the pouch that you should be receiving soon. Well, right now I am in Sierra Leone, at the mission home before I go to my mission. I am having a great time. You will learn more about my MTC stay when you receive the letter, but it was great. It really is an outpouring of the spirit. My companion was awesome, Elder Titus from Nigeria. I had great teachers. Last Saturday and yesterday I had my first experiences proselyting, they were great. Yes I was very nervous at first, but I just had to remember the scriptures that said that the Lord would give you what to say if you have the spirit, so that's what I did. I found out quickly how receptive the Ghanaian people are. They weren't converted right away, of course, but they were willing to listen. Thank you so much for your prayers. Things are going very well, I am happy, I am adjusting to the African food well. I lost my yellow card for the yellow fever vaccination somehow between, the MTC president and his wife and me. I don't know if I will have a problem and need it, but I’m glad that we have two. God works in mysterious ways! If I see a need to have it, I’ll let you know so that you can send the other one. I appreciate your letters so much. I was able to receive the one's mom left in my suitcase, as well as the two through email. You all did so good to buoy me up. The plane ride here was good, about two hours on a fairly small jet, and then when we got to the airport, we had to fly across the ocean to the mainland on a helicopter, it was lots of fun. It was an old Russian helicopter from what I’ve been told. They also have options for taking a speed boat across, or a ferry, or a hovercraft. I would have taken the hovercraft but it was broken down. Well, already from those two days of proselyting in the MTC I have introduced the gospel to about 15-20 people, and gotten info for the missionaries to get back to them. Nobody turned us down; they would all at least listen to us. We ran into a couple of people from other religions that told us what they thought, but they still listened to what we had to say. My companion has a bad habit of losing his head a little when there is any sort of disagreement, he takes offence and argues, I hope I helped him to not do that, it destroys the spirit. But, regardless of that, the people listened, it's amazing, I hope the people here are like that. There are two other missionaries here from the MTC with me, Elder Grabau (gray-bah) from Houston, TX, and Elder Kitson Dodoo from Ghana. President Squires took us on a little jaunt up a mountain and showed us the city a little, he seems really cool. I’ll try to email every week, they said I should usually be able to, but if it doesn't happen, don't worry about me. I hope everything back home is doing well. This place is beautiful, it's like someone dumped a bucket of green paint on the country, especially from the air. It’s quite hot and humid, but the heat's really not that bad, I’m used to worse. Ghana is worse. With the humidity you do sweat a lot but it's not too bad. Well, I’m not sure what to say you all need to flood me with some more questions! I’m growing a lot and learning a thousand new things all the time, doing my best to adjust, it's pretty exciting. I knew this would be an adventure and it sure is!
Elder Lowe