Landon's Accra Ghana Mission

Ghana Accra Mission - May 2019 - thanks to Sister Keyes! (Elder Baird is on the  far left sitting on the wall - I think...) To start off my letter, I am letting you all know it is the end of my companions mission today. To be honest, it is not easy to say goodbye to your companion who you have known your entire mission and who has been an influence of good. Elder Jones, you will be missed!  We had the chance today, to get together with all of his mission friends and we played games and ate pizza and we had a good chance to say goodbye to everyone, so things went really well. :) This last week we had some cool opportunities as well! On Friday, we had the amazing opportunity to listen to Elder Christofferson from the Quorum of the twelve apostles! HE was accompanied by Gerald Causse the presiding bishop, the Africa west area presidency, and Elder Vincent from the presidency of the seventy. Let me just say that, we were all very spiritually uplifted! They all ...

 The Aburi Gardens This past week was our interviews with our mission president and then zone conference was the next day. Let's just say that, I really, really loved our zone conference and what was discussed. President Keyes gave us a lesson about the doctrine of Christ which is faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. He explained how important it is and that it is the "Doctrine of Christ" not the "Doctrine(s) of Christ." It really touched me when he mentioned that, because some of us like to choose some commandments to follow and other ones we don't want to. Without one we can't have the other. SO when speaking of the doctrine of Christ, when we remove one we cannot have the strong foundation that we need to receive eternal life. Elder Jones and I After the lesson, we split into our zones and Elder Jones and I had the chance to speak to our zones and to have a short lesson wit...

 There was a big rainstorm today when we were going to the mall. We got soaked, ha ha! All the roads were flooded! Well it's no surprise that I got a sinus infection, because literally all the Elders in my apartment and a few more in the zone got the same thing, so It was about time I contracted the plague as well, ha ha. But oh well! It's nothing too surprising anymore, ha ha! This past week was quite interesting though! I will start with Wednesday. That was the day of our MLC (a.k.a Mission Leader Conference). It is where all the zone leaders meet together with the mission president to discuss the concerns of the mission and how we can increase enthusiasm in the mission. The main theme of the whole conference was change. It was about how we can change the mission culture among the missionaries and how we can increase the level of excitement for the work in the Lord's vineyard. Eventually our Mission President just said, "From now on, no more con...

Ashaiman Bus Station (No pictures again so I found this one online. :) ) I want to start off telling you about the Ashalley Botwe Ward, (my previous area). They will be having three baptisms this next Sunday, and guess what? They were all people that I found and taught! I want to tell you that I am so happy for them! It's sad and a little hard that I won't be able to go and be a part of it, but I am just happy that they are finally going to get the chance to enter into a new covenant with God. :)  A funny thing about it is that I forgot to tell the mother of two who were getting baptized that I was leaving the area. A few days ago, I got a call and all I heard was, "Elder Baird! You didn't tell me you were leaving!!!!" She was a little upset, ha ha ha.  So...I made a little mistake, but after that she was telling me how excited she was to see her kids preparing to get baptized into the church. She continued to thank me for teaching her and giving her f...

Ashaiman Market (No pictures this week so I found this picture of the market online). Well this past week was just amazing. I will come to that at the end of my email, ha ha.  I will start off with how my week went. This past week was really devoted to showing me around the area and meeting the people that we are teaching. I want to tell about a family that we are currently teaching right now. The father's name is Richard and he has three kids. He is divorced so we are just working with the four of them. Elder Jones and his former companion started teaching him a little bit and he was taking the lessons really well, but he was never finding the time to come to church. Well, two weeks ago, he finally came for the first time. It was during stake conference where they watched general conference. After church, he came and told us that he is ready to be baptized and that we must begin teaching his kids. So we started teaching them, and they are progressing super-fast! We tau...

For our last district meeting we did a service project to help recover someones house after a flood. Sorry guys! This email will be super short because I basically have less than five minutes to write something! So quick update! I am now in Ashaiman 2 branch. This area is insane, ha ha! Literally it has the most people I have ever seen in Ghana. It is a busy hub because it has one of the largest markets and bus stations in Ghana, so it is crazy busy! Which also makes it super dusty so my shirts are taking a toll ha ha! I love the area so far and the members are just so awesome! I will tell you more about them next week!  Today I went to my old stake to go and play some sports for a large activity they had and it was such a wonderful blessing to see all my old friends from my former ward. More especially, to see my converts again. : )     That's all I have for today, sorry guys! I will make up for it next week! Sincerely, Elder Baird

Transfers are this week! I will be transferred to Ashaiman zone! As all the return missionaries from this mission will say, you have never served a true mission in Ghana until you serve in Ashaiman. I guess I will learn shortly what they mean by that phrase, ha ha! This past week was super good though! To start off, on Friday we decided that we would set aside two hours to just do some contacting (I hate contacting, ha ha). So we started walking around in a new area and it became very apparent that we weren't going to find anyone very easily. So it ended up with us walking around and learning the area. After about an hour and forty-five minutes, I decided to walk down a road that looked a little "interesting". My companion questioned me because he thought that there wasn't anything down there. Well I was persistent, and we went down the road. Well, at the end of the road we passed by a women and her children who were just sitting there. I greeted them and ...