May 23, 2016

Hey everyone!!!

Hope that you all had a good week. Ours was pretty good. It was hot hot hot, except for the rain we have had for the last 3 days! It has been a swamp! There has even been some flooding in the area, but nothing that affected us. We had a pretty mild week. Our investigators are progressing well. We have one who is named Mercy. She is such a miracle for us! She came to church a couple of weeks ago but we havent been able to see her since, then she came to church yesterday. We found out why she came back. Her brother-in-law was talking about the church. She said that she wanted her salvation so he said that she needed to go to this church. So now she is super interested and we get to teach her whole family. They definitely will progress and get baptized. I can see it. It really is amazing to find people like that. We are still working with Naana and Irene, and we are hopeful that they will progress and be baptized. 

Today for P-day we met with the zone at the Adenta chapel. It was a lot of fun, we played soccer and basketball and ate some good food.  We had tortillas and beans, spaghetti, Idaho potatoes, avacado and stew. The missionaries cook the food, and I made the spaghetti and sauce this time. 

I am really enjoying working with Elder Allen, we make a great pair. We are working hard to build our teaching pool, and I know that we will see success from our hard work. I thank the Lord so much for the children that are ready. I love this gospel so much. I can't believe that I only have less than 18 months left!

Love,

--

Elder Travis J. Roberts

Ghana Accra Mission

"Just keep swimming."- Dory

Here is a pic with me on the left and Elder Allen holding the shirt up on the right.

May 16, 2016

Well hello everyone!!

I hope that you all had a good week! Mine was pretty good. We are just getting better and better. We have a few more people with baptismal dates (Sister Naana and Sister Irene) so we are super excited! 

It was another hot week. Except for Thursday, when it was a total downpour! We got trapped in a shop for 2 hours! It was much needed though. We also had zone training in Adenta on Wednesday. It was really good to see all my friends in the zone. I even got to see Elder Crosby (he's one of the Elders I flew to Ghana with).  We got really good council from the zone leader's, so that was nice. 

Unfortunately Elder Omokoh (one of the Elders in our apartment) ended up being transferred, we were sad to see him go. Also, I hit 6 MONTHS ON MISSION BABY!!! I can't believe that I am already at that point. It really doesn't feel that long! I burnt a tie to commemorate the occasion, it was super fun!! We are going over to Bishop Amofa's for dinner tonight, so that will be a nice treat.  That is all I really have for this week. I love all of you and hope you have a good week!

Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God...

Love,

--

Elder Travis J. Roberts

Ghana Accra Mission

May 9th, 2016

Well, sorry that I didn't email last week. The connection was bad last week at the internet cafe. So, two whole weeks to talk about. We are making progress in growing the area. We have found some new investigators that seem promising. One of them is named Nana. We met her last week. She was a actually a blessing in disguise. That day when we went to see all of our people they cancelled on us, every single person. So we decided to go and contact. At first we were having no luck doing street contacting, so we sucked up our pride and went into the nice housing area and started knocking on compound doors. At first we had no luck. Then we knocked on Nana's compound door. At first she didnt answer, then we knocked again and she answered and let us in. We got to know each other and found out that when she was small she went to the church, but she is not baptized. We taught her and her mom and at the end of the lesson you could see in her eyes that she wanted to learn more. She truly was a blessing because after that we found a few more people. 

I definitely know that when you feel like you should just give up and go back to the apartment the Lord will bless you with strength if you decide to do His will.The gospel is real and everything else that goes with it is real. I love it so much. 

Something that is normal for me but not for all of you is that during the day you will hear the mosque's prayers over their loud speakers. I have gotten used to it. You also hear all the churches "speaking in tongues" a lot. Ghana is SO different, but I love it. I can't believe that I only have a year and a half left. Oh yeah, SIX MONTHS BABY!!! We are at the six month mark, crazy to think! 

We also had Mother's day yesterday. It was so amazing to talk to my parents and to video chat and see their faces. I love them so much and I miss them. Good thing I get to see them in 18 months! Well I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love,

--

Elder Travis J. Roberts

Ghana Accra Mission

Mother's Day 2016

We just wanted to post and tell everyone that we got to Facetime with TJ today for Mother's day.  It was so great to see and talk to him.  He looked so good and we could tell that he is absolutely loving his mission.  He was at the Anna's house (one of the local members) when we got to video chat with him. Here are a couple of screen grabs when we talked to him.

April 25th, 2016

Hey everyone!!

Well I hope you all had a good week. Our week was pretty good. Still teachin' repentance and baptizin converts. It was a pretty quiet week though. So, let me give you a run down of Ghana. It is hot all the time. It feels good when it rains though. Then it gets really humid and hot the next day. Dirt becomes mud and puddles, very annoying. Food is really cheap, the people are really nice. Everyone is either Christian or Muslim. We drink water out of bags, yes I just said that. There are nice cars and not so nice cars. There are mansions and then there are shacks with the compounds in between them. We have power and water. The people are super nice. Even if they won't accept the message, even Muslims. It is such a different place but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. I love it so much here. I love the gospel and I am so blessed that I get to teach it for 2 years, ( about 18 months now). I love you all and hope you have a good week.

Love,

--

Elder Travis J. Roberts

Ghana Accra Mission

April 18, 2016

Hey everyone!!

How are you all? I hope that you are doing well. My week was pretty good. We are doing the daily missionary grind!! We are doing really good with our investigators. We met with Irene on Saturday and she is progressing very well.  We are going to try and set a date this week for her baptism. We also picked up a couple of investigators, so that was nice. One of them is named Ladona. They both are really nice and we hope they are willing to listen to, and act on, the missionary lessons. 

It has been an adjustment getting used to the food here, but I have learned to really like it. This week I had some Banku (cassava dough) with Okra stew and tuna. I also had some Jollof rice (its like paella or jambalaya), good stuff! We have bikes, but we mostly walk around our area.  The zone got together in Madina for P-day today.  We played football and ate together, it was a lot of fun. 

Elder Allen and I are getting along great and working hard. Our hard work seems to be paying off and we are doing very well.  It was actually a pretty calm week this week. It is weird to think that I have been out for over 5 months already and we are speeding towards the quarter mark. It truly is hard to believe! I am so thankful I am serving a mission and I am so thankful for the Gospel, it means so much to me. I love all of you and I hope you all have a good week!

Love,

--

Elder Travis J. Roberts

Ghana Accra Mission

April 11, 2016

Well another week has come and gone. I cant believe that we are already this far in!! It has been 5 months since I have been out! That is hard to believe. It really is amazing to see how fast time goes! It is still really hot and humid here.  We have gotten a little bit of rain, but it doesn't cool things off at all. I think its just going to be this way my whole mission, but that's OK. I have learned to like my Crocs, something I thought I would never say. If any of you have seen the movie "Freetown", it was all filmed in Ghana. The bridge near the end of the movie is here in Accra. It goes over the Volta river and I have seen.  It is a really neat bridge.  

This week was pretty normal. We taught quite a few lessons and had good results. We may have found a serious investigator. Her name is Irene, she is in her twenties.  We met her and her sister one day when we were contacting near our apartment and taught them. Her sister goes to work so we don't get to see her much, but she writes her questions down for us! Also, Irene has an LDS friend that gave her a Book of Mormon. She hadn't started reading it yet so we challenged her to read it. She said that she would but, over here you have to take things with a grain of salt and expect them to maybe not read it. We were suprised the next time we saw her that she had actually read! She actually read in Moroni 8 about infant baptisms and had questions for us! It was really exciting. 

The other fun thing that happened was that I read In Defense of Truth. I am sure some of you have heard of this book before. It is a really awesome book for missionaries to read. It answers lots of questions that other religions have about our church and helps to expand our knowledge as well, all using the Bible. It really is a good and interesting read. It isnt that long, only 75 pages, but it is beautifully written. Well that is all for this week. I hope that you all have a good week! Love you!

Sincerely,

--

Elder Travis J. Roberts

Ghana Accra Mission