December 21, 2015

We come late from apartment.  We have to fix our bicycle so we come late to the internet cafe.  We are having FHE with one of the pioneer.  Dr. Kissi.  I met him in the MTC.  He wrote one book called "Walking On The Sand".  He's writing another book.  They are editing it in Utah.  I will do my best to get that book and you will read it one day.  It is a really nice one on church life in Ghana.  Anyway it is really nice having family around and you have a big family.  I really love family.  I'm a family person.  That's all we have.  Just our family.  I'm glad that you all are having fun and a good time.  I'm just feeling the Christmas spirit that you all have there.  We had a great time.  We sang Christmas songs yesterday at church in local language.  Everyone is happy for that.  After church we met a few people for the first time.  We had 2 LA coming to church and 4 investigators coming to church.  2 came for the first time.  They are invited by members.  We are going to get to know them.  This week we are preparing for Christmas.  We are going to have an activity in our branch.  People are busy.  We have a family that we are working with but she is having a problem with keeping the commandment so she needs a small time.  We will work on that.  We have David and his sister Joyce.  We are teaching them lesson 2.  We invited them to church but they didn't come.  But we will try and work hard with them.  We have other people that we are working with too.  We have RC in our area.  She is very good.  We call her Grandma.  She is very kind to missionaries.  I had a chance to share my testimony yesterday.  I gave a small talk about the birth of our Savior.  I quoted from Isiah.  I really love that scripture and the words of King Benjamin from the Book of Mormon.  The greatest gift which is given to all of us is to save and redeem us from our Father, His only begotten Son in flesh.  I'm grateful for that and I'm happy that I know it for myself.  That He lives and He will come again.  Thank you so much for all things that you are doing for me.  I will talk to you all soon.  I would really love to talk with Emma and Lydia too...
Much love,
Elder Birresa

December 14, 2015

Great to hear from you again.  I love the movie Home Alone, a Christmas movie.  The snow looks cold though.  Anyways I wish you all the best one.  My new area is a rocky and dusty place.  It is really nice we have people that we are teaching even though I'm new to the area.  But it was good.  I'm finishing my companion's training so we leave the apartment at 5am.  Before lunch we don't do contacting, we just go and teach.  The weather is too hot.  Then we will come back for lunch.  We do contacting and teaching and visiting members.  We found really nice people that we are teaching.  David and Joyce, his sister.  We are teaching them.  Saturday we give service to our branch president.  We painted his house for him.  We had a great time doing that.  Yesterday was missionary Sunday.  We taught all things at church.  I taught Sunday School and Elders Quorum.  It was great.  The first class was the last chapter of New Testament and the second one was about missionary work.  It was great.  It is a newly opened branch.  They want to be a ward very soon.  We will do our best by working with them.  We are four missionaries in the same apartment.  We are having a great time.  Christmas is coming and we are preparing to have Carols again in the mall and for our Zone conference.  The time flies.  I'm almost done with my mission and am grateful to have you as mother, friend, and family.  Yes, I will be calling.  Should I call the same number that I called on Mother's Day?  It would be great to hear from Griffin too.  I was just talking to people back home and they told me there is a problem between government and people.  More than 60 people are killed by government force and they are students in Ethiopia.  Democracy is zero.  There is none.  You can't talk anything.  I personally hate politics because they will kill you so because of that just this year they had an election and they said they won by 100%, which is not true.  When you see the economy is growing fast but the gap between rich and poor is very high.  We will see what will happen but that makes me feel sad when the leaders do such things to their people.  I'm very sad to see people being killed everywhere.  Too sad.  We must pray to GOD to give us good leaders.  Thank you so much.
Much love,
Elder Birresa