March/April/May 2015

May 10, 2015
A couple pictures from President and Sister Stevenson's blog from the Mission Leadership Council

 

 



May 11, 2015

Boko se awo

 

Well really it was great to talk to everyone last night! I'm glad everyone sounds like they are doing great back at home. It makes it hard to email after talking to everyone.

Last week I was reading in D and C 128:19-24 when Joseph Smith was testifying of the great restoration in our times, the restoration of the Fulness of times. How all of these great prophets and apostles, from Adam, to Noah to Abraham and Enoch and the apostles had to appear to him to restore keys they had recieved at their time, and then give them to Joseph Smith to begin the restoration of the Fulness of everything. It was powerful as we watched the restoration that same day with an investigator and Joseph Smith asked the question at the end, "Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause?" My beloved family, shall we not go on in such a cause, one where all the great prophets themselves have testified of and wished so badly that they could be a part of it? Shall we not go on in teaching the gospel to those around us and bringing it to every corner of the earth? Or in the greatest missionary force that has ever been seen. God himself appeared to a boy in a grove of trees and restored his true church once again to His children. Shall we not go on in so great a cause? No matter how old, or young or where we are. We all have tasted of the fruits of this beautiful restored gospel, can we not share the small that we have with others? No matter how big or small. I know it is true, it's what I teach everyday. It has brought me more joy than playing football, killing people and scoring touchdowns, pole vaulting at 8 pm into the night cause I'm so boss that I already beat everyone and they are on their way home, it's up there tied if not it is better than kissing cute girls.

The church is true.

Much love,

Elder Darren Hodges

 

May 4, 2015

Got Some "B-Dogs"

 

So our recent convert James is in need of a wife. We have started
operation B-Dogs, beautiful daughters of God to find him a good wife!
We even had one come to church this week after a couple miracles. Even
this last Sunday he didnt come to church! He stayed up all
night to watch Mayweather fight Manny Pacqio. Mayweather, the man won
it and took home one hundred million! James called around 5 in the
morning to let us now that he won, then cause he was so tired, he
thought he could skip church. I called and told him we had a beautiful
woman come to church that day, and about 20 minutes later he was in
sacrament meeting! Pretty sweet.
May the 4th be with you! Happy freaking Star Wars day
I hope this week was good for everyone. I had a great week but can't
really stay on longer. I'm sorry for the short email but I hope it'll
pull you through to next week. It will be a busy week for us and right
now we have a lot to do!!!

I miss and love you all!
Love Elder Darren Hodges

 

April 27, 2015

Boko!

 

This has been an interesting week. All in all I have never walked so much in my life and all our appointments all day everyday just kept falling through.. aniagro kraa.. but after walking for so long in the sun, and having a bad week teaching and proselyting wise, Sunday ended the week on a good note. Sundays are usually easy, we go, visit members and recent converts and the stubborn people that didn't come to church.. it all fell through..... all of it. But then finally as we were walking, around 5 pm on Sunday I was asking myself why... why all of the problems and the suffering this week.

There was something I have been missing, I don't know if it was because I was thinking about home a lot or because of bad planning. but in the end, I realized I needed to be a lot more humble and to start asking again, what more can I do, and especially asking my Heavenly \Father what He would like me to do and learn form all this. 10 minutes later we sat down, and taught a powerful lesson to a father and son, who love and respect each other so much. The spirit was there, I was refreshed and I loved it.

I don't know why bad things happen, I don't know why life sucks sometimes, and i don't blame anyone for it. All I know is we need to be humble. Humility is not thinking any less of ourselves, but less about our selves. Be humble, dont be compelled, reach out and show a little love to those around you. As you do, "you are only in the service of your God."

The church is true, I'm enjoying every second I have here in Ghana and can't wait to see what is in store for tomorrow.

 I freaking love and miss all of you! Hope ya'll had a great week.

Gqweta loves you.

Love, 

Elder Hodges

 

 

April 20, 2015

Boamah

Michael Acqauh was baptized Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! He is about 20 years old and a sweet guy, he really got serious the past couple weeks as we talked to him about his baptsim. At first he was putting it off and not ready to make a big commitment and join the church. we tried to talk to him about it, but with all the talking it didn't go anywhere. Until we read a verse from the book of Mormon and explained it to him.. after that, he attended all of the church meetings that next two weeks, from church to institute and got very serious, he comes to church early and has changed dramatically in the last 2 weeks.

The Book of Mormon is true, I read it every day and it has brought more peace and personal answers to my life than anything else in my life. I love it and hope all you white people there are reading it.

President came fro interviews last week, my companion and I instructed on working with less actives and recent converts. It went pretty well!

Elder Halversen called last night and told me about our flight plans and that we will be going to London! and get home in seattle at 12 in the afternoon. It's weird, im excited to come and see everyone, but it feels like it'll be harder to come home than it was to leave home.

Miss and love ya!

Elder Darren Hodges

 

 

April 13, 2015

Rain Rain......it rained a lot here.....

 

For 2 days I went outside and didn't see the sun... Friday, the rain started, Saturday it rained, and Sunday morning it rained.. Ghanains, are scared of the rain and will not go anywhere through it. If you don't already know, not everyone has a car here, so church had very few people and I am worried because the rain season here is bad paaaa!!!! Everyday, from June till August. pretty sweet cause it's nice and cold though!

     At our activity as a zone the other day, we watched the other side of heaven and I enjoyed it. It made me want to serve a mission in Tonga, but I still love Ghana too much.

Anyways...

This week, I have seen a lot of poverty, and it really got to me this time. I am in probably the richest town in the mission and I have never come across people with so little. The hardest part is we can't give money to people so we try to find different ways to help.

One new investigator came to church this Sunday, he is from Nigeria and moved here 4 days ago for work. He sleeps on the cement floor and has no money, he came to the church because it was the closest one to where he was sleeping....

Then, a member from Ivory Coast is working here and trying to serve a mission. He told us how he didn't have enough money to pay the rent for his room, sleeping on the concrete floor and he doesn't get paid for another month.. At the end of visiting him I asked if we could say a prayer and hopefully ask for the Lord to bless him. After I said that, he didn't ask us to pray for him, but to pray for his brother who is trying to pay through school and the army.

I can't really understand that kind of selflesness in a person when they have nothing and still think for the better for those around them. I pray i can be that selfless.

As you can imagine, I hate it when Elders come to me and complain that the email where they are is too slow and that they don't get enough money to buy things. Shut up and suffer. Everything that happens is FOR us. The good and bad. God is trying to build us into the children and men he wants us to be.

I miss and love you all!!!

On a happy note, Nicolas a recent convert in Green Hill went to get endowed last week!!! It was pretty sweet!!

Elder Hodge

 

 

April 7, 2015

I'll email next week.  Love you!

 

March 30, 2015

Transfers and All

So, my companion is going home this transfer. Laters! and I'm getting Elder Hinckley, he is from Utah, just like most white missionaries. But he is sweet and I'm sure we will enjoy pa!

This week I was thinking a little about obedience, and how selective obedience brings selective blessings. As missionaries we live very strange lives. We wake up at 6 and study scriptures in a shirt and tie for 2 hours then go out and teach people. I dont know how people here are not just freaked out by us most of the time. But its been boko.

Elders can be exactly obedient on mission, that does not mean however that they will be perfect. We can be exactly obedient without being perfect, whether we have a bad temper or say stupid things sometimes. But it's possible. I know as we are obedient it sets us free.

Isn't that weird??

Our Heavenly Father blessed us with the gift of free agency and kinda said "go for gold" ya know. But as we enter into baptism and the temple, and make more covenants with Him, we give that agency back to him and literally give ourselves to him. Its like having a change of heart.

The heart is the battleground. You either give your heart (desires, actions and thoughts) to the God that created you or you can give it to satan. Your choice. The same choice we made in the pre-earth life.

God and Satan both ask the same question "what do you want?"

What is it you desire? Is it good? Does it draw you closer to Christ? If not, pray for help and work to change. That is how the atonement works hand in hand with it.

The Church is true, miss and love you

Elder Darren Hodges

 

 

March 23, 2015

A Mighty Change of Heart

One day this week during my own personal study, I spent some time on the phrase, "a mighty change of heart." A mighty change of heart is exactly what it sounds like, changed from the carnal and natural man, to a changed good person.

I won't play games, I was very selfish and did some stupid things when I lived at home. And because of it, I wasn't happy with myself and just couldn't get through the day on my own. So I did what my parents had always taught me and I repented.  Repentance is not just being forgiven of sins and moving on with life, it is literally a life changed and your desires change--everything about you changes. I feel, at that time,  I had a mighty change of heart in my life where I fixed the path I was walking on and changed it to the right way. As I did that over time, it changed me.

Now, as I have served a mission, I have felt another mighty change of heart. I look back on the young man I was when I left home, a lot has changed--I'm still me, but you will see in a few months that everything is not the same.

I want to continue to have this in my life. Repentance is not something miserable that we need to be depressed about, it just means we understand our weaknesses and are working to change them.

We first need to be humble. We can either humble ourselves or be humbled by God, I promise, the first is a lot nicer. We need to be willing to give up everything we have and then repent and continue to do so.

Last night, I slept in the heat of 90 degrees, I eat rice every day and sweat so much.....it's so hot.....I have to ride on tro tros (a taxi made of a mini van with many small benches) with fat women shoved next to me and they smell like fish.  I work and work and sometimes it amounts to nothing because people choose not to believe what I say.......and there is a lot more I will won't say for the sake of my mother. But I'm the happiest I've ever been, because I'm living the gospel and doing the one thing the Lord wants me to do.

The church is true, and there is a reason that so many people are following it.

I love and miss you all!

Elder Darren Hodges

 

 

March 16, 2015

Dube

Well, its official. I asked President Stevenson for an extension on my mission.... and he said.. no. It's almost impossible to get one. So yeah. Right after that I got handed my travel log for going home. I will leave Ghana August 6th and fly into the Seattle Tacoma airport with Elder Halversen. If our flight lands and we take and hour to get to the gate... it's cause we went to have some lunch together.

Elder Dube of the seventy came this week for a mission tour and it was sweet! He is crazy and energetic. He taught a lot and how our mission is great, now we just need to sharpen our skills and become greater teachers. He knows the scriptures so well and is shorter than I imagined. Like, the same height as Janna. maybe a little taller.

I slept in Takoradi the night before, there were not any more beds so I slept on the floor. I was sore the next morning but slept it off on the tro tro ride home.

Tarkwa has been sweet. I helped a guy mine gold the other day. He is an illegal gold miner but I was doing service.

I'm really tired and we played a lot of futbol in the rain today! It was so much fun! I scored a goal from a corner kick and got muddy. Pretty sweet. We are going to go teach a sweet family so I'll end it here.

Love and miss you!

Elder Darren Hodges


March 9, 2015
MLC Axim and Fufu

Tuesday right after district meeting we went to Cape Coast to stay the night with the assistants!!! I think that night was the first time I have slept in air conditioning since I left home... it was so nice!!!!! and cold!!!! haaa! The average temp. here is 80 and 90. It's hot. So I spent the night with Gqweta and Larsen and my companion! We enjoyed and had a great time. The next morning was MLC and it was sweet. The instructions were about correction and getting ready for Elder Dubes conference. That'll be this Wednesday so I'm pumped!

I spent the next 2 nights in Axim doing a few baptismal interviews there. We were suppose to be there one night but we didn't get to do one so we missed the tro leaving town and stayed another night... so 5:30 that morning we get a knock at the door.... it was the investigator. so I did an interview at 5:30 in the morning wearing my old school batman shirt... that's something I wont forget haha
I

was so tired from all this but it was a great week.

The rest was teaching and having fun this week.

love and miss ya

Elder Hodges

 

 

March 3, 2015

Axim

We had our first real zone conference this week in Tarkwa. The mission president came and the assistants. Pres. Stevenson instructed on having unity in the mission. At first he was pushing for obedience in the mission. Now, Elders were going crazy with correcting each other without love and there has been some contention because of one or two elders that are just being childish and giving bad correction. So president instructed on unity and that we need to build a zion mission through love and unity. We need to be humble to take correction and loving when we give it. He compared it to all the times in the scriptures when the church was booming and it was because there was no poor among them, all things were equal. The assistants instructed on finding people and then my companion and I instructed as well, it was pretty sweet! I got to enjoy some time with Elder Gqweta and Larsen which was nice.

We went up to Axim for exchanges this week and it was far... it takes 3 hours of tro tro rides just to get there... its far paaa. But exchanges there were great! I loved it and enjoyed being with Elder Biney and Hartman for a day! It was great!

Not really to much happened this week but it went by really fast. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Love ya!