Pray for Elder Madsen :)

hey fam!

so this week was good but hard, haha of course. this week i am kind of having a super hard time. ugh. please pray for me. momma. my bday was not like a pday. i wore my white shirt and tag over there but took a shirt to wear for the cooking. dont worry :) 

this was the cute little girl who sang happy birthday to me. and ya i did eat the food. the fish and fufu were good. the snails on the other hand...were kinda gross. but i had to eat them. im out here and i gotta try new things. (this was birthday dinner) 

so i went to a wedding this last week. it was so crazy. so fun. it was just a lot of clapping singing preaching and it was very loud. i felt like i went to a concert. the only reason we were allowed to go was because the bishop invited us. speaking of bishop. dad he wants you to email him. so an investigator we have right now, his name is lawrence. he is so cool. i know we arent supposed to have favorites but flip this guys is cool. and he came to church yesterday!! i was so excited to see him. he was even there before us. and i think he enjoyed it. we will be meeting with him tomorrow. and another is cynthia. she is awesome. we have been teaching her and her sister. but she is a lot more serious. she has come to church 2 weeks in a row. and she loves the teachings.

also one more thing. mom dont flip out or anything. but we rode in a taxi with this guy. and he was just so happy. so so happy. listening to reggae music. haha we found out he was somewhat high. he was so nice. so we found out right at the end of our ride. so i accidentally left a word of wisdom pamphlet on the seat. anyway. thats about it for this week. keep praying for me fam. i need it. love you all.

-elder madsen

One Of My Best Birthday's Ever! (Pics!)

hey fam!! 

so this week was so awesome. my bday was so amazing. so awesome. i went to bridgets house with alice and elizabeth and we pounded fufu and i got to drive it as well. we bought snails and I ATE THEM. haha they were so weird. sososososososo weird. i cant even explain it. 

but pounding was so cool. you get quite the workout from it. i almost took bridgets hand off though. a cute little girl sang to me and it was just so fun. bridget also got me a way cool necklace. so it was awesome. 

so, i LOVED your packages. so much. oh my goodness i almost started to cry a little... it was so amazing though. dad i loved the lessons ive learned. so much. maybe if you could, you could just do that (scripture cards) for like the rest of my mission? ;) cuz im kinda bad at recognizing them. and family the notes were amazing. i loved them so much. they were all so unique and just totally you. i loved them. tell the extended family i loved their cards as well. 

so a couple of other things. first off, dad, do you think there is any chance i could get into BYU? like at all. im just realizing so much my mistake of not taking school seriously. and i want to go to a good school. so badly. just let me know. 

haha so pricing taxis here is so ridiculous. the drivers try to rip you off so badly. for instance, we go to a certain are every tuesday. it costs 15 cedis to get there. so when we tell the driver where we need to go. they will always start way higher. last time we went the driver said 40 cedis. so we said we have 15 then they will say, "fine, 20." then we just say ok sorry and start to walk away. then they will just honk or tell us to come back. then they accept 15. so now when i walk up to the window i just say, "we are going to meduma, we have 15 cedis." and they just accept. i love it. anyway i gotta go. i love you all so much. and thank you so much for the birthday stuff. probably one of my best birthdays ever. love you

-elder madsen

Happy Birthday Elder Madsen!!

hey family!!

this week sounded AWESOME. haha i missed halloween. you all looked amazing. tenny that (peanut butter & jelly costume) was such an awesome idea. it looked so good. momma holy cow. i love your costume. its pretty freaky but totally you. i was happy to see all of the pics. the hunt looked sweet and so did the food. i miss miss miss the food. i think about when i get home sometimes and what itll be like when i can eat mom and dads food again. ugh.

so this last week was good and this next week will be even better. i got the packages and i got packages from grandma as well and from someone else. fam thanks for your kind words. mo i really feel like we got close as well. its weird cuz we're twins but we are super different in age. we just dominate the house when we are together. haha mom i think about those mornings all the time. i miss them so much. just laughing and watching gmm together. seriously so fun. tenny im excited to hear how the challenge goes. i hope you get your puppy. that would be so awesome. i already know his name...james. right? ya k good. ;)

dad i want you all to study the sermon on the mount. matt. 5,6,and 7. if its not too much. i just love it. have everyone maybe read it personally then talk about it or just read it all together and talk about it. what everyone's thoughts are about it. what their favorite part was. things like that.

so this last sunday we watched parts of conference in church. we didn’t know until we got there...and we had THREE investigators coming for the first time. so we had to explain what it was and then painfully watch as they sat through something they had no idea about. i wish bishop would have told us. speaking of bishop, he and his wife might come to conference sometime next year. and i may or may not have said they could stay at our house. haha they dont even know if they will for sure. but ill let you know :) dad you would love bishop nkroma. he is so cool. super smart and really knowledgeable.

so we went to review some lessons with alice and elizabeth, two recent converts. they stay together. they are both about 14, 15. and when we got there they took our tags so we let them teach the lessons. as a review we had them teach what they knew about the topics and they did SO well. it was awesome. they taught about the plan of salvation and about the law of chastity. it was the best way to review ever. they are so awesome. haha and elizabeth was reading something as part of the teaching, after she read it she started translating it into twi (as they usually do in church). she realized what she was doing and we all started laughing so hard. it was so funny.

so i was able to pound more fufu. its so scary. they put so much trust in us and im just going to take someones fingers off one of these days. so bridget, one of our recent converts, is having a little party for me for my bday. we are going over to her house and alice and elizabeth are coming. and we are pounding fufu. eating rice. and just other food. itll be so fun! and other than that we have two other meals with members this week as well. its gunna be a good week as far as food goes. bishops wife makes the best fufu ive ever had. its so good. they feed us quite a bit. i love them so much. we are teaching a guy named assemblies. he is so awesome. we have only taught him twice but he knows about the tithing and wants to pay it to our church because he wants to pay it to "the true church" as he said. he is so cool. so that is about it for this week.

 i love you all! keep being awesome. love you all.

-elder madsen 

Small & Simple Things

 hey fam! 

so this week was a lot better. we just got transfer news. im staying in my area for the next six weeks!! woo! i love my area. mainly because of the people. things with my comp are getting better. we just have been working on our communication. i have also just decided to drop like...everything. in that all these things we argue about arent even worth arguing about. so i just drop it. i hope it doesnt turn into a "laid back, dont care" attitude. that wouldnt be good. but i just need to find a good balance. 

your week sounds pretty awesome. i cant wait to see all the costumes from halloween. im going to miss that so much. kennedy...halloween doesnt really exist over here. so i'll just have to celebrate it by myself. :) itll be sweet dont worry. and ya i hope i get the other package too. if not dont send another one! i really appreciate you guys being so thoughtful of me. but my bday will be sweet. also i had a thought come to mind. morgan. as you are now able to drive a little bit. please please please keep your eyes on the road. make sure you are always driving safely. always wear your seat belt. you have no idea how fast a bad accident can ruin your life so just be safe. also, today i noticed that im getting used to the living conditions here. which is nice. 

two cool things this week. so we were waiting to teach this sister named mamma yaa,   and like six kids that are about 10 yrs old were just hangin around with us. and i was just talking with them. one of them was making a beat with his hands on his chest. so i told him to sit down and to play a certain beat. while he was playing i came in drumming on the bench and we were just making the coolest beats. it was awesome and the kids were just smiling and it was just super fun. these things seriously just make my mission. also today i met six white girls. which was SUPER weird. they were from Finland, Sweden, and Germany. they were all about my age. and they were here teaching in some of the schools. they asked what we were doing here and it was just cool to explain to them who we were. so we taught this guy for the first time on friday. the lesson was short and he seemed kind of interested. but usually we can tell if they are interested or not and if they really want to come to church. he seemed like he didnt really want to come. but on sunday he just showed up! it was awesome. so we are teaching him more now and we are hoping he progresses.

well that is about it for this week. im doing a lot better. also i had a thought. that when i get home, and im looking back on my mission, what do i want to see? do i want to see happiness or sadness? positivity or negativity? myself working hard or slacking? it has really helped. i just have been thinking about home a lot and i want to focus on my mission. so im trying. keep me in your prayers. love you all!

elder madsen

Patience is a Virtue

hey family! 

im so glad to hear that your week went well. the byu game sounds fun even though we lost. dad i remember going to those games with you and just wanting hot chocolate and nachos so bad. the games were awesome. momo thats no fun having that much homework. but it really witll be worth doing i promise. and flip i miss sushi. kennedy! biking 30 miles?! thats awesome. good job keep it up. dad that is awesome you will be working with lindsey stirling. jealous. tell michael that she's mine. ;) 

mom and dad thank you for the uplifting comments. it really does help. it gives me a lot of hope for my mission. this week was just hard. super hard. i have been very calm though. for the most part. patience is something me and my former comp worked on together so so much. it was hard for me and him so we worked on it and i really feel i improved...and now im just being tested. a mission really is just a test. and its something that we can learn so much from if we let it. i am getting better and being calm and solving our problems in a good way. 

this week was slow but saturday was probably the best day i have had on my mission. it was just so happy and fun. we met with a lot of people and i was just loving the people. sorry this email was somewhat short. dad you're one of the best shots i know with a shot gun. i talk to people about the mountains back home...i cant explain well enough about how big they are. 

i got one of the birthday envelopes by the way. i really appreciate you guys. i just dont want you to spend too much on me k? also i found some really cool necklaces and stuff that i could buy for the family. i love you all. thank you for the prayers. everyone read dads message in the liahona. hes pretty much an apostle now with his messages going all over the world. nice work dad!! 

love you. bye!