My birthday was this week. It's crazy to think that I'm 19 freaking years old. This is my last year as a teenager and I'm doing missionary work. That's a good thing. Better than anything else I could be doing right now. This past Sunday was Stake Conference. First off, the Tema Stake has about 3000 members and about only 1400 are active. That means that 1600 are less active. So President Judd wants us to focus on the less actives. Good plan I thought until I looked at the Kpone branches numbers. We have about 120 members and 90 are active. So to continue with Stake Conference. The special guest of conference included President Judd, President (insert name here because I forgot) of the Ghana Accra Temple Presidency (Second Counselor) and Elder Joseph W. Sitati, 1st Counselor in the Africa West Area Presidency. All of them spoke. They were all great and hopefully the members got the message. We need more missionaries! Tema Stake has currently 50 missionaries serving. (That's a lot!) A young woman in our branch is turning in her papers soon. (Awesome, but we lose our one ward missionary!) But anyway...lots of work happening. But It could be better.
With it being Sunday, we had baptisms today!!! Me and Elder Tribe had 2 get baptized yesterday. Two twins we have been teaching were finally baptized. It was awesome! Elder Tribe baptized them and two young women Elder Pietsch and Elder Flann have been teaching. So I said last week we were going to have 4 possibly 5 being baptized...well... the 5th one her parents said no and will no longer allow us to teach her because they believe we've corrupted her. 
I don't know how but we tried to explain but they sadly would not allow us to teach her anymore. She said when she turns 18 she will be baptized. That's awesome! I will be home by then since she turned 16 just 3 weeks ago. Oh well, we will make sure she still sees the missionaries once in awhile. She has a Book of Mormon and every other pamphlet we have. She still has it and will not allow her parents to take it from her. We pass where she works every day so we just say hi and give her a chapter to read (but you didn't hear that from me). 
So the couple that we've been having the drinks with, well, they sadly were not baptized this week. They are still having issues and have to be married before they can be baptized. So me and Elder Tribe have been focusing on the Proclamation to the Family and repentance with them and hopefully he purposes soon. President Judd met 1 on 1 with him yesterday and basically told him to get married. Sister Judd met with her and basically told her to get married. Ya, President and Sister Judd are pretty straight forward. Simple enough. So we're just waiting on if they want to commit or not. I think they will they just don't know what to do, or how to do it. And they look to us for help...ME...ME...for help when it comes to marriage
. Oh boy! Me...I'm not even married and they expect me to know what to do! (Pray for me...) But President Judd said that it will be revealed unto us what to do. So I'm not too worried.
So now, back to my birthday. The couple I said that needs to be married they are like my family. We see them all the time and they had us all over for my birthday on Thursday night. We had rice and more rice. It was yummy. Also more drinks! (Alcohol free) I got to pop the drinks. It was awesome. As soon as I get my SD card reader you can watch the video of me doing it. I enjoyed reading all of the emails today from you concerning my birthday. It really meant a lot to me.
Story - BYU Idaho choir came to Ghana!!! And I got to go and watch them perform at the National Theater. Ghana's National Theater! It was awesome. The size of the theater is about half the size of the Cox Auditorium at Dixie State College, opps University. It's small, but BYU did amazing. Two other choirs performed before them. They were good and the Ghana people were really dancing along with the two choirs and having fun. BYU Idaho enters from the audience, walks down the aisle singing, gets on stage, finishes and the crowd cheers and then BYU starts. Up to this point the crowd has been cheering during the other two choirs performances. BYU, silence. Needle dropping quiet during their singing. Crowd in shock. It was amazing. So happy I went.
Well, thats about it for me this week. I'll be emailing a few of you soon. I just run out of time and family comes first when e-mailing. But plan on emails soon.
I love you guys and look forward to hearing more from all of you. Keep up the good work there and I will keep up the good work here. Keep the Missionaries everywhere in your prayers. We need them especially here.
LOVE ELDER TY M. BOWDEN
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