Akwabba my people


So dudes I got your package with your homemade mint chocolate chip cookies in it! They didn't even get all broken and crumbly. Man they were delicious. I gave some to my companions. Here is a picture of us eating steak and the frozen vegetables from Shop-Rite, and the cookies from home! Ah man we enjoyed. Nothing like a nice piece of steak! We rubbed some garlic cooked it with some onions (insert Homer Simpson drool here).

Our members or investigators are hooking us up with free meals. It takes a lot of time to go cook at our apartment plus it ain't gonna be very good cause we are in a hurry and don't have to prepare stuff. Free meals are the way to go, everyone here is always anxious to cook for missionaries as well. Sister Florence Nettey calls us her children and feeds us at least 4 times a week. Today we had koko yam and some pork stew thingie, it was deliciouso; she leaves us with the leftovers so we can shove our faces tonight before we go to sleep. She helps out a lot. She also left us with 2 big ol' plantain bundles of plenty right off the tree things. Yum! I scored one for tonight from one of our recent convert families, the Leve family. We haven’t been able to visit our recent converts as much because we have been trying to get all these people ready for baptism and finding a lot of people, so they are happy to have us come over. Tonight i'll have banku and pepe. Yummy. I'm so grateful for the free food, it helps us out a lot.

We haven't been able to visit our recent converts a lot is because we were focusing on finding new people to teach. However President Smith also told us that now he wants us to help the members 'endure to the end' and have 10 member-present lessons a week. We will probably be visiting our recent converts a lot more now to try to invite them to come teach with us. I told President Smith that I was concerned when some of our recent converts, 1. Don't have a calling, 2. Don't have a home or visiting teacher, 3. Don't receive daily nurturing from the scriptures. I told him that I can temporarily provide the number 3 and maybe some of number 2. The rest is up to our ward leaders using their authority to give them callings/home teachers etc. He wants to come with us to our ward coordination meetings to visit with the ward leaders a little bit to let them know my concerns. Good news is that yesterday our bishop called a new elders quorum president and elders quorum counselors and also a bishopric first and second counselor. This will help out with giving our people callings and responsibilities so they will feel needed and wanted. I worry about our recent converts and want to make sure they will remain active. Dig?

So Elder Yao and I got all the interviews done for our 4 people we will baptize on Saturday and confirm on Sunday. Interviews are always crazy because we gotta run all over the place and make sure all the forms are filled out etc. We still didn't get Dorah's information. Dorah is an orphan who lives with her grandma. She never knew her father and her mother died. Dorah has a very hard time reading, I think it is dyslexia because she memorizes the way the words look and can't sound them out and she always mixes up who and how. She doesn't know her parents full names or information or her address etc. We went and got a ward member to translate for us as we talked to the grandma to ask her, but we accidentally offended to her while approaching her by talking to her while she was eating so she wouldn't give us any information... Our ward member said she would work on it. The grandma likes us because we go over and visit her and because we tease the little kids and she gets a kick out of it. There is this big hole next to their house where they are getting ready to put a toilet and if the kids call us names or are being rowdy then Elder Holt picks them up and drops them in the big pit where they can't get out. The grandma likes that haha. We eventually fish them out, the kids have fun. We just need to get that information from her so Dorah can be baptized.

What’s with me and accidentally offending people? I thought about this and I think it is because we come from a place where we have a tradition of taking tradition and saying "ah to heck with that tradition" and doing our own thing. It is hard to remember all this 'only greet with your right hand; always greet the old people when you approach them or pass by them; however don't talk to people or greet them if they are eating if they are old; eat freaking fast ALWAYS or it says to people you don't like their food; finish all of your food even if it means puking it up in the street afterwards; don't help women do anything like move chairs etc; I'll get used to it but it'll take time.

Oh good news. There is this couple, Peter and Amma, who lots of missionaries have been teaching for about 8 months who finally got married so we can baptize them soon. Marriage here is somehow freaking complicated because of the traditions and stuff (TRADITON! Fiddler On the Roof Jewish arms go up). There are 2 marriages here, the traditional one, and the legal one. Peter wanted to get married to Amma but they had a child before they were married. This made something called the 'bride price' go up. The daughter's family (cousins brothers grandparents etc) can claim certain things like money, alcohol, cloth etc for the bride price. If they parents don't like the guy or if they have a child before they are married, they family usually adds a fine or a penalty on the bride price. In Peters situation they wanted lots of money and that took him almost a year to save up the money. Finally he got it and they were traditionally married on Saturday. In the traditional marriage they usually go to the hometown of the girl and they meet with the parents and they exchange cloth, alcohol, the ring and other custom stuff.

The church allows people to be baptized after the traditional marriage but they can only go to the temple after the legal marriage. People here WILL NOT get married legally before the traditional one even though it is perfectly legal to do. We have lots of investigators that want to be baptized but aren't married yet. We asked president Smith about the whole marriage stuff and he says that they can get married legally for free or next to free at church by the bishop. The bishops don't like to do the legal marriage without the traditional marriage because of tradition. I have found that it is best for me (with my political revolution characteristics and idea about treating women as equals), to stay far away from all discussions about traditional things. For marriages problems I just tell the bishop that the family has a problem and let the bishop deal with it because I don't understand it. Traditions are cool and I love tradition, but some of them hinder the work and push the women behind the men rather than by his side. Dig? Our quorum of the 70 apostle Elder Dickson talked about it a little bit. Good news is that they figured all of that hullabaloo out and we now get to baptize them and they get to receive the Holy Ghost. Nice!

We went to the temple and it was really cool as it always is. I came away with a good feeling that I need to learn to trust people more and let them have their opportunities to fulfill their assignments and to not worry. I need to have faith that people will come through.

Thanks dad for your letters. You are a good guy and your letters always give me like an extra push to keep on rockin.

Elder Yao and Boyd cleaned the whole apartment today. It is really nice living in a clean house. Nothing beats a clean dust free environment. The Spirit is there more when it is clean.

Thanks for the Olympic updates. That Bode Miller always does a good job, dad loves him so much. I can see all of you huddled around the tv with your apollo anton ohno goatees on (that mom made out of craft supplies and stuck to everyone’s faces with double sided sticky tape, you know the kind).

Thanks grandma patsy for your email. Thanks for your prayers and grandpas temple visits for me. Oh speaking of! I did that ancestors name for the endowment. I did it like 4 months ago and forgot to tell you, so he is all good and taken care of. I forgot his name though, you guys will remember it. Cool.

Well all is cool. I'll letcha know how Elder Holland’s visit goes. I'll try to snap a picture with him. He is like really smart. I always love his talks.

Anywho my internet time is up and I gotta go. I love you all. Thanks for listening to me jabber.
ps. Good job brit on your cd! I also dug the "set the children free" song. I understand haha.
Gotta go! love you all.

My people!

The water is back on! Yahoo! Now the only problem with getting people to church on Sunday was that the power went off... drats. Don't worry, some people came ;) Thanks tons for your thoughts. They will come in handy this week for someone i'm sure.

So I'm loading you up with pictures today!
The stories might not be in order with the pictures but you can sort it out right?

So to start out the week we worked on getting some new investigators and progressing others because on the 27th we should baptize 4 people, so we need to quickly progress some towards baptism. You see they have all this missionary work stuff systamitzed and all figured out.

Missionary 101.
You start by contacting around 20 people each day, some of those will let you teach them, then they become "investigators." Then you gotta have them be your friends and trust you but they cant be too much friends you see. If missionary work was a recipe then you would add a 'dash' of friendship. Then if they come to church and pray about the message of the restoration, book of mormon etc. then they become "progressing investigators." So after they come to church for a bit then you try and navigate that lesson where the Holy Ghost will smack them in the face and when you see and feel that they have been smacked (smack-en) across the face by the Holy Ghost, you can give them a baptismal date. Then you baptize them and pray that the bishop and ward members will give them a calling, home teachers etc. Then rinse lather and repeat.

President Smith calls this the 'bucket 2 bucket' system. You gotta keep filling your buckets to keep the work constantly progressing. Man all mission presidents all have to be business people, they know how to work the numbers and know how to have a constant increase. President Smith quote for yall, "I don't want to take a rocket-ship to the moon, I just want a small constant incline."
Class dismissed.

President Smith, he is a great man. He always is focusing on the work and the people and carries a big spirit, even though he is smaller than dad haha. I like him and his wife. You guys would like him. He is small, smart, always has a diet coke handy in the car. Sister Smith saw your Christmas tree calendar of cuteness you made and made me give it to her so she could keep it safe at the mission home. I said, "oh thanks. My mom sneezes out adorable stuff like this."

Anywho we were working on progressing some of our "investigators." One of our investigators, Henrita from Nigeria, came to church out of the blue. We handed her a pamphlet one day and SHE CAME! That never happens. Anywho, we taught her some more and she said that she had a dream about the end of the world with fire and stuff everywhere and chaos and she was running to this mountain and at the top of the mountain there was this very beautiful building and she started trying to get everyone to run to the building for safety, picking up crying children around her etc. She said that everyone was wearing white and it felt safe to be there. We then showed her a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and she said that that was it except there was only one pillar...kinda like the one in Accra. She is loving the message and is reading the Book of Mormon and is doing well. She was somehow upset about relief society because she is from Nigeria and speaks english and some other Nigerian language, but they were speaking Twi during relief society (smacks self in head!) The church has given the wards strict instruction to only have church in English (the official language of Ghana) for reasons like this. We called the bishop so hopefully that'll be resolved. So now we had to help her feel better about church and befriend her more. She is a college student by the church and is taking a course on beauty school stuff. We taught her once when there was a lady leaving her room from getting her nails done. She then asked if she could do our nails and practice that manicure stuff, Elder Holt quickly rejected but volunteered me. Getting my nails done is nothing new to me cause of the guitar stuff. I frequent the pro nails next to cold stone in the mall becuase of breaks or I need an emergency spare acrylic etc. So she did my nails and took photos of my hands for her class etc. She likes us and is committed to come to church again. We will hopefully give her a baptismal date soon.

Here are some photos of my lovely cuticles. Nice.

We also picked and got this cool guy, Neizer Cornelius, to come to church and read the Book of Mormon. He is a nice guy and is learning well. We contacted him when we saw him teaching some little kids how to play this complicated version of checkers called 'draft.' Elder Holt knows how to play so we asked if we could play and then we made friends with him and taught him and now he is coming to church, hopefully with his whole family soon. I learned how to play the game but it is complicated, you have to kinda predict the future. It is like chess meets checkers. Man Neizer is stinking good and likes to talk smack while playing. He handed it to me so I challenged him again, then he again beat me. Elder Holt is putting up some photos where you can see me losing hardcore.

Ah missionary work. Studying, waking up early, knocking on doors, sharing the message, changing lives, getting your nails done, eating goat testicles, playing complicated checkers and getting it handed to you by your investigator. Ya know.

Well today we visited this place called 'shoprite.' It is like a normal grocery store. Elder Holt hadn't gone for over a year and it has been around 5 months or so since I have been inside. We walked inside and it was mega weird. We both kinda freaked out.

It was somehow uncomfortable but nice at the same time. It was really cold because of the air conditioning and nobody was harassing us to come and buy and not one person yelled 'hey obroni' at us. I liked the whole being left to yourself while you shop part. Anywho the stuff is stinkin' expensive so we didn't buy too much but here is a list of what I got.

Mt. Dew
Spring Rolls (chicken)
4 Steaks (beef!!!)
Coco puffs (rip off South African version)
Soy Milk (didn't feel like I could handle real milk right now, it has been awhile)
Peanut Butter
1 small bag of doritos
1 bag of frozen brocolli, carrots etc
Jam mix
and some other small stuff.

It'll be very nice!

Today we didn't have much planned to do P-day wise so we started doing our normal cleaning stuff in the morning. We then got fed up with the front yard and borrowed a shovel from a neighbor and Elder Holt went crazy. (he worked on a ranch back home) We turned a poopy front yard with no plants into a nice mormon looking house. Our recent convert Florence bought some flowers for us and we planted them then tied up our out of control branches, got rid of tons of excess dirt that would get all over when it rains, made some rock wall little things for our flowers (who taught me how to do that?...) and of course built a stonhenge. It is feeling very nice now. We even got our chairs from our living room and moved them outside, sat in them with mt dew and our doritios while going, "yup." Life feels better when things are clean.

Oh Elder Jeffery R. Holland is coming next week to visit with us! CRAZY! Elder Holt already gave me a hair cut around my ears haha. Don't worry, I will have him trim me again the night before. I have been studying a talk he gave at the Provo MTC about the 'Divine Companionship.' This talk is amazing. You should try to track it down somewhere. It talks about having a 3rd companion, the Holy Ghost. Man it rocks, too much stuff to talk about but I have been trying to live and teach so the Holy Ghost can control the lesson and it is working. It ain't our (the missionaries) lesson, it is Their (the Godhead) and of course the Investigator. The Holy Ghost has been taking the lessons to different places making each lesson unique and we have been teaching with more power and authority. We have been able to teach things boldly and say stuff we never really knew too much about before. We are somehow being taught as we are teaching. The church is true. Anywho it'll be cool to finally meet the guy. I saw him talk at conference and at BYU a buncha times. He is really really smart and I can't wait to see what he has to say to us directly the Ghana Accra missionaries.

We get to visit the temple on Friday. It has been way too long. It'll be very nice to go and refuel a bit. Problem is we dont wanna leave the temple haha. They are nice people there. Like last time (4 or 5 months ago) the seatbelt from the taxi got my shoulder on my shirt all black and dirty. The temple workers saw me scrubbing it out in the sink and they told me not to worry about it and they took my shirt, gave me a clean one and when I got done with the session they had washed, dried and ironed my shirt for me. The temple is a gret place and the workers are great people who know the importance of focusing on the right things while inside the temple. It'll be great.

So we were teaching this family and they wanted to make us fufu so Elder Holt was helping to pound and I was playing football with the kids and then another sister and her husband came in. Her husband is this white white white guy from Germany and married the sister from Ghana. They were visiting that day. The husband only speaks German. The sister spoke English, German and Twi and I told her about Kyle Kendal serving in Frankfurt Germany and what missionaries do. I then talked to the husband in my small German and told him about my buying cheesecake in Germany experience. I speak more German than I do Twi haha. Anywho they took our pamphlets and the sister read through almost the whole thing while we were eating. The husband was trying to read some as well. I told them about the websites and how they are in a billion different languages. It was cool. They had a German/Ghanian baby. It was adorable. One of the sisters and a brother in the family were the ones that we taught a freaking powerful lesson to. The sister was asking all the soul searching questions. We will see what happens with her.

Man it rained a lot this week. I LOVE RAIN! Especially when it is always sticky hot. I like the rain smell because we are close the ocean somehow. It smells like aunt Lindy's house. When it rains (paramore song) there is 1 problem, nobody is around to teach and all the stores that have my missionary sustaining substances (coke, coconut/pineapple juice, nilla waffer cracker things) in it close. The whole place becomes deserted. So we don't have good days when it rains or when there is a football match on.

Anywho all is well. I was bummed out because our baptismal date guys were pooping out and we couldn't find where one disappeared to. Elder Holt and I prayed our guts out for help. Our investigators with baptismal dates started improving and came back and the one we couldn't find showed up to church. Man the power of prayer rocks. If you do all that you can, the Lord will take care of the rest. He only asks for your best. The power of prayer is real. If you are having a hard time with anything, don't forget to sincerely ask your Heavenly Father for help. He will help you.

Thanks dad for your letters. Since when did you learn to write so well? I liked your testimony about blessings. I gave another one this week to a recent convert who was sick. The blessing told her to remember that she has lots of friends around who love her and she also has a bishop who loves her and will always be there to help her. Also it said to remember to get plenty of sunshine. I felt goofy saying get plenty of sunshine but the Holy Ghost told me to so I did it (story of my life). She cried and it helped her a lot. Later I remember the letter dad sent talking about Bro. Skousen and his talk in stake conference. I think he mentioned something about sunshine right? Reminds me of John 14:26. The Holy Ghost brings things to our remberance. I somehow felt to mention to her to get sunshine and didn't know why or where it came from but it was Bro. Jamie Skousen who first put that into my mind and then the Holy Ghost brought it out again to help this recent convert clear in Ghana. Tell bro Skousen that he is a good guy and must be doing something right ;) (side note, that guy is stinking good at 3 point shots in basketball) Love that Bro Skousen. Thanks dad for your thoughts. You are also helping these people in Ghana. Keep it up.

Well my family I gotta go. I love you all and I always remember you in my prayers. Thanks for yours in behalf of me (big hug)

Can't wait to hear the cd of my little craby sister and her whale of a husband. Your stories make me laugh.

Keep on crocheting or however you spell it. Keep on saving the world one baby head and baby feet at a time. I always share with people about you. Thanks for being a good mommy who taught me lovingly. Man I remember how you taught me how to distinguish between candy and dangerous medicine on the floor by scattering m&m's and pills on the floor and telling me what to do. I bring both the candy and the medicine to you and you (the adult) tells me what is right. You never yelled at me ever but you rather taught me, so did dad. You both understand that the marriage is ordained by God and that you both have the responsibility to love and nurture your children in righteousness and to teach us to love one another, the provide for our physical and spiritual needs, to teach us to obey the law and be good citizens wherever we may be and that you both are equal in this responsibility, not one in front of the other but rather side by side. I and you can think of examples for each one of these principles. You guys are doing a great job. You are an example, even here in Ghana. Keep it up. I love you. Talk to you next week!

P.S. dumb bumba dumb bumb, dumb bumba dumb bumb! (olympic theme tympani part)
nuh...nah...nah doh ray me doh (trumpet thingie)

Also (fein fein fein fein fein fein feenalee fein fein fein fein fein fee! (olympic trumpet Kurt Bestor-y theme)!

oh the picture where I am doing the metal face in the shoprite store was when they were playing 'time after time.' Ya know that 1980's one. Anywho we got excited. Talk to you later. Love you.

Akwabba!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MOM! I got a good birthday present for you. You ready? I am staying in Dansoman/Mataheko so mom won't have to worry about me moving. They didn't transfer anyone in our district so we are all staying put at least for another 6 weeks. They changed the ward boundaries between Kanashi and Mataheko. They made my area (Mataheko) about twice as big! So now our church building is in our ward boundaries. This might make things easier on getting people to church, because they won't have to travel as far. We went closer to the chapel and we found a buncha cool families and people. There was this one sister who we just gave a pamphlet and didn't think anything of it and SHE CAME TO CHURCH on Sunday. She said that she got 2 pamphlets that day from churches and prayed to know which one to go. She said that she saw our church building in her dream and had a good feeling. Ah, how they are prepared here. We will teach her this week. More info to come. Yeah so I will be here another 6 weeks at least. Cool.

So here are some pictures. This little kid, 7 years old, drew us as we were teaching his brother Paul. I'm on the right and Elder Holt is on the left. Just a little something fun. He does a good job. I went up after we were done teaching and said, "hey whatcha doing?" and saw him drawing us. He told us to stay as he wanted to draw the background and make it nice because he wanted to give it to us after he was finished. He was frustrated with my foot because I kept moving it haha. I was teasing cuz he drew Elder Holt with a balding head tee-hee.



Well here is a story that is like missionary gossip, it keeps me entertained.

So my fellow missionary Elder Boyd (in his 2nd transfer), his girlfriend back home sent him a bunch of mushy valentines notes and cd's with touching music and her voice recorded every once in awhile with loads of sayings like the ones I always butcher. Ya know the ones like "If you go on a path that doesn't have any rocks or hard times, then you are on a path that leads to nowhere. I am proud of your journey to serve etc blah blah blah." I usually mess it up and say something like "If your on a road that don't have rocks then you must be on some smooth asphalt...speaking of rocks and asphalt, wanna get some rocky road ice cream and some asphalt pie?"

Of course all this mushy stuff was too good to pass up so we called the Kaneshi missionaries and took them over to our place, after playing some football, and started looking through and reading all this stuff. Here is us looking through the photos and listening to the mushy cd's haha. We then placed bets on how long she will last. I bet 8 months and Holt bets 10 and the Kaneshi elders put their wagers in as well.
We were making fun, but actually it was kind of touching.
Ah man after reading all the loads of notes, I started writing a song to help Elder Boyd for some reason...Elder Holt co wrote it with me. I took tid bits of the sugary notes and applied it to some Keith Urban cliches and took some nature things I've been noticing here in Ghana and wrote a cowboy thingie again (probably because Elder Holt is a cowboy and throwing in that influence in there). Well it is pretty good so far. I told Boyd to write a verse and he can tell his girlfriend that this song is about her and how he wrote some of it for her and blah blah. Man I disgust myself but oh well, I can't help it. I hope this doesn't hurt my 8 month wager haha. Anything for a fellow missionary.
Anywho it was an eventful p-day.



Dansoman District

Well my friends the work is continuing, we are teaching this 14 year old girl and she is doing very very well. The only problem is that she can't read good. She goes to school but she is an orphan and is being raised by her grandmother who doesn't speak english and probably didn't go to school. She kinda takes care of her self, she was being raised by her aunt who was hmm not responsible and her aunt left and left her with the grandma. Of course, as mom and I know, school really doesn't teach you anything unless you are one of those smart freaks, when you are young. All that learning has to be done at home with parents who love them. Kinda like I probably learned how to read when you read books with me and played with me. Dorah doesn't have that so I'm teaching her small small. It takes patience, which I seem to have loads of. I do well with the small and simple little kids. Like I wrote down a word for her and had her say it, then I scratched it out and had her write it again then had her explain what it was then would review later and have her write it down again and of course I kept score like a game when we were doing it so she would stay interested. (bows and does kung fu honor fists)(well I am a Suzuki music teacher.)

Well we killed a rat this week. There was a small mouse that ran into our house through a pipe (ICKY!) and we were chasing it. Of course I had a perfect chance to kill it by stepping on it but I screamed haha and then secretly let it free (Save the whales!) and ran to "go get a bowl to catch it." It ran under a wardrobe and we pushed it to find it. While pushing the wardrobe they smushed a rat that was living back there, ironically. Of course we didn't know we smashed an unknown rat so it sat there for a day and smelled up the place. I was like "HOLD IT. Something is dead in here." Luckily it was in the other missionaries room so my room still smelled okay. I donated my bottle of febreeze to cover up the smell. Elder Yao and Boyd scrubbed their room and used most of the febreeze. We took the rat outside and buried it next to a rosebush thingie haha. Still cant find the small mouse...

HAHAHA I got your letters with the pictures of your nice remodeled room. Ah it made my week. I felt your love for me by sending me the uncle Davey and dad plumbers crack photo while making the new floor. I was so proud that I hung it up on my wall. I love uncle Davey and dad. I miss their sense of humor. Your room is looking sweet! Since when did dad get so good with wood working. I liked your tile work on the window frames. I can see that the shelves were somehow a headache but you are all still alive so mission accomplished. I can't believe how good that room looks and i'm glad moms tower o crap is replaced with a nice shelf. Oh the under the bed pictures i drew as a child are a bat and a batman utility belt. DUH! Doesn't that little animal thing look like a bat head? If it were an x-wing it would have 4 wings vs. the 2. You were close though. It coulda been an x-wing with closed wings but I woulda made more distinction between the wings still. Dig?

Ah my sister the little LDS crab. Man you gonna be on Big Buddah dressed as a crab! Ah yes. My sister on early morning news dressed as a bright red neon crab. It is great. Dave was on good morning Utah? Wow you buncha famous people. So you all smoozing with the Osmonds. I can't wait for the Jonah and the Great Fish cd thingie and to hear you sing. It looks like it was cool. Keep up the good work on the filming. Filming blows! Boring! Plus with people with acne and normal pores in our skin, the camera isn't nice. I hope it was really fun for yall. I'll have to see it when I get back.

Hey Grandpa! Good news on your gig. The guitar player is probably Daniel Sermon. He is killer. I hope you have fun. I'll have to see Daves film of it when I get back. Let me know how it goes. Good look on all the tunes you gotta learn. That one sounds like a ball. HEY free food and your getting paid? Groovy man.

Thanks dad for your testimonies. I'm reading the calendar joseph smith book everday. It has some great insight. I'm also memorizing big ol' sections to the book of mormon like Mosiah chap 3, the words of the angel talking about Jesus Christ. It helps when teaching etc. Man the book of Mormon is true. It truly testifies about Jesus Christ. This church is His church.

Ah jazz music! Man I haven't heard anything close to jazz forever. Ghana only gots 1 style of music really. Think synthazied Mexican music meets Africa. Ghana needs some funk. Like some James Brown. HIT ME! OW! Ah, Calebs jazz fest will kill as usual. He does some freaking great stuff that Caleb. He better watch his ACL so he won't mess himself up.

Thanks mah for being yourself in your letters. Your smartypants-ness gives me fuel. I share your comments with Elder Holt and he laughs his pants off.

Anywho the sounds of Africa Concert sounds like fun. You'll get more African music culture than I do. Accra is freaking urban. Everyone is like city folk really, none of this traditional music stuff. Or if there is traditional stuff going on we gotta stay far back because hmm the dancing is somehow hmm too close for missionaries. Dig? Let me know how it goes.

Nice. The water has been off for 5 of 6 days now. Everyone is looking for water to wash/bath in etc. Luckily it should come on tomorrow. We gotta water storage tank thing but it is running low. There is water to drink. Everyone drinks the sachet water because it is safe and there is plenty of that trucked in everyday but the gov turned off the pipes for political reasons, they claim it is a shortage but it ain't. I'll stay far away from the political aspects of it though. Bottom line, we need water soon or else I'll start showering with sachet waters.

Our neighbors next door asked for a bucket of water for some wash, but then our other neighbors asked and then I kept running back and forth filling up some water for them from our storage and then before you know it, I gave around 1/3 of our storage away filling up buckets. So bottom line is to keep our water and food storage and have lots of it. Whenever we need to use it, chances are we are going to have to help our neighbors who are not prepared so START STALKING UP. No worries. There is still plenty to drink here. Speaking of drinking, I am going to buy a coke!

Well my family. I gotta go. I love you all and hope you all have a good week. My investigators are doing good and the work is spreading.

p.s. keep on knitting mommy!
Tell Jordan Anderson " WHATTTTZZZUUUUUPPP!!!" I got the picture of him. He is looking like a man! Glad he is back. He will have to keep the babes off him with a beating stick. Speaking of, I could probably confiscate plenty of beating sticks for him this week.

Love you.

Elder Bills

Akwaaba my people.

So this week was pretty good with not having to eat any goat privates. 2 thumbs way up!

There was a lot of stuff going down this week football wise. Ghana got into the 'cup of nations' finals. They won the semi finals (picture attached) Elder Holt grabbed his flag and started riding around outside our investigators house with everyone celebrating and stuff. It was fun.

During football games it is impossible to teach or contact anyone. The streets are deserted and nobody will answer the door or mind you because the game is on. We usually go over to an investigators house and watch the game and yell at the tv with them, then try to sneak in a gospel principle at the end or just build that relationship with us so they will open up. Man football (soccer) players are ninny namby pambies. They fall down and act hurt on purpose even when nothing really happened, aka 'flopping'. It bugs me so bad. I'm used to the whole 'break your foot but don't fall down until after you have finished the play'. These guys just fall down during play and yell and grab their ankle and then after someone pays attention to them they get up from their little temper tantrum and start playing again like normal. It is like dishonest in so many ways, but that is the way they do it. It gets me so gursh darn frustramagated, i'm not mad but just (Eeeee, starting from a really low pitch to a really high pitch) frustarted. (teasing dad.) ANYWAYS they lost the big game against Egypt. The whole country of Ghana was pretty silent. President told us to be inside during the game and not go back out for the rest of the night because if Ghana wins football, then people get all crazy and drive stupid and are dumb. Like there is always broken glass car windshields and headlights the next morning after a Ghanian football victory. We lost so no worries.

Oh here is another President Smith story. I'm studying in the dining room when I hear Elder Yao go "Holy Cow! President and Sis Smith are coming over right now!" So we then proceeded to sweep the floor and try to straighten up everything and get it ready for inspection. We mostly just ran around in circles, me with a bag full of pure water sachets and elder yao with a dustpan and Elder Holt with a mop and Elder Boyd standing there looking confused because he is new haha. We were almost ready when they knocked on the door and Elder Holt answered it kinda hiding behind the door, his pants not even zipped up yet. I came into the room tucking in my shirt and in the middle of tying my tie. President Smith gives Elder Holt a big hug then proceeds to me and goes, "Elder! Why are you not dressed yet?" I was debating in my brain whether to say, "Sir it is because I am scum sir and it won't happen again SIR!" or to just drop and give him 20. Luckily I just stood there looking confused with that bugs bunny vs elmer fudd ebadaebada (rubbing your finger over your lips thingie) look. He said that we should study and plan while wearing ironed shirts and with ties and stuff. He then had me run through our numbers on the board and explain every person and junk, kinda like a pop quiz.

Well transfers are this Wednesday and everyone says that I'll probably be leaving. The other Elders have calculated when people will leave and stuff usually. Well we will see. They just announce that they are splitting my area boundaries and stuff and a bunch of exciting missionary stuff is gonna happen. I'll letcha know what happens next email. I could stay for longer or go, whatever. I don't care really, I'll just work wherever they put me.

Ah man I ran into a guy that looked like Doc from back to the future, except he was scottish. It was weird! I just gave him the hello wave and then he stopped us and went "Mormons right?" I said yeah and then he started talking saying "I knew some Mormons once" then a whole buncha other stuff. I didn't understand anything that he said really. He talked very fast english; I haven't heard fast talkin' for awhile, plus it was heavily coated with scottish hullabuloo. We just stood there kinda confused. He then asked us where we were from and I said, "U.S." He said "Ah Americans. Americans are very good people, ya know us scots are ahead of them of course but americans are good people." I can now understand why scots are always made fun of in movies haha. I then panicked and asked him if he has ever heard of the Book of Mormon and offered him one to read and then he said some more scottish jargen something about he has a lot of books to read at home then went off on his way. It was kinda funny. Elder Holt was like, "What the heck did that guy just say?"
TENTHOUSAND GIJAWATTS!!! (gasp) Run for it Marty!

Instead of saying my normal stuff I did, I'll put a few pictures up of some people from around here and tell you a little bit about them.

This is Peter. He was baptized around last Marchish. We visit him a lot, he is learning about the Priesthood. Since I have been here, I have been able to see him pass the sacrament for the first time, bless the sacrament for the first time and say the opening prayer. Each time he was asked to do so he called us over and asked us a bunch of questions. He really wants to do a good job. He is preparing to receive the Melchizdeck priesthood and we are teaching him on how to give a talk. He asked us last week, "so who prepares the talks the people give?" We told him that the speakers themselves do and he kinda freaked out haha. He will do well. His conversion story is cool. He never really went to church much. He was one day passing by the chapel where we go at Kaneshi 1st light and he said to himself, "if I ever go to church, it'll be that nice building." That was a long time ago. The Jehovah's Witness cats came over and studied with him and then the LDS missionaries came by. He prayed and asked God if the teachings and Book of Mormon were true and what he should do. He said that while he was sleeping he was told in a dream that it was right and saw that same church building in a dream. The missionaries took him to the church and he was shocked that it was the same church that he told himself that if he'd visit if he would ever start attending a church. Peter has a voice problem so it takes some effort to make out what he is saying but the Spirit is always there whenever we visit him and the Holy Ghost helps us out. It is hard to explain. Peter is a great man. We hope his family will hopefully some day join him.

This guy (on the left) is named Paul, 21 years old. He moved in with a full member family and we are teaching him. He is smart and understands a lot. For instance he understood that the Priesthood was given to the 12 and then 3 of them gave it to Joseph Smith. He understood this with only 1 explanation. Usually we gotta teach and re-teach that the authority comes by laying on of hands etc, but he understands well. He reads the book of mormon chapters we leave with him. He said that when he was praying about the book of mormon and stuff that he felt a swelling within his heart and a good feeling. We said that the Holy Ghost did that. He wants to learn more before he is baptized. He is truly searching and will hopefully be baptised soon. Maybe someday his family (10 people who live in Ho, Ghana) will come into the church too.

This little punks name is Bright. He is Savior's brother and Akwarteys son. He is a funny little kid. He always falls asleep on me during church. I always find him roaming the halls at church and have to wrangle him up and walk him back to primary. I just like this kid, don't know why. He is really dopey and funny.

Here is a picture of Mike and I playing one of his songs. He is a cool guy. We enjoy visiting with him. He is like one of those singers I would be friends with at home. Nice guy. He is a ham for the crowd too. He will do well.

Our district is growing close together. Like we raz each other and harass each other all in good fun. Everyone has been talking at night time which has been good. We were talking out how to deal with being homesick. I haven't been homesick, there ain't enough time. Plus I was sitting around for what seemed like an eternity waiting for that call so I'm all ready to rock. So I don't feel too helpful when it comes to saying something comforting to help out with homesickness. I try to offer some help but it usually comes out lame. I wish I had like a cool touching missionary quote up my sleeve but I always hate those. Like "you miss all the shots you don't take" or something like that they take and slap up on the wall of the byu testing center, but I don't really like those because of the places where I read them. Eg. the testing center, math classroom wall, above the icky drinking fountain etc. What I'd like more is "you miss all the shots you...ah shut up and shoot the dang ball!"
Anyways, whatever I said seemed to help. I don't know how but it did. Another witness that the church is true. God like took my words and must have shifted them into something good that would help.

Speaking of quotes, I do however like that Joseph Smith quote calendar deelie dad gave me. One of them talked about how people will be judged on what they did with the light that they were given. This really helps around here for people who can't read or don't understand the scripture words here. I'm so glad for that doctrine.

I wish I could enjoy the drumming with you. I can't really enjoy the drumming here, if we stay standing too long people run up to us yelling "obroni!" and start naggin us. Plus around here there ain't too much drumming. Think california coast meets goats with lots of nagging.

At the end of my mission I'm thinkin' that i'll just divy out all the stuff I brought with me and shove my suitcase full of drums. Deal?

Well family I'm learning lots out here. Not only gospel doctrine but how to live with people and take care of myself. One thing I am exceptionally good at is haggling with taxi drivers. You gotta get your new york on and treat them like pieces of dirt or you will pay way too much on rides and run out of money. Especially because of the nice clothes and skin color they will charge us too much.

Usual taxi driver scenario: Hey boss I'm going to 1st light. I'll pay you 1.50.
Oh no no make it 3 cedis.
Hey I make this route everyday and we do it for 1.50.
Oh make it 3 cedis. The place you are going is far. You are robbing me.
Hey boss, I'm not new here! Do it for 1.50.
No 3 is my last.
Then I yell "Fine. Go" then give the car a little smack to send him on his way.
Then he drives for a min then stops and lets us in.

Sometimes you gotta be a little butthead so you won't waste the missionary funds.

Well gotta go. It was nice talking to ya'll this week with your letters/emails. I'll letcha know what happens with transfers and all.

Cool the church is true!

p.s. I'll get the floss-o-plenty package on Wed. YAHOO. Thanks tons.

Love you.