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