So this week was somehow cool and somehow blew. Kinda like Miles Davis playing the trumpet (ba dum crash) (get it? Miles Davis = Cool, He originated the 'cool school' jazz style and made an album called 'the birth of the cool'. Then Miles Davis played the trumpet, he blew. Band geek face here.)
So we were supposed to baptize Celine this Saturday but we didn't. Man nothing sucks more than a failed baptism. So let me give you some background info on Celine so you'll understand the story. Dig? Celine is 18 years old and lives with a family, whom we thought originally was her biological family but is not. We taught the whole family and they all prayed and all know it is true but the uncle is a pastor for SDA (Seventh Day Adventist church. They worship on Saturday.) so they have not come to church; except Celine. We found out that Mr. Biological daddy lives in South Africa and her mother lives in a far away region in Ghana. She has not seen her father for over 5 years. So the family whom she lives with and takes care of her is all cool with her being baptized. Celine was so excited, we even practiced at her house and she likes relief society and has good fellow-shippers and knows that the church is true. So we had her fill out the baptismal form and she needed her father and mothers birthdays. She called her father to get the birthday and he got mad at her and told her not to join the 'latter day saint church.' Man what is with me and finding all these children with absent fathers? So anywho she told us that he became violent on the phone so she gave the phone to the mother she stays with. We told Celine to give him a few days and then call him and ask for his permission and explain why she wanted to join the church. The mother she stays with is also going to help, she is going to call the father as well. The dad hasn't been around for 5 years because he is working in South Africa, far far away from his family... I am always confused at how Mr. Biological all-of-the-sudden 'cares'...
I'll letcha know how it turns out. Another Mr. Biological parent problem. Celine is 18 and we don't need the dads written consent to baptize her so it is up to Celine on what we should do. So anywho i'm all for keeping the broken family intact so I haven't said anything about it.
If you guys could say a special prayer for her and her far-away father, that would rock. I need to repent for being frustrated at this father. I just have to tell you so I won't explode and be a bad example here. You understand.
Anywho on the bright side, we interviewed a candidate named Phillip. We have been teaching Phillip for about 3 weeks now. He is 18 years old and was going to some different church meeting group thing where all denominations come together and discuss stuff and they all kinda meet in the middle doctrinally. In other words it was just apostasy haha. We shared with him the simple truths that are so familiar to the soul and he immediately grabbed onto it. He stays with his family, his mom really likes us but she is firm in her Methodist church stuff.
Here is a story on how awesome Phillip is, I called him a couple days before his interview and told him that we would meet at 9 and review the questions then our ZL would interview him at 11, after Sacrament. Phillip showed up in a clean white shirt and black tie at 8. He at first was having a hard time giving up drinking tea but I told him to ask God if it was a true commandment and if this is what God wanted him to do. He prayed and during his pre-interview I committed him to give up the tea and he said, "no problem. I prayed and I have stopped drinking it." Phillip goes to school learning computer stuff. We talk geek together, for instance he wasn't understanding the priesthood authority so we used an analogy about pirating microsoft vista and he understood. Geek speak is universal. He will be baptized this Saturday, hopefully with Celine.
So Elder Zadi and Nkemokolam baptized a dude Aaron on Saturday. They were supposed to baptize 3 but one was stuck in traffic and another just found out that her husband has been cheating on her... Big freaking idiot husband. She is going to talk to the bishop about this and she said that she will get baptized this Saturday. This girl is committed, her family are all Liberians who live in Utah. They called her and told her to join and she said, "hey I see those guys walking around in white shirts and ties. I'll talk to them." So hopefully this Saturday will be a baptism with lots of people.
Well I was going to transcribe over those wicked awesome "Government from the Book of Mormon" notes but alas, I forgot to bring my study journal to the cafe (doh!) I'll do it next week. You will enjoy it. After reading, and possibly during, you will have to roll around on the ground while playing the Jimi Hendrix version of the national anthem while dad salutes you.
Well today the email might be shorter because I have been helping my companion use the computer. I showed him my family history chart and we talked about his family and found out that 3 of his family members have died, one of them being his dad. So we talked about baptism for the dead and none of their work has been done. So I immediately made a by hand family pedigree chart and started sucking his brain for info. He then brought a record with his baptismal information on it to the internet cafe that he wanted to type up and email to himself so he could have a backup ( man, i love backups! ) So he is new to learning how to use a computer so I typed it up for him.
Ulgh, power just went out so we just took a tro-tro down to Malam Junction back to my gasoline powered internet.
Well anywho, I typed up this information about Elder Bobareh and emailed it to him in 2 formats and then saved it on his flash drive. Doing a simple process such as typing a document, printing it, saving it to an external source, emailing is quite a complicated thing to do here. I had to type it out for him using word, then saved it to his usb drive after a bunch of 'gal fetch stupid frustrated' gripings trying to have the computer recognize it. After it recognized it I saved it! Then someone bumped his table and his computer turned off. Luckily I saved it to his pen drive and the desktop multiple times, L have a ctrl+s nervous twitch (it is a blessing). Then I tried to email it to him from the pen drive, big mistake everything froze and it took forever. So I tried to email it from the one I saved on the desktop, however these internet cafe stuff automatically erase everything so it wasn't there, luckily it was on the pen drive. The only problem is that windows was not letting me open up his flashdrive because it was unknown. Usually they don't let you use flashdrives because of viruses. So I had to access his flashdrive using word, open the file and then save it on the desktop again. THEN I emailed it to him by uploading it from the desktop. THEN I copied and pasted the text from the file and emailed it to him just in case. (pushes up dilbert glasses and does live long and prosper sign)
While typing up his info it had his deceased dads birthday on it, 1 of the dates he needs to do his dads temple work. He doesn't know how old his siblings are or anything like that. FREAK! So the only chance he has is if his mom knows their birthdays and the days that they died etc.
I love the baptismal record, it is the only record these people will have that has a record of a person, their parents, their spouse and their children. There are no legal documents here really. Only problem is that he is carrying around this information in his pocket all folded. This is the only copy he has of this info and it is folded in his pocket! So we typed it up and saved it, ya know just in case he washed his pants or something and lost it forever. MAN!
Our friends are still in prison. They haven't done the court date yet. They were going to do it, then the judges postponed it or something. COME ON PEOPLE! There is no bail here or anything like this. So they are still there. This is now week 3 of prison for an accusation.
They replaced the zone leader with Elder Farnbach. Elder Farnbach and his old companion were in an area and some cops kept asking for their papers; we carry a copy of our passport in our pockets at all times. They kept showing it to them but the cops kept bugging them everyday about it, so president just closed that zone down and moved him to replace the Elder in prison. His old companion replaced the other missionary in prison.
Elder Farnbach, my new ZL, interviewed Phillip for me yesterday. He did a good job, Phillip really felt great. My companion and I sat there and guarded the door.
Anywho, we had interviews with president last week and he scared everybody about keeping all of the rules or else you might be in trouble or prison. He then forbade us to hire people to wash for us. He said we need to avoid even the appearance of evil. AH MAN! So I had to scrub my clothes by hand again and will have to for the rest of the mission. Oh well.
During church, they asked me to teach the primary about missionary work. I went in there and none of them understood anything I was saying so I just had them repeat stuff like 'name badge' and 'missionary' while pointing to myself. Then I took off my name badge and put it on each childs shirt and said "hey future missionary!" They were all happy and wanted to run off with my badge. At the end I made them all shake me with a good firm missionary handshake. I don't know if they learned anything but I tried.
Well Ghana beat the US in the world cup match. It was a big deal. President made us all go inside and specified that it had to be inside our apartment. Everyone went nuts. Everyone was kinda lookin at me weird around 5:30, a half hour before the game, so good call President.
Church was an endless swarm of people mocking me because US lost to Ghana. I blame President Obama, not really. All the newspapers had in big headlines "president Obama says 'go kick their arses!'" concerning the game. I highly doubt this is something he said. Ghana newspapers are probably publishing nonsense, as they usually do, but everyone believes it. I could see Obama slipping up about a world crisis and saying "we are going to kick their explative" kinda like George Bush concerning the terrorist attacks, but not saying that about a football game. Oh well.
(Getting on my soapbox warning)
Football is kinda fun to watch but not really. I get disgusted on how many namby pambies there are. Faking an injury is part of the game. I blame football (soccer) for promoting fakeness or lying to a whole culture. In our US sports, if you fall down because of a fake injury, we will throw you out of the league and/or fine you. You will be boo'd forever. Falling down acting hurt has nothing to do with a 'foul' in the sports we commonly watch at US. I get mad at the ninnies on tv and yell 'nonsense' at them when they fake an injury or whatev. It is a hard game to play, you freaking head the ball with your cranium and run forever and stuff. However it is full of lying! Drives me crazy. At least once in every game, someone is taken off on a stretcher and then is walking around like normal a minute later. To me it is cheating + ninny! Bunch of sissies.
For eg. A man falls down on the ground yelling in agony, then the ref calls a foul. Then instantly the man is healed and continues playing, jumping and heading the ball etc.
eg. A woman doesn't come to church saying she was feeling sick with malaria, then we visit her after church and she is all dolled up and running around outside.
I blame football, or mostly the players who lie in order to score more goals.
(steps off soapbox)
All is well. I am going to buy everyone in the district an apple pie from shoprite if we achieve our baptism goal. If we fail, i'll buy myself an apple pie and eat my sorrows away. Either way i'll eat pie ;)
Well happy burfday britt. Sounds like you are having fun doing plays with your big dave. Keep having fun.
I made a little happy mormon job chart for out apartment. I call it the law of moses chart, the lower law. If you need a job chart just to clean up after yourself, then it's the lower law. At home we didn't need a job chart because when we clean, we clean it. If someone asks us to do it, we do it. I had to present and create the lower law chart haha.
I think the only charts you made were for guitar practice. Those were cool.
Well anywho I gotta run.
I love you all, the church is true. I know it is.
Looks like you are all doing good, keep it up.
Glad Sis McQueen gave you my chips and salsa and fried ice cream present for Fathers Day. She is an awesome person.
Well gotta fly!
Sorry so short this week, had to help my companion for the sake of family history and computer stuffs.
There is a soft spot in my heart for computer backups.
Love you!
