So first things first. Malaria is all gone bye bye. The only problem I had was when I spotted a carton of apple juice from the corner of my eye and promptly bought it and devoured it all in one night. I had some similar symptoms to malaria because of that, well maybe just one symptom similar to malaria. Nearly a true missionary experience.
So also my companion got some cool letters from home that made him happy. They are from his 5 sisters. Guess what one of his sisters real name is, not just the name they call her but is actually her real name. Chocolatina. AWESOME! Best name ever. If my Britt ever has a baby girl, that is what I will call her regardless of what she names her. SWEET!
Well anywho this week we gave 8 baptismal dates. It was kinda crazy, we are finding people and my companion and I are giving them a date the very second they recognize the Holy Ghost, even before they have come to church. We have been watching these leadership training videos that have my buddy Mike Marino, lives kinda by Ronnie's house...or used to. His dad used to own that Guru burritos thing on center in Provo, we went to Junior High together. He chose to go to Mountain View I think. Anywho he is in the video with his companion and we watch what they do when teaching. One thing that Elder Marino does well in the video is that he is good and giving them a date. He used a little thing, if we were talking music he used a 'riff' or 'lick' that I totally dig, were he gives them a date by saying "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding priesthood authority?" They usually say yes. Then we tell them an actual baptism date by saying "we are holding a baptism on BLANK BLANK DAY will you prepare yourself to be baptized on that date?" Then sometimes they don't say yes but this is when you insert the Elder Marino lick where you say something like "I know that if you do the things we invite you to do such as read the Book of Mormon, pray and come to church you will come to know that these things are true. I feel confident you will come to know that these things are true by BLANK BLANK DAY, if you come to know these things are true will you be baptized on that date?" Man it freaking works because it commits people to study and learn by that date. It gets them excited to know for themselves that the church is true in a more focued timeframe. It's good for people to have a real date to work towards. We went out and gave a lot of dates to people. That a boy Elder Marino!
Well anywho now the only problem we are having is getting those people with a date to come to church because of things that get in the way. They are now reading and doing the things such as reading, praying etc. The hardest thing is getting them to come on Sunday. Out of the 8 of them 4 of them had some tradition thing get in the way such as a baby naming ceremony all day shindig, traveling to another region for a birthday church whatev. Hopefully we will continue to gain more 'licks' or 'riffs' from these new leadership training meetings (6 hours long! We all get a little squiggly and need to sneak a treat everyonceinawhile in order to not be fussy haha). I like the meetings because it is like transcribing but only with missionary work. I kinda want to steal the leadership training videos, entitled 'The District II" (haha kinda like a One Tree Hill type of font as well. Not to be confused with the great 'The District I') and kinda transcribe the stuff he is saying so I can take it, mess with it, and use variations of it. Yes I am a nerd, oh well.
Next leadership training will be on how to help people to come to church. Crazy on how that works out. The brethren really are inspired and work with revelation on how to do this stuff. The Church is true.
Well anywho one of our baptismal dates, sis Becky (referall from sis Selina), traveled to her home region for her birthday. During PEC meeting with our bishop our stake president came in. His name is president xagiabe (ah-hog-bee, don't ask me how that works). Our bishop looked at our progress report and dialed up her number right there during the meeting and had all of us, including the stake president, sing happy birthday to her. She liked it and i don't know, it just felt good. These small and simple things really help people. Our bishop, bishop Engemann, really cares for the members. He is a pioneer of the church here, was one of the first missionaries in Ghana about 30 years ago and is a great man. Hopefully Becky will come next week and continue to keep her date. Becky is cool, she has a ponytail coming out the back right side of her head. She is kinda a hmm punk rocker as far as ghana goes.
This brings me to my next point. If you have hair on your head in Ghana, it is not good. It means that you are a 'whipper snapper.' For boys, you can't have hair like a footballer, which is short hair with a mohawk (see kevin prince boateng the football player) or like fresh prince of belair hair. This is bad i guess. Also they shave the girls heads like a boys short hair when they go to high school. Remember everyone has a school uniform type of attitude. So I guess the girls having hair is suggestive, so they shave it off like a dudes. This is highly confusing on who is who, boy or girl, especially when you first get here and you can't tell who is who. I can now tell but it took awhile haha. Usually girls have the shorter dude hair and they get that fake hair extension stuff so they can have straight hair and whatev but at high school you can't use those. BOGUS! I keep having to remind myself that I am here to do missionary work and not get up on a soapbox about equal rights and not demeaning women so as far as I go on my soapbox will be these emails. Hopefully my companions will learn by my example and change Ghana for the better small small. The gospel usually fixes these small demeaning things. AHH CULTURE! Don't get me wrong, culture is great. FUFU is awesome, day names are cool, traditions are cool, kinda like halloween etc, but sometimes with culture and traditions comes some tag along buddies that are no good. It happens in all cultures. Ramble Ramble okay i'm finished.
Nice shelves. Seeing pictures of how nice you guys have cleaned up our house I feel kinda bad. We have soooooo much. I feel like a snobby obroni. We definately need to do some humanitarian stuff more. I think instead of just sending food and stuff, try to support the education systems! The problem is the education that is good is all private so only those with money can go to school. The people who go to public education system, people in Ashaiman etc, don't learn too much because the schools are not strong. Focus on making the public education system stronger, that way ALL everyone will be able to learn and the PUBLIC will do well. Dig? Maybe you could research something on that mom. Anywho keep on making your schoolkits. I'll keep trying to baptize my people and you keep on doing what you do.
Thanks for the letters. Thanks grandma. Your letter you wrote mom really helped me one day when I was frustrated at what I thought was "the people of Ghana" when after I read the letter I realized that it wasn't 'the people' but rather it was Satan's bad influence and that the Ghana people are "my people." I love them so much. Love is something that sometimes needs to be learned but I definitely have learned and grown to love these people even more than I thought was possible. Thanks grandma.
Well anywho I hope that this Saturday will end this little slump of no baptisms.
Well I gotta take off aye. Talk to you next week.
Love Elder Bills
Thanks for your letters too dad.
Pink broom. Man our broom broke at home so we were sweeping just using the straw part of the broom with no handle. So we rode around and haggled for a broom, 3 cedis. So I rode home with it like a jouster on my royal steed (my trusty, i mean rusty, trek bicycle) with confused looks all the way home.
So this is in Djanman, we be jamin', next to one of our investigators house on a hill. This is outlooking towards Kaso and the Budurbram Liberian refugee camp. I'm standing on a pile of garbage.
My companion on top of the world (or slightly above sea level haha)
Hose. This is how we fill up the baptismal font in a jiffy (1 and a half hours...). Ya do whatcha gotta do.
Washing our shirts by hand.
So I couldn't take it anymore and splurged and bought shampoo at shoprite, 7 cedis. This is the actual sweet stuff with lotion in it. I almost died washing my hair, it was awesome! no more dusty stiff hair. My companions kept touching it saying, man your hair is soft. Ah it is nice.
Real chocolate cake! I was pretty happy. YUMM!
Our investigator baked us some REAL CHOCOLATE CAKE!!! Man we enjoyed.
I love this little punk. This is the house where we teach most of our member present lessons. The wife is a return missionary (awesome) and she always gives us referrals and lets us teach them in her house with her. She is Sis Selina, the one who laughs about me eating the skins.
Sis Selina laughs about how I eat the skins on potatoes and yams. They were so weirded out and confused. "What do you mean you eat the skins?" I remember that church history thing about how everybody died who didn't eat the skins so I have always eaten them. My companion thinks that the eating the skins will hurt you....
I like to make salsa! Crappy thing is that there is nothing to eat it with, so I made a cheeseburger and threw it on it. Avocados/pear are back in season. QUESTION! How is something out of season when the weather doesn't change? It only changes like 5 degrees. This time of the year, especially this month, everybody is getting sick because of the 5 degree temperature change. Myself included haha. There must be an essential vitamin or something missing around. I'll start taking those multivitamin thingies more diligently.
After going on splits with Elder Hortin. He is a big dude. He is from one of those salt lake cites out by the prison. He likes triathlons and hiking and stuff. We talked about mountains while we were on splits and he got excited because I know most of the mountains he was talking about. YAY for mountains.
Um our neighbors house kinda burned down... It was due to a power surge and some faulty wiring. Man it was scary and really sucks for him. These are the people we hauled the pure water bags up the hill for. Man I remember when bishop Lotts house burned down and how much that sucked. I feel for these house-burned-down victims. All I have to say is HAVE A BACKUP OF ALL YOUR FAMILY PHOTOS DIGITALLY SOMEWHERE! (ctrl-s twitch over and over)
My companion. He wears glasses cuz he is pretty blind without them.
This is right in front of our bishops house. My comp is related to the bishop and actually lived there for a couple of weeks.
Man it is like the professor and gilligan made the roof in this tro tro. Anywho, look how many stinkin people they shoved in this thing. usually we got abou 18 people per tro tro, 4 rows of 4 plus the driver and the front seat. HOWEVER this tro tro they managed to destroy all leg room and throw an extra row of seats making it 5 rows of 4 plus the driver and front seat. We were in the 5th row (6th if you count the drivers row a row). It felt like a concert where you can feel the peoples vibrating phones in their pockets all around you. It was like a MetallicA concert feeling the phone calls from all around you, unlike a Hoobastank concert where you only feel the person phone adjacent to you. Kapeesh?
Here is Electa, our Liberian sister and her daughter. The Liberians are pretty much americans. My companions get all confused when I talk with liberians because I can talk at full speed!
My chief grandpas. I have the 2 leaders of the Bills and West tribe, western region who speak oohtahn, next to my bed. They make me smile. Thanks for the photos.
