Process of getting to church...

Hello my family!

So i'm trying to recall what has been going down this week. Usually in our nifty doo planners we carry around, I write down little cool tid bits that have been happening so let me go through some of those.

For the past couple of weeks we have been having a hard time getting people to church. Our area is about 40 min away from the chapel. This has been proving to be a problem because people gotta really prepare to come to church.

Coming to church is different than coming at home. Home we have cars and stuff, nobody really has a car here so you gotta walk from your far away house to a road to take a tro-tro.

I'll walk you through the steps of coming to church. First you gotta polish yourself up real nice and iron your shirt and junk. People really focus on the physical appearance of you here at church. Partly because we are missionaries and partly just because of the mindset people have. There is a whole 'niddily piddily' british tea drinking with your pinky up mindset thing going on. People like to send their children to 'the best' schools and wear 'the best' clothes and be prestigious, etc. If the lights go off, most people will not come to church or they will come late because they will not come to church with non-ironed clothes.

So after you polish yourself up and iron your shirt and trousers (don't say pants. Pants means underwear. We speak like them redcoats over here), hopefully there is "lights on". Oh sorry, the term "lights off" or "lights on" means "power off" or "power on." All electric power = light. Dig?

Then you gotta walk from your house, probably on a dirt road, a long ways to a paved road where a tro-tro runs. We usually walk to a junction called Mallam junction because there is only 1 road to where we live and it takes about 35 min to go about half a mile so we just walk to the main junction from our house and then to Mallam Junction.

Then you gotta take a tro-tro transfer, or after walking straight to the junction take your first tro-tro, at this busy mallam junction, and then fight to get a place in a tro-tro going past our chapel.

It's a hard fight. Think the Titanic is sinking and there are only so many lifeboats.

This usually involves throwing some elbows. Usually the old women are the ones throwing the elbows or you have some big momma with a propane tank on her head running towards a tro-tro and you don't want her to destroy you and then beat you with a heavy propane tank. At first I used to take the 'going down with the ship' approach and wait for an empty car (picture a violin player playing on the deck) but then you can only drown so many times before you go nuts so now I just move fast and throw as little elbow as necessary.

So after you catch a tro-tro, you can get to our chapel, except you have to cross the street. The streets have a big raised sidewalk in the middle where you cross. No taxi or tro-tro will drop you off directly in front of the church. Unless you have about 6 cedis to hire a taxi and drive about 10 min out of the way to get on the same side of the road as our church, you will have to cross the street. So if you are an old person and can't step up high to cross the street, then forget about coming to church unless you can hire a taxi.

(We face problems like this all the time)

Then you gotta trek up to the church and find the correct set of doors that you can enter. The main set of doors actually open up to the overflow of the chapel so they lock those so people won't disturb sacrament. It is like a bird flying into a window. First you hit it the locked door, then you recover and try to fly into it again, then again, then you find another way. For an investigator, this is embarrassing. And of course we wait at the doors for them until the meeting starts, but they don't show in time because they only leave an hour early and get there late because of the titanic tro-tro situation and crossing the street fiasco. So they gotta enter in the side door and then navigate through this labyrinth-esque sized building for most of them. (They are used to small buildings, not an LDS church) Plus another ward is worshiping at the same time and they get confused. It is really kinda tricky.

Well somehow we still get some people to church.

If we ever have to take public transport or a taxi at home then I'll show you how to do it. You gotta be kinda mean or else it doesn't work. You will stand at the side of the road for hours and not move anywhere. Kinda like new jersey or new york, where it is appropriate to be a mean jerk when it comes to some things. If you cuss at someone or give someone the bird, they will smile at you and then say "have a nice day." Same thing with tro-tro's. I usually can't do it without feeling really bad so we just leave really early to church so we can get there without having to deck anyone in the face.

So Sister Joyce came to church again and met this girl that she raised in her home, remember it is rare for someone to grow up in the same home.

They toss the kids around like a hot potato. So Sister Joyce met the girl, now a grown woman, that she raised and they kinda did the whole "eeeeeeeeeee" then the other yells "eeeeeeee" then they embrace (repeat the process a couple of times). Sister Joyce is really happy now and is preparing for her baptism on Aug 21st.

Our investigator Filo (name changed), who we gave a baptismal date, didn't come to church because of a family problem. Every time we give someone a baptism date they start to have challenges. Satan really doesn't want them to be baptized so he throws in the problems as soon as they start to make the steps towards coming towards Christ, like baptism. Man!

Anywho we talked with him about it and he recognizes and he promised he won't miss again. Filo also has a smoking problem. His family doesn't know, he started when he was young and hides it. He smokes about 2 cigarettes a day. We are working with him and read some scriptures with him, Mosiah, and came up with a plan. He is doing good. I know if he follows the plan that he can stop smoking and be baptized.

I was reading in Mosiah 9 awhile ago and took down some notes about addiction. I studied this for Filo again and wrote up a plan and presented it to him and gave him some assignments and had him choose what to do. I'll explain.

Mosiah 9 talks about about Zeniff and how his people were attacked by some Lamanites.

Relate this to addiction.

They were just minding their own business in their fields and the Lamanites attacked them.

They FLED to Zeniff and asked for help.

Zeniff armed them with every type of weapon possible, both short range and long range.

Zeniff had them pray for help.

Zeniff told them the stories about how God had helped their fathers, in other words he had them read the scriptures.

They were able to drive them out of the land.

(also interesting to note in chapter 10 how Zeniff got the women involved. As soon as he informed the women, they did EVERYTHING they could to help. They worked, toiled, spun cloth and probably worked with super human strength to help. Get the women involved!)

We had Filo come up with some of the weapons he was going to use. He came up with fasting, us calling him daily to check up on him, chewing pk whenever he is tempted (its a gum), coming to church. We committed him to follow the rest of the plan which was to flee, arm yourself, pray, read the scriptures daily. He will do well. Scriptures rule.

Well my comp had a little trouble this week. I made him stop playing the football game on our cellphone and fill out our area book with me. He got mad because I took the phone away and then he wouldn't talk all day or eat or drink. I found out later that he grew up in a house with all sisters, went to a preppy school, father lives in US for the past 15 years (smacks head) so some of his trouble is by no fault of his own. Well after some time he was okay and I apologized for making him do what is right... sometimes you gotta apologize even though what you did was right...such is life. Well he is better now and is turning into a missionary. His shoe even got a little worn down and started getting cracked. I'm so proud.

He is happy now and doing good.

No worries about our house burning down, it was our neighbors house.

They have already started to rebuild it. They are efficient. All these women came from nowhere and started to wash and do stuff for the guy so they are doing good. Everything is okay. Our house is fine, even if everything burns down, I only have my scriptures and my white shirts to my name so not much lost. I guess I would loose my journal but you still have these emails so no biggie.

Well the work continues.

I ate those oreos you sent me the other day. YES! My companion even had some and he about died because of how awesome they are. It was a joy to see. His first oreo. I'll never forget it. He probably won't either. Send more oreos!

Well we are heading to shoprite to get some stuff.

As far as my companion eating Ghanaian food, forget about it. He WILL NOT eat fufu, banku. He has grown up on rice and nothing but rice.

BORING! Well I'll let him keep eating rice for awhile while his voice is changing, next transfer though I'll start making him eat his own country's food. He is such a picky eater, mom might even want to beat him up. I'm being patient though. Well anywho he still is my 'son' so I'll keep working him and helping him.

Well I gotta head out.

Oh one last thing. I shared with him about how boarding school erodes the family unit. It's hard for people here to understand this at first. He said, "Elder Bills, you don't understand." I then read the scriptures president gave me to read concerning boarding school and my companions eyes were opened.

I know that he will be a great light to the Ghana people one day by not doing these traditions that destroy the family unit.

Man boarding schools blow. I'll write about it later.

Well I gotta head. I'm going to buy some mt. dew from the middle east.

It is better than the Nigerian Dew. Do the Dew (said with middle-eastern accent).

Gotta run. Love you.

The church is true!