Week 5 B: Enough Connection to Get MORE Info

Hey all, afishyapa!

Answer to Questions

1.  Any sign of any of the packages?

No. Ghanaians hate doing paper work so they will let all our mail stack up then ship it all out at the same time.  So if you send stuff send it in bulk please. (Not sure what that means)

2.  Are you washing your clothes in a bucket?

Yes. We have a wash bucket and a rinse bucket. It’s nasty how dirty my clothes get.

3.  Do you have a cell phone that you use or just a phone in the apartment?

We have a cell phone. It is really rough. It’s a Nokia phone like what we had in the 80’s in America. They call it a yam here.

4.  What are the details of your phone call?  How long?  When will you be calling? What else do you plan on doing on Christmas?

We plan on Skyping me and Elder Hunt. I’ll let him go first. We are chilling with the other missionaries and eating at a member’s home.

5.  Did you have a picture taken in front of the temple with a bunch of missionaries?  If so, I think I might have seen it on FB.  Were you in the back row?

No I didn’t take a big group photo. That was probably the other zone. We were crunched on time but yes me and Elder Hunt took pictures.

6.  Do 4 missionaries work in both branches?  Do you stay for both church meetings?

Yes 4 missionaries in the other branch and 4 in ours but we all have separate areas.

7.  How far do you live from the other set of missionaries?  30 minute walk

8.  When is your next Zone Meeting?  Do you have District Meetings weekly?

I have no clue when the next zone meeting is. We have DCM every Wednesday.

9.  What animals have you seen running around?

All I have seen are wild goats and chickens and also cows owned by Muslims.

10.  How do they celebrate Christmas there?  Do they have Santa?

Usually they have no idea why we celebrate Christmas but they just eat a ton and drink a ton of alcohol.
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Weekly Happenings

First of all I need to share an experience that happened this week. And I am kinda scared to share this because my mom will freak out. But for those who didn't know we traveled to Accra on Thursday for Zone Conference and go to the temple. So we finished our day. We were coming back and we finally got back at around 8. So when we were in Accra we finally got our mission debit cards so we could finally pull out our subsistence. They sent me and Elder Hunt to go get our money out. That's when I noticed I had lost my wallet. Literally I was so scared because I would have nothing. Thank goodness we have fast-acting missionaries because like 2 minutes later we got the trotro guy’s number. So we called him.  At first Elder Hunt called him and couldn’t really understand him and he hung up. So I was shaking at this point. I called him back and talked to him for 5 minutes explaining the whole situation and honestly I didn’t know the area very well so it’s a miracle I gave decent directions. But I just want to say that prayer really works and this guy could have easily taken off with my wallet. But instead he found us and returned my wallet with everything inside. You have no idea how happy I was. Couldn’t ask for a better mission. People are so honest and loving and I’m glad for that.

Tuesday
Today was the first time we tried cooking at home. I literally just made beans and had bread because I was too lazy to make anything else.  7 is too early. I bought some indo mein (maybe noodles) so I can cook it. We are thinking about doing a challenge tomorrow- not spend a single cedi. Today we say Ama and Brother Peter. Anytime we walk by Ama, she invites us to come sit in her shop and gives us water. Brother Peter later joined. He bought us oranges.  I love Ama because she supplies us with poppers and cap guns for us to play with-- oh and laser pointers, and sparking firework things (cannot take the boys out of them!).Today I got my first haircut in Ghana.  A nonmember gave it to me for free. I got a fade. It was the first time he cut white boy hair so he was nervous. But it turned out great.

Wednesday
Slow day (I forgot to write in journal-- oops) we had our meetings today and training that took up most of our day so we only had 5 lessons (we can do a lot better). We failed our challenge because we got hungry. LOL

Thursday
We woke up at 5am so that we could travel to Accra. Again they shoved all of us in a trotro but this time it wasn’t as bad because we didn’t have luggage, again a long 3 hour ride. I tried sleeping but it didn’t work very well because I’m too fat to fit so it’s uncomfortable. The temple was beautiful and couldn’t ask for a better day. This is President Hill’s last Zone Conference. He gave us all wood carvings that are really cool. Even though I didn't know him very well, it is still very sad that he is leaving.  We got insurance cards and non-citizenship cards today. finally got our cards which means muuulllaaa. (see wallet story)

Friday
Today marked me being out on my mission for a month. Me and Elder Hunt didn’t really do anything special like we wanted to. But we both got home really late. This morning we had a Book of Mormon devotional over Moroni chapter 8-10 and we somehow got onto the topic on families and how important they really are and we all were kinda emotional because we are so used to being with family when the holidays come around. Today we showed a bunch of people the Christmas videos from this year and last year. Everyone is trying to invite us over for Christmas. I feel special.

Saturday
Really slow day. We can only try as hard as we can and hope we get blessed with serious people. The day was mostly consumed by contacting. All of our appointments fell through. Today I decided I am going to pick a attribute in the Preach my Gospelunder the Christ-like attributes and focus on bettering it.  I decided to pick patience just because we are having a tough time right now with investigators, don’t need to be getting mad. Today I played a prank on Elder Hunt. We locked him in the bathroom as soon as he finally got out of the bathroom I threw all of the poppers at him. It was really loud, he said it scared him to death. We also had a lightsaber fight and also a nerf fight.  Elder Hunt got me back good though. He hid behind the kitchen door and waited until I went to throw something away then jumped out and scared me to death. I almost died. Elder Bloomfield loves to scare me with his lightsabers. They are so intimidating....

Sunday
We had church from 11-2. We had to interview baptismal candidates today (Elder Bloomfield is District Leader).  After church we had 7 lessons which is really good for having the day consumed by church stuff. We got 3 referrals (members of the church giving them names of people to visit and share the Gospel with) today which is more than we have gotten in 2 weeks. Time is starting to go by fast.

Monday
Lots of cleaning. Our toilet is broken—can’t fix it yet. Our senior missionary couple brought us a ton of cookies. I bought food for cooking. Trying to get internet to work so I don’t pull my hair out (good thing he got a haircut! Ha!)

Sorry no pictures again.....