Hello from Ghana

I just felt like being a little different with the whole starting out thing. This week went by fast! It was a normal week. Riding my bike around. Walking. Going different places. I got to see the Black Stars (The National Soccer Team of Ghana). We were riding by a hotel here and their bus was parked out front and all of a sudden you see them file out and yeah got on the bus. I was surprised they weren't bigger. You always hear the whole that hmmm . . . I thought they'd be bigger cause yeah they weren't really all that big. Maybe I'm just getting fat and see other people as smaller or something? Anyway it was pretty crazy cause as soon as people saw them coming out they rushed over to get a look at them and we had to fight to get out of the crowd. Another exciting thing for the week has to do with soccer too. Togo and Benin played at the Stadium in our area. Except no one told us and yeah we don't check the news or read the paper or anything and we had scheduled an appointment by the stadium at about the time the game gets over. That crowd was even worse. Plus they were either excited celebrating Togo fans or disgruntled Benin fans. Wasn't a very good mix. The scariest part was when I was riding through it all and a guy grabbed my arm and then his buddies tried to grab on too. Luckily I was able to just break his grip and keep riding and let them continue celebrating. Hopefully they understand I couldn't just join them. Yeah it was pretty intense for a little while but it was all good.


Yesterday, Sunday, was the day of meeting crazy people. My favorite were these two. The first was this lady who was a little handicapped. She was acting like a guard to the compound and let us in then about 10 ft later told us we had to leave. Luckily someone stopped her and let us contact and then we taught them lesson 1. As we were getting ready to leave she came over and said something in Ga ( one of the local languages ) and then started pulling my head down and puckered her lips. Yeah snapped my head back and was like whoa. Everyone else laughed and said she had said she was going to try and kiss the white man. The other one was a man named Thomas. He stopped us on a street called Lover's Street and started explaining that he was on his mission called of God since 1963. He started to go on about how we as missionaries on the bikes aren't really of God, after which he turned around and talked to himself. I guess He was speaking with God and he then started to instruct us about our evils. We just sort of left after that and yeah it was just a little weird. This week I learned
a lot more phrases of the Twi and Ga. The local people laugh
at me and really like it when I surprise them with something
in their language. It just hard to tell which tribe they belong
to, to know what to say to them.

Yeah I'd say it is definitely disappointing how people will start
off being so interested and then they fade out after the first
visit. I had one this week where we gave a man a Book of
Mormon and then we tried going back and never met with
him. Finally he came out one time and said that he wouldn't
even touch and book because it wasn't the bible. Broke my
heart. My companion and I bore our testimonies and just
told him what we felt about the book. He just shook his
head and yeah. I just went on splits with the zone leaders.

I am still living at the mission home. I do my own laundry,
cook my own meals, and everything. The mission home has
a washing machine but everywhere else it is bucket and
hands.

Love you guys!
Elder Gibson