HELLOOOOO

HELLO . . . out there. This week has been pretty chill.
Yesterday at church (stake conference) they said our
conference weekend will be next week. I think we only
get to watch one session though so I guess we'll see which
one I'll see. Last Monday after we left to come to the internet
cafe one elder decided to clean up our yard. He raked the
leaves together and everything and since it is Ghana style to
burn them that is what he did. Too bad he didn't take in
account the wind and all the smoke went directly to where
we have our clothes lines. Luckily my clothes didn't smell
that smokey since they were on the farthest back line. I
didn't have to rewash. Though my clothes had a faint barbecue
smell. I went on splits this week.

My companion went with our District leader and I went
with his into their area. The guy I was with came out the
end of January because he played football at BYU this last
semester as a redshirt. His name is Elder Beeston and he is
a pretty cool guy. For Chet and Kristin it might be interesting
to know that he is actually from Edmond, OK. He is pretty
funny. Though one guy tried to stop us when we were riding
our bikes because we were white. He asked to see our
licenses, which aren't required in the city I'm in. It got a
little tense between him and Elder Beeston. It ended up
that I started talking to him and asking questions and what
not until he was confused and just walked away.

Stake Conference was really good. My favorite speaker
was a member of the stake presidency named Quasisie
(pronounced Kw-esi). He had us over for FHE in my old
area. When he talks it is just like listening to a general
authority at conference. He talked about repentance and
how it can apply to everything. Plus how for us ( younger
generation ) it is so crucial with all the dangers out there.
That we are human and that we shouldn't look at repentance
as something to avoid but something to embrace so that it
can heal. It was just really good. I hope everything is
going great!

There isn't one from Gilbert now but I've heard he will
be coming in July. I think his last name is Prince. The only
other arizona native is from Thatcher and is an elder thatcher

Transfer

So I found out about my transfer on Saturday and was transferred
on Wednesday since most of you seemed like you wanted to know.
There is a delay but not too big. My new area is called
Lartebiokorshie. I wasn't sure if I had spelled it right last week.
It is a pretty cool place. Okay so it isn't really seeming like it is too
different from my last area besides less businesses and more
houses which will definitely be good. It is nice to kind of be
lost. In my old area I'd always just be thinking about where
I am and how many possible ways I could have to get
wherever we were going. Here I only know how to get
back to the apartment and the church. Elder Menyah is a
funny guy. He is really trunky I think, but he sort of just
hides it since he is our zone leader.

My apartment is really big. Like last night Elder Richards
(the English elder) sat down on facing couches and passed a
soccer ball back and forth. He is pretty funny though so I kept
missing the ball. There is a mango tree in the back of our
apartment which I'm pretty excited for. The second crop
should start ripening pretty soon so expect mango
adventures 2 sometime in the near future. Going to be
bigger and better, I hope. Then again how hard is it going
to be to build on the last one since then I didn't even get any
mangoes? There was a guy at church yesterday who had a
sack of coconuts on his head that walked into the church
compound and started chopping them to sell with his
machetes because he thought people would buy. I guess
he didn't know that LDS people don't buy on the sabbath.
He got really angry but couldn't do anything since no one had
called him over. I guess crazy stuff just happens anywhere.


Going to a mall was a definite upgrade from the average
day to day happenings. My companion is pretty cool he is
just on the downhill slide and wants to go home. He'll leave
about my one year mark.

Easter in Ghana

Another random picture of me yawning

These guys are on pilgrimage, I think, they
don't speak English but they asked to
take a picture with us since we are missionaries.

Monday Monday MONDAY!!!! Okay so it really isn't
that exciting but it is overcast which excites me pretty
much a lot. This week I had some sweet experiences.
Last monday we went to the Accra Mall. That is right . . .
MALL . . . and it made me feel like I was back home
walking through one of the malls, kind of. Our real goal
was to go to shoprite. Shoprite is a South Africa chain
of grocery stores with basically american food. I didn't
actually buy anything but it was pretty crazy to just
have the feel of everything like it was back home.
Threw me for a trip kind of, I felt really out of place.

Missionary fridge

Okay so normally it isn't like this but we had zone conference

We had zone conference this week. It was another
weird experience to see that Elder Adams is going
home and he bore his "going home testimony" at
the conference. I guess time goes on. I met the Area
Doctor and just chatted it up with him for a little bit.
He loves this place outside of Page, Cantelope Canyon?
I didn't know the place but he says it is the most
spectacular place he has ever seen. I guess I'm just
missing out but wondered if you guys knew anything
about it.

The kid on the bike wants to be a missionary so I told him

he could take my tag and bike and go with Elder Molobi.

Too bad his mom wouldn't accept me as a trade for a son.

SOOOO Easter here is a WAY big deal. They
have Easter Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
All of which are Holy days. Pretty much either you
are going to church or just have a 4 day weekend to
booze and what not. It was really challenging to get
anyone to take us serious. I think it probably has to
do with several of the night clubs and hang out spots
being in my area. At least the people who we did get
to meet with seemed interested. I was pretty
disappointed I guess the Easter Bunny can't' hop to
Ghana it is too far. Plus people here don't really like
sweets so he wouldn't of left anything anyway.

Easter Sunday Morning Pancake Festival,

might not be a holiday but I think it should be.

Heavenly Goodness on a plate, with syrup even!

About the only other exciting news is that I'm going
on transfers. Yay! I'll be going to Lartebiokorshie and
be companions with another Ghanaian, Elder Menyah.
I've gone on splits with him since he is our Zone Leader.
That is the apartment where the mosquitos attacked
way back in February though. I'm really excited even
though I'm going from one of the hardest areas in my
mission to pretty much the next I am pretty excited
for a chance of scenary and everything. That is about
it from my side of the pond. Hope everyone has had
a great week!

Just a random picture of the street

I've got to run but I hope you guys have a great week!
I love you!
Elder Gibson

Update from Ghana

Modeling picture. I just like it because

I look really really sunburnt but I'm not.
Plus I like the temple.

Makes me glad I didn't go to this party if that is
what they were drinking.

Just so you know with more surety what it says.

Ghanaian Shower/Toliet Combo!

This is the bathroom part, the shower is just a
bucket that you use to wash with.

Glad that we have one of these
at my apartment

This is what the bush looks like. It is the backyard of a
member that invited us over on Sunday for food but it was fast
Sunday and she forgot so we just talked about America. They've
visited America, mostly Utah.

Sitting on their balcony. Sister Rose (the member)
said I had no fear since I was willing to sit on the
railing while someone took a picture.

We climbed to the top of a really tall
building and took some pictures.
Here are some of them.

Then there is the one with me carrying my bike.
It was sort of in a rougher neighborhood so we
didn't trust leaving our bikes even chained up
so yeah up all 12 floors was my work out for the day.

My companion actually took this one as I
was looking at the city. I thought he was
using the bathroom and wasn't
expecting a picture.

So due to some problems we were having with getting everything
arranged for the baptism I wasn't able to be in the picture with
our baptismal candidates but here they are. The guy standing up
and the girl on his left were the ones I taught.

A random one I forgot to include with the others

Well how to describe this week, pretty normal. Routine. Monday
we didn't do too much. Ended up having a home evening we
planned fall through which made us think pretty quick about
what to do with the investigator we invited. Lucky I am just really
good at making people like me cause I called a member, Sister
Nyarko, and she let us come to her house and crash theirs.
Tuesday night something interesting happened. We had two
baptismal candidates that needed to be interviewed so we just
went on splits with the Zone Leaders to get them done faster.
I went with an Elder Boam who is white and about 6'4" or so
pretty tall anyway. When we went to the hostel, the guy isn't
a permanent resident of Ghana he is actually Nigerian, one of
the guys that lives around came over and kept bowing to us
calling us the two great white princes. Made for some pretty
interesting stares from people around. Luckily Ricky, baptismal
candidate, came and saved us. He passed his interview and was
baptized on saturday, so was the other candidate. Her name is
Faustina Augme and she is extremely shy and hardly speaks
any english. It was glad to finally see her baptized. We have
been working with her to learn everything for about 2 months
or so. Elder Molobi is starting to get a better grasp of the area.
It makes me wonder whether I will be transferred this time or
if I'll stay at the mission home for the first 6 months of my
mission. Guess we will wait and see. Something that I really
liked was that on Sunday as it was Fast and Testimony meeting
Ricky the guy we baptized and got up and bore his testimony
after being confirmed. He told all about how from the first time
he had met with us he knew there was something special about
the church because of the feeling the Joseph Smith story put into
his heart. It was really rewarding to hear him say that. Made
some of the frustrations and discouragements go away for a
little while at least.

For General Conference we get to watch a recorded version later
on sometime I don't know the whole story about how it works yet.
Hope you have a terrific week!

Black Stars

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