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