Up on the roof

Well another pretty chill week here in Ghana has gone by. It seemed like we spent a lot of time walking back and forth this week. One day it was because kept having pretty much everything we had planned to do fail and so we were left to grasping around trying to get a footing and the other day because we were just so busy with everything. It was sweet to notice the difference between the two days. I am so thankful for when all the kind of time and effort we put into our planning was worthwhile. Something else that was special about this week is we had one of our recent contacts, Celestina Gavie, invite her family to listen to the gospel. It is so much sweeter because Celestina is the lady who doesn't understand probably 45% of everything said at church but she wanted to be baptized because she could work on the language but hadn't ever felt like she did when she is at the church. It is nice to see that not only we as missionaries like to share but so do people in our ward, though it isn't the majority. There is a part of my area that is somehow more remote and definitely rural then the rest called Jericho. We decided to go up there since Elder White hasn't ever been. We don't spend a lot of time there since it is more elderly people with limited English and it is a farther distance from the chapel. The time we spent up there didn't really give us any results but it was nice to kind of get away from the clustered dirt and grime of the rest of my area. Guess it probably just kind of is more similar to being at home. Friday we received an interesting call. From the group of missionaries at the MTC one decided he wanted to run away. Since we are within a hour of walking distance of the MTC they called us. We didn't get many details besides that he didn't take his things and is Nigerian. It blew me away that someone would just run away. I mean it isn't like someone is going to force you to stay. You literally can ask to be sent home. There hasn't been any word about him, at least that has been passed onto the missionaries. Hopefully he'll be alright though. Saturday we had a baptism that was very frustrating. First off people we had checked with for helping us didn't show up. Then the member of the bishopric didn't show up either. After blowing up some people's phones we were able to arrange everything and hold the baptism. Later that day the Elder's quorum held a ghanaian cookout I guess. They had huge things of lyte soup(spicy runny tomato soup) and way too much fufu for anyone's good. They called it berimankwa which kind of translates to men in the kitchen. It was in preparation for the holy day today, sellah. It was a fun party. We had been asked to come and help them prepare in the early afternoon. It was funny since I was white a lot of them didn't trust me to pound fufu but had no problem with elder white doing it. It is made better by the fact elder white doesn't know how to pound it because he doesn't eat it. I got the job of helping prepare the soup. They had a big pot with two skinned and gutted goats in it and they couldn't figure out how to lift it using the typical Ghanaian methods and so I just stepped in and picked it up and carried it with my arms. It was all good until I set it down and as I squated my favorite pair of pants ripped HUGE. Guess I should take it easy on the rice and fufu or something. It was cool to see our ward actually interacting with each other though. Sunday was a busy day at church trying to get people to their classes and have everything work out. We had a man whose wife is Korean come with their two sons who look very Korean. It was sad to see how people in church would stare, point, and basically gossip about them. Made me really sad mostly because I get that everyday but for the two boys they believe they are Ghanaians since that is where they were born and have lived their entire lives. Everyone faces challenges though and each and everyone's are different. I did learn on Sunday that people here call smiling laughing. I had shown them a photocopy of my passport I keep for identification reasons and everyone commented that if it had been taken in Ghana I wouldn't of been allowed to laugh so much. That is pretty much everything that went down this week. Hope everyone else is doing wonderful!