Hey Hey Hey

No missionaries were actually hurt in the making of this photo.

So this week definitely had a good ending. Friday we had the chance to go to the temple which was awesome. Even if just to get away from the hustle and bustle of everything around it is sweet. Another thing that is pretty awesome is that it was announced that Jeffry R. Holland is coming to our mission on the 24th. Guess it will just be a pretty spiritual couple of days. Something else that went fairly well this week was just some good reactions from our investigators. We baptized a man and now his wife and children are feeling the desire to come to church. It will be sweet to see where that goes. Families are always nice.

We met a guy this week who I kept messing up his name but he was cool with it. His name is Emmanuel Fiakon and I couldn't pronounce the surname to save my life. It is suppose to be really throaty. He has been a member of his church for a really long time like about as long as Dad has been alive. About 10 years ago he was at a friend's house and read about Joseph Smith in a pamphlet or book. When we came along he said the pieces went a together a lot better since we explained about the apostasy. We'll just have to keep praying and see where it goes.

Something else that was sweet was we had a few people interviewed by the zone leaders and they basically told us that we had our goal reduced because the assistants thought it would be too big but now we are on track to exceed our old goal which will be even higher since they reduced it. Plus one lady I guess started crying because she is excited to be baptized so that is pretty sweet. Another thing that is more of a downer is that we need a couple abortion interviews from Pres. Smith. Guess it just is all a process. Last night I have a really crazy story. We were eating fufu at a member's house. They were having some kind of celebration in a compound nearby and well lots of drinking. We were eating and someone thought it would be great to say hey imagine if one of the drunk guys came over and wanted our fufu. Literally 5 mins after that we get a startle by a drunk guy basically running into the back of one of us. Yeah that was great to handle him and make him leave. It was wonderful but at least he wasn't too hard to handle. That is about it from me. I guess. I love you guys and hope everything is going fine.

ballin'!

Well I'm not doing as good as you that is for sure! I would love some juice, juice is SUPER expensive here. It is definitely a splurge of mine when I buy it. The mangoes are awesome. I have been chopping them like crazy the last few weeks.

Love the English language . . . don't you?

love Elder Gibson

Happy Valentine's Day

Just another normal week for the most part. Tuesday was fairly interesting. We were teaching a lesson when a naked guy ran by followed by a crowd. He had stolen something so they were going to beat him. We were teaching with a member so he went and checked it out. Luckily there were some people who kind of stood up for the guy so that the police could come and pick him up instead of being beat to death. We got a new Ward Mission Leader this week. I think it will be really good. He is a returned missionary which is a big help for sure.

Mangoes have been popping up like crazy. It has been a pretty sweet treat to have. Some of them are HUGE! This week we finally had our water turned back on. It had gotten so hot that the whole city was basically shut off. It rained really hard like two days in a row so they turned it back on. We met two guys this week who own a Ghanaian gym. Basically metal pipes and old car parts. I wish it was closer to our apartment I'd probably hit it up. The two guys are really big though. One of them is named Gigi and the other is Martin. Martin has wanted to become a pastor so it is really interesting to teach him. We received a referral this week for a young woman in our area. Her mother was baptized in Greece and had heard that her grand kids were sick and called the missionaries to see if they could receive a blessing. The crazy part is that it took less then 12hrs from the mother in Greece in hearing about it for us to show up at her house.

We had a member, the Sackey family, feed us this week it was really interesting because they use to live in Scotland so they tell all kinds of funny stories about what it was like in Scotland. More or less how different Western culture is. Friday night my companion and I scrubbed and filled the baptismal font for Saturday. As we were leaving the chapel we ran into the other missionaries we live with, Elder Kalou and Elder Schmidt. They asked if we could go help teach a guy. I felt like the missionary mafia rolling four deep. Oh well it was sweet since we actually gave the man a baptismal date that night. Saturday we were lucky enough to have our baptism without any kinds of problems. Everyone was on time and all those things . . . oh yeah except someone had taken the baptismal clothes home or something from the night before. We rounded some up so it ended up all good.

That same day we went to teach the children of the one of the men that had been baptized. As we sat down to teach we had all the kids in that same house come. Ended up getting up to 10 kids surrounding us. It was pretty hectic. Valentines was very low key here for us. By the time we closed from church we had a member who had prepared fufu since it was Valentines day. After that we did some work and went home for the night. Today we broke our door handle. One of the missionaries tried to open the door without unlocking it and just broke off our handle. Everyone was surprised that we could just go get a door handle and put it on ourselves. Thanks Dad for teaching me how to do things myself basically we would be stuck in our apartment otherwise. That is about it from me, have a great week!

Happy belated LOVE day to you too! My companion isn't feeling too well so we aren't spending too much time. I hope everything is going good for you guys! Love ya!
Elder Travis

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!‏

Hey another week has come and gone. This one brought a few more changes though. It was transfers so our apartment is a little different. I will be staying in Kaneshie for at least another transfer which will make it 6 months that I've been here. The Nigerian elder was transferred and there is now another American. An Elder Schmidt from California. He is the same MTC group as Elder Saidu so he has been out just over 3 months. He is a pretty sweet guy though. Definitely has a good head on his shoulders. We amazingly have a problem with NOT wanting to baptize someone. There is a woman we are teaching who basically wants to be baptized because we give the gift of the Holy Ghost, but the problem lies in the fact she doesn't really want to leave her church. It has kind of been tense explaining everything to her. It kind of feels like she just doesn't want to listen but we're trying.

I found an appreciation for the Gospel Principles book this week. Several of our investigators were able to get one and they love it! Makes for some pretty easy teaching. We had leadership training this week which is always a learning experience. It is really easy to tell the Pres. Smith was a very very good businessman. He is kind of teaching us some of the things he has adapted from his career to run the mission. Basically lots of paperwork and incentive, sort of. I saw a guy this week who was riding a bicycle who only had one leg. Thought the guy was a stud cause he was just pumping along and was booking it. I had a lady try and give me a hug this week. It was really awkward because she was really FAT and I kept just backing up and kind of tripped over a rock which saved me since I stumbled enough to be able to turn away and just wave goodbye. That was about the excitement for the week.


I love you guys!
love Elder Travis

February here we are! So this was a pretty normal run of the mill week for us. Though Tuesday we did have a surprise. President Smith called around 7 in the morning and told us he was coming to inspect our apartment. Man it was funny to see everyone else in the apartment completely rush to hurry and dress and do a little straightening. It was pretty good. President and Sister Smith are pretty funny so when they visit it is a good time. So we are teaching an old woman named Odonta Lamptey. She is pushing 90. Anyway it seems maybe every 3rd or 4th time we go and see her she tells us this story about how she use to sell corn and then her old church kind of did a sneaky deal on her and she gave up on it. Even better was at church on Sunday it was combined and they taught about tithing and she called us over in the middle of the lesson and told us that she wants to start paying a soon as possible. She is a cute old lady. Her grandson reminds me of Cameron a little bit.

It rained again one day this week. It was pretty funny because it made us get somehow stuck at an appointment. It came out because we just kind of chatted with them that they had heard the church was occultic and that we worship stones and things. Glad that we could clear that up for them. We meet two really interesting people this week. One of them is Sexy B. His real name is Francis but if I was as ripped as he is I'd probably go by Sexy B too. Another was a lady named Gloria. We were riding our bikes pass her house when she came out and said Latter Day Saints in a THICK English accent. Ended up that she had been living in England the last 20 years or so and came back to Ghana less then a year ago when her husband died. She said she remembered seeing advertisements for the church on the telly and radio back home and hoped we had something inspirational to share with her. Our appointment is later this week and I hope that we can do a good job.

Something funny was that after the official contacting and what not she asked me what country I was from. I guess from my voice she thought she had caught some Irish, Australian and even some Ghanaian. Maybe my mission language should have been put as mutt voice. Sunday we got a big surprise. Our ward's boundaries have been completely rearranged and now he is no longer there. So we now have a completely new bishopric and kind of the bad part some of the people we are working with will now go to a different ward. It was kind of a surprise. Sunday we also were told to be in our apartments by 4 pm because the African Cup of Nations Championship (soccer) was playing and Ghana was in it. They ended up losing 1-0 to Egypt. It was a very quiet night. Even the bar by our apartment didn't play music like it usually does. WELL that is about it from me. I hope everyone is having a great week! Love ya!

Chickens . . . don't know how I feel about those right now. Ghana has way too many and I'm kind of put off by them because they are the ones that walk around and poop everywhere. I love the winter olympics. I really enjoy the super ski jumps. Anyway need to run, catch ya next week! Love you guys!
love elder travis