my recent convert Christian Baiden and his coke truck. 700 crates of minerals with 24 minerals per crate. Lots of partying.

The end of a long week and the beginning of another one. Had leadership training this week which helped me realize a big fault of mine. We were talking about we could help our wards more. I kind of have had a well you do what I need and be thankful I'm around I guess. We'll just have to see how it goes. Definitely will be working on that.

one of our recent baptisms. It wasn't very well taken but you get the idea

In Accra they have definitely been having some power issues. Started Tuesday evening after we had closed. It was Elder Saidu's 5 month mark of being on his mission and basically all he got was a coke and no lights nearly all night. Ended up that we all stayed up in our apartment talking because none of us could fall asleep since our apartment turns into an oven without fans. Got pretty interesting but when we finally settled for going to bed no one actually fell asleep till the lights came back on around 2 am. Made it pretty hard to wake up the next morning. Luckily we did because it was a pretty dang good day. Had one of the funniest quotes for the week. We were teaching a lesson with a member and were waiting for the lady at her house. Talked about how the Nigerian temple has been shut down. The member than just said "I wish Thomas would visit." I had to ask who is Thomas. He meant President Monson, I totally missed it. He just wants him to come so that he can see and hear a prophet. I told him not to feel bad because I hadn't either. He got really surprised. I just was like well America is big.

This is how you make banku. You stir it like pudding till it thickens and then you have to "drive" it. That translates into you have to basically row through it to mix it together right.

Thursday was a long hard day. The lights were shut off again in my entire proselyting area. Didn't really make people too interested when they were either trying to sleep through not having power or going out to get away from it. I thought it was funny because it made me think of being prepared. People try to do something that isn't useful at that time or they run away. It made sense in my head at least. Found some awesome sausage place that same night when doing a split with Elder Schmidt. We ate some and it was great. Sat down on a curb and actually had one of my investigators pass by and talked to him for just a bit. Friday we have a member who every week feeds us dinner around 5. Almost always it is fufu. This time was made special by the rain. We were all sitting there and just said to each other that it was going to rain. About 3 mins later it rained. Right after the cool breeze which ALWAYS blows right before it will start raining here.

This is Oswald. He is my buddy. His sister and brother sometimes will go with us
to teach and his mom likes to cook for us. His birthday is tomorrow.

Saw a guy wearing a stripling warriors shirt. Went up and talked to him maybe by chance he was a member. Nope just some guy who bought a shirt. Crazy to think I get to serve in the places where all the shirts get sent. Never told you but one time I saw an Arizona Cardinals super bowl champs from the last super bowl. Sunday was sweet. It just seemed like people kept coming in during church. It was pretty sad though since some of the people we were sure of didn't come but new ones. What I really enjoyed was that we had two families, one is a part member. Then most everyone else either has a friend or relative in the church. Just makes keeping their interest in the church a little easier for us.

So take kwelwe (fried and spiced plantain) add fanice (ice cream) a little cinnamon

sugar and yes it is magic. Tastes great. I didn't eat it all by myself. I shared with

the apartment. I'm not that fat.

Yesterday we went and ate yam and stew and then fufu and after that kokonte. I've decided that kokonte is quite possibly the nastiest thing I have eaten . . . EVER. It is like fufu's redheaded step cousin that got hit with the ugly stick too much and then locked in the basement. Instead of just boiling the cassava and plantain they dry it first and let it rot a bit. Then grind it into a powder and prepare it into balls. Don't worry you can get the idea from the pictures. ;D

This is me and Sis. Pat. She loves missionaries. Her and her mother make fufu nearly every Sunday. They are members.

I do love the conference talks though. They are simply amazing. I just always think about how we can know the fullness of the everlasting gospel in the Bible but without the Book of Mormon so many simple truths would be too complex and complicated.

Here I am pounding some fufu. Yes I am hot and sweaty..

Love Elder G

Well wow what a week. Transfers was this past week which always is a fun time. I ended up staying in this area so that will make it 7 1/2 months here. I'm chill with it. It is a good area with some sweet people. My companion will also stay the same. That is cool because I'll now spend 25% of Elder Saidu's mission with him. Crazy to think that we have been together that long it has just flown by. Elder Schmidt got a brand new missionary named Elder Edwards who is pretty sweet. He is from Utah some place. So that makes it me being the oldest missionary surrounded by 3 others whose collective total time on mission doesn't equal mine.

We had two of our recent converts scared away from the church because their teacher treated them like they had been in the church a long time and know a lot. Kept asking questions about why they don't know who John Taylor is or what all of the duties of a priest are. It is kind of disappointing since it is our work just going out the window if the ward treats them like that. Thursday was a hard day but kept reminding me to be diligent in just keeping on. Even Friday we had a sweet call from a past investigator saying he missed us and wanted us to come around. We'll see what happens. Though Wednesday Thursday and Friday just were way rough days. Even the past two weeks were kind of up and down in the ways of teaching everyone and what not. Good thing we had the instant remedy of having a baptism. Always makes up for it. Especially a testimony from a member. He talked about how he had a stroke and was able to be baptized and it gave him added mobility that had been taken away with the stroke. It was way touching.

It rained a lot on Saturday for about 2 hours. Yep just like everyone describes the roads turned into chocolate rivers. It was great until my companion hit a chicken with his bike and it broke his chain. No worries the chicken walked away unharmed. So I know that I'm jumping around but as I mentioned that some of the past days have just been a little fruitless for us it is amazing to see how God blesses us when press on. This week we have met some amazing people. It just seems like the windows of heaven opened and just poured out on us. We were able to have some members bring friends to church who are now interested. Steven Yeboah was able to baptize his family. It just seems as if the list just goes on and on. Just made me really thankful for not giving up when it seemed like it was going to be too much to keep going. So that is about it from my side. Hope everyone is enjoying!

Love you guys! Love Elder Gibson

Zone Conference was pretty sweet. We talked a lot about the parable of the sower. Kind of tied in with how no effort is really wasted but if it is unfocused effort it is about as close to a waste as we can get. At Zone Conference the district leaders will go up and write their goals on a whiteboard. Right before it all started our zone leaders came up to me and told me to write a certain number but that our goal is going to be reduced by Pres. Smith's direction. Don't really know what is up with that but hey I'm not in charge. Here is a little bit more of Comfort's story. This week we introduced the Book of Mormon and she ate it up. She really enjoyed even just reading the introduction and as a refreshing change it was nice that she reads EVERYTHING that we give her not just a part. That is a big problem with some of the people. They will read the first paragraph and just not continue with it. Though she didn't come to church so we'll have to be sure and check on that and make sure it is still going smoothly. Who knows.

I went to my recent convert's house and he had his truck out front. His name is Christian Baiden and he drives for Coca Cola. His truck is pretty massive. He can haul 700 crates of minerals with 24 minerals per crate. We met some interesting people this week. A drunk guy who kept telling us he'd come to church . . .if we gave him money. Yeah right, next time. Met a man named Gilbert who hasn't cut his hair in about 10 years. His dreads are massive. Met two guys from California too. I asked them what they were doing here and they didn't know. Just were here enjoying I guess. Had a baptism this week. It went well. We were a little worried since it was in the afternoon because our ward had a temple trip in the morning. Luckily everyone got there in plenty of time and even everyone was able to show up for their confirmations Sunday morning. It was exceptionally good since President Smith was in our chapel on Sunday so it went smoothly was a blessing for sure.

I had a little bit of an awkward moment though. One of the boys in the Yeboah family (the ones I baptized) had been given the priesthood and they wanted him to pass but he didn't have a tie and well I was willing to let him borrow mine. Right after that the ward clerk had called me to come and do some stuff with the records that they had in question. As we were walking around a corner we ran into President Smith and he asked where my tie was. Luckily he was okay with it though since I would be getting it back. I've noticed when I've been in the apartment after closing for the night how naked I feel maybe without my tag or even a tie. Crazy what you just get use to. A major benefit of having President Smith around the church was that we needed an abortion interview for someone who is going to baptized this weekend so he was able to take care of that no problem.

Joseph Kyei another one of my recent converts told me he wanted to take us to his hometown and show us this place where dwarves have carved into stones a enormous owejuria or mancala playing ground. It is the game that is pretty popular game here and I'm sure most of you know what it is too. It is actually in our zone so I think we will be able to go but it probably won't be for the next week or two. Which depends on transfers which is this week. I wouldn't mind staying and I wouldn't mind going. We'll see what happens. Sunday we had some way too much fufu. Our first counselor invited us to his house right after church. Ate big big ball of fufu and then while we were there another call came and we were invited to another fufu dinner. Back to back was just too much. I think I was the only one who could walk normal back to our apartment. It was pretty great though. I didn't have to make anything for breakfast this morning! :D

I just want to let everyone know that I love you and am glad to hear that everything is going so well. I am having a wonderful time in Ghana. True it has its ups and downs but it is always teaching me something. Especially about staying positive. ANYWAY hope everyone has a wonderful week! Love ya!

It is really stressed for us to teach tithing. If the people we teach are willing to pay their tithing then the chances of them staying in the church is so much HIGHER. Definitely helps us to put off the natural man. Since the man of the world is just money money money.
Love you guys!

Another week has gone by. We had a really cool story from one of our investigators. Her name is Comfort and she has purpley/pinkish hair. I know . . . AWESOME. We were teaching her about the gospel of Jesus Christ so faith, repentance, baptism, confirmation, endure to the end. Anyway as we were teaching her she told a story about how she had felt her spirituality had dropped lately and somehow just knew that we were the answer to help her get back to the point where she would like to be. She came to church yesterday and has promised to bring her daughter who we have taught too next week, so something must have impressed her about the church. Found some time this week to totally ball it up with some street boys. We were riding our bikes and saw some kids playing in the street so we decided to challenge them to a game. Yeah we lost. Pretty easily. Like a 1000 goals to 0. Almost like a joke.

We have been spending a lot more time these past two weeks working with the members and it has been pretty sweet. Our investigators just seem to feel like the ward cares a little bit more if there is a member with us. So that is definitely a plus for us since our ward is just a little weak since there has been that transition of leadership. A lady that I baptized since being in Kaneshie named Gennevive gave birth this past week. It was pretty interesting because when I first started teaching her I had no idea she was pregnant but it just became more and more apparent as time rolled on. They named the little girl Emily and she is pretty cute.

Sunday at church was super interesting. We had a man that was just way too drunk to be allowed in public. Thankfully even though it was fast and testimony meeting he didn't get up. He kept causing problems though. I guess that he was a returned missionary who had gotten on hard times and then someone in his family died and he just hit the rocks after that. Anyway the worst part was that when he would see the white missionaries he would call us white piglets. Worst thing about that was that the aps had come and also the zone leaders so there was 3 extra white missionaries. He was forced to leave the building and then came back as we were doing some of the record work so we can turn in some records this week at our zone conference. He then got on his knees and tried to shake my hand saying if anything he had said offended me that I would forgive him. It was heart wrenching. Guy's life had just hit a wall at about 90 mph. Shows that if you don't hold to the iron rod you just wander around a lot in some big empty field with nothing there to make one happy. Yeah just was a little trigger to make sure that I stay faithful to the commandments. I think that is about it. I hope that everyone is having a great week!

Happy week everybody! This one went by pretty well. We are working with some pretty interesting people. One of them has been contemplating suicide we found out this week. Afterward I told Elder Saidu we can't screw this one up, literally is life or death! Um that was a little morbid but Ghana is different. We had to talk one investigator into meeting with President Smith so that she could be interviewed for abortion. After about a hour of just kind of explaining it all to her we kind of got it across. At least enough that she was willing to come and meet him. Wednesday was a pretty sweet day.

Elder Holland came with his traveling companion Elder Steven E. Snow of the Presidency of the Seventy. It was pretty amazing to hear both of them speak. It was great to listen to them. Elder Snow talked a lot about how we need to look past the day to day routine of a mission. He tied that into a quote from Pres. Hinckley about how he said the greatest miracle he ever saw was that of a conversion. Elder Holland had looked like he was about to fall asleep and what not before he got up to speak but wow was he energetic as he spoke to us. He focused on how Preach My Gospel was brought about to convert the missionary so he can convert others and stay faithful. He also talked about how we better not tarnish the "missionary image" for his grandchildren when we come home. He also talked about how if our church had any kind of emblem that it is either 1. The Salt Lake Temple or 2. Two missionaries wearing black tags. It was just really really good. A lot of cool stuff basically.

Uh yeah funny note after that was the next day was the first time I've ever been chased by a dog since being here. I was glad I was on a bike and could just get on out of there. Completely ignored my companion so who knows what was going through it's head. Maybe it wanted the other other other white meat? We baptized a guy named Steven Yeboah about two weeks ago which opened the door to teach his family. WOW that is awesome. Basically his wife just asked if she can re-baptize. It was pretty awesome, just need to make sure she really understands it all. Their family is pretty sweet. There is the father, mother, and three children. Saturday we had a baptism. It was amazing. We had told everyone 9 and by 8:30 when we showed up all 7 candidates were there! We actually had to just wait on the bishopric. It is just nice when you don't have to stress about well are they really coming? It was sweet though.

I found out that there is some village in Ghana called Azim that it rains EVERYDAY. Who knows though I won't ever find out since it isn't in my mission. Sunday we had Ward Conference. It made me a little angry since they wouldn't confirm the people we had baptized. It just was frustrating because there isn't any reason stated in the handbook of instruction it was just that they didn't want to. Oh well there is always next week. Sunday we had someone in the ward make us dinner. As I was eating I just came to the conclusion that I'm tired of rice and fish. Oh well they made it for us and it was edible. That is about most of our excitement from this past week. Well good luck!

That earthquake sounds pretty large. I haven't heard too much about Haiti either so I guess I'm just out of all kinds of loops for sure. It is true though about how the church is literally prepared for ANYTHING. National disaster, political instability, even Egyptian plauges recarnate there is a plan that the church has about how to go about it. I feel pretty protected as I go out and about it. I think I will miss it after I'm released.
Love Elder Travis