Wow this week has gone by really really quickly. My last day up in Konongo was pretty rough on me. I kind of had gotten attached and figured I'd get to finish out my mission there. Plus things were just going sweet for us. Though we did teach some really weird lessons. One was to a guy and his two brothers and his father, I think. First the guy wouldn't tell us his age because he has secret things going on and well if we knew his age it could mess things up. During the lesson his father who doesn't speak a word of English would be throwing out amens and hallelujahs every few minutes. The best part is right after that we met a guy who is a fish breeder/framer/journalist/author/ about ten other things too. He is way sweet and actually came out that he is married to a lady we had been trying to sit down with for like 2 weeks because she told us she has a copy of the Book of Mormon. I guess it was a good three months for me. It was a pretty drive back down through the forest/jungle. The road is kind of built above the normal level of the ground so you kind of look down on when you drive so it is sweet.

Being at the mission home with all the transfer missionaries around made me realize how many people I don't know in our mission but at the same time how many friends I hadn't seen in a long time. My new area is pretty different from a lot of places I have served before. Part of it is a military zone. Don't really know what that means but I'm going to try and take a picture next to the sign. There is some military camp but I think it is mostly living quarters. To generally describe my area it is more of a well to do suburb. A lot of people driving cars and gated houses. It has some undeveloped areas of just grass and small shrubs which is nice to break up houses. There is a street in my area that is completely covered in chunks of obsidian. I am going to take a piece and make some kind of design or something. Probably will end up just having a chunk of obsidian of our apartment which is tiny!

We have a front room that goes into a hallway that at one end has a bathroom the other a kitchen and then a small bedroom. It is super nice though. First time I have tiled floors instead of cement in my apartment. We live in like barrack style. There is two rows of apartments just like ours in a fenced compound. Most everybody we live with has money. They drive cars and work for the banks or some other big company. So my companion is a Ghanaian named Elder Botwe. He is a third generation member which is pretty uber rare in Ghana. He is from Takoradi which is kind of the party town in the Cape Coast mission side. Uh, anything else you want to know about him?

So remember last week when I said part of one of my old areas was apart of my new area. Well Saturday as we were walking around our area I ran into a woman I baptized! Her name is Margaret Cenu and I baptized her and her 3 children. They are still going to church and well she gave me a free ice cream cone, that is what she does sells ice cream. It was pretty sweet for sure. My area is like a maze though so I haven't quite gotten it figured out so I don't know what is up with that. Usually after 2 or 3 days I have a pretty good handle on it but not really this time. Well that is the week so I guess anything else you want to know you can ask me cause I'll be here next week! I love you guys!

Well I think my biggest news for the week is that my stay in the bush dreamland is over. I'm getting pulled off the frontier and sent back to the city. Wednesday is transfers and Pres. Smith called me this morning to ask me if I would be a zone leader in a branch called Bethlehem. I almost wanted to tell him no because this has been one of my favorite areas of my mission so far but oh well I guess we'll see what going back to the city is like. My new area will have parts of my third area in it so I might get to see some familiar faces even. The most surprising thing was that I am going home pretty soon. Also we had Zone Conference this week and we were told that the mission thing is kind of changing. We will no longer report numbers on a 6 week cycle. Instead goals and everything will be every month. We won't have zone interviews and zone conferences as often and there will be more leadership training. We'll just have to sort of see how it goes. I look at it and kind of think I'll probably get use to it right when it is time for me to come home.

So this week I saw some pretty cool things. One of them was this dually F-350 with a spoiler. Another was a corvette that was just cruising through town. I also got a package from one of the couple missionaries in the office of banana bread muffins. Yeah they were amazing. Haha one of the branch presidents told me that when I get married I need to send the announcement about 3 months in advance so that he can come to my wedding. He has always wanted to come to others but the missionaries never tell him in time. I'm still deciding if I will or not. We had two pretty good experiences this week. One of them is with a man named Ebenezer. We have been teaching the rest of his family but he has kind of kept aloof. His wife told us he had been reading the copy of the Book of Mormon we left for her so we pounced on that. We showed up uninvited after calling his wife to see if he was home and talked to him about reading the Book of Mormon. He said he liked doing it so much because he just felt good when he would read it. The only problem is that he has some calling in his church and feels loyalty to it. So we are working on it. The other one also involves the Book of Mormon.

After finishing a lesson and leaving a compound house I looked across the street and saw a guy in a pretty blue shirt and wanted to talk to him. Ends up he has lived in Holland and heard of the church there and also received a copy of the Book of Mormon. We asked if he had ever read it and he said yes all the time. He said it just made him feel exciting. His name is Kenneth and he use to be a Rastafarian. Basically a weed smoking reggae hippite with long dreads. You couldn't tell now since he has cut his hair and well changed but yeah he is pretty cool too. Definitely could have good things come from both of them.

Two things I learned from watching children at church sort of came out of no where. The first is that I need to pick a good wife who will help raise our children to be at least civil. This after I saw kids ages 8-15 not be able to sit through Sacrament meeting and had to either get their phones out or just would walk around, in and out of the chapel. That taught me the second thing is not to be a parent who doesn't care and thinks someone else will teach my child. That is a lot of the attitude I see here, the "It isn't my responsibility" mentality. So that is kind of my week. We went out and proselyted this afternoon to prepare some investigators so they can be interviewed for a baptism this Saturday. Now I'm hungry and need to pack so I'll catch you next week! Love you lots!


Love Elder G

So we had a really good week. Probably should of guessed that when you first stop proselyting people are cracking Mexican jokes. I just liked the fact that most of the people here are worse off than those in Mexico so yeah it made me chuckle. Totally found the coolest casket. The guy must not of been able to afford a real caddy so he is getting buried in one. This carpentry shop has a specilty in caskets. They had bibles, bananas, screws, cars, just about everything. I want one, though hopefully I don't need to be worry about a coffin too soon.

the caddy casket.

Splits was cool. Abomosu wasn't as cool as I thought. It just sort of looked like every where else kind of. Just a bit smaller. I saw the Abu's house and even slept in the one they let the church use for missionaries but didn't actually meet them. Oh well it was some where new at least.

the bridge was out so you bet we jumped it. Had to get to the other side to teach a lesson.

So this week we tried doing something I have tried in the past. The part in Preach My Gospel where it says go about doing good and then basically massacre contacting everyone that could have possibly seen you doing it. We helped a lady mow her lawn, with a machete of course. I carried some guys five gallon can of petrol up a mountain. Picked up a street hawker's stuff. Just random things. The worst part was all the people we tried contacting into and then setting appointments with failed us. What was cool was the ripple effect. That is something that has been on my mind a lot. Mostly because it seems like a lot of times my companion and I put our efforts into one place like we feel we should and get nothing from it. Than out of no where something opens up or happens that we were completely no expecting. After I somewhat failed service finding it just seemed like people rolled in, literally in a week.

We had one lady who met with missionaries 4 or 5 years ago and got scared off because some story she heard. Her husband is a member in Accra and has worked on her. We literally ran into another lady whose mother is a member who wondered why the missionaries left right when she asked her mother to introduce her to her and her family. Just some things like that, that I feel are a direct result to what we did that seemed unfruitful. Hope you are making some ripples! Another sweet thing from this week was one day we got a member who recently was sort of laid off to go out with us. Walking past some salon he said he wanted to just say hi to his friend who owns it. Ends up sitting and teaching her, thankfully she spoke English. What was sweet was afterward she asked if the way that we sit down and learn is the same way we do at the church. Bottom line she is pretty interested so far so we'll see what happens.

So this week we had plenty of rain and even had to walk in it for a little bit. I enjoyed it at least. Though my feet got really cold. I learned this week there are white snails.

wading through the water

In Ghana they use to be reserved only for queen mothers of the tribes. Also learned from finding that white snail that a member breeds snails. Didn't know people did that. Kind of thought they just went and collected them. We're planning on going to his house this week and seeing just what it involves. We had a baptism this past Saturday. I was the baptist and was a little gullible. There was a big bug in the font an they told me it was poisonous. So yeah I am like give me a broom and stamp it to death. Yeah it wasn't poisonous they were just playing. Oops. The worst part of the baptism is that we included a child of record and then on Sunday at the confirmation I tried to get the father to confirm him. Too bad he wasn't an Elder. The sad part was the other men who were doing it said it so distastefully. Like he had a disease or something. Yeah just kind of bothered me.

Also there are a lot of missionaries getting sent home in my mission. Some of them fornicated and then others are basically considered dead weight because they are that lazy. Plus the two missionaries who are still in prison. The charges look like they will probably be dropped because the "victim" keeps changing her story and things like that. Who knows. I can say at least my companion and I are still doing well! I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

a family and some neighborhood kids. We baptized the lady holding the baby and two of the daughters. I'm wearing my Ghana crown.

This is our investigators child, Benedict. We get along. He hits me and I hit him back. Plus he loves to put on these plastic thingys and then just wave his hands really fast till they fly off.

Love
Elder G

So Happy Independence Day to everyone! Yeah I know it is late but get used to it. :D So probably the biggest news this week for me is that our apartment flooded twice. Yeah we live on the second floor by the way if you hadn't picked that up in some of my earlier emails. There were two really bad storms this past week. Broke some of the windows and rain just poured in so we came home to find standing water all over the place. The only thing that really was damaged was some papers I had in one of my suitcases. Which don't really take water at all which I was surprised to learn withstand water fairly well.

This week I was given a big hug by a drunk guy. He kept telling us he played the drums in our church and that we should go ask our overseer. Yeah it was great. At least his friend was interested in how patient we were so we contacted him. Hopefully will get to see him later this week. Uh yeah Ghana lost. I was sad. I mean after the US went out I was behind them. Plus lets just say they should of won, the most confident, or cocky, player choked. Another thing that really didn't go too well this week was I was really sick. Sis. Smith thought it was food poisioning but I didn't believe her. I just had really bad diarrehea, a headache, and an upset stomach. Thankfully I am all better now! Which is really good because since I am so far away if I hadn't started to feel better I would have been going to Accra so that Sister Smith could watch over me closer.

The missionaries invloved in the rape allegation have had their charges mostly dropped but are still in prison. Hopefully this week they will get out. Tomorrow night I'll be going on a split. Except it will be for like two days because of how far it is. It is in a place called Abomosu. It is pretty much where the church got its start in Ghana. Steven Abu and his wife live there. They are literally in the top 5 of being the first members in Ghana. So I'm excited to go there. So that is about all from here. I love you guys! Have a great one!

p.s. So I just was thinking about how two years ago I had my call and went to Grandma's house to open it and just wanted to thank everyone for making time to be there. Whether physically or through the phone! Love ya!

Hey I hope you had a GGGGGGRRRRRREEEEEAAAATTTTT weekend. I love you guys!