Goin' to Ghana

He's Home

2010-12-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

Just so everyone is aware - Travis is home and settling back into things. He will be speaking in church on Sunday 12-12-2010 at 9 am at the Taylor Stake Center. . . If you have any questions call my parents house.

11-1-2010

2010-11-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what . . . It's NOVEMBER! Yeah I sat in bed this morning for a while just convincing myself that it was here. Almost makes me want to break out Christmas music since we are so close . . . almost. So this week I have some more about Eric and Doris. Eric basically told us that he wants to go to heaven and wants to do what he can to get there. I know everyone I teach should say things like that but if they feel like that they usually don't verbalize it. Doris is having people basically persecuting her for coming to church and having us come and teach her. Basically they say bad things about the church and just don't really treat her as nicely. Which is funny because now in spite she cooks us food. Then has us eat it so that everyone sees it. I don't really understand but she can cook pretty good so we don't really mind.

This week we met a really ugly man. We were walking in an area that basically I have never been because the people treated the missionaries a little rough. Anyway as we were walking this guy totally comes running at us and starts yelling at us trying to just give it to us for well to be honest I couldn't understand him because he was going in and out of twi.I don't really know what his problem is but I hope he gets it worked out. So I gained a new testimony about why we should only teach literate people. We met a guy named Lawrence who is way churchy. He goes about 3 times a week and all those kinds of stuff. He doesn't know how to read, but speaks amazingly good English which usually people who read can't. The reason why I say I learned a lot better why we don't teach people who read is that he has to be told what to believe. His pastor has basically fed him a lot of strange ideas but because his pastor is his friend, who steals his phone and other stuff by the way, he takes it and believes it to be the truth. Yeah it is all kind of messed up.

I was counted during the cenus they are doing in Ghana. Yeah I don't really know why but oh well. The guy who came around doing it is named Mustapha and he is a Muslim. Part of the questionnaire is about religion. There was a question about whether I accepted the Koran as inspired from God. He saw that I had checked no and ended up having a 45min discussion about it and trying to give him a Book of Mormon. It was interesting and I learned a lot but I'm glad I'm not Muslim. Haha even Mohammad was an illiterate which is funny with my other experience this week.

My trainer called me this week. Found out he actually lives in my zone and so he invited me to come to his house and eat dinner. Oh and I'll get to meet his wife. I'm pretty excited but at the same time just oh well. So today we went and played soccer with some of the other missionaries. Ended up pretty good though we had to keep telling people to calm down because they were going kamikaze. When we came back around the light was off so we went out and now that the light is back I came and emailed. So something else that was really exciting this week is that I got my flight plans! We will be flying into Sky Harbor late on Wednesday Nov. 30. Like 11:30pm You are all invited if you want to come and see us.

10-25-2010

2010-10-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what I've been in Ghana for 23 months now. Can hardly believe that I only have 1 to go. This week definitely had its excitement. For starters last week we were in 4 car accidents. No worries though they were pretty much all fender benders. My favorite was one that we had a big flatbed truck pull out in front of us and basically massacred the windshield, right on the passenger side where I was sitting. Mostly because everyone else in the trotro freaked and I just sat there because we weren't going fast enough to worry about it. Best part is that this morning already we had a car we were riding in break down. So who knows what this week will bring.

We met some cool people this week. One of them is named Doris. She's my friend. Her son has been coming to church for a long time but he is only like 8 so we didn't really mind him. He got his mom to come and so now we are teaching their family. As we were teaching her she was amazed that we were actually concerned with salvation. To her church has become a society. Some place to pay dues and socialize that teaches about prosperity and things like that. Basically we are hoping that we will be able to work with them and what not.

Another one was a guy named Eric Nartey. I don't know if I've mentioned him before. His dream is basically to become a seaman and go to Singapore. He had a lot of problems come up this week. First his old church came looking for him and asking why he hasnt' been coming around but we were able to work around that. He had his friends telling him stories about the Book of Mormon and the Church in general. Finally even the water for his baptism we had to carry from a faucet bucket by bucket because there wasn't a hose. Finally he got baptized though and it is amazing to see how happy he is. Since he had a lot of problems to get there.

Another one was a less active member. His name is Brother Welbeck. We contacted him and my companion and I just had a feeling that he was a member. Ended up that he has had some doubt put into his mind about the church and everything so we are kind of starting to re teach him. Though we are hoping it will help us since his sister is living with him and she isn't a member. Keeping our fingers crossed. So yesterday all day I had to go around doing interviews. It was cool but at the same time it was a really long day. Today is a missionary's birthday in our zone so we are going to roast some chickens and play some games. I hope you guys are having a good week. OH and a cool new thing is that our mission people use to have to come to church 4 times before being baptized. Now it is only 3. Means maybe a few more of the people that I find I can see baptized! Anyway love ya guys!

10-18-2010

2010-10-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hey I know my email is coming to you late today but we were really busy. That is why you all don't get your own little email along with it. We had to kind of change our schedule for going to Accra and some appointments. To be honest this week was pretty disappointing for us. We had two people we were wanting to baptize tell us that they feel like they need to take more time. That wouldn't be a bad thing except for now we basically are going to trip all over our goal. We'll see what happens we probably can figure something out. Mostly because our ward has like two kids over 9 who haven't ever been baptized. Which must be happening a lot in our mission because Pres. Smith has told us that we are baptizing A LOT of minors and we need to make sure that they are living with a family member that can bring them to church every Sunday.

We have had a little bit of a chicken pox scare. A missionary was really contagious at one of our meetings and now we get to see if it spread to anybody. Oh goody. Transfers came and went pretty quietly though. Not really too much happening on that side of things. We did go to Accra today and I checked out some stuff to buy for coming home. Kind of hit me about coming home. Pretty much that I only have 4 of 5 p days left as a missionary. Yeah that kind of blew my mind.

Oh by the way for transfers my companion and I stayed together. So we went to another apartment to just check stuff out and it stank. It smelled like something had died in one of their rooms. Searching for the source of the smell we found under one of the mattresses a mouse that had been smashed by the sleeping missionary we guess. I thought it was gross. But hey we had some rain and that chased the butterflies out so we got to run through bushes of them and scare them up into flight. Yeah that is about it for me. Talk to you next week!
Love Elder Gibson

10-11-2010

2010-10-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

So this one is going to be pretty quick because the computer I'm using hates me. So this week started out really good. Mostly because I had made mashed potatoes for our District. We were lucky another guy had gravy his parents had sent him from home. It was my companion's first time ever eating them so it was good. We had a lady we are planning on baptism the end of the month tell us that her husband didn't actually say no, but hasn't really given her the green light. The worst part is that he stays in a completely different part of the country and we only can see him like every blue moon. Sometimes I wonder why people are married when they live like that, a lot of people live like that here by the way.

The beginning of the end happened for my shoes this week. I had a shoe lace break. Also had a zone conference that I got to have my zone sing happy birthday to me. It was funny because nobody can really carry a tune too much. We were teaching a lesson outside of a family's home under a streetlight because they don't have electricity in their house and this drunk lady came up and kept talking. Yeah I got voted to be the one to go and basically get her to leave. She talked like she was British so I played it off that I was British and talked about some weird little towns up there with her and got her to go to her house. I completely lied but hey she left us alone for the rest of the lesson.

We had our branch president go out and proselyte with us. It was great because our investigators totally respected us a little more because we aren't just small boys but instead we had our branch president who being older they gave him more respect. We had a family invite us over to feed us. Made some really good fufu with palm nut soup that I haven't had in like 3 or 4 months which tasted great! The best part was that they have a little son who kept talking about how he drinks soap. I totally thought he was joking but then he actually took some of the soap and drank it like it was chocolate milk. Yeah I was a little grossed out and was glad that we didn't have too much food left to finish.

Yesterday was really busy for us. We went to our own branch and then traveled to three different wards to do interviews. I was glad when I was seeing that I only have 7 more Sundays! A week of weeks! Haha. Um last night it was pretty cool. About 9 pm it started to rain like there was no tomorrow. The lights would flicker and everything cooled down A LOT. That is my week in a nutshell. This week will be transfers. I don't see myself leaving but who knows my companion might. Hope you all have a great week!

Snapshot of Accra Ghana

2010-10-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in getting a glimpse of what things are like where Travis is out, check out Episode 2 of the Amazing Race here.

10-4-10

2010-10-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

So this week was pretty lame. We only spent like 2 days proselyting. First off my companion got sick, we think malaria pretty bad so for two days we basically didn't leave our apartment. Yeah our apartment is a one room thing with a small living room. I about blew it apart just wanting to get out of there. Cabin fever was definitely taking over on day two. Luckily I had some good time to read and all of those kinds of things. I have almost gotten 3/4 of the way through Jesus The Christ so I'll probably get to finish this week.

We met the same Sitsofe, yeah I figured out how to spell his name. It is pronounced like Sichofe by the way. It was cool. Basically he has just heard everything about the church, good and bad. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and he told us that some of his friends in other churches basically told him it was satanic. One of them even said that he had a copy at one time and he tried reading it his room filled with smoke and lightning and a lot of crazy stuffed just kept happening. Pretty much either the forces of hell were in his room or he is just filled with hot air. Sitsofe made a cool comment about how when he was in school he had friends who were Rastafarians and he was pretty close with them. Then when he wasn't with them but with other people they would make up stories about his rasta friends so he makes it a rule to always check things out so that he can get the complete truth. I wish more people would do that.

After my companion got feeling better it felt so good to get back out and start working again. Pretty much because it definitely took away that cabin fever I had before. So yeah unfortunately that is about it for my week. Oh and if you are wondering my foot is pretty much completely healed up. Good luck with this week! Love ya!

Love ya!
Love Elder Gibson

9-27-10 PS

2010-09-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

So my companion wanted to come back to the cafe after we did our appointments so that he can do some stuff with applying to BYU or something. Anyway I'm going to take the time and send you some pictures. Hope you like them.

This one was taken at one our appointments tonight. I was just trying to relax a little bit. It was actually a FHE with 3 recent converts and a lady we are hoping to get to come to church. Personally I am in love with the hat. I just wish I had a drawstring for it.

This one is this strange plant thingy that we found growing on a tree proselyting. Mom what is it?

So I just wanted to send a few pictures and what not since I have a little time but these things are taking forever to load because the connection is a little weak right about now. This upcoming week will be really busy for us. Tomorrow we have a meeting with our zone where we have to instruct about the new teaching module about giving dates early, and just all kinds of new stuff. Then on Friday my companion and I will have a meeting with just the zone leaders and Pres. Smith where we have to give a different instruction about the Holy Ghost.

Oh something funny that happened when we went to the Area Office to see the doctor, who is from Idaho, total Boise State fan and talked a lot about football. Anyway we took the elevator because well the missionary I went with had a problem with his foot too. We rode with a woman who told me that I had practiced my Ghanaian accent well. I told her I had been here for about 22 months and she just laughed and said that was why. What was really going through my head was, "I don't have an accent, what are you talking about?" So I'm asking, did I have an accent when I talked to you at Mother's Day? Just wondering. Anyway I love you guys and hope that you guys have a great week ahead of you!

Love Elder Travis Gibson

p.s. Okay really long p.s. totally forgot something else that happened. Our branch organized a temple trip and all the people I have baptized here got to go and it was really sweet. Mostly because they all came back wide eyed and bushy tailed from getting to go into the temple. I was thinking how amazing it must be to get to walk into a building even just built that magnificently from living in block houses. Seriously night and day. Especially for a family. They had one girl who is leaving to boarding school today and they really really enjoyed getting to go. Anyway that is my little bit of a p.s.

9-27-2010

2010-09-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

So glad to hear that the funeral went so well. So drank a few cokes to remember Grandma by. Something really good happened for me this week. It seemed like we had the chance to teach the Plan of Salvation an unusual amount. Just made me happy to get to talk and ponder a lot more about it. We found out a lady that we are teaching is one Muslim, like child or record Muslim. When we first started teaching her we kind of thought she might just be a little slow. Now it is because she isn't Christian at all. It caused us some small problems because when working with Muslims you have to get special permission and a lot of extra things. Also found out she will steal the drunk people's change when they buy more booze, yeah she works in a bar. Her name is Mary. She is way cool so it kind of all works out. Just have to work some things out.

Again on Saturday morning I woke up about 5 to it raining and I was worried it would be like last week where it just rained all day. Luckily about 9:30 it stopped. Just made for some small flooding and lots of muddy roads. The worst part is that we came to a part that we couldnt' find a way across so we took off our shoes and waded across. Yeah I slipped on one of the rocks and cut my foot. It wasn't too bad and I crossed and just put my shoe back on. Though I had to go see the Mission Doctor this morning. He basically gave me some stuff to put on it and then warned me not to walk in the mud here becaues there is some kind of bacteria that can climb through your feet into your bladder and give you some problems. It was worth crossing the water though because we went and taught a guy who was referred to us by our stake patriarch. The man we taught is named Stiofe and he is pretty much ready to be baptized. That is all he wants. He has been attending instiute in a different ward for some time now and well knows that the church is true. Due to school and some other things he just wanted to wait. So now we get to baptize him. We just have to work and get his wife who is an Elder in her church or something like that.

Well that is about it. I hope you guys have a good week. Love ya!

Love ya guys too much!

Love Elder G

9-20-2010

2010-09-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

So yeah hearing about Granmda Lila was pretty rough but hey that's how the river flows. Not going to lie I was way thankful for the plan of salvation and how I know life goes on. So this week was pretty sweet. The Tongan pig roast was way good. Mostly because it was pig. Um though as we were waiting for the pig to get finished we were playing football and I kind of hurt myself. I ran to try and get a ball and well couldn't really stop before a 4 ft block wall so I tried to jump it. I almost hurdled it, almost. My shin totally made connection with the top brick so me and the brick tumbled over the wall. Getting old, just can't do what I use to.

I just got some small cuts though but yeah I felt like I was definitely being watched over. So teaching one of our investigators this week with one of her friends I have heard the funniest excuse not to come to our church. The lady looked at us straight faced and said, "Your church is too clean." Who says that? We barely were able to keep our composure to end the lesson and laughed about it the rest of the night. I went on splits this week with an elder from South Africa. It was interesting. My favorite part was that we contacted a lady named Dorothy Brown and sat down to teach her. I told her that I had a good friend named Charlie Brown who had a great dog named Snoopy. Yeah it went right over her head but it made me smile on the inside. :D

So yeah another day we were teaching this woman named Beatrice Anaab. She sells like fried yam and fish and people kept coming to buy from her so my companion continued teaching and I started selling her stuff. They call it koliko in ewe and yeah when an obruni sells koliko people buy it. In about 30 mins time I had sold all of the yam and stuff that she had bought to sell the whole day. Saturday morning I woke up to rain at 3 am. It kept raining till 3 again. Luckily I was able to convince my companion to go out once we got our umbrellas out. First time I've actually used mine my entire mission I think. There was a soccer field that had completely flooded over that we were wading across. It reminded me so much of taking some of the irrigation turns when Dad was gone. Kind of made me miss home a little bit. The worst part was right in the middle of that was when Pres. Smith called me and told me about Grandma.

Sunday we were going to have a baptism at our meeting house till we came and found that someone had completely ripped out the tile floor and all that was there was dirt. So luckily our branch is sweet and called another ward in a different building and then drove our candidates there and we were able to get everything taken care of. Even though the candidates had to sit down in the water and just lay down to be immersed since the water was so low. Sunday we also started to proselyte in the military camp, Michel or Michal camp. Other missionaries have tried but always get thrown out. I think part of it was because of the freeze the government put on the church a few years ago. We kind of walked in and owned the place. Talked to the right people and all of those things and basically are welcome anytime. It is amazing what a smile will do for you. Anyway that is my week for you. I love you guys and hope that everything goes well this week and everybody can travel to and from Idaho safely.

Love Elder G

9-13-2010

2010-09-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Another week has come and gone! I was lucky to make it through this one. I got sunburnt really bad because it seemed like a lot of our appointments failed and we just spent time walking around and trying to drum up some new people a lot. That is in due part because we just dropped a lot of people because they kind of lazy about it. We stayed up a little too late on Tuesday night hold it . . . CLEANING . . . yes Mom you can act surprised. We got a little hint that our apartment was going to be inspected so we cleaned like crazy. Our apartment was clean enough I might have even considered eating off the floor. When the office couple who was inspecting came they said it was even clean enough for them to live in. We'll see what happens.

That same day we went on splits. I went with an elder from Tonga. He is smaller than me but I guess he is pretty much amazing at rugby. He was playing for Tonga's national team. He showed me their jersey and it was sweet! He was pretty cool even though he doesn't really speak english so that is kind of a problem he has in teaching. Made me thankful for my companion who is a really good teacher and all that kind of stuff. I went and stayed in their apartment and we kind of played a prank. Our District Leader hadn't taken his bike so we took it and hung it on some rebar that was sticking out of the roof. Yeah it was awesome, especially since the elder whose bike it is is like 6'3 and weighs like 230 or something and couldn't quite climb up to get his bike. We all had a good laugh about it. We got it down without problems and nobody got hurt. That is what is important.

So this week about Wednesday I was feeling really good with our area and everything. By Saturday pretty much it had unravled. A guy whose wife is a member who seemed really solid is now pretty much seperated from his wife. Another guy got a job, yes a job, playing the drums in some church and he feeds his family with it. Another guy is friends with his pastor and is worried about leaving the church and hurting his friendship. Just a lot of stuff like that. We're praying a lot right now. Some better things is the family we baptized last week one of the girls turned 18 this week. She was completely surprised when we showed up and sang happy birthday to her. It was great because well we couldn't keep a tune.

So Saturday the muslims stopped their month long fasting and to make sure their celebrations wouldn't disturb they just shut the power off in our area and other areas that have a high muslim concentration. Yeah I thought it was pretty messed up but I guess crowd control. As we were walking back to our apartment they turned the power back on and everyone cheered. It was funny. I also got a call from a guy that I had baptized in one of my old areas. He has his visa and pretty much everything ready to go on his mission. Just has to wait to turn a year old. Made me really happy because he is already like 24 so I didn't know if they'd let him go or not. This week it seemed like every missionary I met just wanted to talk about how "old" on mission I am. I hate it. I'm excited to come home but I mean seriously sometimes I got the feeling they felt like we were sentenced to this instead of volunteers. Whatever. I can do my part and just be the best I can I guess.

Sunday at church waiting for it to start I saw a member watching football on his phone and it was crazy! His phone I mean. It is literally a computer in his hand. Guess a lot of stuff has happened since I left home. I thought phones were for just making calls. Also at church I was told that I just need to turn black because I already am a ghanaian. A member, his name is Francis, that we are baptizing his friend this saturday, his name is Evans, was amazed at what I have eaten, seen, and kind of how I talk. Francis said that there are the local foods that I have eaten that he never has. He is pretty cool and will be coming to BYU in January. I told him when I go home I want to eat fufu like once a month and he told me I'd have to show him where to get it. Then I had to explain about how far away from BYU we live. It was fun.

He and his buddy, Nii, totally are going to get us a cat to eat. The only things I haven't really eaten that they eat here is cat and dog. Plus snakes but that is only up in the north north. So yeah I've got some stuff to get down before coming home. Today even we are going to have a tongan pig roast because like 4 missionaries in our zone turned 1 year. I'm excited. So gotta run and stuff my face! Love you guys!

Love ya!

Love Elder Gibson

9-6-2010

2010-09-13T21:41:00.000-07:00

This week was so busy it almost didn't give us time to think! First we had the transfer call to anticipate and well guess how it was going to change our zone. Completely was wrong on our guesses. Only one person moved out of our zone and that is only because his companion is training. Everyone else stayed put. A lot of missionaries were disappointed. They kept calling asking about it and asking if we were playing a joke on them. Guess they really wanted to leave. The worst was as we were calling to check up on everyone there was one companionship who completely refused to work with one another. Ended up we went on a split with them. Ended up only being a sleep over as the morning after we started my companion called me and said that we had a sister who was just crying her eyes out and needed our help. Kind of patched things up with the first companionship and then rushed to the sister's chapel and talked her into wanting to still be a missionary. Yeah by the time it was all said and done I hadn't actually proselyted in our area for about 3 days. Which was okay because we had a baptism on Saturday!

Elder Botwe then got into a somehow serious bike wreck afterward though. We were riding down a street when a few kids ran out into the street and right in front of his bike. He slammed on his brakes, laid his bike down, and then jumped off his bike. Luckily the kid got a little piece of skin rubbed off of his ankle and not much else. It was a close call, could have been really nasty. We had an investigator named Charles Antwi tell us a cool dream he had. He said he met us on the street and we showed him a copy of The Book of Mormon and that I told him it would prepare him for the 2nd coming of Christ which was going to happen soon. So we extended a baptismal date and he accepted and said he'd start coming to church. Then as we were getting ready to leave he told us it would be hard for him to come since he has a role to play in his church and doesn't know if he can leave. We weren't too put off.

Randomly we have been teaching his girlfriend and she'll be getting baptized the second weekend in October so we are hoping she can influence him a bit for us. Saturday afternoon we had an appointment fail on a part member family who live pretty far from where we just normally proselyte so I wanted to explore on the way back. Found a sweet preserve area in the middle of our area that neither of us had ever known about it. Has a lily pad covered river and everything! It reminded me of getting to be up in the more "bush" areas. Too bad most people just use it as a place to dump their garbage. I had to teach the Gospel Doctrine class on Sunday. I realized that I can teach investigators a lot better than classes. Yeah A LOT better when it is smaller personal setting.

There is a bishop of another ward who is staying in our area right now who use to hang out with Elder Botwe's dad, they all come from Takarodi and after church he invited us to come over and eat. The best part was he told us to go and pick up the missionaries in his ward. As we picked them up I was playing around with one kid who always talks about how he played football in High School and tackled him onto a bed, too bad it broke two of the bed slates. :S Yeah oops. The food was really good. Too bad I had to finish just about everybody's food because they wouldn't do it. I was stuffed to it being uncomfortable! Oh well. I'm still alive. I love you guys and hope it is all going well!

Love you guys!
Elder G

8-30-2010

2010-09-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

Okay so I know it probably isn't the greatest moments of my mission
but it might have been. Tuesday morning after we had District Meeting
a missionary from Star Valley, Wy, Elder Turner,brought out some mac
and cheese! I may not have been that big of a fan back home but oh my
goodness I about broke two spoons getting them out of my way for
another bite. Elder Turner is funny too. We talked about the water
pump at the cemetery in Afton and I guess there is one just like it in
Bedford. Just to keep talking about food I also got my birthday
package from Bishop and Sis. Whipple and had some Huck's Jerky in it.
What? I couldn't wait. Yeah it was a good week.

Even Pres. Smith told me he loved me because I shared a piece with him.
That jerky is special. So this week we had a mission tour with Elder
Ounleu of the Seventy and it went well . . . okay. He kind of just
chastised our mission the whole time about how our mission needs to
repent and be obedient. Basically urging us to talk to Pres. Smith to
help us out with it. Maybe I'm not humble enough but my companion talked
about it and we are kind of just don't really have anything that we need
to speak with Pres. Smith about. More just minor things.

My personal interview with Elder Ounleu was pretty good. He more just
asked me to bear my testimony about the Restoration and The Book of Mormon.
We spent the most time talking about my family. Mom and Dad pretty much
he told me tell you that you have done a wonderful job and that he
wishes all the families in the church would be raised as strong in the
church as you have done. So on the bad side of news I found out the
first lady I baptized has died. She was only like 26. Yeah it kind of
was a downer when the missionary serving in my first area told me.

So we met one guy named Daniel who seems really cool. My companion and I
were riding our bikes and we go over a covert and my companion gets a
flat tire so we end up pushing our bikes. As we were walking the guy
Daniel is walking too and makes a comment about the flat tire. Not
being serious I joke about it was because my companion is gaining too
much weight. Ends up we start talking and he follows us to our next
lesson. After we share a little bit with him and the other guy we had
planned on teaching, luckily they knew each other, the other man named
Emmanuel went to eat dinner but Daniel asked if we could keep teaching
him because he just liked it. Taught him until I was like we need to
stop because the mosquitoes were eating me to pieces. We are hoping he
can gain a testimony but it was sweet to meet him like that.

So I also was told by like 3 people that I don't have a white person nose. I
guess I am turning into an African! I think that is about it.
Hopefully you'll recognize me when I come home. Which,yeah I know I
shouldn't be but I am counting deal, is in 3 months. I'm pretty
excited. So I hope you all have a great week!

I guess I would be surprised with what cell
phones can do these days. Ours is black and white and has a tendency
to turn itself off when it is in your pocket. Thanks for your email. I
love you guys and pray you have a good week!
Love Elder Travis

8-23-10

2010-08-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

Another interesting week in the books. This week just seemed like we didn't have too much time for anything but somehow a lot happened. Last Monday my week started out great by getting a nasty burn on my left wrist. I got tired of people asking about it so I just told them Elder Botwe and I got in a fight and he knifed me. It was great to see them get mad at him till we explained it. I went on splits this week with an American Elder from Utah. It is funny how many little things are different when you are with someone from a similar culture. Elder Botwe is cool but for some things he just can't relate but it as all good. Found a place in their area that sells actual BLTs. Yeah they were delicious though a little pricey for a sandwich. I was just amazed it had real bacon.

We had a lot of rain this week which makes things kind of miserable with all the mud and people being discouraged to listen to us. The funny thing is the rainy season is suppose to be over but I guess now has decided to begin in the area where I'm at. Crazy weather. We had interviews with our mission president this week and it was pretty good. For probably the first time on my mission I felt like he was just talking to me and not asking a set of questions that he uses for everyone. It was good though. So we were walking to an appointment and were called over by a group of people to preach to them. Sat down and taught some small small things and then just out of the blue this one lady tells me she wants to meet my mom. Pulled out the family picture I carry in my scriptures and am like here and start talking about the family. She meant it as a joke saying she wanted to come home to America with me but eventually it softened her up to have her open to us about some of the things that is going wrong in her life and lead perfectly into the atonement. It was great for us because when we sat down we had no idea what we were going to share with them since we didn't know anything about them.

So we were able to have our baptism this week. It happened on one of the days that was in the rain and we were scared no one would show up for it. Though basically everyone was late they all showed up and everything went okay. I baptized them and standing in font was freezing! Though everyone did make fun of my farmer's tan at the baptism since I was just wearing the like a robe that you could see the differences where I've gotten the sun. We had a lot of investigators this week kept asking where is the proof of The Book of Mormon and The Restoration and it just came down to us bearing our testimonies about well you aren't going to get any because we walk by faith and not by sight. The best one was the member of a member. He kept asking what was different about us and how we worship then any other church so we introduced the BOM. After just getting him to give it a chance he would barely let us have a pray so we could leave because he wanted to read it. I was pretty excited about it.

So this week I decided if nothing else works out for me I'm going to become a butterfly hunter. I was walking and saw this one flying and jumped up and caught it in mid flight. Yeah I felt a little special. Even better when I let it go that it could still fly. This week we will be having a Mission Tour by an Area Seventy from the Ivory Coast, Elder Onelu. My companion and I will have an interview with him on Wednesday morning so it will be interesting. I think that is about all for us this week though. I hope it is going well for you guys over there! Love ya!

2010-08-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

Playing with soap powder and the toilet

Good well Monday! This week went pretty good for us. Had a lot of memorable quotes this week. One of them was when we went on splits with some missionaries in Tema. The lady said that she had been told by one of her friends that the church use to be called the Mormons and they would go around murdering black people. Luckily even after that she kept an open mind about it. She was actually really sweet. She had read through a pamphlet and asked about what it meant to be baptized by the proper authority. I love it when people say things that just open doors like that. I was also thankful that I have been able to listen to investigators even to notice it because the two missionaries I was on splits with completely didn't pay attention to what she said and just kept going on.

Another lesson came from a family we had sat down to teach for the first time. The woman sells fried fish and a car pulled up outside of their house and she went to give them some fish. We continued the lesson on the front porch with her husband Joseph and she came back. Later my companion he said that the person in the car had spoken to the woman and asked if she was learning with us and warned her that the white man will take her to his church. He told me that as we were walking to our next appointment. It made me think of something that we were taught about The Book of Mormon. That even though The Book of Mormon can help people come to know that Joseph Smith is a prophet its main purpose is to testify of the Savior and that is really what this white man wants to do.

This week I was able to get some weights from an apartment. My companion and I are pretty excited. I also have been taking some antibiotics from what Sis. Smith thinks are spider bites. I had one on each arm and they kept swelling and getting all red. Lucky for me we had a leadership meeting and I was able to show them to Sis. Smith and get the antibiotics pretty quickly. Now I just need to have everything stop biting me. This up coming week will be busy for us. We have some more splits to go on, we'll have zone interviews, and also we will be having a baptism on Saturday. I'm pretty excited for it all though. It should be good. I hope you guys have a good week!

Showing off the swelling and the bites

The pills - big enough for a horse

Love Elder Travis Gibson

8-9-10

2010-08-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

Whoa this week went by quick. A lot of stuff just sort of happened. First was that Wednesday and Thursday we spent most of our time in meetings. The one on Thursday was all about the new mode of teaching. Basically all of the how, why, and what we are teaching goes into more basics than anything else. It was interesting. My favorite part is that they had us break off and try and use the main point, in the first or second lesson trying to commit someone to being baptized, but not many people could do it. It made my companion and me laugh. It was cute to see Pres. Smith open the door for Sis. Smith though. We joked around with him and he was like find somebody you can love even after 44 years.

So I found some skittles at this shop, yeah you bet I was excited. It was a good thing since I had my bike kind of decide it didn't like me anymore and the stopped working. So those two missionaries who were involved in the rape case were found guilty on Friday. It was a hard blow for sure. Kind of actually pushed the reunion going on out of my head. One was sentenced to 10 years and the other to 7. The worst part is that Pres. Smith and even the Area Presidency fasted and prayed about it and felt they were innocent. They will try and appeal it though so who knows. Just put my companion and I into a little bit of a sour mood since we both knew them fairly well.

It Rained on Sunday morning about 30 mins before church started. That is always bad news because then people don't come to church. Lucky for us about half way through sacrament meeting more members and more importantly for us investigators filed in. We had to leave church early to go and do some interviews. We went to the building where my old area attends. It was sweet because I ran into a few other people I baptized. One was visiting from school only this week and another one was a kid I baptized him and his family. His family had traveled to visit family but they seem to all be coming still. It was a bonus for the week for sure. This morning I was cleaning out some of our cupboards in the kitchen and found a bag of refried beans from like LDS canning. They tasted great! It was weird because I know they shouldn't but seriously will probably go and make another bowl when I get done here!

So here are some pictures for you. The first one is by a reservoir, parts of my area are in the background.

The next one is my companion jump roping followed by me jump roping.

The next one is more for Mom. A member gave us this soy milk and I loved it! Made me laugh at all the times I made fun of you for drinking it. Love ya Mom! :D

My companion had a suit made so we did a little fashion show in the apartment.

Last and not least but Sweet Africa.

Love ya guys! Have a great one!

Love Elder Gibson

2010-08-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

This has definitely been an interesting week. Tuesday we needed to go on splits with the missionaries in my old area of Ashaiman. It is about 30mins away from where I am right now, give or take. The best part was that I went there and proselyted for 24hrs. It was crazy to walk the same streets and all of those kinds of things. It was even better to talk to the missionary I was with and asking him about how a lot of people I baptized there are still coming to church. Even Sunday we had to run down there again and do some interviews and I ran into a lot of people who I had known before and that was sweet. Something way cool was after walking out of a room from doing an interview I got half hugged half tackled by a guy I baptized. He is probably a little bigger than Dad and well yeah he about knocked me off my feet. It was pretty fun.

We had a big scare this week. As our AP's were going through the baptism records that we turned in a "ghost" baptism came up. A ghost baptism is basically a record that they make that there isn't a person behind. They will make out the record and just turn it in. We had to scramble and make sure we got it all figured out. Ended up it was something from a child or record that was never baptized or something like that. Though I know in Ghana and Nigeria at least missionaries have turned in ghost baptisms just for the number of it. Seriously.

This week I got eaten up by mosquitoes or Sis. Smith is thinking something else. I have bites all over my back and especially my butt. The worst part is sitting on little wooden benches is just like a kick in the pants, literally. :D I had a few run ins with beggars this week. It broke my heart to see them. The worst was stepping out of our apartment and walking into the street a guy caught a hold of me and wanted some money. Looking into his eyes well it is something I'll never forget. Friday night we had to go and prepare the font for a baptism. It was pretty lucky for us as we finished our last appointment we went back to the chapel to let it finish filling and our P.E.C was there breaking a fast they had for the less actives in the branch. They broke it together and busted out a lot of fruit. Coconuts, bananas, apples, and pineapple which we they shared with us.

What was even better was on Sunday they were rewarded as several less actives came to church and even brought some referrals for us. Saturday the baptism went pretty good though we found out the font has a massive leak in it. This is the first baptism that they have had the font completed. Now it may get demolished or just super renovated. That is about all from us this week. Hope you guys are having a good one!

Love Elder G

2010-07-26T12:10:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-07-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-06-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

o here the big thing is that the US was beat by Ghana. I'm just tired of everyone trying to slap me on the back or something. Everybody has their story about it. My favorite was the people in the branch we went to yesterday. One of them prayed about how he was thankful for Heavenly Father letting the black stars beat obama's boys. The other guy took about 10 mins of his talk on it. I don't really care. When I see kids ditching school to play soccer in the streets then maybe I'll feel a little twinge of come on guys. Plus the fact since Ghana is the only African country still in EVERYONE is rooting for them. Other then that a fairly good week.

The whole rape story was announced on the radio up here. A lot of members and investigators started calling our phone wondering if it was us since the radio basically just said two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are in prison with a description of missionaries having white shirts, ties,and black tags. The trip to the temple was good. I was sick so my timing couldn't of have been better since I didn't have to really work too much for two days. We went to the Accra Mall and well coming home will be a culture shock. I think more than even coming here. Everything there just made me feel out of place. Kind of like it just belongs to a different world. By the way the Accra Mall is like a mall back home. Even has a nike store.

At the mission home my tag got broken. I was a little sad. We've had some good times together. A missionary I hadn't seen for a long time gave me a really big hug and well it broke. What was even better was Saturday morning Sis. Smith made us pancakes! Like real from scratch pancakes! She even had strawberry jam and real butter. It was great. Except the whole being sick thing so I didn't feel like eating too much. Dang it! The temple was great. Though I didn't really like how rushed we were. After our interview with Pres. Smith we has about 20 mins to get to the temple and then after getting out of the temple we only had about 10 mins before we left. I like to take a little bit more time and just kind of slow down. It was good as always. Meet some girls from Utah State that had come for something. I wasn't really paying attention.

Sunday something really good happened. A member woman who is pregnant who we are on pretty good terms came up and asked for a blessing. Her husband has gone out with us a little bit but his job had made him to travel. She doesn't speak English too well and didn't tell me at least why she wanted a blessing. Elder Boateng anointed and I sealed. As I started the blessing I was a little lost of words but stuff just kept coming out of my mouth. Whatever that woman heard I know that it gave her some comfort because it didn't come from me. OH and Sunday church attendance was super low because everyone was out partying because Ghana won.

Something I have thought about kind of with examples is that the first impression really does matter. As a missionary especially. If we aren't going to give a good first then all the other times we will have to work to showing that what we are and do is good instead of being able to have the people we are meeting with gain more of a belief in what we teach. . Well I hope you guys are having a great week!
Love Elder Gibson

2010-06-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

It is my mission birthday! 19 months have come and gone! Crazy. This one is going to be a little quick. We are having some technical difficulties with the net. First off I want to tell you that two missoinaries in my mission were arrested for a child rape/molestation thing. It happened in an old area of mine and just want you to know it isn't me in case you hear something. So this week pretty normal. Still getting killed by the world cup and people spreading rumors about the church. It is amazing to see that even the short time we have been here the activity of people working against the church has spiked up. It is a little frustrating because I just look that what we do isn't hurting anyone. They just want to cause problems because they don't understand,and most don't want to listen.

We got the conference ensign and yeah I must of had some kind of miracle happen on my mission because I love reading the messages. Couldn't stand them back home. Seriously wish I could have listened to Pres. Monson on Easter Morning. Reading it was great. This week we get to go to the temple! Yeah I'm stoked. The worst part is that it will be a two day extravaganza. Pretty much Friday and Saturday will be wiped as in proselyting time, but I'll get to stay in the mission home Friday night in Accra. Revisiting my first apartment! I want to try and sleep in the same bed. So yeah I think that is about it from me this week. Oh new game I started playing. The pigeons here are pretty tame a little slow. You betcha, punting pigeons! I got one to go higher then my head but I'm sure I can top that. Anyway I love you guys and hope you know that. Good luck with everything you have going on! Love you!

Love Elder Gibson

2010-06-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Well all I have to say is BOOOOOO to the World Cup. Though hey U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.! Yeah so the World Cup is a bummer here. Mostly because all we do is walk around and usually only run into people who either don't speak English or don't like football. If they don't speak English we aren't allowed to teach them. We haven't met anyone that doesn't like Football yet. Besides a Jehovah's Witness who basically looked like she wanted to curse us for bothering her while washing. Sunday was pretty rough with Ghana having a game. Especially since about 2 mins. after Ghana won they told us to go to our apartments. I hope it isn't like that for every game. It'll be a long month if it is. Besides that this week went fairly well.

Guess how many bananas I had in my mouth.

This week we had couple missionaries come and do some abortion interviews for us. They are the Terry's from Las Vegas. Sister Terry gave me a chocolate chip cookie. It was heavenly. One of our investigators dashed us some bananas and avocados. That was awesome, until I realized I had eaten nearly half of them by myself. Saturday our baptism went really good. It was a new experience since it was kind of drizzling rain and the baptismal font is outside. I was glad that I didn't have to get in the water though. A member did the baptisms. Sunday we went to the farthest branch because they had branch conference. They told us it started at 10. We show up maybe 10-15 mins. early and they have been going for nearly a hour. They changed it so that they would be finished in time for the game. I didn't actually go to any of the classes. I was with the clerks teaching them how to use the new computer they got. It was fun mostly because when I'd do simple things, like adding a table in microsoft word, I'd get oooo's and awwww's.

Our baptism on Saturday. There are two different families. The women and the children. Then the man is just an older guy who we are still working on his family.

So about two weeks ago I noticed a lizard had jumped into our garbage can. I didn't really want to try and rumble around in the rubbage for him so I left him. Last night found out we still have our pet lizard. The garbage is high enough that he could get out but just doesn't. I think he likes the free meals he gets from our trash. I am thinking I'm going to name him if he sticks around much along. Well there is my week in a nutshell. Have a great one!

Love Trav

This is the wall of a member's house. To my back is a little ravine that falls pretty much straight down to wear they fetch their water in a little creek pretty much.

Just messing around waiting for our investigator is get to his house. He said 5 mins which turned into 25. I was going to get a coconut but they weren't ready.

2010-06-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

This is a mountain in Nkawkaw. There is a waterfall, prayer camp, and a paragliding launch on it. They keep telling us they will invite us over on Monday to go up but yeah nothing.

This is where they paraglide from

Well another week has finished for us. Lots of rain this week. Especially last night. I went to sleep with a window open to get a little breeze so that I wouldn't be too damp in the morning. Then about 1 o'clock last night I woke up to my feet being completely wet. I guess a hurricane sort of storm, that is how it was described this morning on the radio we could hear downstairs, came through. Best part was I think the lightning was literally striking on top of our roof because our entire room was getting bathed in light every time there was a strike. Which would make sense since we are pretty much the tallest building around besides some of the churches and we have a cell tower pretty close too. So in one of the branches we have just basically been thumping our heads against some walls but we kind of decided that we just had to keep working regardless.

This week sort of was a bit of a turn around. We were walking up a street when a guy in a shop called us over. His name is Dickson and he was prepared by missionaries to be baptized but his work made him travel and he missed it and basically the missionaries left and so he quit coming. He was super cool and just sort of needed that little bit of a boost. We'll see how it goes. That same day we went and taught a guy that wanted to know more about the church from his girlfriend who is a member. From him we were able to meet like 3 or 4 of his buddies who all are kind of interesting. It was just cool to see how things sort of blossomed a little bit after just feeling like what we were doing was pointless. Um this week had another investigator come out that he has had suicidal tendencies. Even has tried unsuccessfully twice to end his life. I don't what it is about me but I keep meeting a lot of people who have contemplated or attempted killing themselves. It makes me very thankful nothing in my life has ever made me want to go down that road.

Multi tasking. Driving fufu and having a coordination meeting on the phone. I'm the white one. The dark one is my companion.

Saturday we went to zone conference. On the way there and way back saw a lady, we think she is crazy, completely naked just causing trouble for people driving. Yeah it was interesting. Zone Conference was good. Pres. Smith bore his testimony about the Savior and it was powerful. Way good. Had some fufu that day that even my companion was having a hard time with. Fufu is usually about the consistency of bread dough. This stuff was like dried up playdough. UGH. Yeah plus they gave us some part of the animal that neither of us recognized and tasted pretty rough. We made it through it though. The guy I sat next to at church yesterday was wearing snakeskin pants. I want a pair. Only because they were awesome. No idea where he found that many snakes because I'm sure he did them himself.

Sunday I had a pretty rough day. To start off I had some trouble with a flu junk kind of stuff. Along with that I had to tell a guy who has been coming to church for about 10years he still can't be baptized. He is having a little drinking problem. At least we got invited to watch a part of conference at a member's house. So that was a little bit of a bonus. Other then that everything is pretty normal. Hope you are all having a good week!

Here is a house where a family we are teaching lives. Yeah, she is super nice. Her husband is a farmer. They have it pretty rough.

This is walking down the street to that house.

This is the back view of that same street

Love Elder Gibson

Summer

2010-06-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

A Member

Okay so here is the story about the pants. The first pair is really lame. I sat down on a pew in church. Afterward I got up and realized there was a screw that at the very back was sticking up and ripped my pants a pretty distance. It was all good because I was able to just act naturally till after the meeting so I could just change. The other ones are just more due to my own stupidity I guess. For Mom, Dad, Shelly, Austin, and Stacie . . . remember when we went hiking by Payson? Well . . . imagine a repeat but this time I wasn't racing Austin I was racing a stupid dog. Caught my pants on the way down and well those ones are finished. For those of you who weren't there ask them and they'll let you know. So here they don't really have running water. Serious. So we have a big polytank like the one Dad is putting in, except smaller. We ran out of water and then called our friendly fire service guy who comes and fills it. Except his truck was out of water and the bore hole they used was messed up somehow. So ended up not having water for a few days. Eventually when we got the water it is really dirty. We use our filter for everything.

A Large Worm (next to the cell phone for comparison)

I decided riding in cars makes me tired for some reason. I get out and it just feels like I was beat up. Makes for some interesting times when we have to go back and forth. It rained a little bit this week which is a major downer because it definitely slowed our week down. Some of the days just seemed as if they were never going to end. Friday we went out with a member who wants to prepare to go on mission. His name is George and he is a pretty cool guy. Wants to come to America. Told me I should find him a wife in Arizona or preferably Utah. He was a little disappointed when I told him all my sisters were married. That same day we met two white people! It was crazy! A man and a woman who are doctors from Scotland in some clinic around. The lady had some of the prettiest blue eyes. Things you miss. I also had my first confirmed bush meat. Talking straight up wild animals. They called it bush cat. Though they described it as being more like a wild dog. So pondering it over I guess I ate coyote. It was pretty tasty. Might try it when I get home. It was crazy to be able to taste the difference between it being wild though. It was really good though but pretty tough. Luckily for me I got a leg. Had a baptism on Friday. The font is outside in a .courtyard of the church house. From that on Sunday I got to do my first confirmation since coming on my mission.

In Accra the wards have enough elders so they let them get the experience. Here they don't have as many so we were invited. It was a good experience for me. Though I was a little nervous about messing it up. I mean its just salvation right? Something I have noticed being here and kind of hindsight of being back home. People totally look at coming to church, whether ours or another, as socializing prime time. Kind of frustrated me. I wanted to just tell them church isn't a party. That is pretty much the extent of my week. I love you guys hope everything is going fine.

2010-05-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well we had a tragic week this time around. I might be saying this because not one but BOTH of my favorite trousers got ripped a couple new ones. Okay mostly because I loved those trousers. We looked good together but we actually had a pretty good week. One night walking through I guess what we would call kind of wetland/swampyness I saw a bunch of lightning bugs. Arizona definitely should import a lot more of those. They are freaking awesome. Yes to those curious enough to wonder I did chase some. Thank you. Also another day just walking down a street passed this kid probably 5 or 6 and smiled and waved to him. Like 2 mins later he comes running back to us and spit out a sick freestyle rap and then ran back to his dad/whoever that guy with him was. It made me smile because that kid definitely had his heart into it, though it was in Twi so I didn't really get what he was saying.

Wednesday morning I am shaving and my companion is showering and we just hear someone banging on our door like there is no tomorrow. So rushing to get the keys, half throw a shirt on, and stumble down the stairs we are met by some little old lady who has a watermelon for us. She gave it to us and then said bye. Wasn't until Sunday we found out it was a member who had sent the lady to give it to us. It was pretty tasty though. Especially since my companion doesn't really eat watermelon. While teaching a lesson we got straight out rained out. It lasted forever and made us miss like 2 appointments. Sunday we forgot some stuff at our apartment and had to run back between going to one of the branches headed to the next.

We live on the second story and so I'm full on running around the corner and booking it up our stairs when out of no where a chicken pops up out of no where headed for my face. Little guy and squeezed under our door and just got nervous about me coming so fast. So those are the adventures for the week. Here is something I really liked that happened this week. We were teaching a few different lessons in English and people who didn't understand English were somehow around. As we were talking they slowly just wanted to be around because they said it made them feel good even if they could only understand bits and pieces. Which led to another thing of how much people notice about us. Even if it is just a smile. We had a few people call us from different shops and houses and just want to know why we were just going around and seemed happy about it. It was sweet to see that really we aren't doing this by ourselves we definitely get some help. I love everybody!

Love Travis

2010-05-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Here is to another week in Ghana. Something that happened this week was a like full out war against The Book of Mormon from people we are teaching. Literally it just getting thrown at us left and right. Sometimes things are just hard for people to accept right off the bat. This week we had to travel to a smaller area outside of Konongo. We went and met a lot of really nice people. Except seeing all of the we stayed WAY too late. Had a hard time catching any kind of transport back so we started walking. Walking through a road kind of cut through the forest out here is a new experience. I really enjoyed it. Though as it got darker and darker I was glad a car came and picked us back. Walking the whole way would have been horrible. It was nice to just have a time to kind of relax a little bit and just think about whatever.

This week I spent a lot of time in cars though. My body hurt after it. On Friday we went about 3 1/2 hours one way to meet Pres. Smith. Where he rubbed my head and kept commenting on how much he loved my hair. Guess I'm special like that. After that we of course came back and then on Sunday spent about 2 hours in a car travelling to a branch we attended and another 2 coming back. We met some way sweet people at that branch though. One guy just wandered into church and basically hasn't left since. We sat down and taught him and it was sweet as he was like I've read all of this. I want to know about tithing, when can I start paying. Yeah he'll be baptized, just need to work on his family. Also since it was our first Sunday there we were able to meet some returned missionaries who are going to definitely be our biggest assest. They are kind of finding some people so we can use our time more to just teach when we come there. I'm getting pretty excited.

Things are coming together in a pretty massive way. We just keep finding and finding people who are way sweet. Thankfully. I think that is most of the exciting things. Oh we are going to a birthday party of a sweet little girl tonight after some appointments. This family basically will just call us and ask if we are hungry. They fed us some turkey last time. You better believe I started thinking of Thanksgiving. ;D Yeah I'm excited. Oh this morning we went from having a sandstorm that drove everyone in doors to it raining cats and dogs in about 5 mins. I think the weather coudln't decide what to wear because it is now sun shiny day! Love ya guys! Hope it is all going well.

Elder Gibson

2010-05-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hey the morning after really does let you down. I really enjoyed making the phone call to the house yesterday. It is just a nice change to actually hear your voices then just reading some words. As I hung up I couldn't believe it was my last call home. Time has flown by. So there isn't really too much new information. My new area is crazy awesome. We are super busy since we are starting out fresh but we are enjoying ourselves. We are really trying to get the members to get behind us and catch the vision of turning these branches into wards and eventually having their own stake out here. We'll see how that progresses. Everything takes time right? A few things I experienced this week I want to share. I'm in a more traditionalist area where they follow the old ways. In turn I had my first person I've taught who he himself was practicing polygamy. Probably still would of too except one wife died and the other left him.

It hit me really hard how blessed our family has been that Mom and Dad have always been so in love with each other. Then also the relationships that everyone in our family has with their spouses is just kind of touched me I guess. I don't really know how to explain it. Just think about it and I'm sure you'll get the idea. You're all smart. Another thing is of course of Grandma and her passing. Saturday we went to visit a referral given to us to a member and checked back with the members afterward who had prepared some food for us. As we were waiting for the food and eating they put on the funeral of Pres. Hinckley. We only were able to watch a part of it and actually only the first speaker his daughter Virginia Pearce. She said something that I guess helped me. After Sis. Hinckley died Pres. Hinckley was grief stricken and I'm sure miserable. She then gave a quote or maybe just a description of his attitude of, "Get up, put your shoes on, and go to work." He did and continued on during some of the church's greatest growth. Again he did the same thing when he was diagnoised with cancer. It all relates to when I came on my mission it was in the back of my mind I might not see Grandma again. When it actually happened it hurt and even from Thursday when I found out till watching the funeral I was definitely less then enthusiastic and motivated towards my responsibilties. It just kind of slapped me in the face and made me realize that I needed to get up, put my shoes on, and go to work. Cause if not Grandma and Grandad were going to beat my butt the next time they see me. I know I'm just rambling now but I spoke my mind so that is that. I do love the nice touch of throwing empty pepsi cans into the grave. Lovely touch. I hope everyone has a great week! I love you all!

Elder Gibson

2010-05-03T05:38:00.000-07:00

So here is the run down of my week. Hold onto your pants. Tuesday morning woke up and felt horrible. Had some flu like stuff that has kicked my trash nearly all week. Finally getting on top of that. Best thing that morning Pres. Smith calls and he and his wife are coming for apartment inspections. Whirlwind cleaned so we can cover everything up best we could. When they got there Pres. lets Sis. Smith do the inspection and tells me he would like to meet outside. As we were walking out kind of was thinking that he was calling me as a zone leader since Tuesday is the transfer call day. NOPE not even close. Instead I was told I will go re-open some and completely open some areas way out of the way of anywhere I've been. I am literally the farthest a missionary can be in my mission. It is a placed called Konongo. There are two branches here that we are over and then another about a hour a way in Nkawkaw. The drive was amazing! Straight up jungle for most of the 5 hour ride up here from Accra. We live in an old bank so our apartment is huge! It is pretty dirty though.

We spent about 5 hours this morning cleaning it up. Yeah definitely will be a lot different then any where else I've served for sure. Especially since going to church yesterday in the two branches we had a lot of surprises. Even if I stay here for just one or two transfers this will be my most fruitful area for sure. I'm pretty excited. Plus I get to take some little cow trails around this town and some of the surrounding areas. I will have to travel a little bit to and from places which will be new. Konongo is population sized like Show Low but much more spread out. Much much more. It has rained here nearly everyday since we got here too so we'll see how that effects us as it is just barely the beginning of the rainy season and will get much worse. I think that is about all I really have in the way news. Any of questions? Love you guys!

Love Travis

2010-04-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

Ghana was pretty sweet for us this past week. Best part was that we had Zone Conf. That is always pretty fun. Uh yeah it is amazing to look at everyone that comes and think I'll be come home before you, you, you, you, you and yes President Smith even you. What was a way big downer was that since I think everyone in Ghana has at least thought of abortion as an option we had some abortion interviews to be done by President Smith. President Smith told us that one of them didn't pass. He still thinks God won't forgive him. That is really hard to try and teach someone to understand. He literally has done everything that is required, but personally I just feel like he is too grief stricken to really feel how the Atonement is suppose to lift us up through repenting. Good thing conversion doesn't happen in a day. We'll keep working with him. Something we tried working on this week was being more bold in being us. It went pretty good to a point and then it almost got to be as if we are pouring on way too much for them.

This week I got to eat at what are some of my favorite members the Sackey family. Awesome food. Mama Sackey made melon soup with omu tuo. I know get this I actually enjoyed eating squash soup with sticky rice balls. Awesome. I even got to help the other missionaries eat theirs. Still serving as the garbage can. We had lots of people of course ask this week if we worship Joseph Smith. It was great to be able to explain how we just more look at him as a role model. That is something here that people have a hard time connecting with. With all of the bozillion churches, literally I can find at least three on any given street and that is a low number, people look at their pastors and things sometimes as demigods. Glad we don't have that in our church. They are really just men who follow God with all their heart mind and strength.

We had a baptism this Saturday, of course it went really good thankfully. Even were able to invite a few others who are investigating the church to come and witness it. Saturday we had a sweet something had to happen experience. Joseph Kyei asked if there was a video or something about Joseph Smith he could watch. We borrowed one from another missionary and took it over. We were lucky enough to have his dad Joseph Kyei Sr. just being around and got to see it. My companion and offended him when after contacting him he went on splits and during that appointment said and did somethings that Daddy Kyei didn't agree with. After the video about Joseph Smith daddy kyei wanted to watch and know more. Hopefully that door hasn't been completely closed and we can work on getting all of Joseph's family into the church. Joseph would be ecstatic too. We'll just have to keep working hard and see what happens. Last night after reporting our numbers to the zone leaders it was great to have them call and just tell us they got the numbers and that they don't need to discuss anything again because our district is the strongest one in our entire zone. I might of been a little prideful but hey we work hard so I think we deserve it.

Some funny experiences this week. Two ladies were making comments about the white missionaries on a trotro in twi about which one they'd rather sleep with. No one else understands really any twi besides me. As they were talking I just told them, in English, that we don't sleep with people and handed them a pamphlet as we got off the trotro. The look on their faces priceless. Also Wednesday is transfers. They don't call till the night before because if they call earlier missionaries stop working. My companion has completely packed his bags and literally is just waiting to go. Haha it is great to watch. He did it the last time too. I think that is about it. Yeah I think that is about it. It seems like my time in Ghana is slipping away so quickly. Love all you guys!

2010-04-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

So another week in the books here in Ghana. Had a pretty interesting week. Had its ups and downs like all the others. In fact I'm probably going to write you a shorter email. This week it seemed like everyone we taught wanted us to pray for them. Which wow like we don't have that on our minds anyway. Though while we were teaching this week it seemed like a rather unusually large number of drunks kept wanting to learn "the word" with us. My favorite was a man named Joseph who sat through a whole lesson and even participated small (small because he was drunk) so that at the end he could beg us for money. We had a another drunk guy come up and talk about how his brother is a missionary. Except the name he gave isn't the missionaries who are in that area. He also asked us for money. We are teaching an actor named Stefan Godwins. He is reading the Book of Mormon and got to 2 Nephi and started asking about the millennium and everything that goes along with that. It was really really sweet to get to teach him but he is always super busy. Luckily he doesn't have to work on Sundays. Another mane named Romeo did something that really touched me. He is really committed to the church but even still when we extended a baptismal date to him he said he wanted to wait so that he could get his confidence up because he wants to make sure he understands how serious it is.

Not saying I want everyone to postpone but it is good to see people actually taking all of it completely serious. Saturday we had a baptism and the AP's came to go on splits with us for about 2 hours. It was pretty interesting. Especially since almost all of our appointment fell through the short time they were with us. Comfort Bruce was interviewed to be baptized. It was really sweet because afterward I was talking to the missionary who did it and he said she told him that as she met the missionaries she felt like making changes in her life were just how it should go. Stopping drinking and just other things like that. Just confirmed the feelings of the spirit that has been present in our lessons with her I guess. That is about all of our excitement this week. Love you guys! Hope everyone is doing fine

Love Elder Gibson

2010-04-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

So another week come and gone. Last Monday we were lucky and got to eat some fufu as an Easter treat at Comfort Bruce's house. Her and her son are still looking at being baptized on the 24th. Hopefully we can get her daughter and others involved too. We are teaching a man named Emmanuel Osei and his family. He is probably in his sixties. The cool thing about him is 1. He loves coming to church 2. he smells like Grandad's doghouse! I know it sounds crazy but so true. Brings back memories of standing and having my height measured and all of those things. OOO and parched corn. Since Tuesday was the 180th anniversary of the church being organized we went to this placed called Tangier's who sells some pizza to celebrate. It was pretty well I thought amazing pizza but the other Americans told me I just have been in Ghana too long. My bad.

Met some really interesting people. Taught a Jew this week named Zebulon, I think. He is a Messianic Jew. They believe that Jesus is the Savior and all the things pertaining to that. They do believe that you should only take communion during Passover. That seems like the main basis of the religion is keeping the Passover by taking the communion. He didn't make a lot of sense though. We taught a girl who wants us to come back and teach her Lesbian friend to stop being a lesbian. It was a little awkward. She does it for money. Met a guy named Alexander Appiah who has had a Book of Mormon for over 10 years. The cover and stuff are damaged though so he didn't actually know what it was and it really confused him. He just would read it he said and liked what it taught. While we were teaching him though his daughter or neighbor girl kept staring at her. Because of the area we were in I asked her if she hadn't ever seen a white person this close. She told me yes she had but not one as handsome. Everyone busted up laughing except Elder Saidu. He said he didn't understand it.

We met a man named Romeo and have been teaching him and preparing him to be baptized. He has a little dog named Cedi. One time we were teaching this past week and Cedi came up and just starts humping my leg like there is no tomorrow! There went the spirit in that lesson. We taught a guy who is friends with a member and I think I made him really really really angry. He had the typical mindset that if you say Jesus Christ or God in anything you teach and it is okay that is "THE WORD" as they refer it. I kind of just told him that wasn't the case and that no we really have to choose sides on what we believe and how to go about religion. He wouldn't talk after that and as we were leaving he asked me who I thought I was that I could pass judgement on what was right or wrong. I know I didn't do anything wrong but afterward I felt horrible like I should have been able to at least of more tactfully been able to of put it I guess. Doubt that was any kind of good seed though.

Sunday Pres. Cardon came to our ward and basically told us how amazing conference was. It went pretty well. Yeah I think that is about all I'm remembering from this week. I love you guys and hope all is well.

Chickens run like wild herds here, it is crazy.
Love Travis

2010-04-08T00:32:00.000-07:00

Haha so since everyone of my emails talked about it NO I didn't get to catch any of conference. We will get the DVD version at the end of the month and some where around there I'll get to watch a session or two, maybe. In other news we had a pretty interesting week. Went on splits with everyone in my district this week. It is pretty interesting because they changed our areas a little bit so I got to proselyte an area where I had worked before. It was funny how many little kids and even the adults would be like OH! Elder Thisthing (that is how they pronounce Gibson I swear, just say it really fast). The other elder I was with just looked at me and asked, "does everyone like you in this country?"So I know I have mentioned the lady Comfort to you guys. The one with cool hair. Well she has basically just been sweet. While we were driving to give her a date she just cut to the chase and just said yes baptize me, when? Generally, not quite in just those words. It is sweet because she would like her 2 daughters and 1 son who lives with her to be baptized. Yay for families. Which reminds I love you guys.

OH and that I totally missed out on having an Easter basket. I don't know why but last year I could have kind of cared less. Easter is a lot bigger this year than I remember it being last year. It is a Friday-Monday thing. Even today is a holiday and not too many people are out and about. It is pretty messed up to me though about how we continually would pass by churches and stuff this week and they were doing collections. My favorite was one pastor who was yelling and said, "In the HOLY! name of Jesus bring me 500 million!!!" That is like 50 bucks but still just the way that even 'men of God' treat their calling is just disgusting, but I guess I should learn some charity and show them love. We did have a good week. Able to meet some sweet people and to even have some others to kind of grasp the idea of it. One of them is a guy named Stefan. He was really really apprehensive about the Book of Mormon at first but as he has started to read it he just loves it. He said in his last church he was wanting to become a shepard (missionary) so we are reading Alma 17-22 about Ammon with him. His little brother has joined us a few times and loves the action. Especially the cutting off of arms.

At their house a drunk/crazy guy tried to steal my bike as we were sitting right in front of them. After we got that sorted out and tried to bring the spirit back into our lesson the same drunk/crazy guy started a fight with another resident in the house. Eventually they were throwin sugar and water at each other and yelling in twi and all that good stuff. Elder Saidu and I just decided that we should just get out of there. Had interviews with Pres. Smith on Friday. It was pretty good. Some reason I was asked to ask Pres. Smith a question that our apartment had argued about. It was about eternal marriage. Since no one else would be willing to I asked. Basically his answer was well what do you know about faith, repentance, etc etc etc? Yeah doesn't want us losing focus. We found out that about 5 missionaries in the last 2 months have gone home from my mission. One of them actually went crazy. Total mental breakdown. I felt horrible for the guy. We had a baptism on Saturday. It was really funny because some of the ward leaders were new and you completely tell. I felt like I was witnessing an infant taking its first steps. It was so cute. Sunday at the beginning of church didn't look too positive for us. By the end it had improved with kind of the important investigators coming to church at least. During the service it just kept hitting me that all I need to do is focus on the good. At least it made me feel pretty happy about myself. So there is my spiritual uplifting thought, even if it is a little flat. Haha. Love you guys!

Love
Elder Gibson

2010-03-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-03-10T01:19:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-03-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

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

Hey Hey Hey

2010-02-23T11:13:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

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!!!‏

2010-02-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

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

rain rain don't go away but stay for another day!‏

2010-01-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

Well it was one from the books this past week. Sounds like everyone in Arizona seems to having one too with all the weather going on. This week definitely taught me the importance of back up plans. It seemed as if a lot of our initial plans took a beating. It was all good and were able to get some work done. Did a little bit of extra walking around our area though and it was sweet because we were able to notice some sweet new things. I have now found at least 3 monkeys that are being kept as pets in my area. Also a house that has a bunch of parrots. Something else that was refreshing was finding some new roads and kind of compound houses that we hadn't known before.

We had our mission tour with Elder Dickson who is in the Area Presidency. He is a way cool guy. It was kind of a spiritual overload it seemed at times. Kind of like so much that was coming at you that you couldn't soak it all in. Two of the things that he really talked about is how when we are teaching our investigators there are two things we need to do. One of them is to get them committed to paying their tithing. If we can do that if we ever come back to Ghana we will have much better chance at finding them in the church still. Another thing about it was to get them to love the gospel. Have them to the point where they want to know more about the church and its teachings. All in all he gave lots of good advice. Probably the first time there was I guess "official" talk about finding your eternal companion. The whole you shouldn't wait after your mission to get married kind of thing. I was just likle WHOA. Hey now I'm still a Toys 'R' Kid and I'm never gonna grow up. Okay not really but marriage is kind of a huge step and one that seems just way too alien to even be a part of my thought process. At least there was plenty of good stuff about the whole being a missionary thing. I'm glad I was able to write a good section of notes to go over and get some more things out of what was said. I got two flat tires this week on my bike. Reminded me of the time back home when it seemed like I couldn't drive a week without getting a flat. Luckily we met some cool guys who happen to fix bikes when we were contacting. One of them thinks I'm German and won't speak English to me though. D'UR!!!

Saturday we had another baptism. This time it was two men and two daughters. The one man had about, no joke, about 12-15 other children come. He is Aryee and is 55 with about 20 children. His oldest is my age. It seemed like we were having a primary program. Sunday was an interesting day too. Right the African Cup of Nations is going on and Ghana had a game. Up to now it has kind of been pretty low key but this game was the quarter finals. Ghana won the game and basically everyone went CRAZY. People out in the streets and everything like that. I'm sure a couple bottle tops were popped that night for sure. I can only imagine what will happen if they win the whole thing. This morning we went to the main market in pretty much all of Ghana. It is called Mokola Market look it up on Google and it might surprise you. I needed a belt and the ones around our area were really worthless in quality so we went there so I wouldn't feel like I was being robbed. We ran in to the assistants to President Smith who were buying ties. I was hoping for a ride back to the apartment but no such luck. Tonight we are invited to go to a member of the stake presidency for dinner and to basically have family home evening. Everytime we go to one with members and investigators always reminds me of when I was little and my favorite part of FHE was getting to eat dessert afterward. Sure know where my priority was for sure. :D I love you guys and hope you have a wonderful week!

Yeah the weather sounds off the hook over there! It even rained a little here but literally a drizzle. It is kind of the ending of the dry season haha in the next 3 or 4 months but sometimes showers happen here and there. I can't wait for the rainy season, even though the chances of getting malaria shoot through the roof. Adults sometimes let themselves go below what they would want their children. I see it all the time even in the streets here. I mean we all have to have our standards and the best we can do is stick to them in my mind.
love elder gibson

Hello back

2010-01-18T19:43:00.000-08:00

Hey Obroni obroni! Okay I just wanted you guys to get a start to a conversation like most of mine. This week was pretty good. We went on splits this week with our Zone Leaders. That was a very refreshing change. It kind of made me realize for about the last 6 months I have been training new missionaries. Then a second thought was that yep, that is why I feel so tired. It was nice to just have someone who really knows what he is doing to assist in the teaching. Helped me to see what kind of an advantage experience is. We taught a sweet lady named Beatrice. We had contacted her but she didn't have time. She told us just one of about a bozillion churches that people attend. As we taught her it came out that she has been searching for a church and has actually only been attending this one for about 2 weeks. Basically it was moving to see how God really puts people into our path we just have to be willing to put forth the effort to encourage them in.

That same day a guy saw us walking and dashed us these fruit smoothies. Basically one of the most amazing things I've tasted since I've been in Ghana. That same night we needed to fill our baptismal font for the next morning. As we were riding our bikes towards the chapel the rain started to come down in buckets. We were less then a mile away from the church but by the time we got there the parking lot was flooded and even the intersection by the church was too. It caused a little bit of trouble for the traffic. It made me glad that we were able to sit inside the church and just let the font fill. Saturday we had our baptism. We had talked to some of the people and decided we would go and pick them in the morning before. It made for a long day with such an early start.

A guy named Steven Yeboah had promised to come to church on Sunday but didn't show up. We went to check up on him and found washing his clothes from work, he sells car parts, his boss had called him and he had just come. He asked us to wait and afterward told us about how he had read Alma 7 and how he just feels that the church is true and wants to be baptized. It was pretty sweet, but hopefully isn't driven by the fact that we were disappointed he didn't come to church. Sunday evening we went and helped a member make fufu. Cooking and pounding enough for 6 missionaries takes a long time. The soup was so hot that my fingers are still a little tender. This morning we played some soccer with other missionaries. It ended up into playing rugby. It is a pretty sweet game. Kind of makes me wish I could have played at home. It was funny because most of us didn't know how to play so it was a little bit like a circus. This week we will have a mission tour from one of the general authorities. Probably one of the area presidencies. It will be cool to see a lot of the missionaries around though and hear whatever they have to say. I hope everyone has a great week!

If it is windy you should go fly a kite. Kids here make them out of like plastic bags and sticks and fly them so high.
love Elder Gibson

2010-01-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

Well what a week. At least it went pretty good. I am kind of having a hard time people asking about money. I know that life is tough and everything but still church shouldn't be looked at as just a no interest bank. We went on splits this week with the people in my District. I spent a long day walking around finding in another area. It wasn't too bad but I was glad to get to go back to my area. We had a really long power out this week. Went over 48 hrs. It was a lot easier to get to sleep with a fan for sure. Keeps more of the bugs and what not away from you too. We are teaching a guy who lives next to his grandma. She saw us and kind of disappeared which we were kind of use to because she hasn't seemed to like to us too much. As we were getting up the old woman came out and told us she had something for us. Sitting back down she brought out a big bowl of banku. UGH. Luckily we were able to just down it really really quick.

We had Interviews with President Smith this week. It was a little rough. He had everyone bring their area books. Luckily mine passed because we work on it but pretty much every other one was a failure. Made for a little chastisement. It was pretty deserved though. We went to our Ward Mission Leader's house and his land lady basically started yelling at us because we wanted to see him. She is just kind of like that. Our Ward Mission Leader called us back because she was still letting him have it. We had to go back and apologize for not asking her if we could knock on his door. It was pretty interesting and I had a hard time keeping a straight face.

I met some people I had taught in my first area. It was cool because they remembered me and everything too bad I didn't remember them. Maybe if they would have been baptized. So there was a funeral right outside our apartment so we haven't really got to sleep since Friday night. Saturday was wake keeping till about 4 am. Then last night was the party. Had a stack of speakers about the size of a shed playing Ghanaian hip hop. They definitely know how to send someone out in style. That is kind of the highlights of the week. Hope everyone is having a good week!

One thing here is that they take such meaningless things and make them so important in their lives. I guess thankfully the gospel keeps you rooted in what is right. Helps us to know what we need to do and where to go.

love 'uncle travis'

Many happy returns (it is a saying here)‏

2009-12-28T17:38:00.000-08:00

Well writing an email just doesn't have quite the appeal that talking does. Oh well you just sometimes have to take what you get, right? Anyway this week went pretty well for me. I mean I felt sort of that holiday rush for sure. I think the 24th 25th and 26th were just so hard to get myself motivated to go out and work. At least on Christmas we were had a member that fed us so we didn't have to work too much because of the distance to his house. The food was okay but kind of how it always is just wasn't as good as I remembered from last time. It was still something to eat though. Plus they gave us ice cream which was sweet.

For Christmas I gave the other guys in the apartment one of my ties. My companion has worn his everyday since then. What can I say I can pick ties for people. Oh and sorry Mom he didn't even want to wear the one that you sent for him yet. I told him he needs to at least once before we aren't companions anymore. Sunday went fairly well, we had Joseph Kyei interviewed. He passed with flying colors. The guy is sweet. He has been asking how he could get a copy of our study bible and a triple combination so I bought them for him as a Christmas gift. He is way sweet though. He has asked us and our bishop about going on a mission. I just hope that he can make the age cut off. Anyway I just want to thank everyone for helping to make my Christmas a merry. I'm glad that I was able to get to talk to all of you. Anyway I hope everything goes well for you this week. Love ya guys!

It was really good to talk and everything.
love elder gibson

p.s. Yeah they listen to music, drink, and dance. I think that is kind of the basic outline for any holiday over here. :D

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Hey guess what . . . today is my mission birthday! Okay it is more that I have no idea where the last month went. I really thought I was just having my year mark but now I'm past it! For this past week I've been on a threesome and it has been hell, but in a good way. Elder Richards finished his mission but was sent home before transfers so that he could be home for Christmas so his companion is with us until this Wednesday when he gets a new companion. It has been crazy to try and cover the two areas. Just makes me feel like we haven't given the people the attention they deserve. Especially with the whole Spirit of Christmas just filling up the air. I'm glad that this year since there isn't an election that there was a way better feeling about the whole Christmas season. It seemed to have exploded this past week. Though still haven't seen too many decorations on homes. I guess they don't really do that at all here.

Anyway this week was pretty fun. We stayed busy the whole time. I about lost my hearing contacting a guy. He works as a mechanic and he was hammering a door panel by himself so I went and held it. Somehow I ended up with the hammer pinging away. He was way cool but doesn't live anywhere near us. Wednesday was our mission Christmas Conference. That was sweet to get to see our whole mission together. Made me feel pretty good since I didn't know even half of the people. Mostly since they are so new and I don't get transferred too often. The Mission Conference is always good. President Cardon and his wife spoke to us. Sister Cardon read the story about the boy who gets up early to milk the cows for his dad on Christmas. I really enjoyed President Cardon's though. He talked about in the world today most people think that they know Jesus Christ but really they don't. Kind of about the godhead, divine son-ship, and things like that. He explained it about how the Jews didn't recognize their Messiah and it is still happening today. It was really really good. Something that was way sweet is I heard about 2 of my recent converts. One of the missionaries from my old areas came and asked if I had baptized a guy named Frank. I guess Frank has become hyper active. He is at church every Sunday. If there is any kind of Stake Meeting he is there. Basically is just a sweet guy all the way around. Another one of them I actually meet on the road going to our apartment one night. It is a guy I baptized about 6 months ago in the area that the ward borders the one I'm in now. He told me that he had moved but if I ever wanted to visit he and the entire family always are at church. It was just one of the greatest feelings I could have had, especially as part of what we talked about at the Mission Conference. Part of it was about what did Jesus give to us, of course Eternal life. Then comes the question of well what do we give him? President Smith talked about how when we baptize someone it is one gift we can give to the Savior. Along with good deeds and other things but the whole baptism thing fits with the mission. Kind of warmed my heart to know that at least some of my gifts were more lasting, especially since the last two transfers have been kind of rough. Anyway there is a little thought for you to chew on I guess.

Something else that was really sweet was we had two guys ask us when they could be baptized. One of them is Isaac Agyaman, he sells chocolate. Another is a kid named Kobby Daafo. His older sister is baptized and he kind of dodged around us but we must of done something to stand out because he can't keep away from the church. One of the investigators in the other area came to church last week with his trumpet thinking that we were like his church. When we went to teach him I asked if he would play some for us. I told him I use to play and he put it in my hands and told me to play then. Luckily I could still get a good sound out and even managed to squeak out twinkle twinkle little star. Saturday we had another day that was pretty fun. There is a Dr. Emmanuel Abu Kissi who is one of the pioneers of the church in Ghana who owns the hospital we did service at. My service was pretty chill though. They have a generator that is basically the lifeline when the power goes out and they needed someone to change the oil. I was really wanting to go and sing carols to the patients but no one else knew how to change the oil or I guess was very machine oriented so I volunteered. It was cool though. I got to talk to his son, Aaron, who grew up in the U.S. We talked about stuff back home like trucks, mud bogging, and those kinds of things while waiting for the oil to drain. It was pretty sweet. They have about a bozillion dogs though which would keep getting into little fights though. We also went to a wedding at the church for one of the recent converts from right before I came. It was nice. Sunday we had a drunk guy come into the church and just make a lot of noise and what not. Before he left he did have the mind to at least remember to ask for more money. It was pretty comical I guess. That is about all from me this week. Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope that it is a wonderful day for you!

love elder gibson

and a happy new year!

2009-12-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

Well another week has come and gone in Ghana. We are still just kind of working through everything. One cool thing that happened this week was I did a baptismal interview for a guy who basically has gone a full 180 since knowing the church. He use to booze and even had a big drug problem that lead him to stealing and getting sent to prison. He has been able to clean up his life in the last little bit and it is amazing to see his determination to stay away from his old life. Reminds me about how in Romans it talks about burying our old man. I think he put his about 12 feet deep just to make sure that it is finished. This week we have been having to leave early a few days to catch one guy we are teaching, Joseph Kyei. It is pretty sweet I guess but it makes for a long day when you start it off a little bit early. I guess it made me see how much the routine is set in.

So I had a moment that I felt like I was in the Jungle Book. We passed a guy's shop and he ran out to the street and stopped us with kind of chanting in out of breath fashion that he wanted to be just like me. Elder Saidu had ridden a little further up and so this guy, Ben Attah, just kind of reminded me of the Ape King on the Jungle Book when he sings to Mogley. It made me smile inside though Ben thought we were paid so his interest wasn't really in being a missionary. Something else new that happened this week was another interview. The man is a mechanic and we went to his workplace and since the room we were planning on using was busy we went and had in an empty Mercedes Trotro. It was pretty comfy. Had leather seats and what not. He is a cool guy. Basically has been coming to the church off and on for about 8 months. He has had some family problems in the mountains which either means someone died or there is a tribal feud so he is kind of off and on again of being where the church is. Has read the Book of Mormon and basically is a solid guy. We are teaching a lady with a translator, that same one that I still don't know her Christian name. Anyway we have been taking a member and using him. One day he got a call and stepped aside and then her family tried to take over and it was like a circus. About 3 or 4 people who told us that they didn't want to listen are trying to chip in their two cents. Had to settle them down and cleaned us out of pamphlets. It was pretty funny to see them though. Made me smile at least. At church in the Gospel Doctrine class we have been teaching about temples and it was sweet because afterwards for the 2 sets of missionaries we had people come up and basically ask us, "when can I be baptized and go to the temple" Definitely is a sweet tool that since it is so near that we can help people see that they don't even have to sacrifice to enjoy the full coverage the temple offers. It was nice to have people so interested though. Oh Saturday we had a baptism and it was low key. The bishop, missionaries, 3 candidates, and then 3 ward members. I liked it since it was calm, quiet, and touching. Just the way I like it. This morning we went to the bank and I met a guy from New York who married a Ghanaian when he met her as a merchant sailor here 4 years ago. He thought we were college students and then when he found out I was from the U.S., he thought I was from U.K. since I don't have an American accent anymore, he pounded his chest and was like represent. Cracked me up so much. His name is Gary and he is black so he fits in. That is about it from me. This week we are having our Christmas Conference which is always a nice surprise since I'll get to see some guys that I haven't for a while. I love you guys. Bye bye.

Christmas has come out of no where. Though I do like the sneakiness of it. I always use to think that Christmas was the season of love. Though I still love Eva's how it says Jesus is the reason for the Season. It is just classic. Our Christmas won't be too spectacular here. Probably the normal go out proselyte though we do get a sweet meal from an area seventy who lives in Accra. It is pretty tasty. I love you guys. Catch ya next week.
love Elder Gibson

2009-12-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

Another week come and gone. Started hearing the Christmas music this week. Getting pretty excited for the whole holiday season. There is a place right by our apartment that sells movies and things and he always has a giant speaker out in the mornings playing it but then by the time we come home he is playing Ghanaian hip life or cools music. Our apartment was inspected this week by President and Sister Smith. They had a problem with people just staying up all night the before inspections cleaning so they now only give a 10-15 min warning. Lets just say it is amazing how clean you can make a place in even 10-15mins. Maybe with luck we'll get the cleanest apartment in our zone and earn some banana bread from Sister Smith. We'll have to see.

My companion decided that riding his bike made him tired and dirty so we decided to walk this week. It was pretty sweet. I like walking more because you can contact people a lot easier. I was a little disappointed when he was tired of walking and wanted to go back to bikes but either way at least we are moving. A random bit of service that somehow didn't have the payoff that I was hoping came on Saturday morning. As we were walking up a hill I noticed a lady trying to stack cinderblocks. So stepped in and finished up for her while Elder Saidu contacted her and was able to sit down to start teaching her. It was a pretty sweet lesson and then go figure her brother or cousin or maybe husband is a pastor at the church at the bottom of the hill and the cinderblocks is because they did a crusade for Christmas and are upgrading. Awesome. Who knows we do have a return appointment so we'll see what happens.

On Sunday we had Elder Dickson of the seventy to come and worship with us. It was awesome because he then came to our investigators class which is a first for when a seventy comes and visits for me. It was cool to met and talk to him. He only has one arm, his left one. That no doubt causes him some serious problems since in Ghana that left is considered dirty. You can't shake, hand, or even wave with it. Hopefully people are pretty understanding about it all. Sunday brought a nice surprise. Saturday we had spent a lot of time kind of giving basic run downs about the church and handing out pamphlets inviting people to come and visit us. Only one person showed up but what was special is that this lady is probably pushing 90 and doesn't speak a lick of English. We had contacted her daughter and kind of passed over her since the language barrier but surprise surprise. Now we just have to have approval to teach her and find a translator. Probably need to figure out what her Christian name is too since I can't actually pronounce her Ga name. It is kind of reminds me of hispanic names that are about long enough to make me want to take a nap. Another guy, Christian Baiden, that we had taught showed up to church and was really impressed. Enough he said that he wants to bring his whole family next time. Now our only problem is he works for Coca-Cola driving a truck from Tema(the main harbor) to Kumasi. It isn't too far but because of the road and police barriers it takes a long time. So hopefully he doesn't get a call on Thursday or Friday.

One other cool thing that happened at church was a man name Joseph Kyei who we've been teaching told us afterward that he needs the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and even the church printed Bible since it has the footnotes and the dictionary. Now we just have to see where it all goes for sure. This morning I went and tried to buy some carvings but the guy must have gone to church since he was a Rasta. I don't know if anyone really knows much about Rastamen but when they go to church they basically go and smoke the weed of wisdom. The guy was about as high as a kite and he didn't show any signs of coming down anytime soon.That is about all from me. Love ya guys!

Funerals do have a benefit of family coming together. Makes me appreciate the plan of salvation so much more knowing that people aren't just gone when we bury them. They have a continued purpose and because of that so do I. Something that I've thought about this week is how unique prayer is. Basically my whole mission I've been praying silently but this week I've been trying to be more vocal and to me it is amazing the kind of difference it makes. Even just in focusing about what I'm praying about seems to improve.
love Elder Gibson

And a Merry Christmas to ALL

2009-11-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

Well this was a pretty discouraging week. Guess it was a good thing everyone wrote pretty upbeat letters about enjoying Thanksgiving. I did get to go on splits with Elder Pearson who is one of our Zone Leaders. It was nice to be able to have someone I didn't feel quite like I was having to lead by the hand. Too bad that same night about 1:30 the lights went out. Unfortunately we didn't get them back on till Thursday. Then we had our water run out which is never a fun experience. Going along with that we had some of our investigators basically drop like flies. A member made us cake though. She was going to make pineapple upside down cake but couldn't find cherries and didn't want to buy a pineapple so it was a cake in the shape of a fish. It was pretty fun though. We had to go and get gas this week in our cylinder and since it is so far we get a taxi. The taxi driver agreed on a certain amount and when we got back to our apartment he demanded double. He said he was going to just take the gas as collateral but I gave him the money picked up the gas and just walked in. I guess he tried to follow me but everyone who lives in our compound basically put him to shame for going back on his word.

We had interviews with President Smith this week. Kind of the highlight for sure. It was kind of that end of the week pick me up that I needed. Too bad Saturday basically beat it all down again. We had planned a baptism for 5 people. Yep, none of them showed up. Definitely was heartbreaking. Especially when we tried to call and visit and it seems like most of them have dodged us. Didn't really help that Saturday is the Islam version of Easter according to the Muslim lady we live by. I didn't quite understand why they celebrate Easter since that is Christian but I wasn't about to argue. The bad part is that even though it is a Muslim holy day everyone goes and parties. At least Christmas is close. Our zone is planning on a service project of going to a hospital. Don't know when that will be but it probably will be lots of fun. Thats is about all from me this week. I love you guys! Thanks for the sweet emails about Thanksgiving.

I have to also agree that Mom and Dad are way good teachers. Something I've always noticed is the time that they put into preparing. Both put in a lot of effort. I love you guys. Thanks for the email!
love Elder Gibson

Happy Turkey Day to You

2009-11-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

Wow a whole year of being in Ghana. Definitely has been an experience. This past week went pretty good for us so that was nice. Something that was pretty interesting was that last Monday as we were out proselyting this guy's car must of run out of gas and the cars had backed up behind him and were just honking him to death but no one offered to help him push his car to the petrol station. We crossed the road and without letting the guy really see us helped him push his car to the station. He was really surprised when I came from the passenger side and I was white. His name is Kelvin and he is a pastor. Bad luck for us. Though he was really impressed and called us about three times that night to let us know how much he appreciated it. Maybe we planted a good seed. Went to one of our investigators one year old son's birthday party. That rocked till the guests started drinking so we left. I learned how to make a turban this week too. Good thing they serve a purpose because it wasn't comfortable at ALL.

We had Leadership Training this week which is always a pretty sweet experience. They talked mostly about how we can be more efficient . We found dominoes in our apartment and basically have become addicted to playing. Well mostly Elder Richards and me. We met a lot of really interesting people this week. One of them is named Joseph Kyei. He went to his sister's house and took her pamphlet, ended up reading it and wants us to teach him. Met another lady named Dora Quartey. Left a pamphlet after teaching about how Jesus had a church and when we came back she had read it and actually had taken the time to write her questions down. She was unable to commit to coming to church this week but this next week she said she will already make plans to be there so we'll see what happens. Saturday of course was a nice day. Pretty low key. Just went out and worked. The night was different though. Of course I went out to eat and I had invited missionaries who lived right across the road from the restaurant. Ended up that they invited some other people and when it was all said and done there was 16 elders there. Would have loved to taken pictures but since some of them had completely left their zones they wouldn't let us. I was really really angry at them for being stupid. It was good. Picture enclosed about what I ate. Sunday we had Stake Conference. Man there were a ton of people there! The stake was made a full strength unit from a basic unit which is cool. Especially since in the last two years our stake has doubled and if the trend continues they will be able to split it before I come home even. Elder Golden and Elder Ahadje both of the Seventy were there. President Smith was there as well. It was a really good feeling when he was talking he had us stand up and said that he had reviewed over each of the missionaries in the room and with no exceptions he puts his full faith in us. True it might of been just to ease the member's mind but it is nice to think about. :D This morning we went to the biggest market in Accra and I think even Ghana. It is Mokola Mall/Cantomentals. Basically anything you want is out on the street. The rumors go that if you even want it you can buy ANYTHING there. Just have to ask the right people. I was thinking maybe a kidney if mine fails or something. It is basically really crowded and I just entertain myself by surprising people that I can greet them in their language. They fall for it every time. That is about all of the excitement from my side of the pond. Love you guys!

I had a fun time celebrating. It was kind of a normal day though. Since being on my mission I've had big and little experiences. The little ones I think are the more powerful since they are the more frequent. It has been the little things that have strengthened my testimony in the gospel far more then anything large. I love you guys and wish you the best during Thanksgiving!
love elder gibson

2009-11-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

Well what a week. Last Monday we went to the house of a member of the stake presidency for a Family Home Evening since Elder Frimpong and Ezinwa were both leaving our ward. Too bad I almost got left by the trotro we were riding in. It works like a bus and lets people off along the way. So I had to move to let someone get out and the trotro took off without letting me get back in. I had to chase it down the road banging on the side of it so they would listen to the missionaries left inside. Then that same trotro decided he was going to be king of the road and not let someone merge in from the main traffic. So then we had a drag race. Thankfully some lady with a baby freaked out at our driver and told him to be serious and then insulted him. It was great. I was so glad that we could get off of that ride.

Wednesday was transfers and I was pretty nervous picking up my new companion. Ends up that out of a group of 15 elders I got the one that was from Sierra Leone. His name is Elder Saidu. He is way chill but being with him just kind of makes me wonder if when I first started if I was kind of so out of place. Don't remember it quite like this but who knows. It is a pretty good time though. He is a funny guy though he is kind of quiet. I got to help breast feed a few rabbits this week. Oh and yes a picture is attached. I had a guy tell me after reading the pamphlet that Joseph Smith was looking for a True Lady. I thought that was great. Mostly because I think the guy was drunk when he called us but hey he at least read it! Elder Saidu has a little bit of a language barrier with the Ghanaians. Mostly of them think he is Muslims because of his name and don't get his English and want him to speak Hausa, the language Muslims speak. It is really funny to most people we meet that I have to step in and act like a translator. It is pretty fun though. I decided that puppies have to be one of God's greatest creations. One member named Abigail has two and I love playing with them when we go to teach her daughter Leticia, who we are hoping to have baptized. Something that I'm really disappointed about this week was on Saturday I started to bash with a guy about churches. Thankfully I have been able to stay away from it but I don't know why Saturday just came out. It was amazing to contrast how everything is different. The whole feel of the lesson changes for sure. I guess it goes to show that truly the spirit of contention is of the devil. Even after we left that appointment and went to others I still just had a sick feeling in my stomach and it seemed like it took a long time to go away. It is pointless to continue on in that kind of discussion and at least Elder Saidu was able to realize it early. That is about all that really happened with us this week.

This upcoming week we are planning on having a baptism. We have to have some interviews done though. One for abortion and another for someone being in a polygamist relationship. It kind of wears on you when you have to keep doing interview after interview for your candidates. It is crazy to see how lightly most people treat those kind of things though for sure. Today has been pretty sweet. A missionary whose parents came to pick him up ate lunch with us. His name is Elder Boam. He is from Utah and now well he'll be home in less then 24 hours. The best part was his parents bought us pizza! Wow did it taste amazing! I love you guys!

Sometimes everything seems like such so small coincidences that we miss out on how big the little miracles actually are. I love you guys!
love elder gibson

2009-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

This week went pretty good for us. We had Zone Conference which was pretty sweet. We had it in our meeting house which was nice not to have to fight through the traffic in the morning. We opened the doors and as President Smith came in he called me to the side and told me that this upcoming transfer I will be training a straight out of the MTC Elder. We'll have to see how that goes. That same day I went on splits to do some baptismal interviews. One of the best parts was right at the end. On the tro tro ride back to our apartment a guy sat next to me and kept sneaking looks at me and so I contacted and kind of shared the message of the restoration. He doesn't live in any area that is really that close but we hooked him up with the number of the missionaries where he stays so hopefully it all works out. I saw a guy wearing a shirt that I have back home. The one that says Save a Cow Eat a Vegetarian. Made me laugh. I wanted to stop him and ask for a picture but we were late to an appointment. We have an investigator now named Edward Zanoo. He is going to school and his boss is a member. He is way sweet but man he loves to go off on the craziest tangents. Last time it went to Scientology and ghosts. Always is a good time. We'll have to see how it plays out with him. There is another investigator that has a cool story. Her name is Helan she just finished the equivalent of High School. We taught her and she came to church when we watched conference. When we went to see her this week her sister Ophelia joined us. What was sweet is that Helen had taught her sister exactly taught her. After the lesson we talked to her parents who both said that next time they were going to make time to join us after hearing a little bit of what Helen and Ophelia said. Something else that went pretty good this week is we gave a baptismal date to two investigators. Kobby Essel and Mary Joshua. Luckily they live with a member so it has been kind of easy going with them. It will be sweet if it works out to have them baptized on the 21st since it will be my year mark. We'll see if it happens. So Saturday we got the transfer call. Elder Frimpong will be going to a place called Oda. It is more like being in the jungle so I was pretty jealous. Our apartment will lose two. Elder Richards will stay and finish his mission with an Elder from the Ivory Coast. I'll probably have an American or Nigerian companion but I don't find out till I pick him up on Wednesday. Last night we didn't have any water so we had to fetch it. Didn't think people would stop watching soccer to see four guys carrying water on their heads. I got tired of using small buckets so I said we should just go get our big bucket and carry it. Yeah bonus points to me because we finished it in one trip. Though I had to command someone to help me carry it. It was a pretty fun adventure, at least we were able to bathe. That is basically the highlights of the week. Hope everyone is doing great!

That is a super sweet story about the Madrid Temple. The Accra Temple has a similar story I guess. It is built on basically the main road of Accra which is the capital. I mean around the temple there are embassies for Canada, Holland, America, and some other countries. Along with even the President Mansion. Like the White House but times at least 10. Ghana's government then didn't want the temple anywhere near where it is. The Church owned the land but weren't allowed to begin building. By and by things just opened up so that nothing could stop the progression of it. Guess you can just see God's hand in everything for sure. Love ya guys!
travis

2009-11-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

Glad this week was Halloween. A lot of strange things that aren't really explainable any other way went down. One of them was that our iron completely stopped working when I was using it. I was ironing my shirt trying to get ready to sell myself for the day and it just quit having any heat. Something must have gotten messed up with the current I guess. Strangely enough our office elders passed by and had fresh out the box iron for us to take. Just some funny things like that. I even found this place that sells American candy too. A lady or her sister something travels to America and she brought a bunch of like sam's club big bags of things. It is this little salon thing on kind of an out of the way road. No one buys it besides me so I keep trying to have them lower the price of the pieces. I went on a split this week and it was amazing how relaxed it was. I didn't really have to worry as much about the entire day. It was a nice break for sure. Elder Richards the English guy is getting ready to go home for sure. There was one day that he had his companion put on his socks and shoes and then his tie too. Luckily he was just messing around and being funny.

The first one is of a girl in the ward. We ate fufu at her house.

A recent convert that was baptized before I came named Justice told us a sweet story about how he was reading his Book of Mormon and as he described it his room filled with light. It was a cool story to hear from him. This week was also a week of white people. It seems like they descended on Kaneshie in their numbers. First was these 4 German girls who are teaching here and were buying food on the street. Then there were these 2 Canadians who I met in kind of a grocery store though to you it would seem more like a gas station. It was pretty cool to talk to them. I got a taste of what missionaries in those respective countries go through as we tried to contact. It was met with much more limited success. Saturday brought a whole different kind of problem. There was a marathon that had part of its course go through our area. Man definitely was not the place for a white guy on a bike to be. The spectators were not serious. It was all good nothing bad really happened.

The Halloween ties we bought, Tried doing creepy/scary faces
and just got the stalker stare.

With it being Halloween I decided to introduce a sweet tradition of carving the whole jack o lantern. Too bad we couldn't find any pumpkins. So kind of looking at our options I was like watermelons would work. Yeah you need to check out the pictures because yeah it was great. It was sweet as we put them on a bench on the side of our apartment all glowy and such. Even better was when late late late Saturday night our landlord's son who lives in the hostel in front of our apartment comes knocking on the door asking if they were ours. I guess some of the people in the hostel had come back from partying/whatever and had gotten scared. I guess a few of our neighbors got superstitious thinking that we were casting spells and performing juju and what not. Probably was bad planning on my part. Should of guessed that someone would look at a watermelon and their thoughts go to dark sinister arts. The best thing is that no one besides landlord junior knows that they were ours.

These are the watermelons that we started with

Elder Richards first reaction was to do

Some reason I was the only one capable of scooping
them out without destroying them.

May I introduce you to Kwame the pumpkin and his pet agyinamoa.

So Sunday we got to watch two sessions of conference. We were able to see Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. It was really good. Though it was very long for a few of our investigators. It was way good about some of the talks that were given. I really enjoyed President Monson's from Sunday morning. A lot of the things that he shared about service I guess helped me to see I can do a better job. It was really sweet though because when they showed the Tabernacle Choir I saw Mr. Hansen and Elder Richards saw some guy that is English that had talked at one of his stake conferences or something. With it being fast Sunday we also went to Momma Lee's. We didn't get to stay too long because another family invited us to eat grass cutter (muskrat). It might of been good though because a few missionaries was looking at Momma Lee's pictures and some of them went missing so we weren't there for all that drama.

Though its face is definitely a little crooked. Hope everyone enjoys them.

2009-10-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

This is how banku and kind of kenkey get their beginnings.

It smells like silage when you are rolling the powder in water
and packing it tight to let the flavor kind of mix and add '
some fermentation.

This week was a pretty good one for all of us here. Our district meeting this week was pretty chill. Until out of no where our neighbors started having a fight. It sounded like dishes and maybe even the kitchen sink getting tossed around. This week I definitely re-realized that Ghanaian food isn't eaten because it tastes good they just want to put as much as they can cram into their stomachs. I ate lots of cookies and fanice just to try and get something that tasted good. We went to this neighborhood called race course. It is built in a circle and yeah maybe we treated it as a race course until Elder Frimpong almost fell over. I did get to sit in a leather chair this week. Too bad it was disgusting as a little kid, probably 6 or 7 just kept swearing like a sailor as he watched soccer on tv. I'm guessing he picked it up from his dad. The lesson wasn't too interesting for me since it was mostly in Twi. The lady named Mary speaks one one English so thankfully Elder Frimpong is Ghanaian.

We had a sweet experience this week of using a member to help us fellowship an investigator. We are teaching a lady and her son. We felt like talking to a Liberian named Tony to come with us to the appointment for the son and ended up that the mother happened to be in and that she use to be a nurse and that Tony had come to her to be treated for Malaria when his family first moved to Ghana. It was sweet to see all the quirky coincidences. A lady in the ward named Sis. Otoo invited all the missionaries in the ward over to her house and fed us a huge plate of rice and even threw in a mineral to boot. It was pretty sick especially since all our appointments had kind of disappointed us that day. Another member gave us fufu too and the soup totally made me think of blood. Picture definitely included. I crashed my bike again this week. I was riding at night through kind of a junkyard/mechanic shop area. Part of the place has kind of a small hill and didn't realize that a water pipe or barrel had broken and leaked across the road. I was clipping along and my front tire just dropped into the mud and I went over the handlebars. It was sweet cause I did a front handspring and was able to land on my feet right in front of frame from a tro tro. Glad I didn't get tangled up with that.

Next is a typical ghanaian table setting for a fufu dinner. This was the soup that reminded me of blood. It was pretty sweet I guess. When I first put it in my mouth I wondered if I hadn't bitten my tongue because it kind of tasted like blood. It is just oil and tomato paste, I think. Have a great week! Love ya!

Teaching this week we had a new investigator named Xena. Took me back to the Xena Warrior Princess show from when I was a small boy. So found out that Elder Anderson, as in the apostle, came to Ghana on Thursday. He met with the single adults and I guess the missionaries didn't fit into his schedule unfortunately. Maybe another time. Friday we had a really interesting lesson. A member girl said one of her schoolmates wants to come to church so we were shown the house and taught her. On our way back we were stopped by a group of Muslim guys wanting us to teach them. It was probably our sweetest lesson of the day. We talked about the similarities between the two religions and kind of left it at that. It was sweet to see a few of them coming to church, though they said they were just wanting to see how it was not that they were really interested in knowing more. Uh Saturday there was a baptism. One of the other wards was there with us and they had a woman so fat that she couldn't fit into any of the clothes we had so they had to rush and find something large enough. I think they took an old curtain and used it when I looked at her. Something that was really funny that I noticed today was how everyone kept asking us how the weekend was and I just wanted to tell them it hadn't started yet that our weekend was Monday and that was about it. Anyway that was most of our adventure for the week. Hope everyone is doing well.

For Halloween I think I'll just bust out this sweet orange and black tie that I bought a few weeks back and call that good. They don't actually celebrate Halloween here so yeah a small bummer.

love travis

2009-10-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Walking down the street with no one around. Kind of like
siesta besides not being nationally recognized.

Another week of living in Kaneshie. This last week I went on splits with one of our zone leaders. His name is Elder Southwick and he is from sugarcity, Idaho. It was way chill day since Kaneshie was his last area so after teaching some of our people he showed me where a lot of the member's homes were. This week it seemed like we had a real struggle with people choosing the world over God. Tetteh Oaklet and his family own and run a furniture store. They recieved a massive order and because of it were unable to keep their appointments and come to church. Lots of things like that have seemed to pop up lately. Have to do our best to surpress it. Riding around on our bikes we kind of found a new area that it doesn't really seem missionaries have visited much. If they have it has been a long time since anyone has proselyted there. I saw a fight this week, super rare. People in Ghana when they get really really angry just kind of yell at each other as a crowd gathers and usually nothing physical happens. This time though it must have been way serious. They started getting into. One of the guys had a friend hand him a piece of something and he was whipping the other guy with it. Worst part of all it was that no one did anything to stop them. Just let them continue as they watched. We had some sweet question and answer sessions this week with people we've contacted. One time we were in the market and a guy just came up and flat out told us that he didn't like our church. Unfortunately Elder Frimpong decided he was going to try and convince him otherwise. After hearing it for a little bit I got bored of hearing them share opinions about things so I stepped in and cut Elder Frimpong and told him just to bear his testimony because our time isn't worth spending if someone wants to argue with us when we can find plenty of people who will be interested. Must of cut the guy pretty deep because he actually asked for a pamphlet before we left.

A view of the temple. Still trying to get Elder Frimpong to
understand where to line the camera up at.

This is Elder Richards. He thinks he is a lady's chap. I'll admit
though very pretty girls send him pictures so yeah.

We had a temple trip this week. Definitely was a nice experience. We ended up getting to the temple a hour early and had a chance to just sit and wait for our session to start. Friday the U-20 World Cup Championship was played. It was Ghana vs. Brazil. All of our appointments basically fell through because everyone was watching the game. We ended up catching the last bit. They played into extra time and it went to pentalty kicks and Ghana won. It was crazy to see how people went out into the streets and just kind of partied like it was the real world cup or something. The worst part was the next day people were kind of failing appointments. Some were too tired from the activities of the night before, some of them were out still celebrating, etc etc etc. Plus since I'm white and they think everything is about race they rubbed it into my face that they beat my people. Probably the only chance I have in life to pass off as a brazillian and it happened in Africa.

This was the celebration in front of our apartment after Ghana won.

Saturday something really funny happened too. Some apostalic church was celebrating its 40th anniversary of being a church and they organized a walk, basically to get donations. So on one side of the street you have about 400 or 500 apostalic church members all dressed up and on the other side two missionaries just kind of like wow, wonder if we should contact them. I wanted to take a picture but figured it might cause some problems so didn't. Sunday was interesting. Our gospel principles class didn't have a teacher show up so they picked me to teach about the Kingdoms of Glory. Yeah teaching about all of them for over a hour isn't that easy on the spot. Hopefully they got something from it because it was rough. We did have an investigator come and tell us that he and his mother want to be baptized. He is Frank Abbey and his mother is 85 which is pretty old for here. They just have three funerals in a row which means about a month or two months of weekends down the drain. They take their funerals serious here. He came because we've been coming by the house with no result and wanted us to know he is serious and everything just needs to take care of the family. Guess you kind of have to take them like they come.

Early this morning I woke up and decided to organize our materials.
It's okay to be jealous that you don't have as many pamphlets as us.

This little girl just kept coming up to me at church. No idea if she
even belongs to anyone in our ward or whatnot. She is adorable
though. Kept wanting to take her shoes off though.

2009-10-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Okay baptism with the crew

I knew a mission would be work but what's this?

This last week definitely had its interesting points. My first District Meeting was certainly exciting. The assistants came as their first trip around all the districts to kind of check up on everybody. It went over okay though. One of them was trained in this ward and the other served in the other ward that meets in the same building so it was cool as we talked about the ward they could relate to the people we have been working with. As most everyone here is converts you have to do a lot of I guess member training for how things are done in the ward. This ward seems to be pretty set though. The bishop is really really good. His brother was living in the mission home too when I first came on my mission. Tuesday was also the first baptismal interview that I did. It is for a man named Joe Appiah, and he is a doctor. He mixes the tribal traditional and modern medicine for bones. He use to do a lot more but now he just works out of his house and does smaller things. Like setting broken arms and the such. He is a way cool guy though. He was referred by the family of an ex-seventy Elder Adjei. It was nice to see the support he received from them.

I was tired of studying one morning so yeah!

Liberty Jail mugshot

This week we started teaching a lady, Sis. Mausi, who just happens to be really really good friends with Elder Frimpong's mother. He is from Kumasi, Cape Coast side, and she recently moved to Accra and well just kind of works out. Always is a good sign when you go for the first appointment and after finishing teaching they won't let you leave because they prepared some food for you. Ooookay . . . and the fact that she came to church on time and with her Book of Mormon was good too. So this week it made me really glad that missionaries aren't suppose to give personal council about things because we were asked about it a lot and thankfully when it got past just little trivial things we could just pass it off and say sorry can't help you out, but you do have a bishop to talk to. One of the members, Bro. Menson, and I got into I guess an argument of some kind this week. We had finished teaching his daughter and it was our last appointment and began to talk about soccer and everything. It came out that Christiano Ronaldo, reigning World's Best Player, got hurt or something. He went off on how some lady had come forward claiming that she had contacted a fetish priest to curse him so that he would get hurt and never be able to play again. Being the typical over superstitious Ghanaian he was totally buying it and we went back and forth about it. It was pretty lighthearted but he told me that I'm too American to understand. Saturday we had a baptism for his daughter though. It went good and kind of normal. The candidate arrived 30mins late, then the bishop 30mins after that so that by the time the baptism should of been over it started. We did have to talk to our ward mission leader and explain that he doesn't hold the keys to preside over a baptism unless the bishop gives him permission.

A couple stories up with the city lights behind me

This is Sabina Menson, probably the most mature out of
anyone in that family. She is way beyond her own years.

Gotta love teaching opportunities. We did get to go to a wedding that night though. A member had gotten it cleared to use the cultural hall for his cousin's wedding or something. Part of the deal was that the missionaries were invited to come and drop as many pamphlets as we wanted and talk to people, and of course they fed us. It was really good. People were giving us really funny looks but eventually we kind of broke the ice and just went table to table sitting down talking about the church handing out pamphlets. Unfortunately most of the people don't' live anywhere near our chapel. I guess planting seeds counts for something at least. Plus they fed us fried rice, jollof rice, omo tuo (rice balls), and then these yam balls that taste just like fried mashed potatoes! Yeah it was pretty fun they even put some in a rubber bag for us to take home with us. Sunday our ward did a Primary program. It is amazing to see the difference in the one here then the one I went to in Ashaiman. Kind of night and day for sure. These kids seemed to know the songs and they actually seemed to enjoy themselves. After church you saw kids having crackers and drinks though so I think they bribed them. Taking a page from the Ghanaian government on getting people to do what you want for sure.

This is Aunty Aggie. This lady sold me basically everything
I ate in Ashaiman. Plus was my "den-mother" I guess. Not
a member and doesn't want to hear about it. Too many
missionaries have tried.

This dog is from Ashaiman. I hate it, it hates me, so we were able to
coexist somewhat peacefully because we didn't want to try each other out.

When the office couple came and inspected our apartment they saw my bike and decided tape and things weren't very safety conscious so they brought me a new one. So now my bike is sitting at a bike shop since the new one they brought me is broken too. All in all it was a pretty good week. Hopefully this week will go forward just as nice. I miss seeing lawns myself. Most people here just have dirt.

love elder gibson

2009-10-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Kaneshie. This week definitely has gone by quickly with all the changes. It was really sad for me to leave Ashaiman. It has been a good place and I learned a lot but I guess always moving forward. <---- Okay that is actually a very Ghanaian saying. The now President used it as his slogan for the elections about a year ago. Wednesday was the transfer day. Missionaries being transferred all go to the mission home so it was pretty much a party for a hour or two as you are waiting for everything to get sorted out. The first impression of my companion was a little different but go figure, that is usually how it goes. His name is Elder Frimpong and he is from Ghana, but from the Cape Coast Mission side. He is 25 and was a teacher before coming on his mission. He has been on his mission not quite two months yet so it makes for lots of teaching opportunities.

That first night we met a family who is very nice named the Mensons. The father has been in the church for going on 20 years and loves missionaries and tells stories about all the ones that have served in his wards. The daughter is going to catering school and is making cakes as assignments and then trying to sell them. Gave into a guilty pleasure and bought one. Yeah, Ghanaians don't truly understand what cake is suppose to be. They try though so it is all good, that cake disappeared quick enough.

Saturday we had a leadership training meeting. Kind of shocked me into everything that a district leader has to do. All of it kind of makes him the center of all the downward delegation. It is sweet though because the people in our district are pretty good and what not. My companion is the only one I haven't lived with before and that is because he is so new. Something different about my new area is the heat. I wasn't in the city and had fields around and everything but now I'm back to the straight up concrete jungle and less vegetation so the heat is a whole new experience from what I've been used lately. It is also much more commercial style with houses scattered round about. It is good though because there is a definite separation of I guess what you'd call "classes" of people. Find the poor and you've got the humble for the most part. Church was very refreshing. My last ward was somehow filled with apathy from most of the leaders but this new one treats their job more seriously. Hopefully it isn't just an act at church though, this week should let me know. I learned that we have a zone dinner every fast Sunday which is going to be awesome.

A lady in a ward that meets in our building named Momma Lee makes fried rice and chicken every fast Sunday for the missionaries in our zone. Some of them can't come though because it is so far, we are lucky that it is less then a 20min bike ride. I learned a new saying that I guess is really big in the city right now. It is HOT CAKE. I thought it meant that it was selling like hot cakes but they put a new spin on it. Their meaning is that it is off the sheldango. The best of the best around. It was funny when one guy I contacted asked me if the church was the hot cake. So I have a question, who is Westlife? It is some boy band but the people here are eating it up. They love to watch music videos here because they believe everything they see on telly is real and they can't stop watching westlife. Today we went to one of what you'd call an underground market. Parts of it are kind of dug out and what not. My companion wanted to see if he could find yeah something I didn't really get what he was saying. I was having a pretty good time just browsing around and I guess window shopping and talking to some of the shop keepers in Twi. Then you know you always are going to get that group who want to heckle. A group of guys heard and called me over because they don't think you can learn their language if you aren't born here. One guy thought he would be funny and try to outsmart me and speak a different language, Ga, and got a sick look on his face when I answered back. Then his buddies laughed at him and one of them tried to confuse me using Hausa. Obroni 2 and the black guys 0. Did get me some sweet contacts, too bad they don't live in our area. After that we went to some appointments, one was with the Mensons's oldest daughter who will be baptized on Saturday. It was good. Her father wanted us to teach from some manual about the Healing Power of Forgiveness, it was a little unexpected but she has already had all the lessons so there wasn't much else for us to do. That is about the adventure that we had this week. Talk to you next time.

elder gibson

2009-09-29T09:12:00.001-07:00

This is on a wall by our apartment
A really funny girl. This is Lois, we baptized her because her mom isn't a member.

This is rice with kontombra stew (oil, leaves, fish, and add some more oil)

This is a little girl whose mom is a member but didn't want to be seen I guess.

This past week we had our zone conference. That is always pretty good. This time it was focusing on going to where the investigators are. Not being senseless robots who go lesson 1 2 3 . . . etc. Also they instructed us a about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Especially President Smith. He stressed how much we should be reading, studying, and teaching from it. He has challenged us to take a softcover version, the ones we hand out, and mark it with four colors. Red for anytime they say Jesus Christ, one of his names, or a pronoun meaning him. Orange is for anything that Christ says directly or through the prophets e.g. Thus saith the Lord;. Green is for the Christlike Attributes from Preach My Gospel. Faith, Charity, Obedience and the rest. Then blue is the color for any doctrine or principle of the gospel. He challenged us to complete it by Dec 16th, our Mission Christmas Conference but I am going to try and have it done before my year mark comes up so that I can go back through and re-read what I marked. Something really funny that happened that day was a lady yelled at kids begging us for money. She was in a multi-story apartment and just yelled, "what kind of life is that? It was great to look at the faces of the kids as it dawned on them what she was saying. We had a member, Frank Agyepong (baptized him like 2 months ago) invite us over for lunch this week. That has been a rareity since Elder White doesn't eat much Ghanaian cusine because it constipates him way bad. We explained that he had a little issue so instead of some fufu, banku, or even rice they gave us a sandwich. A bread and butter sandwich. Probably one of the hardest things I've had to choke down in front of someone acting grateful. It seemed like it was over an inch thick. At least they tried to give us some hot chocolate to go with it. It was really watered down and WAY too hot. I ended up having to down Elder White's because he wouldn't drink it when Frank left the room. At least he was willing to work out and we ate. Friday we got stuck in an investigator's, Sarah Adamu, house because the rain. She lives in a little wooden shed with a tin roof. We first thought little kids were throwing rocks on the roof because it was hitting so hard. Since about mid week it seems as if a lot of people loved to ask me questions about "my people".Guess I'm king of the whites now. Pesants. It was so aggrevating. Definitely is a struggle when we have people wasting our time because they just want to talk to the white guy. It might sound bad but it seems lately that the spiritual atmosphere at our baptisms has been brought down by the members. A lot of them just don't understand the word reverence or how to control their children. It went alright though and everyone ended up getting wet. Saturday also saw us getting a sweet referral. A member who owns kind of an office supply thing here. He prints, copies, etc. Had a Book of Mormon at his shop and a younger guy came in asking about it. He'd heard of it and wanted to buy one. We called him and arranged to meet him. The lesson went a long great with Levi and of course ended with us giving him a copy but what makes it stand out was his closing prayer. We like to have those being taught give the closing prayer to help them know how and be used to praying verbally. He was a little hesitant but even there he asked God to show him the truth in the book and the missionaries words. Just the way he said it you could feel his desire and knew he felt like he was talking to someone besides just us. It was just sweet. This week is transfers and Saturday I was called to leave Ashaiman and go to a place called Kaneshie to be a District Leader. Kaneshie is right by the area that I served before, Lartebiokorshie. That made Sunday a pretty busy day with everyone wanting to say their goodbyes and everything. The best thing was having a man named Wisdom Attivro, baptized sept 12th, and have him tell us that he was so glad we met when we did. Who he worked for had gotten some kind of building contract and he was basically now so busy he would have never had time or even the patience to try everything out. It was sweet to hear that we had hit his window of time perfectly. It has been fun here but I'm excited to get to leave and see new faces and places for sure.

2009-09-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Holy Ramadan! The Muslims are celebrating that right now and it makes our area pretty nuts at certain times of the day. I am getting really frustrated when we will be teaching a lesson and this giant loud speaker starts broadcasting their prayers and everything. Oh well I guess you have to work with you are given for sure. I can't believe that September is practically half way done, definitely don't know where it has gone. We met a really cool guy this week. His name is Gabriel. When I first met him I thought he was probably 20-22 but ends up he is 27 and is raising 3 kids. He is a foster parent to three boys ages 11-17. He was super chill. Plus it is always great when during the middle of your lesson he tells you that he feels some feeling he doesn't really recognize. Hopefully our explanation was good enough to help him understand what it was. I can't remember if we mentioned the Korean lady that we found and have been teaching. Anyway her name is Jennifer and her husband ends up use to be a pastor of some sorts. It was awkward when we went to teach him and he started busting out this memorized scripture sermons. Luckily we stood our ground and he ran out of breath and gave us a chance to plug in the restoration. Another cool thing about Felicia is since she is going to school she basically translated the pamphlets completely into braille. It is really too bad that she will be leaving and that where she is going to school doesn't have church presence. All in time. The guy that came from the United Kingdom is basically on a mission to get his friends into the church before he leaves. He ends up having a kid in his ward back in Wales who is from Arizona. He went to Sunrise Mountain and wrestled. I kind of know him because he and someone else almost got in a fistfight at the Moon Valley Tournament. We had a really tense moment this week. My companion's knee or leg started to hurt so he got a stick and used it as a walking stick. All of that was fine and dandy until some drunk guy decided he wanted the stick . . . and that he was a kung fu master. As we were walking along he comes out of no where and goes into a stance pretty much copied from any of the old school movies. We kind of laughed it off until he monkey fisted my companion and yeah. Thankfully it didn't elevate too much past that and we calmed him down and got him walking his own way again. Saturday we held a baptism. This week it went just fine. Even the girl from the previous week was baptized and no problems this time. It is a lot better when things go smoothly for sure. It was nice to have everything just wind down this week. Yesterday was a pretty lame day though. I just didn't feel good at all and felt all tired and worn out. Glad it was just in passing though. I hope that everything is going good for everyone back home.

2009-09-07T22:21:00.001-07:00

Everything has been going pretty great for us this week. We had Zone Interviews on Tuesday which kind of always throws a little randomness into life. Makes you feel like you are playing catch up sometimes. I don't know if I have mentioned her but we are teaching this girl named Felicia who is blind. More or less we look at it as planting a good seed since she is 1. blind 2. and going to school outside of our mission in about 3 weeks. It is really cool to teach her, I've noticed how much we actually use sight in our lessons. It is a lot more then I would have ever thought. She has a braille frame that she can listen and take notes with. Since we don't have any braille literature we are hoping to leave her with small things using that. It is sweet to watch her basically punch it out and write certain things out. Another one of our investigators Kojo read something about the Articles of Faith somewhere and was really curious about it. Luckily Elder White had one of the pass along style cards with them on it from home. He told us that he has been praying and really wants to get baptized. Beautiful music to any missionaries ears. This week I went on splits with our new district leader Elder Osondu from Nigeria. It was a pretty routine day but go figure. He is a pretty cool guy. He actually asked me about going to ASU. He doesn't want to school in Nigeria and is I guess branching out. Though he said most likely he will stay somewhere in Africa. We are finishing preparing a girl named Lois Okorno, the 9 year daugther of a member, to be baptized. Friday we couldn't have a serious discussion regardless how hard we tried. We went in the morning and none of us could stop laughing. Then we said we would just have to come back and still she couldn't stop. It was all good though. Her father said he would talk to her and that is basically all we need since she is 9 and has already been going through primary. Another invesigator Gladys Wiafe, whose husband is a member, told us that she likes the church but doesn't feel comfortable since she doesn't have friends and her English is very very limited. I don't really know why or how I'm going to do it but I asked her if she would mind us trying and help her learn English. Hopefully we can make it work, I am thinking of using a member's help who is really into educating Ghana. You could say it is somehow his personal mission or something. So of course Saturday was my birthday, awesome, especially since it started out with a baptism. The guy who was suppose to baptize them didn't show up so I got to do it. It went along pretty fine till the last one a little girl. She is from the other missionaries and definitely wasn't ready. She was almost in tears as she got into the water. The witnesses and I calmed her down a little bit and thought everything was okay, boy were we wrong. After saying the prayer I brought her hand up to her nose and she plugged it but she let go as she was going into the water and had a big freak out. She reached up and grabbed my shoulder and flaied around a little bit. I almost thought of just submerging myself to get her all the way under but better judgement prevailed. As we came up she was just in tears and yeah bad situation. She went and met her mom, the missionaries, and me coming in the rear in the hallway. We couldn't calm her down and so she'll have to wait to be baptized. Anyway it was a pretty good baptism save for that little bump. The rest of the day was pretty normal, though it was unexpectionally hot. Must mean Christmas is getting closer since that is the hottest time of the year. I did find a sweet birthday surprse for myself. Walking down a street I spied what looked like a box of chewy granola bars. They weren't quite that amazing, instead they were some kind of French knock off. I will say it probably wouldn't compare to a real one but dang chocolate covered chocolate chip still tastes good, at least to my current expectations of taste. Something pretty creepy I learned on Saturday was exactly how Ghanaians believe in witches. I knew that hey were very superstious but it became so much clearer as we went to have a lesson with a recent convert and ended up watching a bit of a documentary about witches in Ghana. They basically think that if anything goes wrong or bad in life it is a witch that cursed you or blah blah blah. If you are accused of being a witch and aren't beaten to death they have literal witch communities that your relatives can take you to and drop you off. It is a lot more predominat in the North but it is still crazy to think about how it is very deeply rooted in their society. Though no big surprise, even in the church we have to deal a lot of stuff with them basically reverting back to the traditions of their fathers but guess there is a little bit of that everywhere in the world. On Sunday a man came from the United Kingdom of one of my recent converts in Ashaiman. It was sweet to talk to him and meet the man who basically did our missionary work for us. He was the one who introduced his family to the church and through phone calls, emails, etc. worked on his Dad accepting missionaries and being baptized. Plus he brought one of his sons, Clinton, from Britain and wants him baptized in Ghana. It will be sweet because I think as of now he is the only one of the family that is above 8 that isn't baptized. That is pretty much the excitement for the week here. Love you guys!

2009-08-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

Whoa! Getting old, my last week as being a teenager! Last Tuesday it rained cats and dogs. It got to the point that we just stopped walking around getting disappointed and visited a member. He talked about his time in Italy it was sweet. On Wednesday President Cardon, Area President, and his wife did a mission tour. He came and talked about how small the earth and we are in respect to the rest of the universe. It was cool but I didn't really feel like I learned anything. At the beginning he shakes your hand and asks where you are from. So I said Taylor, Arizona, hometown proud, which he knows. I guess his family has some ranch outside of Airpine. It was as good meeting. My favorite part was when Pres. Cardon had President and Sister Smith bear their testimonies. It was really touching to hear them talk about their believes and they both related to how much they love us. Later as we were out working a little girl got a shock seeing me and could just stand and stare and say a white man in ghana. Yep. Thursday we contacted a house but everyone there only spoke twi but as we were leaving a boy came out and asked if he could talk to us for a few minutes. He is 15 and a Jehovah's Witness. He asked about if we could see God and about giving blood. It was amazing to see how much into the bible he was. Especially when I compare to how much time I was spending memorizing scriptures. This kid definitely has put in a lot of time. We went back and his parents said he is too young to talk to us but they said they'd think about it if he wants to. We'll see. The very next day we ended up being in the same compound house as Jehovah's Witnesses missionaries and this kid's dad was one. The people we were teaching wanted a "joint discussion" so we said cool. We talked about Joseph Smith and his vision and unsettled the J.W. They wanted to just bible bash with us and we basically put our foot down and wouldn't. Afterward the Dad said not to come back. Guess you win some and lose some. We prepared a few baptismal records this week and it is still surprising how parents don't even know the full name and birth date of their children. Even when their kids are there they themselves don't remember. Guess it is just a difference in our cultures. Saturday we were called to come and help with a baptism since their wasn't enough priesthood holders for witnesses etc. I was asked to give a talk about Baptism and the Holy Ghost. I realized that I wasn't prepared at all when the candidates came in. Two were under 10 and the other 11. Had to do some quick thinking to make it more relavant for them. With the Primary Anniversary there was a program. It was really funny because as the kids would sing they gave one girl a microphone and it kid of drowned out everyone else. They did good though. We are teaching an ex-muslism now christian lady named Sarah. This was her first Sunday of coming to church and even though it was late enough to miss sacrament meeting it was a blessing. She had been having some marital difficulites with her husband and it had delayed her. We had combined Relief Society and Priesthood and it was all about living happy righteously and providently with your spouse. I think, it was kind of in Twi. Either way she said it really helped her out. Definitely can tell the church is true when it has something for everyone. My email is a lot later this week since we went to Tema and played games at the MTC. They have 60 something kids there and when they all are outside it almost makes their yard feel too cramped. It was good though. The missionaries in the MTC loved when we were playing soccer that I would call for the ball and everything in Twi. Too bad I don't know more of it. Hope everyone has a great week.

2009-08-30T20:34:00.000-07:00

This whole past week has felt like limbo land. Going through transfers is usually like that when their are changes though. Plus we spent a lot of time early on in the week visiting recent converts so Elder Riding could say goodbye. It was pretty fun. Though it meant going through plenty of Ghanaian cuisine. Now being the only white in our apartment I definitely notice a difference since it is the first time. When we are out walking around I kind of forget that I actually stand out so much. Crazy seeing how little kids and even adults are usually yelling obruni at us, but at the apartment it is very strange to think that I'm the only white person for miles and miles. We are teaching a lady from Seoul Korea who is kind of stranded here but she missed an appointment last week and then didn't come to church so we went and visited her and found out she had a baby. I was kind of shocked, she didn't look pregnant at all. It was really cool though when she handed me to her and before I could object turned around to get something from inside. Holding a five day old baby with Hailee coming so recent was awesome. I haven't held her but it was sweet to hold this kid and see how beautiful she was. It was nice. I am getting tired of people being ruled by politics here. It is ridiculous. They love bringing up in our lessons. To be honest I haven't quite figured out a way to use their view of it incorporated in our lessons but I'm thinking. On Thursday we hit our seven day(and counting) mark of not having running water but luckily it rained. I was tired of using a bucket or a pure water sachet, plastic bag filled with water, to shower so I went outside. Quite possibly one of the nicest showers I have had since leaving home. The water was almost kind of warmish. Kind of. There was an all african service project this last saturday. I didn't go. We already had appointment scheduled and I didn't really want to just bail on them. They cleaned the road up and painted some white lines warning people walking on the sidewalk they are getting close to the gutter. We had a pretty tense Sunday meeting. We needed two of the people we baptized to get confirmed but only one of them showed up. A high councilor came and talked. I didn't really understand his talk since it was in broken twi-english. One part that I do was that he talked about my companion, who had stood up and been introduced. He mentioned about how the american elders are usually white, pointing at me, like him. He then went on to say in twienglish that he was so happy to see an american missionary who looked like all of them. Kind of funny since I was the only white person there out of the 160ish in the ward. Elder White and I laughed at it even though no one else really found the humor in it. Elder White is from North Carolina. He is a pretty funny kid. His dream is to become an actor, which from the sounds of things he was well on his way before he came on his mission. His grandma was the first person in his family to join the church and still most of his family aren't members. He has been out about 6 months and was in the office as a supply elder before coming to Ashaiman. That is kind of the excitement from here for the week.

I think about how saying the right things seems so easy but then doing it is so much harder. Sometimes I think Satan puts that thought into our head and also that we say something but don't take into consideration all of the little things that will come along with it. I love you guys!
love elder gibson

2009-08-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well what a week. Monday we went and ate a pig and went to the MTC. It was weird talking to some of the missionaries there. I'm glad to say that when I met missionaries while I was there I didn't ask as silly of questions as they did. It was funny though. A lot of the days this week seemed to passed by really really slow but all of a sudden they were over. Kind of like magic. This week we did have zone conference which always throws everything out of whack though. We ran into an old contact, Sarah, that hadn't really shown too much action so we stopped after two meetings and she told us she had read everything and wanted us to come back. Definitely is someone looking for something specific, our first meeting she went straight to baptism. I guess we'll wait and see how that progresses but pretty encouraging especially since she invited her husband and small daughter to join us. Another sweet person from the week is named Vincent. He is late 20's early 30's who owns a gamestation (room full of play stations, x box, etc.) and lives with his mother. He is really interested in the gospel. He has been bouncing from church to church. We stopped by yesterday and gave him a Book of Mormon and then today we passed by and he has read the entire introduction and all the tesitmonies. Really good signs, I hope that they can turn into something. We had a really funny but somewhat strange experience. As we were doing some contacting a man accepted a pamphlet and gave us a time to come and then as we left started following us asking for money for transport to another city. We explained we don't give money and he then said okay and started to follow us around as we continued to contact. He'd show people around who we were talking to the pamphlet and say this church is inviting you. Luckily we were able to lose him in a housing complex that is like a maze. About 30-40mins later he found us as he came out of a house and follows us AGAIN! Ugh it was so annoying and he just kept asking for money here and there. Finally we lost him by ducking into a entryway and then staying away from that area for the rest of the day. Transfer calls happened this week. I am the only one in our apartment who is staying. I'll be the senior companion to a black American elder named white. He has been out about 6 months and is pretty funny. We'll see how it goes. The other two elders are coming in fresh and I think both of them are Nigerian. On Wednesday we'll find out. Good luck to everyone!

I love having the temple so close. We get to go quarterly so it is nice. Though it is disheartening because a lot of members who are worthy don't take advantage of it. It is something that we stress really heavy when we teach the after baptism lessons so that they can have a good foundation to grow on. Hope you have a great week!
love elder gibson

2009-08-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

This week seemed to just fly by. Sad thing is that this next week will go by even quicker. It seemed for some reason that the gutters in our area were really full and backed up this week. The smell was pretty terrible everywhere you were, not too different just a lot stronger then it usually is. We taught a lot of muslisms this week which was pretty strange. One was a real standout. His name is Abraham and he basically just has lots of questions. After teaching him and having him come to church he invited us to a seminar to teach 300 muslisms about the Restoration. Elder Riding was pretty excited but I'm a little apprehensive. I've heard stories of similar things being set up just to bash old testament laws against modern christian beliefs. We'll see what comes of it. Elder Riding got himself into an awkward situation during a first meeting with a new investigator named Jennifer. He asked if she was married and then her sister who wouldn't join us but was washing clothes right by us stopped him in his tracks when she answered for her saying, "no, why, do you want her?. Yeah we got a pretty good laugh, even though he froze for a few moments it ended up all good. Learned how to trap grasscutters out in the wild this week from our recent convert Frank Ada Agyepong. Don't know when or where that will come in handy but hey you never know. Grasscutters are kind of like muskrats. On Saturday Alex Agoboada was baptized. It was pretty sweet even though his father creates some problems by trying to push too much at the wrong times. It at least is in love. I was pretty glad that Sunday after church I got to help ordain him to the priesthood. Sunday was pretty hectic again though. We had 12 people come to church that we are teaching along with a few of their children so we were glad when we could get out of that. It seemed like I kept seeing kids wearing Arizona shirts this week. My favorite was one that had what looked like a road map transfered onto the shirt. It was cool to trace them and tell the kid all of the places that I had been. We are suppose to go eat a big barbecued tongan style so catch you next week. Anyway I hope everything is going great for you guys.

I really like the picture of all the family. Crazy to see how many people were there! It is true that all the technology that we have somehow seperates us. That or more takes out the personal time but I think since coming on my mission I have definitely learned the importance of having those quiet moments a lot more then before. I hope you guys have a great week!
love Elder Gibson

8-3-09 Update

2009-08-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to August! This week definitely has been an interesting one for sure. Last Monday we had a guy, Alex, we are teaching who we've been somehow skating on thin ice with ask us for a baptismal date. His dad has been a member for 2 years and because of some of the things his Dad said when he was baptized put him off. We treated him as more of a friend since he is just my age, his birthday is sept 15th and he'll turn 20. Kind of worked our way in and finally after we taught a lesson about the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity he flat out asked us when can I be baptized. Except the day after he got word that his school will start Aug. 12th or 13th in Cape Coast. Guess we'll baptize him and then have to only see 2 or 3 times a month. Tuesday I ate the biggest ball of Banku I think I ever could. It was about 5lbs each was mine and my companions guess. Definitely not nice, still haven't quite gotten into fermented corn dough stuff yet. We have basically an open street market in my area and on Wednesday we were teaching at a little shop there and a crazy half caste nigerian came and just touched my cheek and then licked his finger like it had frosting on it and said something in Igbo (their language) and then came back for another. Good thing security came out with their canes and basically beat him away, cause I think I might have if he'd tried again. Just made me really angry for some reason. Oops. The guys we were teaching said he has caused problems before though so I don't know the whole story. We went to a recent convert, Nathaniel Tetteh, and he wanted to sing hymns. It was sweet to have a little Christmas in July. Can't wait to have it for real though. We are teaching one guy who is a teacher at a school. As we were locking up our bikes a tro-tro pulls up with like 30 50kg bags of rice. The guy who had been sent to get them and the tro tro driver were kind of just doing it wrong so we helped. It felt so good just to be able to pick them up and kind of actually do something. It was funny because by the end it was me and the guy we had the appointment with cause everyone else was too tired. Saturday we were invited to say a prayer at an Adoring. I don't know if they are called that anywhere else in the world but it is a baby blessing. We said an opening prayer and then the preacher took over. WOW. I have never been more confused in my life for sure. He kept yelling and then had an assistant come in and start drumming. Still haven't quite figured out Charismatic churches at all. Sunday was really busy too. We had 3 baby blessings in our ward. I bet they were nice but most of them were in twi. After that we had 4 confirmations from our baptism on Saturday. Then the Sacrament and then only about 15mins of testimonies. All in all it was a sweet time.

7-27-09 Update

2009-08-07T21:53:00.001-07:00

Another week come and gone. This week was pretty nice. It went by really fast. Maybe because one of the days we went on a split and so I was in a different area. Definitely makes the time go by when it is all new. I was with Elder Hortin which was really fun since we came at the same time. We spent a lot of time talking about how quickly the past 8 months have passed for us. Something that was cool when we were on splits was that we skipped rocks and talked to some investigators. Reminded me of being at the creek by the fields and skipping rocks with Shelly and Austin back when I was little. This Sundy we did a Missionary Sacrament Meeting. I gave a talk talking about the worth of souls and how great the member's joy could be if they helped bring but one soul. I hope that all of the things about Missionary work will help them to support us a little bit more. Something that was really touching actually came from about 20mins I spent in the nursery. We were kind of asked to come in and gentle the kids down somehow. Ended up we taught them a song. I don't remember the title but the words were Jesus said love everyone, treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love other will love you. It was pretty sweet to watch all these little kids singing and then looking at how to apply the same things to what we do when we teach other people. I liked it. After church we went on a split again because we needed three candidates to be interviewed so Elder Hortin and I went to his area again. Our first stop was a member who offered to feed us. They were expecting 4 Elders though. They brought out plates that had 3 or 4 cups of rice out for each of us. It was decent rice with garden egg (unripened eggplant) stew. Even had goat in it. After eating neither Elder Hortin or I could move and as we got outside and moving I ended up throwing part of it up on the ground. I was glad I did though because Elder Hortin was miserable the rest of the night. I was even able to have a little bit of ice cream from a plastic bag. Reminded me of going to Grandma's house every Sunday and just enjoying. Yeah that is about it for my week.

7-20-09 Update

2009-08-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

Another week come and gone in Ghana. This one was pretty sweet. Meet a guy named Wilson Dzereke through a member. He is a pretty funny guy definitely will be a new experience since he is an atheist. I realized people here spoil their kids. If they can do it whatever their kids want they will give to them just so they will be quiet. The little hellians! One of them laid a bite into my companions leg. Yeah got a nerve right between her teeth. We baptized a man name Frank Adu Kwabena Agyepong this saturday and it was really cool. He asked to share his testimony after the closing remarks and spoke in Twi. Afterward one of our recent converts who was in attendance translated for us. He said that basically he just wanted to thank us as the missionaries for working with him to bring him to the Gospel. He had been a sailor and traveled the world but never found anything as satisfying as the message about a young boy named Joseph Smith and how it can change people's lives. Was a sweet pay off for sure. That was probably the best part of my week for sure. I hope everything is going good for you guys!

Yeah our rainy season is kind of hitting the last little bit of it which I'm glad for. The mosquitos have been spawning like nothing else. Everything is going great.

7-13-09 Update

2009-08-07T21:51:00.001-07:00

This week was a fairly interesting one for sure. Tuesday when Michael Jackson was buried it was a useless 4 hours. Everyone was watching. There were even people who were out on the streets watching at the places they sell tv's. People were just glued in for sure. I realized this week that I am starting to speak in broken English. Yeah, guess I'm just losing everything Ms. Cunningham instilled in me. Obama coming to visit definitely was interesting. Didn't really know that he was coming at all. Not until we went out and started proselyting and people asked why we weren't going to greet our President. Oops, missed the invite I guess. I didn't really have much more affected though. I guess travel from place to place was pretty bad though. Lots and lots of security around going and coming from Accra. Our bishop invited us over for dinner one night. His wife was really funny. She brought out spoons and all this stuff for us to eat our fufu and she about fell over in shock when we said we didn't them. Another funny thing is I saw a guy in my area using a little league batting helmet as his helmet for when he rides his motorcyle. One of our investigators, George Nsonswah, we found out makes toliet paper. We are trying to get a hook up to tour the factory one of these p-days. Sunday as we were out teaching we saw a guy with a truck that had Arizona painted on it. I contacted him and told him I was from Arizona. He got really excited and told me he loves that country and wants to go there. I told him it was nice place and that I missed it. That was about it. This upcoming week we are going to have a missionary sacrament. We will talk and I think teach the classes too. That is our whole focus is member missionary work. Anyway good luck this week!

2009-07-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

This week was pretty sweet. For some reason this week there was a big difference between whites and blacks. It seemed like everyone would say, " well you, you the whites, you know" yeah cracked me up. We were teaching a lesson to a couple named George and Gladys. In their compound there was probably around 15-20 children between the ages of 1-6. I was sitting on a stool teaching about the Restoration when the kids swarmed me and ended tipping me over and having a dog pile on top of me. All of the Ghanaians thought I was weird because I was just laughing through all of it. To their minds it is more like kids need to be disciplined very harshly. Just like not having any problems with dogs because they have all been beat that when you raise a hand they run it is somehow the same way. We scheduled an appointment with a guy off the street. When we went to his house there was like 10-15 people sitting in his house. They were having a prayer camp. That was creepy to sit through for 15mins waiting. The guy was the leader and he would speak in Twi like he was praying and then at his word everyone would start saying their own prayer aloud. It was different. Makes me glad that we have the complete truth and are able to not have to worry about things like that. I met a girl whose actually registered name is Princess, that is right. She is really cool and she introduced us to her mom. Our apartment has started doing something really cool. Before we leave we have been singing 2 or 3 hymns. It is just a nice little boost before taking off. Not being able to really celebrate the 4th was pretty tough. I tried all week to buy fireworks but they said only in Accra. Not even a sparkler. It was cool to think of all the differences between the countries. Transfer call was this weekend. My apartment is staying the same which is cool. Our District will now only be our apartment though.
That is about it I think.

2009-06-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Well this week defintely went better then last week. I mean
the whole finding out about Micahel Jackson dying was pretty
rough but we got through it. A lot of people in Ghana were
pretty devestated that he died. It was pretty pathetic. It
rained everyday this week which made finding new people
a little difficult. It was pretty sweet though we were able to
get just under 30 lessons this week. Though it dumped buckets
on Sunday and several people couldn't or wouldn't leave their
homes cause of the rain.

The Ghanaian reaction to rain, or pretty much anything is
to "rest". Basically just fall asleep cause they have an excuse.
We had a sweet baptism on Saturday. Frank Asumah, a 9 yr
old boy(yep baptizing children) was baptized for our companionship
with six others. Frank is funny. We were teaching his grandparents
and he always would join and eventually told us he believed
Jesus would want him baptized, so we did. Now his little brother,
Tony, wants to be baptized. He turns 8 this month so that
will be cool. Today we went to the Accra Mall to look at cameras.
That was not really too terrific but man being there was. It felt
way out of place for Ghana. Elder Hortin and I bought a pizza
from their food court, yeah that's right FOOD court. Afterward
on the trotro ride home we both commented that it really upset
our stomachs, but that it was so worth it it. Little pieces of heaven
for sure. Last night Elder Hortin and I stayed up till like 1 am
talking about life, mission, and a lot about America since it will be
the 4th. It definitely makes you appreciate our freedoms and
privileges that we have as Americans. Well love everybody, peace out!

2009-06-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

Well not going to lie this has been quite possibly the hardest
week that I have ever had, and it was even only my 7 month
mark. Lots of downs and not too many ups. First off I will no
longer be able to send pictures. Unfortunately someone
decided that they needed it more then me. After that our
apartment got broken into and trashed. That sucked to clean
up and see other stuff that went missing. I guess someone else
needed that stuff more then me too. Uh after that my bike
( too bad it wasn't stolen ) decided it wanted to quit as we were
riding down a hill. Had a little tumble but it was cool I at least
stopped before rolling into the river that is made from all the
sewer run off. Yeah that was basically all the stuff that was a slap
in the face.

We were able to get our baptism taken care of on Saturday. So
John, Louis, and Nathaniel were able to be baptized. It was sweet
to get to baptize Nat. He is a 20 year old college student and is
just a sweet guy. Kind of could see if were both were just going to
school we'd go hang out. It was funny because the guy from the
ward who was suppose to baptize them called and said his wife
was sick and couldn't come. So I got to do it, wearing little kids
clothes. All the baptismal clothes were in use due to our baptism
being combined with another ward. I even let Louis wear the
clothes I have so it was really funny to look at myself in the
mirror.

One other thing is that due to the high percentage of Muslims
in my area I randomly started to pick up on the language they
speak. It is similar to Arabic. It is called Hauser or Hausa, no one
here knows how to spell it either so I'm okay. It is pretty cool.
So now I can basically hold a basic conversation( greeting, name,
where they live, etc.) in Twi, Ga, Fante, and now Hauser.
Hopefully I can become somewhat proficient in them. It was sweet
on Sunday too as we started Sacrament meeting with no
investigators present and then they started marching in during
the hymn and prayer. Most of them credited the rain slowing
them down and that they would have gotten there eventually.
It was nice to see them though. To be honest that is about all I
have for the week. It was kind of a downer but when you get
kicked down the best thing to do is get up and act like it didn't
hurt and get on with it. Good luck to everybody.

Elder G

Pictures

2009-06-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

This picture shows Zongo Lacka, Mexico, and part of Asensu Bar.

Tried getting a picture to show how dirty we got but all I got was
a picture showing our BRIGHT yellow walls and my sweet Realtree
Camo hat I bought for two dollars this week from a guy I contacted.

My new apartment. I think we have a sweet bachelor pad for sure

Imagine this over and over and that is how a lot of my area
looks. This is one of the bigger and cleaner ones though.

This is out at the reservoir

Quail Eggs. Would of bought them but they were like 6 Cedis
for that little can. Forget yourself.

One of our appointments fell through and this kid was
riding a sweet pink barbie bike. So I asked him if I
could take it for a spin.

These are some little kids that were looking at us and so
I took a picture of them. They freaked out and ran away.

Fish being prepared to be fried. I just like how there
is a sting ray among them. Can you spot it?

The fish after being fried, I'd rather eat it sushi style I think

Some of the fields that are out there. Nice to get away from the city

This is a church house. As you can tell they believe they

receive revelation. Even dated and timed it

This is the door to my room.

Same door

This is the door into the other missionaries room.

Close up of door.

A different view. This shows mostly Asensu Bar from
a hill that is a part called Jericho.

Back to the MTC

2009-06-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

This last week I did something pretty interesting. I went back
to the MTC. Yeah it was definitely a trip! Lots of memories came
back as I went to my old room and just basically the whole
compound. It was cool because we got a free ride back to
Ashaiman in a flat bed truck. The guy thought it was funny
three white guys all asked him where he was going in Twi so
he told us to hop in. Tuesday was sweet pa pa! We went to
the temple for our zone interview with our mission president.
I love to see the temple and am definitely going there
someday . . . again. It was very refreshing. Though that
morning we woke up to about 2 inches of water in our room.
Our toliet tank started filling and never stopped and our
room is the lowest part in the apartment.

Elder Riding got a package and it had BIG HUNKS in it and
he hates them. Lucky for me I was able to find it in my heart
to take them off his hands. This week I had my first
converstaion soley in Twi. I greeted someone, asked them
where they were going, where they lived, and if they wanted
us to come back and visit them. After that I make sure
during our contacting I speak English so that we don't go
to the house and find out they speak only Twi. Yeah. This
week we had a lot of people start coming to us with rumours
about the church. Like that we drink blood and use dead
bodies for baptisms ( that one comes from members who
have apostated ). It was pretty funny afterward to go over
the things with my comp.

We met a man named Martin Luther Narh. He invited us to
his house and when we got there he, his wife, his sister, his
brother, his mother, and towards the end of the lesson his
other brother were involved. It was really sweet because as
we told the Joseph Smith story it was sweet to see them actually
taking it in and PONDERING it. It was great as Martin came to
church and afterwards asked for a teachings of Joseph Smith and
said that he was testing the church out and for us to expect the
family next week. I was pretty excited so hopefully they progress.
I have been trying to learn how to make fried rice that is quality.
This week I think is the closest I have gotten to it being
very edible. I am pretty excited to have that much more variety.
It was really funny this week too as we were teaching this guy
who owns a barbershop, and yes he has like 4 or 5 friends who
just hang out there all day. We were using the pamphlets and in
the middle of us alking about Christ and his church he stops us
and tells us the pamphlets were wrong. That we shouldn't have
a picture of anyone besides Christ because that is who it is all
about. Elder Riding started to try and explain about how it isn't
as if we worship the pictures and what not was getting anywhere.
So I just was like Richard (guy we were teaching) it is okay, I'll
write a letter to THE people and have them sort it out. He was
so pacified he just nodded his head and very seriously said
thank you.

I contacted this blonde blue eyed german girl this week. She
is 20 and works for a NGO. First white girl I have seen in about
oh . . . 3 months I think. She was pretty cool, she knows the
church in Germany and was surprise to run into two whites that
are in Ghana. I think it would be sweet to teach and baptize her
so I can say I baptized a white person on my mission, weird oh.
I was contacting in an area known as Zongo Lacka and contacted
a group of about 7 or 8 older men. They were muslism and I
learned a lot of what they believe and some stuff about Islam.
It was pretty interesting. I tried talking about Joseph Smith but
they wouldn't have it so we discussed about how Allah and God
are the same. It was weird because even though there are the
examples of like Aaron in the Book of Mormon I felt a little
unprepared for it. Definitely have some work to do. Saturday
I was soaked. The rain just was a drizzle all day but we ended
up getting lost on a way to one of our appointments in a certain
area that is very far. We rode basically for 60 mins and found
out that is the border of our area and this man's new house isn't
in our area. We rode another 20mins got to his house and taught
him and told him we can't teach him anymore but will be giving
him to other missionaries. I was worried because he didn't
seem too happy about it. We'll see how it plays out.

I was covered in mud and what not from the ride though and
was in a pretty bad attitude after having the appointment go
sour. It was all made better as because of the uh way my bike
is and the water I had a tro-tro stop in front of me and when
I tried to stop it didn't work. My back brakes don't exist and
my front cable came undone and I went into the back of the
tro-tro. All the people laughed at the white kid pressed up
against the glass and the driver just walked around, insulted
me, got back in, and drove away. I felt like a champion . . . or not.
On Sunday we weren't having too many people really interested
in talking to us so we did some service. We went into a
compound and a lady and her sister were pounding fufu so
we did it for them. We basically had to beg for them to let us
help them out. They didn't think we could do it and after they
saw we could called their friends and everyone to watch. It
was cool. My companion was pounding it while I drove.
When you drive you scoop the fufu into a ball that the person
pounding flattens with a big stick to soften it and mix the
ingredients. It ended pretty quickly after my companion and
I got off on our timing and he hit my wrist. We kind of just
gave it back to them. Wow I just looked at how long this email
is and SHEESH it was a busy week. Hope this finds everyone
doing great!

2009-06-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

This past week has been pretty sweet. A lot of the week was
somehow rainy and overcast which basically rocked! We
went and taught the father of the Asumah family, he is
pretty much the only one not baptized. It was cool to be
teaching the Law of Chasity and have him already know
everything because his wife and (grand)son taught him
before we came. Definitely love it when the members will
take a bit of time and help us out. We went to this
reservoir in our area that is one of the borders. It is a
sweet ride because as you go out there it is by the agriculture
lands so it is just fields. Nice to get away from the dirty city.

There was one day that after it had rained the sun came out
and made it like an oven. We were teaching this security
guard at a public shower house and he asked if we could
stop the lesson because the whole time Elder Riding and
I were sweating so bad we were dripping on the pamphlet
we were using to introduce The Restoration. A lot of the
Ghanaians love to TRY and guess ages I guess. We had a
few of our visits were it was my first time of people
wanting to guess my age. The overall average is between
23-26ish. Mostly because I talk like someone here that has
gone to university and is finished with school. We also had
the kid army following us. All of these little kids would see
us and basically follow us from appointment to appointment
because they liked the fact we were white. It didn't help at
all when we told them to leave in twi, they just liked us
more because we can speak their language small.

Something that was very interesting this week is that we
had a companionship fast. On the day of our fast it was really
tough. Appointments kept dropping, or the ones that went
through the people weren't paying attention or being serious
about anything we were sharing. All of that on top of being
hungry made me a little irritated. I started acting like I
didn't speak English to people who called us obruni obruni!
(white man/foreigner) I started answering in spanish. Yeah
luckily they didn't know how to react and left me alone.
The thing that was really sweet about our fast was the day
after. It seemed as if everything was working our way on
the day after. Especially because the first two lessons we
had to start the day off were just great. Good spirit and
participation. The entire day just went sweet. Definitely
a faith building day as we could feel the people we were
teaching being touched by the Holy Ghost. Basically made
me pretty happy.

I also learned that Northern people are really primitive.
They are very tribal. Enough that when they see white
people they basically think the person is Jesus Christ.
That is why missionaries have never been
sent to the north. I started wearing sunglasses while
proselyting this last week. That makes it not as bad, I
squint a lot less and notice more things. We had a baptism
on Saturday. The guy that was for our companionship is
named Robert Addae. He is a 20yr old college student
and way cool. I guess he didn't quite start out like it but
by the time I met with him the two three times before
he was baptized he was golden. His enthusiasm was
probably one of the things I noticed the most.

That same day we went to visit another guy named Louis
Poku who is part of the baptism we are planning for the
20th. He is staying at his sister's as his visa was revoked
to return to Italy where his wife and kids live as he on the
plane at the airport preparing for takeoff. Anyway his
sister's kid was circumcised like Wednesday or something.
Definitely looks painful and I'm glad I don't remember it.
What was funny was the kid was just laying on coffee table
and while we were there he would pee and it was like a
fountain. It was even funnier when Louis told us that same
thing happened but the kid pee-ed on his laptop. Yeah bad
luck oh.

I started making my own fried rice this week. Not as good as
I can buy on the street but it has potential. Church was a
little tense. We were expecting several people and by the
time the sacrament was passed only one had showed up.
Lucky for us the other 4 people showed up which was a
relief since that will keep us on track to baptize them in this
transfer cycle to fulfill the goal Elder Riding set. Everyone
in the apartment loves the Missionary Newsletter and wishes
their stake did something like it. I told them come to Taylor,
we just hook people up like that.

2009-06-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

So my mistake but I horribly misspelled Ashaiman. <---- That is
the correct way. It is really close to Tema. In fact right now I'm
in Tema using a cafe that a member owns. It was really weird
about saying goodbye to everyone in Lartebiokorshie. I hadn't been
there for very long but I did feel pretty close to some of the
people. Especially the Ansah Family. It was bad luck that I missed
out on seeing Cindy getting a baptized but haukuna matah? I
did spend some quality time on Tuesday teaching the two guys
basically a crash couse in Mission Prep. That was pretty interesting.

To get to my new area on Wednesday we go to the Mission Home
and meet up with someone from our new area. I met up with Elder
Hortin. One of the missionaries I was at the MTC with. We took a
taxi to the Kufor (ex-president) Bus Station. Imagine really
crappy greyhounds painted super bright orange. Yeah took one
of those to Ashaiman and from there took a taxi to our new
apartment. I didn't meet my companion right away he was out
teaching a lesson with a ward missionary. After he came back
there was only small time left to go out prosleyting. Elder Riding
took me around and mostly just showed me a few people who live
near the apartment. The apartment is really nice. There are four
elders there. One thing that is really cool are the doors in our
apartment. They are very well carved. In my new area there are
a ton of people. They are basically building on top of each other now.
It is nice but at the same time they yell OBRUNI OBRUNI!!!! a
thousand times a day and it sometimes gets on my nerves. I am
just like yes I'm white, your powers of observation amaze me.
Except they don't really get sarcasm here so they just get confused.

Saturday it started to rain about 2:30 in the morning and didn't
stop till about noon. It was nice as it turned the road in front of
our apartment into a river. Elder Riding is pretty legit. He
speaks very very excellent twi. Also he can cook almost all the
ghanaian dishes, at least the ones worth eating. He is from Payson,
Utah.

My area now seems to be a really nice place. Lots of people and
what not. A few of the people I've met seem to be really serious.
Hopefully they stay that way!

love Elder Gibson

2009-06-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'm all shiny and don't know why.

What can I say kids and I connect, maybe because
we are on the same maturity level.

This was on Grandma Lila's birthday.
Drank a coke for her.

MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!!! Okay so it really isn't
that exciting but I do what I can. Last week when I went
to play sports at this place called Kaneshie I got a little sunburnt.
It worked out all good though because now even my legs are
at least not blinding white. Wednesday I had something interesting
happen. A lady's son received his mission call to go to the Ghana
Cape Coast Mission. She called us and wanted us to come talk to
the guy about his girlfriend. I guess his brother got in trouble with
a girl before he left and something. She wanted to make sure it
didn't happen again. It all felt a little awkward mostly because this
family doesn't go to our ward and we really didn't know what was
going on. The lady did feed us though. Even though it was like oily
collard greens with some other uh things with them it was food.
That same night we went to the Ansah family, father and son
baptized last week, to teach the wife. She accepted a baptismal
date and will be baptized this thursday(28th).

Two kids from this ward going on their missions in August
together. The taller one is Robert and he is going to Nigeria.
The shorter one is Matthew and he is going to the Ghana
Cape Coast Mission.

On Thursday we had a Mission Conference with the General
Authority being Jay E. Jensen. It was really good. He talked
about mastering the scriptures alot. It was interesting to listen
to him talk about the different study patterns of people. I
wanted to laugh when he started name dropping. Like Boyd
K. Packer, David A. Bednar, Thomas S. Monson. Guy is serious.
I guess go figure what else would apostles talk about while
traveling places then how they study? He also urged us to
start singing hymns when we go to teach people. That there
isn't anything that can invite the spirit faster. Overall it was
really good. That same night we had a baptism. We had one
man, Matthew Tay, being baptized. It was cool because his
daughter came and agreed to allow us to teach her. Usually
when we've gone to the house she wouldn't join us because she
has her church. She is 11. Starting them young I guess. At the
baptism as a musical number the 8 missionaries from our
apartment all sang I Am a Child of God. After the baptism
another one of the candidates was having a party and so we
went and ate. They kept bringing us plates of rice. That is how
they judge parties here, how good and how much is the food.
I can't believe that everyone graduated this week. It definitely
does not feel as if I've been out of High School a year already.
Then again I've also been on my mission for six months.
Guess time marches on.

My going away dinner from the
Ansah Family. Doesn't it look tasty?

My companion's reaction. (ghanaian)

My reaction to the food. (american) and yes I cut my
own hair, thank you very much.

This week is transfers. In our apartment we have 5 leaving. 2 are
going home and 3 are moving on. A little surprising is that I'll be
leaving. My new area is called Ashiaman. It is close to Tema where
the MTC is. My new companion is American which is rare to have.
A lot of whites go their whole mission without serving with
another. His name is Elder Riding and he is from Payson, Utah.
That is about all I know of the guy. I guess wait till Wednesday
and we'll see. On Sunday on our way to go and make sure someone
was coming to church we ran into a ward member, Sis. Anderson,
whose husband and two kids were sick. We went to their house
and gave them all blessings. It was awesome that we randomly
were just in the right place at the right time to help her out.

My apartment for the last month a half. I slept right
by the second window.

This is the Ansah Family. Going from Right to left. Me, Nana (son),
Cindy (mother), Two sisters, Alex (father), My companion

You have discovered the most frustrating cultural thing
about Ghanaians. They will straight up lie to your face of
whether they are interested or not. They think if they
say no that they'll have to explain themselves and there
will be a big ordeal so they lie and say yes and then sit
there and will nod their heads as you teach. It is so
annoying. One guy just straight up told me he wasn't
interested. I shook his hand and said thank you. It is
something that we have a problem with is finding those
who really are serious. I guess you guys are going to
start getting hotter then it is here pretty soon. I
love you guys and wish you the best for this next week!

I've still got a few skills left

A snapshot from out sweet celebration on the roof
with our bonfire we used to make s'mores!

Love Elder Gibson

2009-05-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

This week definitely has gone by fast. Maybe because I was
hoping I'd get to make some more phone calls. ;D To start it
off last Monday we went to our temple site and played
indoor soccer in the stake center. OH yeah volleyball too
which wasn't that fun because all of a sudden people started
throwing out their own rules which isn't ever very fun.
Especially because you can't keep them straight. It was
cool though for a net we used a piece of rope over the poles.
On Tuesday my mission president came to my area to do an
abortion interview. Luckily it was all taken care of even
though he spent about three hours in traffic for a five minute
interview. Yeah good thing that is kind of what he does though.

On Wednesday it was really cool because we received a referral
from my last area. Even better about it was that it was a guy I
contacted but whenever we'd go back to the place we meet him
he wasn't there. He runs a petrol station and yeah he lives in
my area now. It was nice to see how much desire he had. His
name is Patrick. His wife doesn't speak English but understands
it. So she'll listen to us teach and then ask him questions in
ewrva<---- probably misspelled grossly and then he'll ask us
in English. They have three kids. A boy, Michael who is 10, Ruby
who is 6 and then Bismark who is 4. The wife was unable to come
to church because of some prior engagement but it was cute to
see Patrick walk in with his kids all holding hands behind him.
Reminded me of ducks and ducklings. Thursday even had its own
excitement. We were basically tracting among some houses and
an older man called us over. He did so because he is a Reverend
and just wanted to bible bash with us. My companion was up for
it so we basically made him question his believe in the Trinity
because we used the bible and stuff. Yeah he didn't know that
the "mormons" believed in the bible. It was intense at times
though. Right by his house two ladies told me that they wanted
to go home with me. I guess it is the tan but I must of gotten a lot
better looking since I left America. That or I'm white in an
underprivliged country, I'm just hoping for option A. : )

Friday I got a FM (free meal) at my Bishop's house. It was rice and
stew. Big surprise there, but I did get an egg and a piece of fish. So
the ladie that we baptized on Thursday has a six year old daughter
named Franklin who can't wait to be baptized. Too bad she is only
six. She loves Primary though and really enjoys it. Yesterday at
church we had lights out, which meant no fans during church. I
felt like passing out because it was so hot. We went to the Ansah
family after church to celebrate their baptism and confirmation
from Thursday and Sunday. I had a Ghanaian four course meal
and I about died. They started us out with sausage swish kebabs
with onion and bell pepper. Those were good especially since I
didn't have much of an appetite because of the heat(lights were
still out) After that they brought out Jollof rice, baked beans,
and a potato salad that tasted like candy<--- sad part is that it
was too sweet for me to eat and enjoy. After that they brought
out a big ball, about 2lbs, of fufu in palm nut soup with chicken.
I was already filled up but when they give it you eat it. So I
downed that and then they brought out pancakes and a
multi fruit juice drink. I ate my helping of pancakes, drank my
juice and then realized Elder Richards couldn't even finish his
fufu so I told him to pass it over so we wouldn't look rude. I ate
about a third of his and then his pancakes too. Yeah lets just
say I haven't eaten anything since then and it has been about
20 hrs or so. That is my week so far. Today we are going to a
place called Kaneshie to play sports. They have an american
football so it should be interesting to watch Ghanaians do
that. Usually they don't have very good hands.

I hope that you are having an awesome week. I love you guys
and wish you the best.
love elder gibson

Travis update

2009-05-16T21:54:00.000-07:00

Another week in Ghana. This week went by pretty good. It
rained which I really liked. When it rains so far it has only
been at night but the clouds stick around for a good part of
the day which is nice. Plus when it rains it washes some of
the dirty rubbish smell away. I don't know why but lately I
have been spending a lot of time on our roof. I found out that
it is completely flat and really easy to get up there so yeah put
two and two together. Plus the mango tree is pretty close to it
so I do some scouting waiting for the clumps of them to start
ripening.

We had zone interviews on Thursday which went really well. I
gave a talk about how I am increasing my faith. Luckily there was
another elder who was speaking on the same thing and his talk
wasn't very good at all, seemed like he tried to throw it together
why he was saying it so mine shined in comparison which made
me pretty happy. I spent a lot of time at our apartment this week
though. Friday mid afternoon my companion told me we had to
hurry back to the apartment. He uh got runny tummy pretty bad
and stayed there for the rest of the day and then during the night
it progressed to him having malaria so all of Saturday I sat around
our apartment. It was SOOOO boring. Luckily he seems to be doing
a lot better so we should be fine. On Sunday we got to watch
conference but unfortunately I wasn't able to watch very much of it.
We were doing interviews for baptism and I was the one who was
going and getting people. I also helped to teach this nine year old
about the restoration with an Elder Richards(english guy). It was
pretty challenging to have him understand but we took care of it.

I did catch part of Elder Anderson's saturday afternoon about
the six D's. I thought it was good with how it all starts with a little
doubt. Then Jeffrey R. Holland gave a powerful talk and President
Monson's closing remarks in the sunday afternoon were probably
some of my favorites that I got bits and pieces of. That has been
about it so far. Hope everyone else's week went good.

love elder gibson

HELLOOOOO

2009-04-27T12:07:00.001-07:00

HELLO . . . out there. This week has been pretty chill.
Yesterday at church (stake conference) they said our
conference weekend will be next week. I think we only
get to watch one session though so I guess we'll see which
one I'll see. Last Monday after we left to come to the internet
cafe one elder decided to clean up our yard. He raked the
leaves together and everything and since it is Ghana style to
burn them that is what he did. Too bad he didn't take in
account the wind and all the smoke went directly to where
we have our clothes lines. Luckily my clothes didn't smell
that smokey since they were on the farthest back line. I
didn't have to rewash. Though my clothes had a faint barbecue
smell. I went on splits this week.

My companion went with our District leader and I went
with his into their area. The guy I was with came out the
end of January because he played football at BYU this last
semester as a redshirt. His name is Elder Beeston and he is
a pretty cool guy. For Chet and Kristin it might be interesting
to know that he is actually from Edmond, OK. He is pretty
funny. Though one guy tried to stop us when we were riding
our bikes because we were white. He asked to see our
licenses, which aren't required in the city I'm in. It got a
little tense between him and Elder Beeston. It ended up
that I started talking to him and asking questions and what
not until he was confused and just walked away.

Stake Conference was really good. My favorite speaker
was a member of the stake presidency named Quasisie
(pronounced Kw-esi). He had us over for FHE in my old
area. When he talks it is just like listening to a general
authority at conference. He talked about repentance and
how it can apply to everything. Plus how for us ( younger
generation ) it is so crucial with all the dangers out there.
That we are human and that we shouldn't look at repentance
as something to avoid but something to embrace so that it
can heal. It was just really good. I hope everything is
going great!

There isn't one from Gilbert now but I've heard he will
be coming in July. I think his last name is Prince. The only
other arizona native is from Thatcher and is an elder thatcher

Transfer

2009-04-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

So I found out about my transfer on Saturday and was transferred
on Wednesday since most of you seemed like you wanted to know.
There is a delay but not too big. My new area is called
Lartebiokorshie. I wasn't sure if I had spelled it right last week.
It is a pretty cool place. Okay so it isn't really seeming like it is too
different from my last area besides less businesses and more
houses which will definitely be good. It is nice to kind of be
lost. In my old area I'd always just be thinking about where
I am and how many possible ways I could have to get
wherever we were going. Here I only know how to get
back to the apartment and the church. Elder Menyah is a
funny guy. He is really trunky I think, but he sort of just
hides it since he is our zone leader.

My apartment is really big. Like last night Elder Richards
(the English elder) sat down on facing couches and passed a
soccer ball back and forth. He is pretty funny though so I kept
missing the ball. There is a mango tree in the back of our
apartment which I'm pretty excited for. The second crop
should start ripening pretty soon so expect mango
adventures 2 sometime in the near future. Going to be
bigger and better, I hope. Then again how hard is it going
to be to build on the last one since then I didn't even get any
mangoes? There was a guy at church yesterday who had a
sack of coconuts on his head that walked into the church
compound and started chopping them to sell with his
machetes because he thought people would buy. I guess
he didn't know that LDS people don't buy on the sabbath.
He got really angry but couldn't do anything since no one had
called him over. I guess crazy stuff just happens anywhere.

Going to a mall was a definite upgrade from the average
day to day happenings. My companion is pretty cool he is
just on the downhill slide and wants to go home. He'll leave
about my one year mark.

Easter in Ghana

2009-04-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

Another random picture of me yawning

These guys are on pilgrimage, I think, they
don't speak English but they asked to
take a picture with us since we are missionaries.

Monday Monday MONDAY!!!! Okay so it really isn't
that exciting but it is overcast which excites me pretty
much a lot. This week I had some sweet experiences.
Last monday we went to the Accra Mall. That is right . . .
MALL . . . and it made me feel like I was back home
walking through one of the malls, kind of. Our real goal
was to go to shoprite. Shoprite is a South Africa chain
of grocery stores with basically american food. I didn't
actually buy anything but it was pretty crazy to just
have the feel of everything like it was back home.
Threw me for a trip kind of, I felt really out of place.

Missionary fridge

Okay so normally it isn't like this but we had zone conference

We had zone conference this week. It was another
weird experience to see that Elder Adams is going
home and he bore his "going home testimony" at
the conference. I guess time goes on. I met the Area
Doctor and just chatted it up with him for a little bit.
He loves this place outside of Page, Cantelope Canyon?
I didn't know the place but he says it is the most
spectacular place he has ever seen. I guess I'm just
missing out but wondered if you guys knew anything
about it.

The kid on the bike wants to be a missionary so I told him

he could take my tag and bike and go with Elder Molobi.

Too bad his mom wouldn't accept me as a trade for a son.

SOOOO Easter here is a WAY big deal. They
have Easter Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
All of which are Holy days. Pretty much either you
are going to church or just have a 4 day weekend to
booze and what not. It was really challenging to get
anyone to take us serious. I think it probably has to
do with several of the night clubs and hang out spots
being in my area. At least the people who we did get
to meet with seemed interested. I was pretty
disappointed I guess the Easter Bunny can't' hop to
Ghana it is too far. Plus people here don't really like
sweets so he wouldn't of left anything anyway.

Easter Sunday Morning Pancake Festival,

might not be a holiday but I think it should be.

Heavenly Goodness on a plate, with syrup even!

About the only other exciting news is that I'm going
on transfers. Yay! I'll be going to Lartebiokorshie and
be companions with another Ghanaian, Elder Menyah.
I've gone on splits with him since he is our Zone Leader.
That is the apartment where the mosquitos attacked
way back in February though. I'm really excited even
though I'm going from one of the hardest areas in my
mission to pretty much the next I am pretty excited
for a chance of scenary and everything. That is about
it from my side of the pond. Hope everyone has had
a great week!

Just a random picture of the street

I've got to run but I hope you guys have a great week!
I love you!
Elder Gibson

Update from Ghana

2009-04-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

Modeling picture. I just like it because

I look really really sunburnt but I'm not.
Plus I like the temple.

Makes me glad I didn't go to this party if that is
what they were drinking.

Just so you know with more surety what it says.

Ghanaian Shower/Toliet Combo!

This is the bathroom part, the shower is just a
bucket that you use to wash with.

Glad that we have one of these
at my apartment

This is what the bush looks like. It is the backyard of a
member that invited us over on Sunday for food but it was fast
Sunday and she forgot so we just talked about America. They've
visited America, mostly Utah.

Sitting on their balcony. Sister Rose (the member)
said I had no fear since I was willing to sit on the
railing while someone took a picture.

We climbed to the top of a really tall
building and took some pictures.
Here are some of them.

Then there is the one with me carrying my bike.
It was sort of in a rougher neighborhood so we
didn't trust leaving our bikes even chained up
so yeah up all 12 floors was my work out for the day.

My companion actually took this one as I
was looking at the city. I thought he was
using the bathroom and wasn't
expecting a picture.

So due to some problems we were having with getting everything
arranged for the baptism I wasn't able to be in the picture with
our baptismal candidates but here they are. The guy standing up
and the girl on his left were the ones I taught.

A random one I forgot to include with the others

Well how to describe this week, pretty normal. Routine. Monday
we didn't do too much. Ended up having a home evening we
planned fall through which made us think pretty quick about
what to do with the investigator we invited. Lucky I am just really
good at making people like me cause I called a member, Sister
Nyarko, and she let us come to her house and crash theirs.
Tuesday night something interesting happened. We had two
baptismal candidates that needed to be interviewed so we just
went on splits with the Zone Leaders to get them done faster.
I went with an Elder Boam who is white and about 6'4" or so
pretty tall anyway. When we went to the hostel, the guy isn't
a permanent resident of Ghana he is actually Nigerian, one of
the guys that lives around came over and kept bowing to us
calling us the two great white princes. Made for some pretty
interesting stares from people around. Luckily Ricky, baptismal
candidate, came and saved us. He passed his interview and was
baptized on saturday, so was the other candidate. Her name is
Faustina Augme and she is extremely shy and hardly speaks
any english. It was glad to finally see her baptized. We have
been working with her to learn everything for about 2 months
or so. Elder Molobi is starting to get a better grasp of the area.
It makes me wonder whether I will be transferred this time or
if I'll stay at the mission home for the first 6 months of my
mission. Guess we will wait and see. Something that I really
liked was that on Sunday as it was Fast and Testimony meeting
Ricky the guy we baptized and got up and bore his testimony
after being confirmed. He told all about how from the first time
he had met with us he knew there was something special about
the church because of the feeling the Joseph Smith story put into
his heart. It was really rewarding to hear him say that. Made
some of the frustrations and discouragements go away for a
little while at least.

For General Conference we get to watch a recorded version later
on sometime I don't know the whole story about how it works yet.
Hope you have a terrific week!

Black Stars

2009-04-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

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

Hello from Ghana

2009-03-31T23:07:00.000-07:00

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

Goings On in Ghana

2009-03-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Baptism!

This last week was a really good week. Last Monday I went to
a super activity for one of the zones. We played soccer and I
pretty much balled it up and made a couple of the african elders
angry at me for some reason. Went to a family named the
Hammonds for FHE. We had an Elder Ross with us. He really
wanted a mango so I ended up climbing the mango tree and
trying to shake him one down. I was fruitless in my attempt
though and was told to get out of the tree. Elder Ross documented
my descending climb.

Elder Ross, waiting for a Mango

Climbing the Mango Tree

Tuesday was our zone interviews. President Smith said I needed
to cut my hair and that was about it. I also ended up going on splits
with the zone leaders again and went back to the apartment in
Lartebiokoshie where the mosquitos attacked me way bad. This
time I was lucky and made it without any bites thankfully. Being
in a normal apartment is so much nicer then the mission home.
I can't wait until I get transferred away from mission home and
have a little bit more of a relaxed atmosphere. The temperature
was 40*C with about 85-90% humidity. Was pretty brutal so I
am lucky to be near the ocean and get the sea breeze. We taught
a lady named Charolette this week who kept watching tv that
was on in the room behind us. I would move my head to block
her view so we kept going back and forth trying to stop the other.
It was pretty funny and is sad to know that she is so unserious.

Results of the Hair Cut

On Thursday one of the couples went home and they dashed us
some food. So Thursday night I had popcorn from a bag! So good.
Plus they gave us REAL jam. With actual fruit and taste in it.
Super super good. Saturday we had a baptism which is always
a good way to start out the day. I ran into a tourist on Sunday
who is from the states and her family has a cabin somewhere
around blue ridge. It was kind of nice to just talk to someone who
knew where I was actually from. On sunday we also met these
two guys on the beach as we were taking pictures of the ocean and
they were carrying a dog . . . to chop ( local lingo for eat ). Took
some pictures and turned down the invitation to go eat with them.

Chop Dog

I helped wash these clothes in a bucket

There are lots of cars. Mostly the middle class and wealthy. Mostly
the wealthy though. The roads vary. Some parts it is straight hard
packed dirt. Other parts are kind of like a cobblestone areas where
it is mostly just throwing whatever chunks of stuff they have.

Elder Gibson

News from Ghana

2009-03-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

These are signs they put on a
dysfunctional bathroom at the stake center. I love
how they don't understand how to exactly speak
english. Oh and yes I know it is very junior high
humor, forgive.

Definitely a different feel this week with a new companion.
As I said last week Elder Molobi is his name-o. He is a botswana
( how they say it ) and is completely different from Elder Adams.
He has only had white companions which I thought was pretty
funny. He works pretty hard which is nice. We get lots done but
it seemed like this week no one was very serious about much of
anything. Since he came at the end of august and I came at the
end of november we are back to back mtc groups and also make
the youngest companionship in the mission since even with our
time put together we don't make a year. He is allergic to eggs,
dairy products, and a whole lot of other stuff. Found that out the
hard way when on Wednesday I made a sweet breakfast with
blueberry pancakes, eggs, and sausage oh and lots of toast with
jam. I had planned it with Elder Jorgensen ( one of the office
elders ) because it is some random holiday he knows and we just
don't really ever eat super good and I missed it. Anyway I offered
some to Elder Molobi and he started to eat and yeah got pretty
sick. Wasn't too bad, plus it left more food for Elder Jorgensen
and me.

Elder Jorgensen had gotten a package with JIF peanut butter in
it and WOW was that stuff amazing. Took me right back to
America with the flavor and quality, serious business. Teaching
Elder Molobi the area is pretty nice too. I get to go to all the places
I thought looked cool that Elder Adams didn't want to bother with or
whatever reason we didn't go around there. It is a slow process
which gets frustrating but usually it works out for the best in the
end. I got to bless the sacrament in church yesterday. It is
really interesting how different people can do the same thing
and it still have the same meaning and importance. Last night I
busted out the UNO cards I had and we played for about 2 hours.
I think I will have to watch out for my companion, he was really
really getting into the game and I think if he isn't
careful he might become addicted or something crazy like that.

I talked to an american lawyer at church and he was talking so
fast I could barely understand him. I guess I'm getting used to the
language around here. I love you guys
Elder Gibson

This picture is of Guiness Malta or in other words non alcholic
beer. Yeah it makes me want to vomit everytime I drink it
but the people here love it because it fills you up. Any of the
weight I have gained has been from this but it is going to my
face and my body is getting smaller so I don't know what is up.
I'll have to work on that or something. I'll challenge anyone
to a chug fest of it when we get home, pretty sure I'll win.
Anyway there you go.

2009-03-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

What the streets look like around Ghana

Yay for a sort of somewhat uneventful week. Just pretty
much work like normal, I think. Anyway this week will be
a really short letter because umm my companion has changed.
There was an emergency transfer today. I am not actually
allowed to talk too much about it but I bet that will be changed
next week. I didn't do anything wrong, my companion broke a
mission rule and now is going to finish the last month of his
mission in a different area, it is called Kaneshie. My new
companion is from Botswana. His name is Elder Molobi and
he was in the record setting MTC group that came the very
end of August, or the group before me. I went on splits with
him about half way through January and he seems really
really nice. I guess after this week has come and gone we'll
have to see how it all goes down. It rained last night like crazy.

The storm clouds that pretty much blotted out the sun in the evening time.

I'm sending a picture of the clouds around 5:20pm when it is
still light outside, as we were rushing to get back to the apartment.
About 10mins after getting into our apartment the rain clouds opened
up and started pouring. It rained off and on until we went to sleep.
I ate this new kind of fufu this week though. They add cocoa to it
so that it is brown and tastes with a hint of chocolate kind of. It
was crazy to drink the soup they serve it with since it is made
out of their version of peanuts. Tasted like a gritty dirty reese's
taste! I hope everything has been going good for everyone!

Enjoying a Pepsi (First one since Christmas. Man was it good to the last drop!)

Bored missionaries at the chapel when investigators don't come to appointments

Love ya!

Travis sent an Ode to Kona, one of the family dogs my parents had
before he left. Unfortunately Kona was hit and killed by a car.