8-30-2010

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Love Elder G