1st Week in Kumasi

Hello everyone!!

Well I survived week one out here in Kumasi. Ill fill you guys in on some of the things that have happened 

Tuesday we got to the mission home and stayed the night. We had dinner with the mission president and his wife. We got a little orientation and then Wednesday morning president Webster told us where we were going. I am serving in Kwamo as a district leader! Definitely did not expect to be a District leader, but I guess the Lord had other plans. There are 5 sets of missionaries in my District, 2 sets of sisters and 3 sets of elders. I am the only American in my District so it has been fun. I met my companion Wednesday morning, his name is elder Donkor and he is a native to Ghana. He has been out 5 months and he is a stud. 

A ton happened this week but I'll try and point out some main points. 

My first day was crazy, my companion and the zone leaders picked me up and we had to take a taxi to the apartment because I had my luggage with me. The man driving the taxi saw that i was a white American and so he tried to up the price on the taxi ride. My native companion and zone leaders knew this and so they started to "bargain" with the man. They started to yell at him in Twi and eventually got him to lower the price haha. That was my first real experience and I was like what the heck just happened. It all ended okay though haha. Everyone here speaks Twi and so I couldn't understand anybody. We went to the market to get food and it was super crowded and everyone was yelling in Twi. Definitely need to get use to the culture out here, and I need to learn Twi.

One of the only babies who will let Malachi hold her.

Malachi's & His Companion

Malachi's Mission President and his Wife

I settled into the apartment and let's just say it is a bit different then living in Utah. We don't have air conditioning and so you just sweat all the time. We have fans and so they help a bit. I have gotten really good at taking bucket showers as the shower doesn't work. It is definitely less humid then Accra but it is hotter, so I don't know which one I prefer. I actually think I like the weather out here better. 

Transportation out here is whack. We take what is called a trotro around places. Just picture a van, and you take out all the seats and put benches in. You then take a bat and dent it up. Then you stick 15-18 Africans into it. Haha its a fun time, I remember my first day we had to take a trotro to one of our areas and I got a good first day experience.

The members are awesome out here. They don't like to speak English and so I am trying my best to learn Twi. I'm lucky my companion speaks Twi or else I would be completely lost. While we are together I am taking advantage of it and he is teaching me Twi. The meals out here all taste the same. Usually it is some kind of stew over rice. We have rice with everything, EVERYTHING. The members want me to try traditional Ghanaian food and so they have started preparing some for me. Yesterday the bishops wife made us rice ball. It was just a ball of rice in which you dip in ground nut soup. In the soup they had "cow meat". I soon learned that it was cow intestine so that made me gag a little bit haha. 

We have been crazy busy, we are teaching 20-30 people right now. And so we have been trying to see them all before my companion leaves because no one out here has addresses. You just have to memorize were everyone lives. My companion has been here for 4 transfers, so there is a likely chance he will leave next transfer which will be in 3 weeks so we are trying to bust everything out in these next three weeks incase he leaves. On top of that, this mission just became an electronic mission a couple months ago. The problem is the Africans who were serving here don't know how to use area book and so they haven't transferred the records into area book. So I'll have to show my companion and District members how to use area book. We will have to transfer all of our paper records into area book. So we will be busy for awhile. We put two people on date to be baptized this week and so we had two baptisms on Saturday. We were joined with the zone leaders who had 3 people being baptized. So we had 5 total being baptized on Saturday. I was able to confirm one of them who understood English, and that was a good experience.

As you can see it has been a super crazy and busy week. But I am absolutely loving it out here. Although it is stressful at times, I know it is what I need to learn and to grow. I love you all so much  and hope you are all doing well. Have a great week this week!

Love Elder Morgan