Culture

Hey everyone!

Elder Mbuyi and I had another great week this past week! We have been working hard to learn our area and to really push the work forward. We leave early in the morning and don't come back until it's dark so we have some long days. But we are starting to see the fruits of our efforts! We have 4 people on date to be baptized on the 4th of July and are planning to get another 2 as well. The area is finally starting to pick up which is great. It just shows you the power of diligently working. That right there is the secret to missionary work. Like I said we are enjoying our area, we have now been to see all our area so we know which areas are good and which aren't so good. 

We have gotten the chance to meet so many great people. That's the part I love about what I do is that every day I meet so many great people. People with different backgrounds and cultures. We have become really good friends with a lot of people. For instance one of the people we contacted, his name is brother bright. Brother Bright is a stud and has become one of our good friends. He tells us that we are like family now Haha and so we have a good relationship. He isn't a member of the church yet and so last night we were talking about his future a bit. You know like what his plans were, especially with marring his girlfriend. Let me just say first that in west Africa many people do not get married, they will just live with their girlfriend/boyfriend and the reason being is that weddings are very expensive out here. As we were talking with brother bright he told us that he has been trying to marry his girlfriend for the past 6 months but in Ghana or really west Africa. When a man wants to marry a woman. The parents of the woman give the man a long list of things to buy. The man has to buy all of these things in order to marry the woman. If the man can't buy everything then the parents won't give their blessing for the wedding.  Out here culture is everything, and people take it very seriously. Back in America, some people just say screw it and will get married without their parents knowing, haha but that is definitely not the case out here. They don't want to disappoint their parents because their parents would never forgive them if they did that. In fact everyone would look down on them if they just said they were getting married without the typical ceremony. I thought that was Interesting and explains why we as missionaries deal with a lot of unmarried individuals.

We had a mission devotional on Monday with two members of the 70 and it was the first all mission conference since Covid started! Which was exciting because we haven't been able to all be together in a long time. The devotional was great, I learned a lot and the spirit was very strong. Due to the devotional being on Monday we got our preparation day moved to Wednesday. And we found out tomorrow my companion has to go to Accra to get some vaccinations and so I'll be at the mission home until Friday. But we have a busy couple weeks coming up! We will be getting our friends ready for baptism and continue to push forward. I still think it's crazy we are already half way through June. The time is starting to go by really fast. 

I hope all y'all are doing great back home. I hope you guys are having fun now that school is out and summer has officially began. I love you all and hope you guys have a great week this week!

Love Elder Morgan