Scorpions and False prophets

Photo and Caption by Mission President:
"Twenty-one new missionaries arrived.
Twenty elders and one sister."

Monday was an absolute blast! In the morning the Cape Coast Zone and Hermina Zone got together to play soccer against the Hermina ward members.

It was a lot of fun except some of the poly elders were getting a little too into it. Granted the members were playing really rough, so Elder Gasolo (He's Samoan) just trucked a kid and layed him out, and no sooner had the kid hit the ground Elder Gasolo picks him up and stood him on his feet. That kid is freaking huge and get's a little riled up in sports.

After that we went back and did laundry and prepped for the week. I found Nutella! But it's like 47 cedis! Yeesh!

Tuesday we had Zone conference, there we discussed various things involving the chain of command and communication, the paths in which we should follow. And various little other things, but that was the main one. I also received my first package from home! It's so nice to finally see something American. :)

Photo and Caption by Mission President:
"On Saturday, members of the Church
all across Africa participated in a day
of service.  Each stake was asked to plan
a significant project that would benefit
their community. The Cape Coast Stake
provided much needed landscape
maintenance and cleaning at the
psychiatric hospital.  There was a
wonderful turnout of the members
and they did beautiful work.
The missionaries participated along
with the members of the Church."

Wednesday was a really busy day. We had lots of lessons and lots of member visits. We gained 2 new investigators! One of them named Josephine is an absolute crack up, because she tries to act like she already knows a lot about the church and then refers to people like Muhammad as prophets.... So we're working on sorting through which facts go for which religion and then expounding on the correct ones. On our way home from teaching Josephine, Sister Sopa stopped us and invited us in for rice. She is always trying to feed us which is nice, but sometimes she gives us a little too much food, and here it's impolite to not finish your food.... So we have to finish it. :)

Thursday was a day of very little success. The day started out great with our weekly planning session and getting things squared away for the day. When we were out all of our appointments were not home or asleep and not ready for us. Plus Festival is coming up soon and so people are getting ready for that and are really busy. It's hard to be productive when all you can do is wander the streets trying to find someone that'll give you the time to visit. Then again, Heavenly Father gives us challenges to help us grow and learn new things. So the best we can do is be patient and do all that we can and rely on the Lord. :)

Photo and Caption by Mission President:
No Shortage of Bugs!

Friday we had exchanges, so I spent the day with Elder Mapfumo. He's only been out for just over 4 months. He is a phenomenal scriptorian and has his doctrine down. But he likes to debate everything and prove that he's right no matter what. Which can be difficult when an investigator thinks they're right... But you can learn something from every companion! Overall the day went pretty great. It was nice to proselyte in a new area and go places I had never been before. Lately I've been studying Charity, since it's the root for all other Christ-like attributes. If we have charity, then we can have everything else. :)

Saturday was pretty similar to Thursday's productivity. Nearly all of our appointments fell through and so did our back ups. We stayed out for the full proselyting time though, even though it wasn't fruitful, but guess what! We got a new investigator right before it was time to head home. His name is Benjamin and he seems really enthusiastic about learning about the gospel.

Photo and Caption by Mission President:
"President Fokuo surprised us with a
fufu dinner with Talapia in Palm Nut Soup.
He is always so kind.  It was very delicious.
I like fufu, but it is still difficult for me to
eat it.  You have to dip your fingers in very
hot soup.  I usually just pick around
at the top until the soup cools
enough for me to dig in.
I admire those who have trained
their fingers to ignore the pain."

Also earlier that morning we went and played soccer with some of the members at a local school. While I was waiting to sub in I looked over and saw a huge greenish black scorpion! Eeesh!! Elder Mapfumo started ticking it off by poking it with a stick, but then this big guy came over, used 2 sticks like chop sticks to pick it up, tossed it in the air, and then drop kicked it into the trees! Man these people are crazy.

Sunday was exactly one month since leaving home! I couldn't believe it has already been that long! It doesn't feel like it. Every day I experience something new about the African culture that just blows me away, but I just need to realize that I'm the visitor here, and that their ways are normal here.

Only one of four of our investigators came to church today... I really wish they would keep their commitments. We finally got a referral today! We met him and his name is Alfred and found that he only speaks Fante, so we'll need a translator to teach him. But he was really engaged and seems really promising.

So it was a week filled with ups and downs, but if there were no ups and downs in life then you'd be dead. :)

~Elder Park