Castles, Halloween, and Officially Trained :)

The Castle!

Training finished Sunday! I am no longer a trainee. :)

Monday was crazy busy as usual, but it was so much fun too! Our day started out with the usual, but for our zone activity we went to the Cape Coast castle! It's nearly 400 years old and it's really cool. We did some service by cleaning and sweeping some places. The owner is a member so he let us in for free and gave us a guided tour. I learned so much about the slave trade that I had never known before, and all of it is really sad. What those people went through was way more than anyone should bare. Aside from that the castle was phenomenal.

The Castle

The activity ended later than we thought it would, so washing and cleaning didn't happen. We changed and emailed. Emailing became a hassle due to the power going out mid-way through. We finished the night visiting and setting appointments with our investigators.

The Castle

Tuesday's district meeting was good as always. We discussed about referrals. That is the one thing we are really suffering with. We haven't had a referral for nearly 8 weeks.... which is kind of sad.

The Crew

After, we went to DIS for my companion's shoulder check-up, and what they prescribed him cost over 100 Ghana Cedis!?! What kind of meds are these?!

Our productivity has been going up. We taught 3 of our recent converts and an investigator.

Prison window :)

The days of mission life are so long.... and yet the weeks just fly by. Same thing as Tuesday, Wednesday our productivity was good. The Lord is answering our prayers for sure. Little by little people are willing to listen to our message. We taught 3 more Recent Converts and Less Actives along with Emmanuel's  family. They are slightly progressing, I think.... It's hard to tell since they are actively engaged when we're there, but they keep very few commitments. :/ The power went out early in the afternoon, which made teaching a bit harder for the evening, but we still had success.

The Castle

Thursday morning I made pancakes for breakfast. Which means the day will automatically be good. ;) We had a really good weekly planning session. I had Kokonte for lunch (aka "face the wall"). It's like fufu, but not....

We were able to teach more of our recent converts and we were able to teach Justice! He hasn't given us time for nearly 2 weeks! So it was so nice to be able to see him.

This is what America should do!

Friday was a really long day, but it was a good day. :) Christian was our first stop, and he had lots of deep questions about the creation and the fall. His testimony grows each and every day. :) We taught some less-actives and they promised to come to church..... Let's hope they come. We had a wonderful discussion about prayer with Emmanuel's family. He's been praying but doesn't know how to listen for answers. So we helped him know how the Holy Ghost works. :)

Happy Halloween!

We had Fufu for lunch. Lots of our appointments fell through, which is to be expected. A tailor named John, so John 'Tailor' is a non-member friend of ours and is amazing with a sewing machine. He made us some African wear shirts that look really good! He's a nice kid. I think I'll have him make some other shirts for me. :)

Happy Halloween! What a good day. Saturday morning we went to Elmina and played football with the other Elders from Bakano and Elmina and their members. I got to catch up with my TC Elder Maendesa. He's from Zimbabwe and a great guy.

This is how we Trick-or-Treat

Halloween-wise people don't celebrate it here. So I did my own trick-or-treating by buying some sweets from a member's little candy stand. Surprisingly, only one person fell through today, so success was amazing for once! My companion wanted to learn how to make Banana bread, so we made some after we got back to the apartment. :)

photo and caption
from Mission President:
"We don't have lions and tigers
and giraffes and hippos in Ghana,
but we do have cute little antelope.
I have never seen one alive,
but the hunters stand by the side
of the road and dangle them for
passing motorists to buy for food.
I'm told they are very tasty."

Fast Sundays are both lovely and slightly uncomfortable. But they're worth it. As long as you have a solid purpose that actually means something to you, then fasting becomes easy.

The weather has been rainy lately, which is nice because it brings the temperature down. We visited every single Investigator, Less Active, and Recent Convert and only got one lesson, which was with Benjamin. We haven't been able to meet with him for almost 3 weeks. So it was good that we were able to see him. Aside from him the day was filled with walking. And then we closed by helping Mami Sopa pound Fufu, which is a lot of work, but it tastes great when you're done. :)