Abnormal

Dear America,

Transfers happened this week. I took Elder Austin to Kumasi and came back with Elder Robson and some other members of the zone. I spent eighteen hours on a bus. It was a nice bus, though, so I wasn't even annoyed. It took two days to go down and come back. It was nice to see Kumasi again. After I arrived at the mission home, I went to teach a little bit with one of the APs. Other than that, the trip was relatively uneventful, which is good. it was better than last time, when the bus broke down:P 

Elder Robson is a Nigerian. He's from the Akwa Ibom state, which is at the very south next to the ocean. He's a lot of fun to be around because he's always laughing and being friendly with people. He's an experienced missionary--he only has a few months left to go home. He has only served in Kumasi for the whole time, though, so he's used to the bigger city and not the far extremities of the mission (like Tamale). When he met the branch president, the branch president told us that Tamale was abnormal. So whenever somebody does something funny, we just call it "abnormal" and laugh about it.

We've come into contact with an unusual amount of pastors lately.... I came up with a theory that God wants us to baptize pastors so that the Church in Tamale will have a strong foundation of committed members. The harder they are to catch, the more they are worth catching, I guess. 

I passed my one-year mark this week. I had a huge celebration by drinking an extra cup of cold water and turning my fan up to the #2 setting. Woot woot. 

Love, Elder Nelson

Enter: Pastor Son

Dear America,

This week turned out to be somehow uneventful. It was the week before transfers, so we had a district activity to celebrate with one of the missionaries that is going home. We ate at Chuck's, the nicest restaurant in Tamale (if you're a foriegner). Elder Austin and I saved and scrounged our sub for weeks to be able to pay for this. We got a real cheese burger and some sort of calzone. They were so good. The calzone was loaded with cheese. Real cheese. In Ghana. FYI I have never ever ever had real cheese since I left America--or milk, for that matter. So this was a huge deal. That's why we saved for weeks to be able to afford it. 

Anyways it was really good. But we suffered for it. Elder Austin got sick for a few days after we ate it. He was down and out for a while. I wasn't sick, but I did get to do some extra study and clean up the apartment a little and take a nap. Unfortunately, that stuff doesn't make for an exciting email. Sorry.

I'm not getting transferred. Instead, I'll be staying here and getting a new companion. Elder Robson from Nigeria. My little American companion stint is over--back to Africans. It was kind of a relief to have an American companion for a while, but I think that I'll enjoy going back to African. Americans just don't make sense sometimes. Haha I've loved being with Elder Austin.

In response to questions from Mom: 

Do you ever eat cat or dog? I know for a fact that there is a place in the area that sells dog meat, but I haven't eaten there yet. Frankly, I can't name some of the types of meat that I've eaten. Sometimes it's just better not to ask. It was worse at the beginning, but it gets to a point where you don't care as much.

Do you ever use the little cookbook? Yeah, it's useful if I want to make some American food. I need recipes for potatoes. Give me a few different kinds of potato recipes because there are people here who want me to show them how to eat potatoes. 

What was the most helpful thing that you learned to cook before your mission? Well.... cooking is different here. I don't know how much carried over. 

I'm not really planning anything at all for my one-year mark. I'm lame. I might make some fajitas or something. That would be sweet. I've been working on writing Christmas letters for the family. They'll get there eventually.

Lesson one with the pastor and his son was interesting. I prayed and prayed for a miracle to happen. We studied and prayed and studied some more in anticipation of this specific lesson. I went in with complete faith that we would see miracles. And we did, although it wasn't the way that we were expecting. We gave it to them pretty straightforward; we explained about the apostasy and restoration so that there could be no misunderstanding. Big boss pastor dad at least understood the implications. We had the district president, who is a returned missionary, with us and he bore a powerful testimony with the two of us. In the end, pastor dad listened but refused to read the Book of Mormon or even accept a copy of it. 

Enter: pastor son. Emmanuel (the son) was the one who originally invited us to teach. So far, the lessons have been going way over his head. I don't know how he was ever planning to be a pastor. It's been kind of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other with him up to this point. BUT HE UNDERSTOOD. He got what we were saying this time. That is a miracle. And he accepted it. He said that he believes that the Book of Mormon is true. He prayed about it and had a dream, so now he says that he knows that everything we're saying is true. Not only that, but he has compelled us to give him a lot of restoration pamplets to give to his friends. He wants to share the message with all of them and give them all copies of the Book of Mormon. It's exciting. We've seen a huge turnaround in his perception since we started teaching him. 

And his father invited us over to have banku tonight. We're still friends, so everything is cool there. We're hoping that Emmanuel will gain a strong testimony and conversion and then begin working on his father. But that's really long-term.

Have a great week! Elder Nelson

P.S. I finally found cinnamon here! So I don't think I'll need more for a while. The only thing I've thought of so far to send in a package is gallon-sized ziploc bags. Other than that, I'm still trying to wrack my brain.

Fire Festival

Dear America,

The week started off with a bang. Literally several bangs. The Muslim fire festival went from Mondayevening on into Tuesday. We've been hearing a lot of buildup to this one. It was rumored to involve fireworks, guns, black magic (basically Satan worship), fire-walking, beatings, anti-Christian killings, etc. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT ME I WAS PERFECTLY SAFE. So all of the missionaries in Tamale were instructed to stay in our apartments and go into lock down after we finished zone council in the morning. Well it was super super anti-climactic. We heard a few fireworks and gunshots, but as soon as it started to come up to the time of the actual festival, the rain clouds appeared and dumped a nice monsoon on their parade. So the whole event got thrown off for the most part, from what I can tell. The Christians were happy. We've haven't heard too much more about it.

We also went on a double exchange with the zone leaders in our area this week, so we got twice as much work done and that made up for the day that we didn't do anything.

We've been able to teach big boss pastor dad from last week's letter a few more times. There's been a lot of progress. We've moved from mainly teaching his son in front of him and now he's been seriously asking us questions. He's really sensible. He was especially interested when we explained the Book of Mormon to him, and he caught on quickly to what we were saying. We've developed a relaxed amiable friendship with him, which is a far cry from his first few interactions with missionaries. This week we're going to go and lay out the restoration and all about the apostasy and Joseph Smith, but we feel well prepared and we're praying for the best.

Best story of the week involves Elder Austin, an emergency trip to a member's bathroom, a sudden realization, and a handbook that is now two pages shorter than it should be.

Love, Elder Nelson

I've Already Read That

Dear America,

This week we met some interesting people. We had several unexpected instances where people stopped us on the side of the road and asked us to come and teach them. And not just because we're white. One of them had read the restoration pamphlet before because she saw it and borrowed it from her sister. I don't know how she knew that we were the ones to talk to about it. She said that she just saw us and felt like she should ask us to know more. And then we pulled out a pamphlet to give to her and she said "I've already read that!" We taught her later in the week and she seems like she'll really progress quickly.

Another boy that we've been teaching is the son of one of the major pastors here in town. In the past, his father has confronted missionaries and tried to tear down their faith. It hasn't really worked, but he has always seemed kind of edgy around us. We pass their door often to see a member in the same compound. His son (who is a pastor in training) asked us to come and share something with him. We had a short lesson about what we believe about Jesus Christ. The big boss pastor dad sat quietly across the room for a while and then eventually pulled his chair over to our circle. We were expecting some serious contention from him, but he just sat and listened intently for the rest of the lesson. We finished, asked if we could come back, and left all without him saying a word. When we returned, we taught about the plan of salvation. The father was there the whole time. The boy pastor was asking us some basic questions that seemed like poor attempts to catch us in our words while his father again sat quietly and listened to our explanations. As the lesson progressed, he began to contribute a few words at a time. At one point, his son wasn't understanding the vital nature of the Fall of Adam and Eve. Big boss pastor dad, who had been paying attention to what we were teaching, stopped us and laid out the doctrine plainly to his son. Elder Austin and I smiled at each other and built on his explanation. For the rest of the lesson, the father seemed to be more on our side than that of his son. I'm not sure what's going to come out of it yet, but we're praying for the best. We're still trying to figure out how to handle him.

On a different occasion, we had a slightly less inspirational exchange of words with a Muslim who decided to forcibly stop his wife from coming to church. She has been a member for quite a while, and he's always allowed her to come. He's a super less active Muslim, so he pretty much didn't care. But his wife visited another member's house  for longer than he expected a few weeks ago, leaving her house empty, and she stopped coming to church since. When we went to investigate, he told us never to come back and never to have her come to church again. We weren't happy about that. Women are treated like property in the culture here. It sucks. I never want to be like that when I get home.

We did service at a blood drive on Saturday and got soaked by a huge rainstorm on Friday and ate a really weirdly shaped lemon from our tree out front. So life is normal.

Well I feel like I'm becoming a better missionary a little bit at a time.

Love,

Elder Nelson

Live Conference!

Dear America,

This week was pretty cool. It was unusually difficult to teach a lot, which made the week kind of slow, but general conference made everything better. I got to watch everything except for the women's session and the Sunday afternoon session. I EVEN GOT TO WATCH THE SUNDAY MORNING SESSION LIVE. While it was really happening. At the same time as you (4:00 pm for me). I love to be able to feel the spirit so strongly while I listen to conference. In the priesthood session there was a talk given by Elder Curtis which mentioned the exact place that I am in right now. President Ofosu-hene (mentioned in the talk) was the district president here for a while, as well as the regional police commander. He's since moved to Kumasi to be the regional police commander for all of the Ashanti region and the Brong-ahafo region. Which is a huge deal. If the missionaries have problems with the police, we call him and he talks to the policemen. Then we don't have problems. It's super cool. One time the missionaries were driving to Paga when the tro was stopped by some corrupt policemen who wanted the white men to give them money (actually pretty common here). They wouldn't let the tro past until the missionaries paid up, but Elder Gibson called President Ofosu-hene and gave the phone to the policeman. He got pale (as pale as a black man can get) and gave a lot of "yes, sir", "no, sir" chatter and then promptly let the tro past. Life in Ghana is all about who you know. But aside from that, he's done a lot to build up the church here in Tamale.

I enjoyed the fact that most of the conference talks were centered around repentance and its relationship to the Atonement and the plan of salvation. Repentance is something that always applies to every one of us, no matter our circumstances. One thing I'm learning on my mission is how to better repent. Continual improvement is a gift from God, that's for sure. 

This week we made pancakes and crepes in the apartment. They were good, except we didn't really have anything to put on top of the crepes. So we just ate them plain. We've been on a really strict budget this week in order to help pay for an upcoming zone activity.

Elder Nelson

Additional info from surprise e-mail exchange:

What’s your new companion’s personality like? Does he remind you of anyone we would know? What are your primary methods of finding people to teach? Which ones are working the best in your new area?

He reminds me of every geeky band kid that you ever knew. He's super fun. We get along really easily because we have a lot of the same background. My primary methods of finding people to teach are (1) being righteous and letting those that God has prepared fall into place, (2) becoming really well acquainted with the members of the branch so they feel comfortable introducing people to us, and (3) watching for opportunities to serve people as we walk and usually NOT giving a whole lesson on my first interaction with someone.

I'm in an 80% Muslim community. Christmas doesn't really matter here, even if you are a Christian. Although the festival of fire is coming up, which is super dangerous because of all the violence and black magic and shooting, etc.... The missionaries weren't allowed to proselyte on that day last year. That's a bigger holiday than Christmas.

Do you ever feel like things are dangerous? Do you think it’s harder or easier to talk to people because you are white / american?

Not really dangerous. Just inconsiderate and generally not well thought out. If there is a dangerous situation, we've always been warned by the Spirit before we get into any real trouble. People just try to take advantage of us a lot. 

It's easier to get people to talk to because we're white, but generally those who are readily available to talk to us aren't serious at all about important things. They just want money or something like that. So it has its advantages and disadvantages.

What restrictions do you have regarding Muslims? Has your impression of Muslims changed? Have you found kind and generous Muslims?

We cannot teach a Muslim unless they are first interviewed by the zone leaders to make sure that all parties involved are free from danger. In Muslim law, infidels are free game to be killed without discretion. But it's not as bad here because you have bunch of less-active Muslims living with a bunch of less-active Christians. So they're bound to get along. All religion here is pretty watered-down and mixed with traditionalism, so yes, there are a lot of nice people, Muslim or not.

how much cooking do you do per week? Do you ever eat with members of the church? Can you ever eat somewhere, or do you have to be careful?

We eat more with members here than anywhere else I've been, about two or three times a week. Other than that, it's our own cooking for breakfast and lunch most of the time. Occasionally we buy from shops on the street, but that's usually just small food like fried yam or other semi-filling snacks.