Chicken Noodle Soup

Dear America,

Wow, congratulations to Porter! That's a big deal. Also, thanks for the blurb from Elder Renfroe about President and Sister Cosgrave. It's all true.

Ghana's independence day is today. It isn't much of a big deal here yet. Meh. On Monday this week I made chicken noodle soup. It was authentic, except it was missing celery because celery doesn't exist here. Elder Nuamah tried some and became the first Ghanaian I've ever met who liked any American food. But it turns out that he doesn't like the soup, he just likes the noodles. So kind of. Everyone else I gave it to didn't like it. I took some pictures but they don't want to send this week so maybe next time.

Elder Nuamah told the story of Jonah this week in church and made me laugh. He said that God called Jonah to go teach in Nkawkaw, Ghana. But he was enjoying his life in New York. Why would he go to Ghana? He even went to the extent to run away from New York so that the voice of God would stop disturbing him. He took a flight, but the plane crashed over the ocean and Jonah was swallowed by a whale. The way he told it was so passionate. Nobody else laughed, but I enjoyed it.

This week I was on an exchange with another Elder. We were walking along the roadside when a taxi stopped near us and one of my investigators got out. We haven't been able to contact her in a while. She's been avoiding us. So I called out her name and waved. She looked up, saw me, and ran to the other side of the street and out of sight. She didn't look back. Sweet is the work.

We went to a part of our area that everyone calls "Captain Jesus" because of the large, noisy Captain Jesus prayer camp there. We met a lot of our less-active members there. So now we know where to find them. One man was looking at us funny when we walked past the prayer camp, so we stopped and asked him if we could help him. He said he was one of the pastors at the prayer camp and he was baptized forever ago in Cape Coast. But somebody offended him in the Church and he left and now he's an assistant pastor. Ahhhh. Don't ever be stupid and leave the Church over some perceived offense. A lot of people here get offended because the Church doesn't pay for their family's funerals (it's a huge deal to them) and they end up leaving the Church despite every effort to help them be sensible. So now we have a running joke in the apartment that "It's like someone didn't come to your funeral!" meaning that you're offended over nothing.

Life is sweet.

Love, Elder Nelson