Week 6 - Language, Callings & an Apostle visit

Hɛlo nnamfonom! Wo ho te sɛn? (Hello friends!  How are you?)

LANGUAGE & NAMES

Ghana is a multilingual country in which about eighty languages are spoken. Of these, English, which was inherited from the colonial era, is the official language and lingua franca (a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect). Of the languages indigenous to Ghana, Akan is the most widely spoken in the south. Dagbani is most widely spoken in the north. Ghana has more than seventy ethnic groups, each with its own distinct language.

Eleven languages have the status of government-sponsored languages. Of the three Akan ethnic languages, we hear these 2 the most: Akuapem Twi, Asante Twi.

We are loving Ghana!  We have so many incredible experiences happening daily that by the end of the day, our heads are spinning!  It's like learning a new language!  It really is fun to hear all the different languages spoken here.  Today in church, half of the meeting was in English and the other half in Twi.  We are gradually picking up more and more of the Ghanaian English that is being spoken.  I frequently ask them to spell their name for me so I can get it correct, because what we hear them say and their acutal name, sounds totally different! 

There are beautiful names here!  Here are a few of my favorites so far: Lucky, Gifty, Precious, Believe, Liberty, Enock & Esther.  A young employee we work with in the office for Humanitarian projects is named Ezra Taft Otoo.  Love the names!!!!

CHURCH

For our first 2 weeks, we attended the Christiansborg Ward that meets in a Stake center next to the Accra Temple.  We are in the Christiansborg Stake.  After the 2nd week, we were assigned to the Trade Fair Ward in the same stake.  Many senior missionaries are assigned to different stakes and travel much further than we do.  We are pretty fortunate and can get to our ward building in about 15 min. Our first Sunday was awesome.  We met with the stake president and bishop and they welcomed us heartily!  We were told to expect our assignments the next week.  Today, we met with the bishop and received our 3 assignments.  First, we have been asked to help find and reactivate many lost YSA (young single adults) who for one reason or another have stopped coming to church.  Our 2nd calling is to teach the Gospel Literacy Class in our ward. 

Gospel Literacy is a resource for all members who want to participate in home-centered, church-supported gospel learning. Gospel Literacy is part of Come, Follow Me. The Gospel Literacy Basics curriculum provides additional support to members who need to strengthen reading skills, basic gospel knowledge and participation in gospel living and service. The classes teach gospel topics together with reading, writing, teaching and organizing skills. The focus is to help each other live the words of God at progressively higher levels on the covenant path to eternal life. 

Our 3rd calling is to support the Relief Society and Elders Quorum in whatever they need.  As our local bishop Darkey-Collins put it, "I need you to beef up these organizations!"  It will be great to be a part of a local ward and find ways to lift and serve here!

As we walked up to the ward building today, 2 darling children ran to us and hugged us.  We introduced ourselves and discovered their names were Wendy (7) and Enock (9).  They followed us into church and promptly sat down right next to us.  Wendy began to stroke Jordan's hairy arms, laughing as she did so.  She giggled and then began braiding, actually braiding the hair.  It was hilarious!  She was quite adept at braiding this fairly short hair and in no time had a little mini braid sticking up on Jordan's arm.  I tried to take a pic of it but she quickly got shy and brushed it out.  They stayed by us the entire meeting.  At the end of the meeting, other members of the ward asked us who they were.  We had no idea!  They are either children from the neighborhood or came 2 hrs too early for the next ward that meets in the building.  

The church is growing so fast here in the Africa West Area, we heard that the equivalent of one ward a week is being baptized across the 17 countries.  The gospel is moving forward at lightening speed!

The road we take to church is so busy!  With cars and people on both sides, we can barely squeeze through!

APOSTLE VISIT

It's always awesome when an apostle visits your area!  Last week Elder Christofferson came to Accra, Ghana.  It was wonderful to hear him speak to the YSA and then again on Monday morning at our regular devotional.  His message is clear.  Love God first!  Then, everything else falls into place...or falls out of our lives. The Lord's will and vision is what we should be most interested in doing and knowing. 💓 

WEATHER

Today was the first day we could sorta see some sky!  We had a good rainstorm last night so maybe that helped to clear out some of the Harmattan dust.  Everyone says that one day you wake up and it has just disappeared!  Looking for that day!

Hwɛ yie! Ɔdɔ pii a wɔde fi Ghana remena!

(Take care! Sending much love from Ghana!)

Week 4 & 5 - Just Do it!!

It's been another wonderful week of incredible experiences!  

THOUGHT

A little message from last week's Sacrament meeting talks... First, let me explain that we are still having a very difficult time understanding everything fully, even though it is English that is being spoken! (Jordan says he understands maybe 20%, I feel like I understand at least 50%) 🤣  However, the beautiful Ghanaian people have pure hearts and share from the innermost depths of their love of God & Jesus Christ.  That language is translated perfectly!

Anyone remember the name Peter Vidmar?  Olympic medalist in 1984!  He spoke in April 1985 General Conference.  His message of Pursuing Excellence was shared in Sacrament meeting by several speakers.  Here are a couple of my thoughts and take-away.

    Greatest desire = Greatest chance of Success

    Pres. Kimball said, "Do it!"  & "Dont quit!"   

Don't just talk and dream about it! Whatever IT is....work harder than anyone else and give a little extra.  Just an extra 15 minutes can make a huge difference! Whatever you are trying to accomplish in important areas of your life, this small effort adds up to an additional 91 hrs a year!

"[I]...realize how serious my commitment to the Lord’s work must be if I am to receive God’s greatest gift. Indeed, it will take all of my talent, energy, and resources—my heart, might, mind, and strength—to earn and receive eternal life." 

SINGING

Can I just say that the Ghanaian Saints sing with every fiber of their being!!  The roof rattles and rumbles as they singing praises to God!  Truly, it is quite something to behold!

Meeting with Area Presidency

President Gifford Nielsen 

Elder Jorg Klebingat

SHOPPING

There are many places to shop in Accra.  Our first outing led by another sister missionary who knows the ropes, was to the Palace Mall (don't be confused by the name) to find much needed items such as a broom and mop, garbage cans and laundry basket, laundry soap and caulking (yes, our showers leak and no, the caulk did not fix the leak!), towels and miscellaneous food items to get us by for a couple of weeks until we could figure out what to cook here!  Cheese and eggs have been our best friend for the last couple of weeks.  

Our 2nd shopping trip was a solo adventure with no guide!  As we ventured out to what we thought was the next big place we needed to go, our GPS took us to a completely WRONG location where the store did not exist. Our goal was to find power strips and a hair dryer, and we were told the one main shop to get those is a place called Melcom.  I promptly put Melcom into the GPS and Melcom Mall came up, not too far from our home.  Having been to Palace "mall" I figured we were on the right track! Off we went, thinking we were doing pretty good!  After about 10 min and a couple of interesting turns, we came to a dead halt.  The GPS said, "you have arrived!"  What??? Traffic in front and behind, on each side and coming at us... we could not move.  We soon realized we were now completely surrounded by people... EVERYWHERE!  This was a market street/shopping district (Makola Market - interesting history of this market) of epic proportions and cars did not belong!  The people were as annoyed with us as we were with ourselves!  How did we get into this area of lockdown?  We had no choice but to sit it out, smile and wave and toss our hands in the area indicating we had no idea what we were doing.  That was pretty obvious!  After about 15 minutes, traffic started to creep forward.  We inched our way out of that predicament and headed off to another Melcom - this time Melcom Plus Shopping Center.  It took us 1 hr 15 min to get to the other Melcom (still not the correct one as we were later informed).  We found a few of our needed items and figured we had better get headed home.  To our surprise, now that traffic had lightened up, it only took us 14 min to get home.  Good grief!  We will gradually learn!!!

  MAKOLA MARKET!!!

ENTERTAINMENT

Our first official weekend in country that we weren't foggy jet-lagged, found us in a Movie Theater with 10 other missionary couples enjoying Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto! Although the theater was fairly old, was a little warm, and had sticky floors, our admission price of $4.75 per person and combo of small popcorn (choice of salty or sweet) and mini bottle of coke for $2.70 each, it was a bargain deal!!  And, we were the only ones in the theater!  Where can you go for movie, popcorn and drink for $7.45 each??  We are still working to figure out how to get some at home evening entertainment that is consistent, with spotty internet and "your region does not permit this programming" plaguing us, our VPN allows us pretty good watching range on Netflix and Prime Video.  So please send your suggestions and favorites!!

         

AQI

Harmattan has picked up a bit, causing the air quality to diminish significantly.  This weekend we saw the Air Quality Index hover around 350, which is in the hazardous range.  We will not be running outside anytime soon!  Jordan has taken to wearing a mask to limit the burn on his China scarred lungs!  Otherwise, we are still surprised at our lack of profuse sweating given the amount of heat and humidity that co-exist here.  Tender mercies in that we are handling the heat quite well!!!

PRICES

The cost of things varies here.  Interesting to me how different it can be worldwide.  Here is a little taste of Accra:

Eggs - 1 doz = $2.80  However, we have a little local gal at the office named "Lucky" that sells fresh eggs to us for $1.90 doz.  Quite a bargain price considering we left the U.S. with eggs rounding out at about $6 doz.

12 apples = $5.50, 1 lb ground beef = $4.50, 5 lbs flour = $4.35, 1 papaya = 40 cents, 1 power strip = $11.00, 200g butter = $4.00, 1 jar mayonnaise = $14.30, 1 full tank of diesel for our truck = $70

So, all in all, not too bad.  Looks like we will survive here!  

So grateful to all of you for your love and support!  We are heading into Week 3!  Time is flying by!  Take care and keep in touch!

Love, Cindy

                                              

        This guy was asleep on top of the cart while his buddy was driving!               

                                        

                                 Ditches along the roadside are DEEP!! 

                                   

   The fan type palms at the temple are way cool! Never seen anything like it!

Week 2 & 3 - Arrival, Highlights & Harmattan

  

                  

ARRIVAL

Hello from Ghana!  We have been in country for exactly one week...and oh what a ride it has been!

We had a great flight over with no complications or hiccups.  All 6 pieces of luggage arrived without a hitch.  The ALC (Area Legal Counsel) director, Richard Burton, picked us up at the airport and we were off and running.  Seems like a month ago already!  Brains were a little foggy for a few days while getting used to the jetlag.  

                  

Some of the highlights so far...

APARTMENT/NEIGHBORHOOD

We live in a 6 story apartment building on the 2nd floor.  Our apartment is quite nice and actually has individual room AC units!  We feel quite spoiled as many of the other missionary apts have "central air" which does not cool down as much as they would like.  So we will not complain about much else as Jordan and I love a cold climate, inside and out.  We have a washer/dryer combo unit which saves time unloading!  It does however take about 6 hrs for anything to come out dry once that process has begun!  Again, not complaining!  We also have a spare bedroom for anyone interested in visiting us!!  

We have a birdseye view of a boarding-highschool just below us.  There is always hustle and bustle going on below as they wash their clothes in buckets and hang them to dry.  They eat outside and play together outside.  What we assume is the marching band, practices every morning around 6:30 am in a field.  We can hear them drumming and making music every day.  It is a nice wake up call!!  Come see us and see what Ghana is all about!

              

                  

BED

Of course, the first thing you want is a bed that works for your comfort level.  We left our comfy mattress at home and ended up sleeping on a complete brick for the last 6 nights.  Yesterday, I ventured out with another gal here to find a foam topper, if it could be found!  And yes... after driving through small little market streets and being swarmed by beautiful young girls interested in us and why would would even be in this neighborhood, stopping occasionally to ask locals along the way if we were anywhere close to our destination - to which they just smiled and waved us on - we finally found a small little establishment that did not have our mattress topper!  But, the owner jumped in our car and directed us to another  location 15 min away and sure enough... We found a 3" foam topper!!!  It definitely made our sleep much more restful last night!  Hooray!  It may take us a couple of weeks to catch up on sleep after quite a  few restless and sleepless nights, tossing and turning to try and find a comfortable position!

FOOD

So far, the little Ghanaian food we have eaten has been fantastic!  We are still trying to figure out home-life and what to do for dinners, as we arrive home around 6 pm, tired from a long day.  We will get it figured out, but for now our quick meals have consisted mostly of sandwiches, fruit and vegetables.  The fruit is to die for here....so sweet and tasty!  We have found this to be the case in most countries we have been to.  Very fresh produce.

A missionary couple here that knows the ropes, told us about Whopper Wednesday at Burger King!  Yes, there is one, only about 20 min away from us.  So, this past Wednesday, we ventured out for lunch together and although not quite what you would expect, it was a little taste of home to make us smile!

TRANSPORTATION

We received our vehicle a few days after arriving.  We have a smart little white Toyota truck to get us to and from the office and around and about.  We have officially named him "Squeaky" because the back cover rubs agaisnt the cab and serenades us wherever we go!  I will be looking for some felt pads to integrate into the set up for sure!  But, we have a vehicle...so I'm not complaining!!!  As we were walking out to the parking lot to be assigned our vehicle, we passed a truck that was demolished on the side and the bumper was hanging on the ground.  The transportation manager shook his head and said, "This missionary ran into a cow... please don't do that!"  We will do our best!  The driving situation here is a riot!  It is basically a free for all with cars and motorbikes zipping in and out and all around.  You definitely need to be on your toes while driving here.  I quite like it though!!  One thing to be cautious of are the 2 ft deep ditches along the narrow roads.  I hear a few missionaries have driven into them accidentally, but within no time at all, their vehicle was surrounded by Ghanaians who lifted them back out.  Quite amazing actually!

WORK

We hit the office bright and early Monday morning.  There were many administrative items to get done.  Jordan had blood drawn at the military base a few blocks down the way.  He said it was a loong, hot walk, but the phlebotomist was spectacular and he didn't feel a thing!  Then we both walked several blocks in the opposite direction to get our resident status and identification cards.  Then back to the office for laptop and phone set-up.  We now carry 2 phones - 1 Android for work and our iPhone for personal.  Our office is cozy and we bump knees when turning from our desks to coordinate or chat!  The Accra Temple stands brightly out our office window against the gray skies that are typical this time of year - Harmattan.  If I could only get the blinds to stay up!!  So far, our work has consisted of training and learning the ropes from the current AALC's (Associate Area Legal Counsel) and handling some of the new things that are popping up.  There is a definite learning curve and we have much to do here on the legal side of things with the church.  Who knew??  

 

HARMATTAN & WEATHER 

The Harmattan is a dry, dust-laden continental wind which has its origin in the Bodélé Depression in the Chad basin. In Ghana the Harmattan can be experienced from November to March.

Our weather fluctuates from 90-92 degrees with a humidity level of 70-93%.  Having the humidity level so high makes it feel around 96-98 degrees.  However, we seem to be managing the heat and humidity pretty well!  

Soooo much more to tell but I will wait for next week!  We are alive and thriving!  We are grateful to be here serving in Accra, Ghana and look forward to many adventures and growth along the way.  

Much love from Ghana,

Cindy