From November 15, 2010: Baptism, Burgers, "Shape" Beads, Malaria

From November 15, 2010:  On Tuesday Elder Boyd was sick so I stayed at the apartment with him. It was a very long day full of nothing to do. I washed laundry, dishes, cooked, cleaned my room, and wrote several letters.  On Wednesday Elder Orchard and I stopped at the "African" shop and I bought a few things. The best lessons we taught were with Josephine and Sister Na with her brother Peter. They are smart, excited and serious about our message. On Thursday the Nungua Zone went to the temple in Accra. It was fun to see some more familiar missionaries. After the temple we had interviews with the mission president. While I was there I picked up some letters that had come in too.
A little later Elder Boyd, Elder Silika, Elder Orchard and I went into the touristy part of Accra and stopped to eat at this place called Frankie's. It's an upscale restaurant here serving Western food. The four of us ordered hamburgers for 15GC. The food took away the realization that we are in Ghana. On Saturday we baptized Josephine into the Church and was confirmed the next day. She brought her mother as well and we will be teaching her too. It was great bringing her into the church because she has the ability to help the church really grow here. We also saw a 90% pure naked grandma walking on the road.  The only thing she was wearing was some waist beads that are used to give "shape". We have seen plenty of topless women of all ages and children with no pants either bathing, going to the bathroom outside or just walking around, but this was the first time seeing something like this.  It was quite an experience.
On Sunday the highlight was having the new Miss Ghana, who is a member of our ward, give her testimony on the Young Women values and how they helped her win the pageant. After her, her father got up to praise her and how she is a good example to the rest of Ghana being a member of the church. The apartment is trying to talk to the sister missionaries in our district on how they can't teach people out of their area. It hasn't been going very well because when we try to talk to them they start to pout and walk away from us. It's frustrating because the maturity is much lower here and we can't get the importance of how the church is run using geographic locations for a reason.
The apartment made no-bakes last night, and I have to say they were amazing. I figure that we will have to make some more sometime soon. Now referring back to elder Boyd being sick; we have determined that he has malaria. He started taking the medication yesterday and has two days left. He looks like he is just waiting to die. We were able to buy him some soda and he has been taking that. There has been some news that the mission was sold fake malaria medicine so he is using the new stuff , and hopefully he will recover quickly.