From April 18, 2011: On Monday the apartment went to the Art Market. The market consists of what a person thinks of when they think Africa culture. I bought some bamboo bracelets and necklaces as well as a mask and a panting. The shop keepers drive up the prices. Thankfully we have been living in the African environment so we know what the prices should actually be and then negotiate down. There were some other white people there from Holland and some students and professors from Utah State and I'm sure they got ripped off. In the mind of a person still used to the cost of living in a first world country the prices at the market still sound like an okay deal, but because the standard of living is much lower here so are the cost of things so when we come across an item sold in the states with the inflated "American Quality" price, it gets expensive (25GHC for a bottle of face wash).
On Tuesday the McCarthy Zone (A Zone is comprised of a number of districts which is comprised of several areas each worked b attended the Temple so that was a refreshing experience. As a mission we used to go every three months, but now it has been changed to every six which is too bad.
On Wednesday Elder Gagnon and I visited some members, the Mensahs. They are an educated family with a son on a mission. I enjoy socializing with the members because we get more of the culture and it earns their trust which we need as missionaries.
Thursday we were notified that Elder Keeng and Elder Omale were released from prison after the judge of the retrial acknowledged that the original judge was biased and bribed to rule in favor of the prosecution.
Friday Elder Gagnon and I were visiting our investigator, Mercy. Mercy told us a dream she wanted us to interpret: she was in a field containing onions as far as she could see-- that's it. Elder Gagnon and I were expecting a bit more ourselves and were suprised that it was the end of the dream. In Ghana there is a lot of emphasis on dreams and what they mean.
On Saturday we met a man named Michael that called us wanting to meet with us. We found his house and he told us that he had met with missionaries from the church over a year ago and had some of the books we give out. He had been reading them frequently and decided it was time to get in contact again. It was a highlight to the week because it had gone downhill after the temple. From the experience I learned that while we won't baptize many of the people we teach here, there will be many people in their own time like Michael that will be more ready after they have let the message sit and develop over the course of their life. We extended a date to Michael and he came to church the next day where he said he felt at home.
On Sunday the power was still out from the previous night making the night hot and uncomfortable. It was a bit discouraging for us because we had rain last week and power outage this. The reason for this is when there is rain the people don't go out and if there is no light and something like church the attendance is lower because they are unable to iron their clothes and don't like to go to church with wrinkles. However the light was only out in our area so our investigators still came to church. After church we visited our investigators, Comfort and Emmanuela who were watching The Legend Of The Seeker. For some reason the people here really love the show, all of the movies here are pirated from China with 16 different movies on a single disk. Comfort and Emmaluela fed us before a short lesson. When we returned home the light came on, but went out again because of a big rain storm that brought a nice cool front in. The light came back on before we went to bed which was nice.
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