From May 2, 2011: Wednesday started off great! Elder Gagnon and I started our day by going out to our investigator, Michael Sarpong and on the way to pick a tro tro we passed a sewer waste collection truck. It was working on extracting rotting feces from a place we pass everyday accompanied with it's usual foul smell. On this occasion the removal of such things created the worst smell I have ever come in contact with in my entire life. I resorted to only breathing though my mouth, but was still able to smell it. We went to the main road, looking for a car, we passed a fully naked man sitting on the side of the road making the number of fully naked adults 2. (There are too many partially naked people here to count.) Shortly after we saw a man wearing a BYU shirt and a tro tro that had a decal "Bobastic" on the windshield making it a great morning.
Thursday we visited The Aboagye family. Brother Aboagye ended up talking to us for an hour on how the eldest son doesn't want to listen to the advice the father gives him because he wants to make money in life and father is very poor. It was an interesting conversation and I likened it to my family. My father has always gave us financial and personal advice, but because of our pride with judging how is life is currently we shun his attempts to connect with us and develop a better bond. Looking back I have a lot of empathy towards my father who is single, and trying to make his way in life, but like Jonathan Aboagye my siblings and I don't acknowledge his hand reaching out to us. We all have challenges in life so we can never compare another life to ours. When I go home I hope that I will be able to rebuild my relationship with my father. Looking back all of my knowledge of him is a little before my parents were married, during the time when they were and some portions here and there after they divorced. I figure the best way for that to happen is to start to learn more about each other and develop true friend relationship.
Saturday Elder Gagnon and I went to visit this wealthy family in our ward named the Annors. The compound is owned by the grandparents. The grandfather, who is one of the few members of the family who is not a member, used to be an assistant Governor in some place in Ghana and worked for the Bank Of England and the Bank Of Ghana. The compound itself was made up of three large houses with around five cars. They also had a lawn mower. The grandchildren who live in the place are quite unaware how great they have it in Ghana. There are a few people in the country that are this wealthy, but for the majority of people here there living situation here can't compare to people back in the states. They are a great family and it was a great opportunity to visit with them. Before we left they served us warm banana bread so that was great. When we left the house we went down to a woman we have been teaching that sells coal where she served us beans and plantain making it a tasty meal and bringing us back into real Ghana. Later that night we were collecting Abigail Yenfo's information for baptism when we were trying to spell her name. She proceeds to get three Official documents of Ghana where the spelling was different for each one. I felt like the experience summed up the functionality of Ghana's government. It takes forever to get something done in the public sector and when there is something planned the government official in sectors such as the post office, the electric, water and other various offices request a bribe before the item is processed.
Sunday was a good day as well. The ward had their recorded viewing of General Conference so we traveled to another larger church building to bring the wards in one place. it was a pleasant surprise to have seven investigators at church because of the extended travel time and cost to get to the other building. The conference here is watched as a recording and the presiding athority determines what blocks of conference to watch. As result we watched the Saturday afternoon two hour block and the Sunday morning block back to back making church four hours. For the Saturday block we watch the BYU-Idaho choir sing getting me excited to return and go back to school. I think I saw a guy I worked with in the choir as well. There were other missionaries there from the surrounding areas as well so I was able to meet up with my trainer, Elder Orchard. It was fun to talk to him about life and such.
No comments:
Post a Comment