Dying to Stay in Kumasi!

Hey family!

Yeah we did have a conference with President Dickson! It was really cool and he and his wife just talked about their past experiences and stuff and then he talked about how the church is like a tree and the branches are members but the roots are like the priesthood. So when we get new members, we need to make sure the priesthood/leaders are supporting everything, or else the tree would collapse. That's basically the jist of what I understood. But it was sweet because it was catered by "Kay-tee" which is a REALLY awesome fried rice chop bar in town and Elder Hernandez hooked us all up ;)

Sweet! I look forward to receiving those 3 packages! You guys are the best!

Yeah our apartment is in a compound. There's not really any apartments in Ghana period. Everything is gated and walled (or at least most everything) and about 90% of walls have barbed wire on top. People are super serious about thieves haha.

There's usually 3 types of places you can stay:

Compounds- Two or more buildings just split into different housings that is gated and fenced off.
Hostels- Usually temporary housing for college students
Houses- Some people actually have legit houses all to themselves, they're also usually fenced off and gated.

Yeah that would be sweet if you sent me recipes! We usually don't have much time to cook stuff, but it would be nice to have options. As for ingredients we have most basics; sugar, salt, flour, baking powder, etc... but as for like spices and stuff we are limited. It's usually easy to find cinnamon and nutmeg. As for anything else I'm honestly not sure, I've never had to check before haha. For fruits we have: Plantain, bananas, oranges, mangoes, pears (avocado, they call it pears), and apples (apples are super expensive! 1 CEDI FOR 1 APPLE!) As for other things we have: Cassava, yams, and uhh.....yeah I don't know honestly haha.

Our translations have slowed down due to lack of time, but they're still coming along. We are slowly learning some of Twi's syntax and how they form their sentences.

My shoes are still doing wayyy awesome. A lot of missionaries go through shoes really fast, but none of them have had Ecco. Everyone I know who has Ecco their shoes are still doing fine. I can't notice any wear in them other than a couple nicks on the front where I've tripped on rocks about 10 times a day hahaha.

Yeah our stuff gets wayyyyy dirty way fast. But it's all good. You can tell who's been out here longer just by looking at their clothes. Luckily our stuff will get dirty slower now since it's heading headfirst into rainy season! Rains just about every other day now! Usually at night so it's all good.

As for Kumasi, yeah I know the new mission home will be in Kumasi since the new mission will be the Ghana Kumasi Mission lol. Accra and Kumasi are really the only two cities in the whole country. All the other "cities" are just more populated areas, but not necessarily a place where there is a market. As for me, I'm DYING to stay in Kumasi. I'll go wherever I'm supposed to go, but I'm finally learning Twi really well and I don't wanna go to Cape Coast and have to just forget all of it! Plus, I do know the area really well and can get around all of Kumasi pretty well. I am really hoping I stay in Kumasi! (Plus only Kumasi has places like Piri Piri and Bonjour <---I'll talk about that below!)

Yeah I think I eat well enough haha. I just eat mostly sandwiches. A whole loaf of bread is 1 cedi and the bread here is soooooooooooooo amazing. I'm going to miss it. Since it's not mass produced, it's ALL handmade bread and made fresh EVERY day so man it's so delicious. Sometimes I buy a loaf just to eat the loaf of bread hahaha. As for the stuff you guys send me, it's perfect so far! That huge pepperoni roll is probably one of my favorite things you sent so far, but I haven't opened it yet because I'm saving it for someday to celebrate haha. Mostly I guess I would just like more cheddar and broccoli noodles and maybe a couple of the other kinds but some of the other kinds just are not that good. Like the fettucine alfredo ones and the "stroganoff" ones are terrible. Haha the cheese in the alfredo one tastes like plastic and the stroganoff one tastes like mushrooms BLEH :P But I still appreciate it and it's still ALLLLL better than most Ghana food......

Internet is usually pretty fast here! When we go to town and use Vodafone (where I skyped you) it's fastest. And when we don't go to town we used to use a place with 20 year old computers that was SUPER slow, but we found a new place (I'm actually there e-mailing right now) that is pretty close to Vodafone's speed and it's local. So we go here when we don't go to town! So yeah, pictures are super easy to receive! Go ahead and send tons of pictures! I actually was going to ask you to start sending me pictures, I was wondering why you guys weren't sending them :P

Well I honestly don't have many scenic pictures because not much of Ghana is scenic....the only times there has been anything worthy of a picture has been the ones I've already sent you. Butttt I'll keep my eye out a little more I guess. It's hard to remember that to you guys back home the stuff I'm seeing is NOT normal so nothing ever sticks out to me anymore haha.

WHATTTT JACOB GETS HOMEMADE COOKIES!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Haha it's all good I understand....(BUT REALLY WHERE ARE MY COOKIES?!)

Yesss Kader IS A BEAST! And actually good news on that front:  They'll be baptized on the 18th for sure!

Items from my week!:
-I sent 4 letters today: One to Aaron, one to Elder Slade's sister, one to a girl named Megan from Tumblr, and one to a girl named Lynnette who ALSO is from Tumblr haha.

-1 Peter 4:6 footnote e. Try to find those two scripture references......yeah....weird huh?!

-I finally figured out who the bishop of Asuoyeboa ward reminds me of: Captain Cisco from DS9! Just skinnier and without the goatee!

-Something I found in Acts that's cool (I don't have the exact reference right now but yeah): I realized I have to at least TRY to accept Ghanaian culture because Paul says in Acts that he became as the romans to gain the romans, and became as the jews to gain the jews. And so on. I just thought it was interesting. I should become a Ghanaian to gain the Ghanaians haha.

-Right now we have 8 people with baptismal dates!!!!!!

-Right after our zone conference with President Dickson was over, Elder Hernandez came up to Elder Slade, Holder, Hansen and I, and said, "Hey....we're gettin' pizza.....you in?" We were like, "UH.....DUH." So we went with him and Elder Bassey (ALSO ONE OF THE FUNNIEST MISSIONARIES I HAVE EVER MET and he's from Nigeria like it hahaha), and a couple other elders (including the AP's) and went to a place called Bonjour nearby that had legit pizza AND ice cream! So I got both (OBVIOUSLY) and it was totally worth it. I honestly don't know how Elder Hernandez finds these places hahaha.

That's all folks! Talk to you next week :) <3

Love,
Elder Gagne

That's basically it for my week!