Monday Ice Cream :)

Alright I've got twenty minutes. Scratch that, more like ten. We have some new investigators, but guess what? Three more baptisms! It's super hard work, but it sure pays off. The only bad thing about baptisms is that now I need to refill my pool of serious investigators. Lately we've had lessons where they've talked to investigators about church leaders involved in plural marriages and the like. We never knew it was going on, because they taught the lesson in Twi. Anyhow, the church can be a bit disorganized here at times. Some branches have as few as six members. Half the work we do is just holding on to the members we already have. Oh and speaking of connections, just know that you can say the best things sometimes. I know I was never at home much, but I knew that my family was always close by, either at home or by a simple phone call or Skype. Here however I'm just about as far separated as I can be from you guys. I really miss all of you. It doesn't affect my work much, but it adds to the difficulty of long days. And to answer your question...sending juice packets and candy are great, but things I can hold onto and not devour are even better. There's a lot to say with so little time. It still rains off and on. My health is doing fine. Stomach pains every now and then, but that's all just my body getting adjusted to the food. As far as food is concerned it's mostly just bread. Sometimes I'll cook rice or go to a stand and buy some fried rice. This week I'm buying ingredients to make syrup. I'm planning on french toast. I'm also gathering fresh ingredients for a tasty stew to go with my rice. I used to buy juice but it's too expensive. The fruit here is good. I had my first coconut the other day. It doesn't taste anything like what you'd expect it to taste. Infact it doesn't taste like anything at all. I never liked pineapple at home, but here it's sooo tasty. As far as ward missionary work is concerned, It's actually pretty easy. The gospel has become second nature to me by now and it's super easy to teach. All that I have to watch out for are complicated questions and locals too nice to tell me they can't understand my accent. Speaking of nice locals, Ghana is a very peaceful country. A motorbike hit the back of a car and both people approached each other. Instead of fighting they just laughed and shook hands. If you want to imagine Ghana, just take what you have at home and flip it upside-down. Just about everything that can be different is different. Weather, food, church, customs, skin color, you get the picture. I'm getting jealous the more you talk about fall. See, as Winter approaches for you, the dry season approaches for me. That means desert heat from the Sahara will come here to Ghana. The work comes kakra kakra, (small, small). Every week becomes a little easier, but It's no cakewalk. I don't get much sleep here for a few reasons. One is because when you have an eight-filled missionary apartment, the temptation to socialize after a long day is just too much. Another is because of the early morning Muslim prayers. I pray for all of you as well and I always hope everything is going well at home. I'm pretty sure Dad would love to coach the Ghanians here. They are really good soccer players. That's it for this e-mail...I gotta go in a bit to do some shopping and buy my monday ice cream in town.

:) Love, Elder Silva