Friends, Silvas, Countrymen...

This one is from last week:

Friends, Silvas, Countrymen. Lend me your ears for a small moment. This e-mail is going to be a little shorter. Not much has happened. We're kinda stuck in a rut right now. Contacting isn't going well and we don't have anywhere new to contact. One of those deals where you feel like you've been to every home in the area. I forgot to send baptism pics from last week. I'll get those to you this time. Bad news is my favorite investigator didn't show up to church this week and we couldn’t catch her at home. She was going to be baptized this upcoming Sunday, but I think we'll have to post-pone it until she's more ready.  I haven't been around a golden contact since Obuasi and sometimes it seems like I've been in Effiduasi my whole mission. Funny how that works. It also feels like I've been in Ghana my whole life. I remember Mom telling me that home seemed like a dream on her mission. I understand that completely. I can't really remember how some aspects of home feel real anymore. It's really hard to describe. Sort of feels like I'm split in two. Like Ghana isn't my home but then, well home really isn't either. Well enough of that, maybe I'll answer some of Mom's questions. My health is alright. I've never felt all that healthy on the mission, but I'm not sick or anything. We had one investigator come to church and he was the only one in investigator's class so we just taught him a missionary lesson. It went very well.  To answer your question...Trials? Well there's a lot of that on the mission, but nothing out of the regular really. We have a mission tour coming up for someone so we're all busy preparing for that. President Holmes will be leaving early July so we'll be having a new mission president soon also. Just a lot going on.  Well I think that's it for this week. I'll send pictures as usual.  

I wish you all a great week! Until next time. 

-Elder Silva

 The little girl was baptized

The sacred tree of Effiduasi. The traditionalists pour libations here. 

 The dawn of a new day!

A self portrait with my Sunday orange.

This week’s  e-mail: 

Heidi Ho Ranger Joe!  ...Not sure why that just popped into my head.

Well something awesome happened on Sunday... I got your letters! They were really good and there were some good things I learned. I also got one from Em. I'm going to write Grandma and Grandpa Silva this week as well as Grandma Jones. I’ve been meaning to write them for a long while, but just never got around to it. One important thing I wanted to share before I get to anything else is a lesson I've learned on my mission. It's a lesson of suffering. No no no, before you get to thinking this lesson is depressing, let me re-phrase; it's a lesson about being positive about suffering. Basically we suffer as missionaries, but honestly I've learned how to laugh about it. Sometimes it's funny how bad a day can go. The best way I can describe it is like shrugging a backpack off. There was a good lesson I learned once about this. It's about ninja stars and kittens. Kittens represent positive emotions and ninja stars negative. You're standing in a dark space with light about 3 feet around you. Sometimes ninja stars come and hit you and sometimes cute little kittens come to snuggle with you. The obvious thing to do is just to have less ninja stars come, but that's kinda impossible sometimes. What needs to be done is to learn how to dodge the ninja stars that do come. Then life is much better. I've accepted the fact that not all suffering will end when the mission is over. I expect that there's plenty more ninja stars to come, but I'm learning how to dodge. Besides, there are still plenty of cuddly kittens on the way!

Well I'll get off of the soap box and start to answer some questions.  

“Will you be able to call home for Mothers day?”

For sure I'll get to call. I'm working on a Skype option again. More details next week, and I'll find a brighter room this time haha. Be sure to be writing down questions now before you forget :)

Well I'll send a few pictures and wish you all a fantastic week! 

-Elder Silva

This little kid doesn’t really know what the t-shirt is all about….but I do!

Went to farm to chop cocoa. It was a long day, but pretty fun. 

This is a good luck bug. It means you will conceive. This lady found 2. Ha ha!

 ...

Funny misspellings or maybe that is the way they spell things here?

Spreading the love.

First off thanks for the E-mail. I love communicating with you guys. I haven't seen any of Conference yet, but we should get a copy of the Conference Ensign edition. If not I'll let you know. Sounds like a sweet Easter. I bought a small bag of candy and spread the love. Easter here is celebrated much more than at home. Good Friday is a holiday. Easter Sunday is a holiday. Easter Monday (today) is also a holiday. We have 3 people wanting to feed us today. It should be a tasty day with plenty of fufu.

 Maybe I could send you some of my rain? It makes my shoes muddy and floods our apartment room. :P Investigators are coming hard recently, but the ones we were led to are some of the most powerful first contacts I've ever had. Cross your fingers. Three months until my year mark. Crazy huh? By the end of this week I'll be as old as my first companion when he trained me.

One thing is that meat comes harder here. I've grown used to eating fish. The way they make fish here I swore to myself I would never eat it. Guess I said that about a lot of things when I first came.  Duck is alright, but I feel like it would taste better if it was cooked by one of them Idaho hunting families. Mason and Carson's family always cooked good game. It's a shame you guys don't have a taste for it.

By the way I just got Mom's letter and Brooke's card yesterday. It took about a month to get here. That's mission mail for you. It was an awesome picture Brooke. Thanks.

Ivory Coast temple? That's fantastic news! There are only two temples in all of West Africa. A third is much welcome. Well I think I'll let the pictures speak for what happened this week. I'm still alive over here and kicking. Hope you guys have an awesome week!

 -Elder Silva

Q&A with Elder Silva

Who is your favorite investigator right now to teach?            

Do you have one that's particularly hard to teach?  

Hello again! I'll post a picture of my current favorite investigator. She's the one with the cat. We had one investigator who asked lots of questions and never accepted answers in lessons. He came to church once and scattered the investigator and Elder's quorum class by trying to convince them they were wrong. We taught him once more recently, but he still seems the same. We may end up dropping him.

Tell us about doing laundry there.  Do you use the plunger thing much or just scrub the clothes together - use cold water or warm it up sometimes?  How do you get wrinkles out when hanging the laundry?  Do you need more white shirts?  

Doing laundry takes a while. If we don't have water then we'll go to a well to fetch it. I scrub my clothes together. It used to make my fingers bleed, but I'm used to it now. Just coldish water with washing soap. We just hang them up on a line and iron them when they're dry. My white shirts are a bit dirty, but they're okay so far.

What is your nearest neighbor like? 

Our nearest neighbor is right next to us. The building is split in two and she occupies the other half. She's the landlord's daughter. Muslim since we live in the Zongo (Muslim community). She's nice to us and there's no problems. There's a man who parks his car in our compound so some mornings can be a bit noisy. Also the landlord's son will pop in randomly sometimes. He takes out our garbage and sometimes helps us clean though so it's not too bad.

It's funny how much your testimony grows here even when you think you already know a lot. I understand things so much clear than I ever did and every day my testimony of this miraculous gospel is strengthened. I'm so grateful to be part of a family where we are all active in the Lord's gospel. I'll have plenty of gospel topics to talk about later.

I didn't realize you guys were on Spring Break. I hope you enjoyed the breath of air. Now get ready to jump into the ocean of school again. I saw a test the other day from a student and I got scared. I didn't realize how good it feels to not have any grades to worry about. When I graduated I kept having dreams that I was still in school and I had missed tons of math homework.

One thing I never thought about; there's no such thing as cat food or dog food here. They just feed them scraps. The cats here eat rice and fish.

Students really are the hardest part of teaching right? I once taught 10 investigators at once. I don't know how Dad manages 20-30.

This may sound funny, but I miss mowing (no you can't use that against me when I'm home). I guess I just miss grass. Nothing but dirt here.

I've had a lot of learning about the Holy Ghost recently and my testimony of it is growing in a way that it never has before. A talk that Mom sent me about it helped a lot too. Well I think that's about it. This week was full of bad contacting, but I'll keep my eyes off of those waves. 

Enjoy the week and know that I love you all. 

-Elder Silva

I think she might be scared of me :/

Ghanaian sun with a haze and rooftops

 Here’s my current favorite investigator, Hannah. the owner of Adom the cat. Her second time at church. Pray for her. 

 It's hot, even in the shade. This wasn't very comfortable though so............

 I became Pharaoh.

 The boys came with style to church

 Missionaries in action!

 Common food. Yam, stew and fish.

Fanyogo and Fufu.

Dear family,

Well I suppose this week has gone alright. Just a pretty average week. We have several investigators progressing. The hard part is getting people to church. The rain is coming back so the heat is decreasing. The humidity however is peaking. Today I finally have some pictures ready, so I'll be able to send them for your enjoyment. I think someone from home asked me about ice cream the other day. Recently I've become addicted to the "fan" company. Fanice is like a strange vanilla ice cream. Fanyogo is a strawberry yogurt and fandango is like a frozen tropical drink. When it's hot, well these babies are perfect. People sell them all over on their heads. ...I'm not wearing any socks today. ...Just thought I would tell you. As for now I don't have a whole lot to say. I hope the pictures will make up for that. I'm still enjoying my area. I ate fufu yesterday for the first time in weeks. I didn't realize how much I actually missed it. 

Have a great week everyone! 

-Elder Silva

 He claims to be 135 years old. If that is true then it just goes to show that you are never too old to be baptized!

 Cassava field. This is what they use to make fufu.)

 Destroyed my companion in chess :)

 This is how they color chickens in Africa. 

 Another shot of my desk

 Duke's new girlfriend Adom. Pronounced (Adoom, meaning Mercy).  Duke is the Silva family cat.

 Bear Grills (TV survival expert), taught me to use my resources. 

 Going to a Ghanaian Funeral. They're long and I can't understand the language. It seemed to go well though. 

Falling asleep in Elder's quorum. (It's a work in progress)

Thought it would be nice if we pinned it up.

You've got to admit the kid has style……Okay maybe not.

Pokemon in Ghana.

Hey everyone. 

Another week has come and gone and this time I'm in a nice internet cafe. I mean "nice" because everything here works smoothly. I don't have to wait 10 minutes just for one page to open and there's a small fridge with soda here. We traveled to Kumasi today for p-day to have a nice meal. Why? 2 reasons. 

1. It's Elder Argo's Birthday. My MTC companion Ma'ungatai has moved to Tamale. (the hottest part of the mission) Elder Argo is his replacement and he was also in the MTC with me. It's nice to catch up with them. 

The 2nd reason to come here is because we exceeded our baptismal goal for this month. We just had 5 baptisms this week. I was able to baptize 3 members of a family (the rest are too young). I'll include a picture as always. 

We have maybe 2 more potentials coming up. We'll see what happens. We had an investigator come to church and scatter all of the lessons with his persistent questions about God and Jesus being one. We've answered his questions through multiple lessons but he came to church to argue with everyone. It was a bit of a mess. I got to teach the Youth Sunday school also. I actually really enjoy doing that one. In regards to Mom's spelling it's Akwasi (means man born on a Sunday). Some say Woho te sen, but most say ete sen (I can't spell that right with this keyboard). In case you're wondering, no I don't speak Twi. I know some basic phrases, but there's not much motivation to learn it. There's no language study, a good number of people speak English and only the Ghanain missionaries know Twi. The biggest reason is because the Mission President won't allow us to teach in Twi. Only English. I still haven't figured out the reason why yet. Twi is still fun to use 'small small,' if only to entertain the locals. They get really excited when they hear an Obroni (white man) speak it. 

In more news, we moved apartments this week. We're out of the chapel and into the Zongo. That's the Muslim territory. They don't provide any trouble and we don't bother them. I'm learning basic greetings in Arabic though haha. Brooke's E-mail was nice.  I would love a heath blizzard when I get home. Please make a note of that and hang it on the wall so you remember. There is ice cream here if you feel like spending a bit of money. You usually have to do a bit of searching to find good ones, otherwise you can find Fan Ice (a funny vanilla). It's still pretty good. I just spent a decent chunk of money on a big jug of Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice. I can't do that again for awhile, but I'm going to enjoy tonight. ;) I hope General Conference will be more available to us. I didn't end up watching the last one. Ghana feels hotter these days. Then again it always feels hot so I'm not sure. Today we finished our wash, put it in a bag and carried it on our heads to the chapel to hang it there. (we don't have a line at the apartment and the neighbor's was full). I was dripping in sweat. Yuck. 

When the trash is full we stuff it in a wheelbarrow and head to the local trash pile. Well all in all it's been a good week. I look forward to hearing from you next time. 

Have a great week! 

-Elder Silva 

Happy day. 

 This girl is by an orange stand we always pass. She knows my name and runs up to me every time she sees me. It's pretty cute. 

 Elder Ejo playing football with the kids. 

Haven't had this in almost 8 months. Not near as good as home, but still better than most things here. 

Pokemon in Ghana :)

Oops...wrong mission.

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't get this out to you yesterday. All of the internet cafes were down. Well this week has come and gone and so has the transfer. The new Elder coming is my MT (he was in the MTC with me). His name is Elder Argo from Ethiopia. I'm looking forward to being with him. Speaking of letters I got a couple from Mom. The talk and the one with Brooke's picture of me holding up the cat. It was awesome. It's too bad you can't really send me chocolate for Easter. Otherwise I would love a Cadbury egg here.  Our teaching pool is increasing "small small". We just had a family of 6 referrals from a soon-to-be recent convert family and another referral has come to church multiple times. We're looking at 3 baptisms next week and hopefully at least 1 more before the end of the month. I haven't been practicing piano at all last week. I should start again. It's just tough to have the motivation to do anything once we get done for the day. ...We're dead. Summer is upon us and it will be for the rest of my stay. The rain is a little low too, but I expect it will pick up once we get closer to May. In a weird sort of way I miss mowing the lawn (don't use that against me when I get home).  

I'll attach a bunch of pictures, (I think I missed these last couple of weeks). 

Have a great week guys. 

Love you. 

-Elder Silva

 cute kid. 

This man claims to be 135 years old... The man on his left is his grandson. Ghanaians didn't keep good birth records then, but he does seem pretty old. 

  I’m still taking out the garbage….not much has changed.

 Practicing for Independence day

 My new proselyting equipment... I wish.

 Cashew fruit... This stuff is full of juice, but dries your mouth and is nasty.

 P-day football (soccer)

That famous African wildlife!

                                                                 Oops...wrong mission. 

Cranberry Juice and Happy Birthday Mom.

Well guys, another week has come and gone. This one has been pretty quick as has the entire transfer. This is the last week of the transfer. Our Branch conference was this week. That was very, very stressful. It took a lot of organizing on our part. The thing about branches is that I can't sit comfortably at church anymore. We go from class to class, talking to investigators, and trying to make church a good experience.  I don't have it as bad as Elder Kolo though. He's second counselor in the branch presidency. He basically organized the entire branch conference himself. I ended up playing a lot of piano. I had to learn 4 new hymns. I barely have any time to practice as it is. You DID warn me this would happen though haha. When they see me playing something small they all assume I'm a pro. ay ay ay. When I think about suffering on the mission I remind myself that at least I get to e-mail every week. That certainly is a blessing. Speaking of mail I got the valentine package!... as did my roommates, haha. It was all gone before you knew it. My companion kept seeing me sneak into our room periodically during church (we live in the chapel) and he caught on pretty quickly haha. My health is doing heaps better than in Obuasi. I haven't genuinely felt sick since I've come here. (quick knock on wood for me). Church here is hot. Especially when electricity's out (ceiling fans won't work). I've fallen asleep in Elder's quorum every Sunday in my new area. My mission President, President Holmes, saw me nodding off during branch conference. He just smiled. My eyes were so big, man I was trying so hard. Well that's about all I have for you this week. Ah actually President gave us part of transfer news early. My MTC companion, Ma'ungatai is leaving. Man I'm really going to miss that guy. 

Alright well I hope you all have a great week! 

Love you all! 

-Elder Silva

Celebrating Mom's B-day with cranberry juice and pringles (I nearly died with pleasure when I got that cranberry juice).