30 November 2009

Hey everyone! It was great to read your emails today. I'll do my best to answer all those questions you guys had. First of all sorry I didn't get to email you guys last week. We didn't get a chance to come to the cafe because we went to the market in Medina and then spent the day preparing food for the week. Ok before I forget I need you to talk to the orthodontist and ask him some questions for me. See there is no dairy food group here in Ghana so to get calcium the people here just eat the whole chicken. Well not the feathers, but the bones, cartilage, and everything else. So while I was eating some bones I broke the cement for my permanent retainer on the right side. So what I'd like to know are my teeth going to go all crooked again? Should I break the other side off and just take it out? Right now it's sitting in the exact position it was cemented and you can only tell it's not connected when I move it. Should I try to get it repaired at the dentist? So if you could just consult some orthodontist and let me know what they say that'd be great. So let me start with two weeks ago. Wednesday was the big day of the week. That evening we had baptisms! It was really cool. We had a recent convert who baptized his wife and nephew as well as the wife and son of another member. Unfortunately one of the people we were expecting, Seth Boateng, didn't show up despite us seeing him a half hour before. This was the second baptism he's skipped. He's facing a lot of strife from his boss (who we're pretty sure he also lives with) for investigating the church. He has a testimony though so we haven't given up on him and hopefully he'll be able to join the church someday. Anyway the rest of Wednesday was also pretty exciting. While we were out teaching a big rainstorm came in and our area got a bit flooded. Our apartments are pretty far away and uphill from our area so we struck out to get back for the baptism. The roads were literally rivers. We worked our way along but then we kind of found ourselves stuck and the water was rising as it ran downhill. So our best chance was to take off our shoes and roll up our pants. One of the locals led us through the flood along a path that avoided the biggest potholes. I only slipped and fell once! I heard that though it is the beginning of the dry season you still get a few big rainstorms to get ready for Hammatan. Don't worry I have been taking pictures of the flood and other things, but I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to put them online. This cafe you can't really do it in. This week and last it's been a bit of a struggle for us to actually find our investigators at home to teach them. For one thing we spent two days in traffic going back and forth to Accra so Elder Ewudzie could get a root canal and fix his tooth ache. The investigators we were able to teach the lessons went really nice. This next week we are going to really follow up with our investigators because a few of the ones we have been teaching for awhile have stopped progressing. We need to see if they are serious or not so that we can know if we should drop them and find people who are more ready. It's kind of sad for me that we have to drop investigators who aren't serious, but there are probably 200,000 people in our area and our missions are only two years. So I got the Christmas present I think the 18th? The APs brought it to leadership training (Elder Ewudzie's our district leader). It was really awesome. I also got some letters from Dear Elder. For some reason the Dear Elder letters sent to the Ghana MTC I just got a few days ago so that was a little confusing. And mom I did get the email you sent today, so don't worry it worked fine. Also just to let you know I'm trying to write different things in emails from what I write in the letters. The letters are going to be like the small plates of Nephi. It's been great hearing from you, but I'm sorry you had all those funerals. I thought it was a little strange when Mom told me Aunt Violet died since I thought I'd already been to her funeral, but I guess it was Aunt Ethyl. I don't really need anything so that's why I haven't used my debit card, but if you do want to send something, Mom, I loved those chewy sweet tarts. Since it was Thanksgiving this last week I guess I'll mention a bit about the food here. First of all I'm pretty sure I'll be about 400 pounds when I get home because each night I eat like a mountain of rice. On the actual thanksgiving this was my dinner: rice with groundnut soup, mangos, sugarcane, sachet of water, and alvarro. I love alvarro, it's this pineapple malt soda that's delicious. It's kind of expensive though at like 80 pesewas. Also on Saturday I got to have "real" FuFu for the first time. An investigator, Sis. Comfort, invited us over for lunch, and I got to help pound the Fufu. Fufu is just plantains and either cassava or yams pounded into a doughy ball. We ate it with groundnut soup. I think after clam chowder groundnut (peanut) soup is my new favorite soup. Love you guys lots, and I have more to tell you, but our time is almost up. Pray that I'll get sick of eating rice, and let everyone know that I'm glad for their support. Love, Elder Chambers