i got my new companion on friday, and his name is elder yapo, from ivory coast. i'm so excited about it. he was in cape coast (his first area) for as long as i was in my first area, and we were in the same zone for like seven months so i know him pretty well already. he's such a cool guy.
ivory coast is the country on the western border to ghana, and it's a french speaking country. he didnt even speak english when he came to ghana, he just learned it here in the field. he is three transfers, or 4 1/2 months older than me on the mission. by the time i came out on my mission, four months into his mission, he was already FLUENT in english!! i've always like him alot so i was excited when president told me he would be my new companion.yes, we got to meet elder halling's parents yesterday, because he brought them to sekondi ward to worship. it was really cool to meet them. he is just a carbon copy of his dad. it was interesting to hear some of their insights about their first impressions of ghana. alot of them were my first impressions, except i'm so used to being here that i've just forgotton all about it, kinda funny.
after dinner grace (a 23 year old recent convert from the ward who is the tightest person in the ward) invited us over and pounded fufu for us all . . . i gotta admit, it was halarious to see them try to eat it. his mom was the funniest. luckily us missionaries were there to save them and finish the fufu off for them haha. (it was way good fufu with ground nut soup. mmmm.)
it makes me want you guys to come and pick me up at the end of my mission so i can show you this crazy place. (which i kinda doubt will ever be possible, if for no other reason than the fact that byu probably starts like a week after i'll get back so if you came i'd probably miss another semester of school which i dont wanna. but whateva, i don't have to think about school for one more year so i'm going to take advantage of it).
by the way, you mentioned that it's cool that elder evans is in my zone . . . but he's not quite. he almost is, but not. my third transfer of my mission the takoradi zone split into two zones, takoradi and sekondi. right now elder evans is a takoradi zone leader and i'm in sekondi. it's way cool though cause i usually get to see him about once a week. he's such a funny kid. he's definitely one of my good buddies from the mission, besides the fact that we're both from vegas. i might have mentioned that i'm in his old area now, where he was for the first year of his mission, and people still talk about him round here . . .
today for pday we just had a chill day. we didnt plan anything for the zone and are just giving everyone a chance to relax and do whatever they want for today. we had to go drop off some medication for one of the missionaries, so that took up alot of the morning, but from here i'm just gunna go home and do my washing and chill for a bit.
happy birthday shannon and jacob!!
the people are MUCH different here than they are in moree. THEY SPEAK ENGLISH!! i have only taught a few fante lessons in the last month of being here, while in moree i'd be hard pressed to go a couple of days without it. it just sucks being transferred because you just feel like a greenie again. you don't know the people, you don't know the area and your way around. you don't know the norms of that place and it just takes a little while to get settled in.
it's a way sweet area, though. just in this last month i've gotton close to some cool members. me and elder yapo are way excited for the transfer. we don't really have very many people at all to teach, so i'm pumped to get back into going at it and finding new people to teach this week. i still don't know alot of the members, and elder yapo's new here, so this week we're just gunna go around and visit as many members as we can, teach them, serve them, get to know them, and get referrals from them.
i went from moree which had a really bad chapel, to sekondi, which has the nicest chapel in all of the mission!! it's still not as nice as the ones at home, of course, but it's just about the same except for the lack of drinking fountains, carpet (there's like this tile lamanent stuff) a/c, soft chairs, and stuff like that. i love it, it's so nice to have, coming from moree.
there is a song by motab called death will not destroy my hope or something like that. if you get the opportunity could send that by e-mail? i LOVE it. it's from the 'come thou fount' cd. you could send it on a cd though, that'd be just as fine. most apartments that have a missionary have a cd player in it. you could even add the come thou fount cd song to the beautiful zion song that you sent me, and send that or something. it's not a big deal, though, you know me, i'm fine with whatever you end up doing.
well i'll tell you about one tough experience this week before i close. on friday, after sending elder halling on a tro tro to meet his parents in abura, me and elder yapo were at the apartment. we played some games with elder sintim and elder darrow and stuff, then elder yapo and elder sintim went to bed. as elder darrow was going to bed, i got a call from sister lamb (the lambs are the senior couple that are in our area). she told me that their house had gotten broken into.
sister lambs voice was super shaky, she was fighting off the tears as she explained that the people had slammed in the back door, and basically ransacked the house while the lambs were gone. they overturned the furniture, emptied the cabinets, and took anything they wanted. tons of their clothes were gone, alot of their food was gone, money was gone, it was bad. the worst part was the fact the they found where sister lamb hides her laptop with all of here pictures on it, and that's how she communicates with her family alot and stuff, so it's terrible.
it was sooooo freaking frustrating to listen to her struggling like that on the phone. i don't know if i've been more angry on my mission. i just wanted to murder the people who did this. i don't know how many people in all of ghana would be LESS deserving of something like this, but there arent many.
the next day (sister lamb told elder evans on the phone that they were ok and didnt need our help, but he wasnt too convinced so) we decided to go over there. so me and elder evans, yapo, and vanie (also from ivory coast) went over. sister lamb already had the place all tidied up, but she was still just shaken up.
i don't have alot of time left, so i'll give you it in a nutshell. the lambs are just invcredibly Christlike. after all that happened to them, sister lambs honest biggest concern was about elder hallings stuff (he had left his bags there earlier that day) but he didnt even really have anything of value in it. they wouldnt let us leave the house without eating something (from the little food that they even had left in their home). i grew a deeper love for them.
i gotta go, but i love you!!
love,
elder mackay
