Hey everyone!
This week was my first week with my new companion Elder Adyatu. He is from Uganda and has been out on the mission for a little longer then one year. He is very different from Elder Effiong, he is very laid back and relaxed and loves to cook as well. This week I made my first tomato stew and I think I did very good! I'm getting a lot better at making the type of food out here and I'm enjoying it more and more every week. Today we went to Ashaman to play the zone there in futbol. We also played basketball there and it was really fun. There was a huge transfer of new missionaries coming in this week, about 26 new missionaries. Our zone (Nungua) has two new missionaries, one from Salt Lake and one from England. They are really cool people as well. Ashaman has one of the biggest markets in Ghana, if not the biggest and you can buy things for very cheap. I bought some sunglasses for 8 Cedi's (about two dollars). You can also buy a speaker for music there for about 12 cedis. I bought a flash drive last week and put a lot of Mormon tablenacle choir on it. Also music like Enya and Kenny G have been approved so i got that music as well. I'm using a DVD player for the music now but we only get that during training to watch the training videos so I want to buy a speaker soon as well.
This week went better then I was expecting. I was stressed out because I still don't know a lot of my area and yet I have to be the senior companion in a way, but It went a lot better then I was expecting. We were able to meet a lot of members and since Elder Effiong is gone I'm all they know so they are a lot more nice to me now! Anyway, one cool meeting we had was we were just walking around meeting investigators and one of our investigators wasn't home so I brought my companion to a members place and when we got there, there was a man reading the Book of Mormon and the member said that he has questions for us. He had a lot of questions about temples so we taught him about temples. He was very interested and so we decided to invite him to be baptized next month. He accepted and told us that if God answers his prayers he wants to join the church sooner! Anyway after we left the member told us it was a sign from God that we came because the man just showed up not 5 minutes before asking her questions. I didn't think much of deciding to go over to this specific members house, but now that I look back it was quite a blessing for us and this man!
Last Saturday a missionary in my apartment got sick, his name is Elder Lafo and he is from Ethiopia. He told me he has never been sick in his life before and thought he was going to die. He woke me up by turning on the lights in the middle of the night and I sat up all night with him. He told me he wanted to die and he had to go to the hospital immediately. I told him that since he's never been sick before he is just experiencing it for the first time and that he'll be fine. The next morning he was feeling 100% better and was able to go to church. It was pretty funny to see how people react to illness when they've never had it before. I was exhausted on Sunday because of this though. It was a real struggle to stay awake in the meetings and so after church we went back to the apartment so I could take a quick nap. That quick nap turned into a 3 1/2 hour nap. I feel bad because there were things we could have done but I really needed the sleep after the long night. I don't have many pictures this week, but I will send a picture of my new companion! Also i'm still losing weight and everyone thinks that I'm starving myself out here lol. (only partially true) but because of this I have gotten all of my clothes tailored to be smaller.
Love
Elder Smith
Questions from Dad and answers from Tanner:
Dad:
You look like you are now the muscle in the companionship. He is a small but happy looking guy. You are looking more trim and fit. The weight loss looks good on you. Did you only tailor your pants? Probably not your shirts?
Tanner:
Yes, all of my shirts as well. That was the most important thing because they were way to big for me before coming out.
Dad:
So do you come back to the apartment and have lunch for the break?
Tanner:
Yes, he's definitely not Elder Effiong but he's still a good teacher. He just likes to take a long break in the middle of the day.
Dad:
Uganda? I thought you said Uruguay in South America? Forget the sesta comment and my companion was from South America. So he is African as well? Good.
Tanner:
Yeah sorry he is African. He and Elder Lafo from Ethiopia also ran from our apartment to the Nungua Elders apartment. It's about 10 miles they came home and Elder Lafo was complaining about his foot hurting for like 4 days
Dad:
Do you have four in your apartment? Who is the District Leader? Did either of the other two in the District get moved? What are there names and where are they from?
Tanner:
Our district is the Klagon district. The district leader is Elder Barnes from North Carolina, his companion is Elder Lafo from Ethiopia, and then my companion and I. They are splitting our ward soon into two wards, so the other elders will be moving soon to another apartment.
Dad:
So you all live together now? And soon they will be moving out of the apartment to another apartment? Do you have a shower?
Tanner:
Yes we have a shower as well it's only cold though and it doesnt work when power is out because our pump won't work. But yeah there area is a bit away so probably in a month or two they will move
This week was my first week with my new companion Elder Adyatu. He is from Uganda and has been out on the mission for a little longer then one year. He is very different from Elder Effiong, he is very laid back and relaxed and loves to cook as well. This week I made my first tomato stew and I think I did very good! I'm getting a lot better at making the type of food out here and I'm enjoying it more and more every week. Today we went to Ashaman to play the zone there in futbol. We also played basketball there and it was really fun. There was a huge transfer of new missionaries coming in this week, about 26 new missionaries. Our zone (Nungua) has two new missionaries, one from Salt Lake and one from England. They are really cool people as well. Ashaman has one of the biggest markets in Ghana, if not the biggest and you can buy things for very cheap. I bought some sunglasses for 8 Cedi's (about two dollars). You can also buy a speaker for music there for about 12 cedis. I bought a flash drive last week and put a lot of Mormon tablenacle choir on it. Also music like Enya and Kenny G have been approved so i got that music as well. I'm using a DVD player for the music now but we only get that during training to watch the training videos so I want to buy a speaker soon as well.
This week went better then I was expecting. I was stressed out because I still don't know a lot of my area and yet I have to be the senior companion in a way, but It went a lot better then I was expecting. We were able to meet a lot of members and since Elder Effiong is gone I'm all they know so they are a lot more nice to me now! Anyway, one cool meeting we had was we were just walking around meeting investigators and one of our investigators wasn't home so I brought my companion to a members place and when we got there, there was a man reading the Book of Mormon and the member said that he has questions for us. He had a lot of questions about temples so we taught him about temples. He was very interested and so we decided to invite him to be baptized next month. He accepted and told us that if God answers his prayers he wants to join the church sooner! Anyway after we left the member told us it was a sign from God that we came because the man just showed up not 5 minutes before asking her questions. I didn't think much of deciding to go over to this specific members house, but now that I look back it was quite a blessing for us and this man!
Last Saturday a missionary in my apartment got sick, his name is Elder Lafo and he is from Ethiopia. He told me he has never been sick in his life before and thought he was going to die. He woke me up by turning on the lights in the middle of the night and I sat up all night with him. He told me he wanted to die and he had to go to the hospital immediately. I told him that since he's never been sick before he is just experiencing it for the first time and that he'll be fine. The next morning he was feeling 100% better and was able to go to church. It was pretty funny to see how people react to illness when they've never had it before. I was exhausted on Sunday because of this though. It was a real struggle to stay awake in the meetings and so after church we went back to the apartment so I could take a quick nap. That quick nap turned into a 3 1/2 hour nap. I feel bad because there were things we could have done but I really needed the sleep after the long night. I don't have many pictures this week, but I will send a picture of my new companion! Also i'm still losing weight and everyone thinks that I'm starving myself out here lol. (only partially true) but because of this I have gotten all of my clothes tailored to be smaller.
Love
Elder Smith
Questions from Dad and answers from Tanner:
Dad:
You look like you are now the muscle in the companionship. He is a small but happy looking guy. You are looking more trim and fit. The weight loss looks good on you. Did you only tailor your pants? Probably not your shirts?
Tanner:
Yes, all of my shirts as well. That was the most important thing because they were way to big for me before coming out.
Dad:
So do you come back to the apartment and have lunch for the break?
Tanner:
Yes, he's definitely not Elder Effiong but he's still a good teacher. He just likes to take a long break in the middle of the day.
Dad:
Uganda? I thought you said Uruguay in South America? Forget the sesta comment and my companion was from South America. So he is African as well? Good.
Tanner:
Yeah sorry he is African. He and Elder Lafo from Ethiopia also ran from our apartment to the Nungua Elders apartment. It's about 10 miles they came home and Elder Lafo was complaining about his foot hurting for like 4 days
Dad:
Do you have four in your apartment? Who is the District Leader? Did either of the other two in the District get moved? What are there names and where are they from?
Tanner:
Our district is the Klagon district. The district leader is Elder Barnes from North Carolina, his companion is Elder Lafo from Ethiopia, and then my companion and I. They are splitting our ward soon into two wards, so the other elders will be moving soon to another apartment.
Dad:
So you all live together now? And soon they will be moving out of the apartment to another apartment? Do you have a shower?
Tanner:
Yes we have a shower as well it's only cold though and it doesnt work when power is out because our pump won't work. But yeah there area is a bit away so probably in a month or two they will move