Hello everyone, Happy 4th of July! As a Gilbert and on America's birthday, you best know that I will either be burning, shooting, or blowing something up today. Wish me luck!
This week was a good one. We started the week off with an FM on Monday. The family we were going to meet up with traveled last minute, so we weren't able to meet them. Instead, we met with our neighbors, had dinner, and had a spiritual message. It was still a great time!
Tuesday was zone conference, so we had to wake up at 5:00 am and leave for Kumasi. As I have expressed before, I love traveling here. It gets the adrenaline going sometimes. Zone conference was probably my favorite one yet. The topic was the divine companionship, which is your companion, yourself, and the Holy Ghost. There were some great insights, and it was a wonderful pick-me-up.
Wednesday, one of the many perks of living with a zone leader is that all of the good American foods are in Kumasi. Although I'm not allowed to go shopping there because it is not my area, the zone leaders have to go to MLC, so they have a few hours to go shopping and cruise around Kumasi. On this trip, they found a can of pumpkin puree. It sounds weird, like why would you want a can of pumpkin, but oh, the possibilities are endless! We made pumpkin shakes, and man, they were so good. All of our ice cream comes in little bags, so we put some pumpkin puree in and cut open 24 bags of ice-cream and dumped them into a blender. It said we needed pumpkin spice, and there isn't any pumpkin spice here, so we looked up the ingredients in pumpkin spice and made our own! It was so cool. Although I am going to be so happy when I can just roll up to Big Js and tell them I want a pumpkin shake, pay the $4, and leave. But it's all about the experience, right!
Thursday to Sunday was just your normal missionary work. I went on two exchanges, one with Elder Dredge and one with Elder Riley. They were both awesome, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to go with them and learn. With it being rainy season and standing water everywhere, mosquitoes and malaria are in full swing. Our church attendance was one of the lowest we have ever had, with a whopping 25 people. Many people are infected with malaria. Hopefully, the malaria pill I have to take every day actually works.
I think that's about all for this week. Plenty of new memories have been made this week, and there are many more in the making, especially with it being the fourth of July. I'll let y'all know next week if I get arrested.
This week's photos:
Mr. Amankwah (the older man) - we told him we would come help him weed his garden, but instead, he just surprised us with a meal of rice and pepe with turkey eggs and coconuts at the end! This guy has a heart of gold; he was the first member here in Nkawkaw.
"Killie Willie" - fried plantain with groundnut. I love it.
The exchange in the rain.
The pumpkin shake.
Groundnut soup and rice ball.
The sunsets this week were gorgeous.
Reese's Puffs that Elder Riley found - they were expired by six months, but they were still great even though they were stale.