Malaria Man / Birthday #2

Hello everyone, how are you? I sure do love the responses you are able to give me. I sure enjoy them. Anyways, the past few weeks were very eventful, so let me tell you all about it.

First of all, I had to make another hospital trip. This time to Green Shield Hospital in Sefwi Bekwai. I had a fever for three days, and it wouldn't seem to go away. So finally, I called the mission nurse and got sent to the hospital. I had a fever of 103.9°, and my heart rate was 148 bpm. I was dying small. They drew some blood and did blood work, and when my results came back, turns out I had malaria! I was pretty shocked, but the mosquitoes must have gotten to me. This was one of the better hospitals I have been in here, but it was still a Ghanaian hospital. The emergency room had two chickens roaming about in it. I snagged a picture of one of them. Definitely not a normal thing to have in an emergency room, but it's Africa, so I wasn't surprised at all. A little bit later on, it came time that they needed to give me a shot in my butt cheek. I was not excited and tried to fight it, but they said I really needed it. Well, when I stood up from the hospital bed I was lying in, I thought the nurse was taking me to a separate room to give me the shot. You know, for a little privacy considering all of the patients are all together in one room. No dividers or nothing. Anyways, that was not the case. They said, "Drop your drawers right here." And I just said, "Alright, no problem." Everyone in that room got to see some very white cheeks. Anyways, I got released that evening and had to go back three more times every 12 hours for more shots. And then I had to continue at home with pills for three days. Malaria is not fun; I would not recommend it. But I'm glad to now say I have gotten malaria in Africa. Kinda a cool flex.

A funny story from this week was we went proselytizing with the other Elders in our apartment for a few hours. We were seeing one of their investigators, and a curious little kid came up and stood in front of all of us. He was staring the other white Elder down. So naturally, what I did is stare this little kid down and started to make faces. Well, eventually, the little kid turned and saw me and the faces I was making and laughed a little bit, but then I changed the face I was making, and apparently, this one must have scared him because he started to scream, and then he pissed himself. It was way funny because he didn't run away or anything. He just stood there and peed himself. He must have realized eventually that he was peeing because he pulled his pants down and was trying to pee on me. It was so funny; it was one of those moments that you just have to be there to understand.

Another really cool cultural thing here is that you can use kids to do small tasks. For example, if you're sitting down and thirsty but don't want to get up and buy some water, you can call any random little kid over and send them to the shop to collect whatever you want. Honestly, it's the cutest thing ever. Kids will obey anyone who is older than them no matter what. I take advantage of this bonus feature quite often. One time, I took a video of me asking a little kid to go buy water for me. When I send them on tasks, I always like to give them some extra money so they can buy some small candy for themselves.

In my personal studies this week, I have been reading 1 Corinthians. This scripture stood out to me: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). If the Spirit of God dwells in us, our bodies become holy. What happens when someone defaces something that is holy? God is angry with them. Therefore, it is pretty self-explanatory that when we do something to deface or destroy our bodies, God is angry with us. So let's think of things that are destroying or defacing our bodies and steer clear of those things.

Anyway, that's all I have for you. It's been a wild few weeks, and my last birthday in Ghana was pretty awesome. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! ~Elder Gilbert

Photos:

Hospital pics

Bowl of fish

Chicken in hospital

Eating oranges with the group

Birthday fufu

Elder Ison and I share an April birthday, so we bought a birthday cake together. Notice the wonderful spelling of our names.

Video of little kid peeing himself

Video of me sending a kid on a task.

Humjibre Hurricane

Hello friends and family! It's been another couple of weeks. There really hasn't been much going on the past few weeks, but let me catch you up on what has gone on.

First of all, I've been on a few exchanges this week with members in my district. One exchange with Elder Ison and another with Elder Williams. Exchanges are one of the more fun things in mission life. It's cool to go and experience a different companion and a different area for a day.

We had some baptisms last Sunday. We baptized four of our people we found, and I have got to tell you a story about Kojo Fordjour. He is the old man in the baptism picture. He is in his late 70s and he also is the chief of Humjibre village. We have been teaching him the past few weeks, and we have seen a complete change in him. The funny story I have about him is before the baptism, we all took photos, and then I went and climbed into the baptism font. All of the candidates were standing in a group not pretty far off from the font, and you could tell most of them were pretty nervous. But not Kojo. He seemed to be bouncing up and down. As soon as I got in the font and called for someone to come get in, I saw Kojo start to run. And I don't mean a fast walk. This old freaking dude was literally running to the font. He had so much momentum that when he hit the stairs to climb into the font, he nearly jumped into the water. I just thought it was super cool that Kojo recognized the change that needed to happen, and he was stopping at nothing to make sure that change could happen NOW!

Another crazy thing that happened is a hurricane! Well, not really a hurricane, but it sure as heck seemed like one. We were just proselyting one evening, and next thing we know, the sky is black, and the wind is howling, and we are 30 mins away from home. We decided to get into a pragya and get home as fast as we could. As we were on our way home, the worst part of the storm hit, and it was pretty cool to watch but also terrifying because I was right in the middle of it. Palm trees were bent in half, the roofs of people's houses were flying overhead. Entire buildings were being picked up and thrown. Power poles uprooted themselves and fell over the roads. Flying pieces of tin roofing were everywhere, and literally, the heaviest rain. It was wild. By God's grace, we made it home safely, and no one in our village was seriously injured. But lots of buildings were ruined, and it took about four days to get power back to Bekwai and Humjibre. I have a video of some of the aftermath down below.

Other than that, life's been good here. I really enjoyed General Conference this week, and honestly, I am still digesting it. One of my favorite things that was stressed so much is if we have made promises with God and we have broken them, we can always come back to Him. Our promises and blessings are still here! How wonderful is that? I thought it worked perfectly into my personal study I had that day in Romans 11:

"23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again."

Earlier in the chapter, it talks about being grafted into the house of Israel, or becoming a part of God's chosen people. The only way to do this is to be baptized by the proper priesthood and make covenants with God. Then you can be counted as one of the house of Israel and an heir of the Abrahamic covenant.

The scripture uses the example of an olive tree and how a bad branch can be grafted onto a good olive tree, and the bad branch will eventually become good again. This scripture in Romans, along with this general conference talk, lets us know that if we have been grafted in once and have fallen away, God is able to graft us in again. God wants us to follow Him, give us power, and keep His commandments. When we do, blessings have been promised.

I had many thoughts during this conference, and it was seriously such a good one. I especially love what the prophet said, and we are so blessed to have a prophet of God in our day. Let us not take him for granted. ~ Elder Gilbert

Photos 

"Gobe" or also called red red it is rice and beans with palm oil and plantain. Its so good. 

"Ampesi" is boiled plantin with a stew.

Baptism pics 

Akwasi krontin is one of our members who always gives us coconuts everything we go to see him. 

Pounding fufu 

And a video of a chop bar. This is the woman's kitchen. You go up and tell her what you want and how much of it and she will scoop you up the amount and she has some benches in the back where you can sit and eat.