Hello friends and family!! It's been a crazy few weeks, so let me tell you all about it!
To start off, last week we had exchanges with the zone leaders. Our zone leaders live about an hour away from us in Bibiani, and their area is about another hour away. It is called Nyinahan, pronounced (N-hee-nee-hee-nee), it's a nice little area. I went on exchange with Elder Tano. I have a picture of our exchange down below.
The next highlight of last week was we held a baptism service for five of our people!! We have been working with them for some time now, and I'm so happy they have gained a testimony of this great work for themselves!! Pictures down below!
This week we had zone conference. I learned so much. It truly was a great conference. Something funny that we did at zone conference is the entire Bibiani zone decided we all wanted to go to zone conference with buzzed heads. Kinda sounds weird now that I'm typing it out, but it was funny in the moment, so we sent out a decree in the zone, and many didn't shave their heads but many did. So we all ganged up and took a photo after. It was pretty good. Bald in Twi is sɛrcɔla, pronounced (sir-cola), so we called ourselves the sɛrcɔla squad.
When we go to zone conference, we travel up to Kumasi the day before and stay in the mission office. There is a small basketball court. The only shoes that I had were my nice dress shoes, and I wasn't about to ball up in those. So I played a few rounds barefoot. The sucky thing was right before we were done in the last game, I was running full speed trying to defend Elder Mills and accidentally kicked an uneven piece of concrete and instantly turned my toe purple. It was not nice. But the next day, Elder Mills found some Mountain Dew Voltage, and we got to enjoy some American soda. So that made it all better. So huge shout out to Elder Mills for seeing that blue mtn brewski and buying it for me! Anyways, it's always fun to see my homie Elder Mills.
Another thing is power in this place sucks. We are entering into rainy season, so it rains nearly every day. But the power grid in Bekwai must really suck because we get even the slightest drizzle of rain, the power goes out. And it's not for a small time either. It's for days on end. The longest one has been four days so far, and I am not enjoying it. We typically run out of emergency water after three days. Emergency water is for cleaning and flushing toilets only. Not for drinking. We ran out of drinking water, and thankfully we had a life straw, so we just started drinking our emergency water.
One of my favorite drinks here in Ghana is called Malta Guinness. It's just a nice malt drink. I drink one like every day. But they came out with a limited-time cocoa malt, and I'm obsessing over them small. The only sucky thing is the only way you can buy them is in glass bottles, and the only place you can buy them is in bars, which sucks having to roll up to the bar to buy some malts. But they're so nice, so it's worth it.
Another highlight is while in Kumasi, I got a package from my Aunt Debi. It is packed full of all sorts of American goods! I'm so thankful for packages out here. They make life so nice.
A huge miracle I saw this week is one of our recent converts who was baptized last week got super sick this week. We went to Kumasi and returned on Saturday. We went to see her on that day. It is important that she comes to church the next day to be confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost. So, when we went to see her, she was completely bedridden. She reported being sick for three days and each day just getting worse and worse. So, we told her about priesthood blessings, and she desired we give one to her, so we did. We made sure her needs were taken care of, and we left. The next day at church, she was the first person there! She was completely better! It had literally been less than 24 hours that we went to see her. And she looked better, and she told us she has completely recovered, and we could see it! It was so cool.
You know, I no longer need more proof that the church is true. I already know. But when things like this happen, all I can do is smile and thank God that I was there to witness it. Anyways, that's all I've got for y'all. Talk to ya next time!
~Elder Gilbert
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