Two Months Anniversary

We have been out for over 2 months.  I suppose the time has gone by fast, but in some ways it seems like we have been here forever.  I would like to talk about a few of the things we have learned in our first 2 months.  Some of the things many of you will laugh at because they are simple things that many of you already know.  We learned that it isn’t such a big deal to be at an international airport, board a plane and fly across the ocean.  We flew to Hawaii several years ago, but it seemed simpler back then.  We had to learn all about missions, like what district meetings, zone meetings, zone councils, zone activities, and zone conferences are all about.  We learned about the driving in Ghana, the food, shopping for food.  Shopping for food is just like a big farmers market.  It is every day in Kumasi, only once or twice a week in other areas.  We have learned where to get what we need.  We learned that the people are very happy, friendly and considerate and we love them for that.  We are still trying to learn to understand their accent better.  Elder Reiss is better at it than I am and that surprised me because I was sure I would do better.  We learned to buy our power with a power card.  We know what “lights out” means.  We kept saying the power is off, but it is simply “lights out”.  We had to get used to the hawkers at the stop lights.  Now it doesn’t bother us.  Sometimes we even buy a thing or two from them.  We learned what President Holmes expects of us, so we are continually working on that.  We have got the apartment stuff worked out and we are working on the leadership training.  We have found the clinics and hospitals and are working with sick missionaries on a regular basis.  I have got the management of the internet referrals figured out and we almost have the recent convert tracker up and running.  A lot of our assignments, even the apartment visit schedules are on spread sheets or tables, so we learned the difference between a spread sheet and table.  We are getting pretty good at setting them up, but still have a really long way to go on that.  Both of us have learned to text.  The missionaries use texting a lot, so we had to learn.  We loved meeting the Area President, Elder Dickson.  The zone conference was inspiring and a lot of fun.  Even though we have had a lot to learn, we are very grateful for the opportunity to serve here.

Our trip to Sunyani

A couple of weeks ago we went to Sunyani for the first time to do apt. inspections.  Sunyani is about a 2 ½ hour drive.  The drive was very nice.  It is kind of in the mountains.  We drove through a lot of forest areas, the road was good and there was very little traffic.  The town is very clean.  They make an effort to keep the trash picked up.  There are no tro tros there probably because there aren’t enough people to make it worth their while.  They have market two days a week so there isn’t as many street vendors on the other days.  There are 4 sisters and 8 elders there.  We did the inspections and ended up helping move 2 of the elders from one apt. to another.  The apt. coordinator met us up there and helped finish up.  I use the word “we” loosely because I didn’t do anything.  I am becoming lazy because the Ghanaian people won’t let us do anything.   They pack our bags and books, open doors and gates and lift us out of the gutters when Elder Reiss gets a little too close and drops a wheel in (that only happened once).  So with the moving, the young man that was helping kept trying to get Elder Reiss to sit down.  Well, he would have none of that so he was able to load stuff, but I just sat and watched.  It was an extremely warm day, but a good day.  

Hawkers at the toll booth on the road

Road to Sunyani

Toll booth

Entering Sunyani

Elder Larsen and a big dog

Some sort of big bug

New apt.

Refrigerator on top-last load

Not making another trip!!

Tro Tros

Not a tro tro, the mission van

Just unload whereever

Taxis

I keep talking about tro tros and many people ask what a tro tro is.  It is actually a 15 passenger van that they use for taxis.  Very few people here drive their own cars.  They travel by tro tro or taxi.  I tried to get some good tro tro pictures.  We also visited another branch Sunday and we attended a 3-zone p-day activity.  We are getting to know the missionaries little by little.

Poly tank was leaking so they were filling their jugs

The branch in Agona.  It only took a couple of hours to get there and to get back.  They held a baptism after church.

Some primary children

Baby goat and mom

No, the water isn't heated

Some observations

It seems that there are 3 distinct classes of people.  There are the poor that live in the huts on the streets.  There is the class that live in the apartments like we live in and the very rich that live in the very nice houses.  All dress well and they all are the happiest people I’ve ever seen.  Except for the wood huts that the very poor live in, all of the houses and buildings are made of cement blocks and cement.  Even some of the huts are cement block shells.    All of the houses and apartments have cement walls around them with iron gates.  It seems as though the great majority of the men here work and they work hard.  They drive taxis and tro tros, make cement and bricks, fill pot holes, make furniture and cabinets, haul logs, lumber, mechanics and there are the business men, technology people, etc.  Some are very well educated and most are very skilled in what they do.  There is almost no crime here.  I asked why all the security, razor wire, barred windows, locked gates.  It is because of the petty theft.    The one thing that surprised us is the family life.  We rarely see husband and wife together or see a family unit.  Even in the church there will be women sitting alone or with their children or men sitting alone.  Not very many family units like we are used to.  All lot of the time the men are in Accra or somewhere else working or they just don’t live together as families.  I think it is another culture thing and it is a concern for the church leaders which they are addressing.  These are some of the nicer homes in Kumasi.  In all of them except for this first one, the grass and trees are really dry.  It is the dry, winter season here now and hardly anyone waters their grass.  Even the really nice ward and stake centers have brown grass.

Another interesting week

Another interesting week

Sunday we visited the branch in Bibiani.  It is a 1 ½ hour drive and after you get past the construction, it is a pretty pleasant drive.  The road is good and there is quite a bit of jungle scenery.  We saw some of those huge trees that they cut down to use for lumber.  The branch was very inspiring.  The people are very friendly and have such strong testimonies.  The Branch President has his branch pretty well organized.  We encountered our first traffic problem coming back.  It took us 4 hours to get home.  Just a typical traffic jam in Kumasi.  However, Elder Reiss says he would rather drive here than in Salt Lake.  He doesn’t mind these roundabouts as much as he does the one in Idaho Falls.  Once you figure out their system it’s not that bad.  Today we traveled around a lot.  We picked up two elders and went to another apt. to get two bicycles.  Then they went with us to the chapel where we were to attend a district meeting and drop off the bicycles.  We inspected the sister’s apt.   It is actually pretty nice, but had a few problems like a leaking toilet, wiring problem, door problem and a dead frog in their well causing the water to smell.  The water has several filters on it, so hopefully it will be o.k.  Maybe by Friday it will be taken care of.  Then we gave the Zone Leaders a ride back to the mission home for their monthly zone council.   The one missionary is from Malad.  His dad knows Raquel from West Jefferson softball.  The price of gas is $1.70 a gallon and diesel is about the same.  The price never changes.  It hasn’t changed in the eight months that Palmers have been here.  Elder and Sister Thayne, the senior couple that has been up in Sunyani went home today.  Last night President Holmes had a little farewell dinner and program for them.  The dinner was good.  We had barbequed chicken, yams, potatoes, vegetables and we took chocolate chip cookies and ice cream.  They won’t be replaced.  They have the branches organized into a district up there.  The power here is a problem.  It is always off.   It just doesn’t go off, they shut it off in sections of the city and divert to another area.  We have been off almost every day for a week for anywhere from 4 to 9 hours.  Our generator is in the shop, so it gets very warm in the apt without the fans.  The mission home has a giant generator, so they always have power unless someone lets it run out of fuel.

Relief Society Room

Chapel

Primary Room

Relief Society Room

Primary room just before church

Front of the chapel

Courtyard

Primary class

Youth Sunday School class

Our Second Week

After meeting with President Holmes a couple of more times, our responsibilities are becoming more clear.  We are responsible for supervising the apt. coordinator.  He travels to each of the 29 apts. each month delivers their supplies and does the checklist of things needed to be done.  He then compiles his reports and turns the checklists and reports in to us.   Elder Reiss goes over the information with him.  Then once in every quarter we visit each apt. to make sure the repairs have been done and to make sure everything is o.k.  They opened up a new area in the mission.    It is a 5 or 6 hour drive from here so that will be an overnight trip.   Elder Reiss is on the audit committee for the 5 branches.  He is assigned to audit 2 branches this month.  Thank goodness for the online tutorial at lds.org and his experience with the VFW audits.  He will do fine.  Our biggest challenge is understanding the people when they talk.  Most are o.k., but some have such a heavy accent that is almost impossible to understand them.  I hope it gets easier.  Another of our responsibilities it to help Sister Holmes with the medical needs of the missionaries.  This week we went with the AP’s to pick up an elder and take him to the clinic.  He had hurt his hip.  I guess it is just a pulled muscle or tendon.  The Dr. gave him some medication and sent him on his way.  We have to get the medication cleared with the mission doctor who is in Accra before he can take it.  This elder is from Texas.  He has only been out since Nov. and he is getting transferred to the new area in Tamale.  He was really overweight when he got here, but between trying to cook for themselves with not much to cook and walking everywhere, he has lost 50 lbs. in a short time.  He is a great elder and has a good attitude.  He will do great in Tamale.  We just got back from there and had to visit Elder Martindale from Ashton.  He seems to have a 24 hour bug, so Sister Holmes sent some stuff to him.  He and Elder Belnap from I.F will be going home in Sept. and Oct.  This is the first time he has been sick here, so he felt bad.  Things are going good.  We are slowly figuring out the shopping system and when we get a minute, we look for the different meeting houses and apartments.  Since it is fast Sunday, we attended our official ward with the Palmers.  It was mostly in Twi, so we just try and get as much out of the meetings as we can.

Our first branch visit

The Kumasi area seems to be a little worse that some other places, such as Accra, Sunyani and Tamale, as for as handling of sewage and garbage and the condition of the roads.  One thing about here is the electronics.  Everyone seems to have an iphone or ipod.  Most do their wash by hand.  There seems to be plenty of water.  There are big poly tanks and pumps, so water is o.k. except that it is contaminated.  We have a water cooler and the mission home furnishes the water jugs.  We also have 3 filters on our kitchen tap.  We use that to rinse our fruits, fresh vegetable and dishes after we Clorox them for 2 minutes.  We visited our first branch on Sunday.  There is a couple of stakes here and several districts with functioning district presidencies.  Right now there are 5 branches that we are responsible for leadership training and auditing.  They are not in a district yet.  We go to a different branch each Sunday.  On fast Sunday, we attend our own ward.  We visited the two Obuasi branches.  I’m not sure how far it is to Obuasi, but it took us about an hour and a half to get there.  We rode with the mission president.  He is a very aggressive driver.  Obuasi is a gold mining town.  It doesn’t look like anyone is getting rich.  The chapel building is pretty nice.  The church rents the buildings and goes in and remodels them.  The cleanliness and upkeep is up to the branch presidents.  Some of the branch presidents have been in the church for a few years and the branches are functioning pretty well.  Some of them are not.  In one of the branches we visited the primary is struggling, but the relief society is doing really well. In the other no one in the primary showed up and when we went in the tiny little room, there was a young boy, maybe 10 or so, teaching the entire primary (about 9 children) about being a child of God.  The people are very friendly and happy.  They love the gospel and when they speak.  The church is in the process of renting another building for the 2^nd branch.  The present building does not have enough space for both branches.  We went to look at the building.  It was on the other side of town and up on the mountain side.  It was like going up a washed out mountain road.  Most of the people walk to church so it will be a challenge for the older members. 
           These are some random pictures of what we see as we drive around.

Four-way stop with only one stop sign

Sewing machine

Very common sight

Notice the stuff on her head

Love their billboards