Pages

25 September 2013

Week 1 - Ghana MTC

Hello!
I'll start with the questions you asked:

[I had asked the following questions:
Are you getting much exercise? That usually helps you feel happier.
Who’s your companion and where is he from?
How’s the food?
How’s the heat?
Are you able to sleep okay?]


We've had two days of physical activity, just for an hour each time. We usually play football (soccer ;)), and I'm still sore from yesterday's. The African guys say I'm pretty good! :D Seems like your money put with the soccer camps paid off a little bit. ;) It does make me feel a little bit happier, but not a whole ton.

My companion is Elder Vandy. He's from Sierra Leone, which is pretty cool because besides the missionary from Liberia, he is the closest one of most of the people to Liberia, and he has been telling me about it a little bit. He's 22, and he worked at the embassy. He's been trained by a US Marine. Butttt, we clash a bit on stuff, so that's difficult.

The food isn't bad! There's just a LOT of it. So much rice that I can't finish my plate. It's spicy, as expected, and usually we have chicken with it. Their chicken is way better than KFC, so that's alright. Some of the stuff is REALLY good. Like the pineapple. It's white. O_O but it tastes, shamed to say it, better than Hawaii's. At least, it's right there with it. It's AMAZING pineapple.

The heat isn't too bad. I can sleep just fine, and I haven't had to pull out the fan yet. I've been getting adjusted to being hot and sweaty pretty well too, but I think it's helped that I usually felt hot and sweaty at home. It's really humid, like, you can rub your fingers together and feel the moisture. But it's not a muggy humid like California or Hawaii seemed to be like (to me). The smells are pretty weird. Definitely African.

Whoops, already answered the question! I sleep well. The first night... I was up past 2, probably even further, and I couldn't sleep. I just layed there. I even took a Nyquil, and it didn't work. The rest of the nights have been better. I always get homesick at night though... especially when I'm laying in bed trying to sleep. I'm just waiting for the homesickness to ease away... One day it might be okay.

Ooooh! I do Doodle! As for laughing at myself, I try! And the language: I can already do the snapping handshake! booyah! It's pretty complicated. Instead of using your own thumb to push your finger on, you use the other person's finger to snap it off and hit your hand (the hitting makes the noise). The accent is pretty thick, and sounds unintelligent, although it has really formal words in it, and I know that it's not an intelligence factor. It's pretty weird. I'll probably have it soonish, but my accent isn't really changing at all right now.

Some of the African elders have different cultural acceptances than us... For one, Bullsh** isn't seen as a swear word, and neither is da**. But one of my roommates is really inconsiderate. He's harasses, and all the other Africans think it's funny while all the Americans think it's just rude... He's sorta the reason I lock up my suitcases all the time. Some of the Africans are really cool though, like Elder Okoro and some others! Elder Okoro is Elder Davis' companion, and he wants to go into music. I talk to Elder Davis a bit more than some others...

That's a bummer on the biopsy! Keep letting me know. [his sister went in for a biopsy on a large thyroid nodule the day he left for Africa. The results were inconclusive so we're going to see another specialist.]

I love hearing about Ryatt and what's happening at home. Tell the little boy that he's awesome, and his brother in Africa is thinking about him.

I like how you asked a list of questions, keep doing that! It makes it easier to form a response quickly. I meant to upload some photos, but I forgot the cord for it in my room, so... yeah. I'll try to get some of those to you. I don't really have any super great pictures yet, anyway. They limit our picture taking a lot here in the MTC.

Oh, the instructors here: natives. It's odd. The teaching is with the accent and the weird phrases they do, and it seems to be a lot harder to teach than it was back in the states. I'm trying though!

Until next week, my awesome family!

Love,
Elder Price

[Click here for more information about the Ghana Missionary Training Center]

No comments:

Post a Comment