9 Weeks!

Today was absolutely beautiful. Sunday is always the prettiest day of the week even here in Ghana. Cassie and I left around 8 to go to church at 9 but still ended up being pretty late. Our first taxi ride went without a hitch but the one to Asamong our taxi driver never went faster than 20 km/h while he texted on his phone and stopped randomly to wave to his friends across the street. The lady next to Cassie had just given birth a couple of days ago and was going to the Asamong Hospital opposite from the church building. She looked like she was struggling to carry all of her stuff and newborn baby so I offered to help her to the Maternity Center in the Hospital. She hasn’t been feeling well since giving birth at home so she was going to the clinic to get checked out. We got her situated and quickly walked to church right as they were singing the Sacrament Hymn. The funniest part was when the Branch President was off by a word every single verse and was singing like it was MoTab tryouts or something. We tried our hardest to stifle our laughs but I think everyone but him knew he was off by a beat. It was fast Sunday so a few members got up and bore their testimonies. One man had us pull out our hymnbooks and sing Come Come Ye Saints. The Branch President was not happy with this and refused to sing. During Church I read the scriptures and my book Teachings of Presidents of the Church George Albert Smith and can’t get enough of either of them. Prophets of the church are truly destined for their calling since birth. I’ve been reading about George Smith’s life and not only was he the perfect man so were his parents. After Sacrament we had a ‘5’ minute break that turned into 15. We got asked to go to the Primary room and teach the Primary lesson for 2 hours. We didn’t have any warning but agreed to teach the lesson. The Primary room is upstairs in a small room with a chalkboard and 40 little kid chairs set up in neat rows. It became evident in about 10 seconds that none of these kids understood English well enough for us to teach them. We had the Book of Mormon storybook for Kids and a ton of those pictures from the library. The only thing I could think of was to pull out the pictures of the animals and have a lesson on the things God created. I got the kids going on naming animals which they seemed to like. We remembered from weeks past that they could sing Book of Mormon Stories and I am a Child of God. We sang those songs but then we were stuck. One of the counselors came in to see how we were doing so we told him we need someone to help us translate. She got one of the Young Women to help us which made it so much easier. We pulled out the kid’s story book and went over the tree of life and Nephi building a boat. The girl helping us out was fairly new to the church so once I summarized the story to her she translated it to the kids. I have no idea what she was actually saying to them but there were 4 kids on the front row that had the biggest eyes and were nodding every now and then as she told the story. I could tell after two of these lessons the kid were starting to get restless and we needed a singing break. We taught them Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes in Twi successfully but we didn’t have so much success with popcorn popping. They mumbled the tune and repeated the actions I did but they were thoroughly confused at what we were doing so we stopped that and I pulled out the pictures of Jesus. The other girls were sitting down on the other side of the room writing in their journals but I was loving spending every moment with these sweet kids. I pulled a picture of Jesus out of the bunch and asked who he was. Some kids told me it was God and others said it was the Prophet. I continued to show them other pictures of Jesus teaching little kids and asked the kids what we learn from Jesus. The discussions were all in Twi with the translator but the way the kids popped up in their seats to answer so quickly was so sweet. There were a few pictures of moms playing with their kids so I asked how each of them help out their mothers at the house. The little kids were telling me how they help fetch water, sweep the floor, and do the dishes. The responses are very different with American kids with responses like ‘Pick up my toys’ when they probably don’t actually. These little kids about 7 years old are actually fetching water for their moms and doing the dishes. The sweetest moment that I can’t stop thinking about was when I asked the kids to share their favorite Bible story. One kid who had participated regularly throughout the whole time shot his arm up and asked if he could tell the story of Lazarus. He gave it all in Twi but it took about 5 minutes for him to give the story. I just nodded along faking like I knew exactly what he was saying but I was really thinking about how amazing this kid is going to be as a missionary. He is just 8 and so reverently giving the whole story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. After he gave his story every other kid wanted to give their favorite Bible story too. The really little kids, about 4 years old, even gave a quick story. I was so impressed with the variety of stories and their sweet high-pitched voices giving them. We sang a couple of songs before ending a couple minutes early. The other girls were joking about how one day I’ll be a primary president and honestly I hope so. Primary is the best place ever. To teach and learn from the special spirits each one has would be such a blessing. After church we went home and had our meeting. For our spiritual thought, Lauren read from my book that my mom gave me before I left. In it was a quote from Sister Dalton’s talk Dare Great Things. Her main three points were Dream Big, Move Out of our comfort zones, and go forward with full confidence. These three points pretty much summarized our three months here. We dreamed big to come to Ghana, moved out of our comfort zones and became part of a foreign country, and can now move forward with full confidence. At the end she mentioned how when we make transitions, we are never alone. Our Heavenly Father knows exactly where we are and will always be with us. We all could testify of the presence of God in our life in these past few months as we have struggled to keep our sanity. After we went through our Pits, Peaks, and Praises. My pit of the week was my clothes taking almost 3 days to dry and my peak was the joy and peace I have felt this week. My praise was that today I felt satisfied enough here that if somebody told me I had to go home tomorrow I would be ok with it. I have been stressing out about not learning everything I need to learn here. I started to reflect on everything I have changed from my actions to attitude that have made me a happier person. I want to continue these changes when I am home and glad that this opportunity facilitated for all of those changes to happen as quickly as they did. After our meeting we watched Forever Strong, ate dinner, and waited for the World cup game to come on. We watched as Spain scored 2 goals in the first half but Cassie and I had to leave so we didn’t get back too late. As we were driving away we passed Lauren and Jackie walking back home so Cassie yelled out her window “Obruni, Where are you going?!” just like every child does every 10 seconds here. The other passengers and taxi driver thought that was the funniest thing ever and couldn’t stop laughing. We came home, ate more of our Obama Biscuits, and read our scriptures. We are in 3^rd Nephi now and love having late night discussions about what we’re reading. Today was the perfect start to our 10^th week here.