Tradition

May 8, 2017

Short on Time

Sorry I can’t give you a full accounting of the week because of time. I have 30 minutes less to email today.

But I will say…crocs for last week. And this week?

We roasted a pig as a zone.  Yup, I’m doing stuff.

(Tell Saylor not to be jealous, it’s okay. 😉 )

I can’t speak too much about the work because of time, but I will say that I’ve been studying the principle of work and I’ve been loving the work and work in general. Look at the man you’ve raised me to become. I’m here Mama!

Basically, we are focusing on this one family right now. Lucy and Noah with their little boy Godfred. They’ve been ‘married’ for less than a year, but they only did a traditional thing called a knocking, so they’re not really married. That’s one obstacle that we’re gonna have to hurdle, but they are super sweet and very faithful. It really seemed like they found us rather than we found them.

Traditional Weddings in the Ghanaian Culture

In the traditional Ghanaian culture, the first step in the marriage process is called the“knocking on the door”… The man’s parents and elder relatives or his mother and brother or sister (as in the Asante tribe), will approach the girl’s family on his behalf by “knocking on the door” of her family’s house to ask for permission from them to allow him to court her.           from africantraditionalweddings.com

This and That

Question: Who all went to visit the crocodiles? Crocodiles. Others in the zone went, but just our district. It was powerful. They were sort of, kind of tame…as long as you fed them a chicken. That was the fee to be with them. We were pretty careful and had a guide nearby.

Question: How is all the sickness going? People are getting better, but it’s still got us bogged a bit. And last week we went to Kumasi, so we didn’t get much time to our area. Suffice to say, when I get released from this assignment I will be happy to be a full time proselyting missionary again.

For Mothers day: I will call in the evening like this. You can check the time differences, but I will call around 6-7 pm my time. I’m giving myself some buffer room. That is the plan. Love you so much Mom! I know that you mentioned that I have 6 months left and that I should blow the lid off in doing good in Ghana. Well, I am loving this work and I have no plans on slowing down.  (Note: missionaries are allowed to make two phone calls home each year, on Mother’s Day and Christmas.)

Go Jack and the Mount Vernon Track Teams!

I would also send pictures of my adventures but I really am out of time. Shorter time this week, but we will have all the time in the world to talk next week on Sunday.

Love,

-Elder Gilbert