The Makings of a Good Week

As I mentioned before, the Abomosu District had district conference this past weekend, and we were privileged with good timing to be able to attend. Fortunately, they love me playing the “organ,” so I was invited to attend the priesthood leadership session as well at the adult and general sessions. For district conferences, the presiding authority is the mission president, so the Ghana Accra West mission president and his wife drove up to Abomosu from Ghana and spoke to all of us. President and Sister Hill are very knowledgeable, and it was awesome to sit at their feet and learn.

Three ladies had dresses out of the same "Mormon" fabric.

They keyboard decided not to work during the priesthood leadership session, so I didn’t even get to play for it. It was still great having a cushioned seat on the s

tand. We were barely given a half of an hour for lunch before the next session started, so we bought a half of a loaf of bread and cookies from off the street and munched to keep down the hunger pains.

I was able to fix the keyboard for the next session, but the dinky keyboard can’t be heard from the back of the room anyway, so I had a hard time thinking I was really changing how the songs were sang for most of the people. I love to play, but I don’t believe these people have really had much music exposure besides their own singing and the radio, so I would love to have then experience accompaniment for hymns.

Sister Hill chatted our ears off after the adult session, and it was interesting to speak to the wife of a brand new mission president. She is already involved in all the issues of missionaries and of the mission, so she was telling about the problems they worry about constantly: they worry about American greenies adjusting, African missionaries being impatient to poor greenie missionaries who are adjusting, and the lack of missionary couples, to name a few.

The way plantains grow

My wish for music exposure came true Sunday, when somebody had a great idea to plug the keyboard into the sound system and broadcast through the speakers. Of course, the best-attended meeting was the Sunday session, and the chapel and the exterior foyer was full to brim. It was almost like playing an actual organ back home: I was loud, but most importantly heard, and the keyboard even has an organ sound! I don’t know if anybody else was touched by it, but it made me so happy to play.

Of course, the rules of courtesy for accompanists are all thrown out the window in countries where no body accompanies. I was asked while playing prelude if I could play a hymn for a group that wanted to sing during the session, and it was one I had never played before. They are lucky I can sight read well. It was fun, though, because he was just as worried about me playing right as I was about playing it right for him, so we communicated the whole song with out exchanging a word, which is how it is supposed to work.

Margaret (in our Abomosu class) selling bowlfloats

There was something about Sunday that made it such a great day. I was very edified from the conference, but something made Sunday very special. It has spilled into the week as well, because Tuesday was also a great day. We volunteered at the health clinic, which I just put in my headphones (Battle Born, The Killers, just in case you were wondering) and mindlessly input data. Time passes pretty fast, though. Mama B bought us delicious bowlfloats, I purchased more fabric for a shirt, and our class in Amonom started complementing us about teaching them. Then the Ghana Black Stars, the Ghana national team who is trying to qualify for the World Cup, had a game against Egypt, and they won 6-1. The game was in Kumasi, which is only an hour or two away from here, so we totally could have gone!! AND tickets were only 10 GHC ($5.00) for general admission, and 20 GHC ($10.00) for VIP seats!! But we didn’t realize it until the game had started. Oh well.

We tried to tell Laffy Taffy jokes to our class in Amonom, and none of them got them. It was so funny trying to explain how it was supposed to be funny, and have all of them give us blank stares. Of course, we have to chalk some of that up to poor English, but we were working with the guy with the best English, and he was giving us the blankest of blank stares. He wasn’t even sure what the work “joke” meant. Ha!

On Wednesday, our class went long, and I could see many of the women were starting to fall asleep. I told them to stand up and stretch, and they were kind of giggling doing it, but they needed to get some blood moving. Garrett shouted out, “Jumping jacks!” and started jumping the jacks. Then, all of the ladies started to do them too. None of them know how to do them, and it was hilarious watching them do what ever awkward jumping moves they thought was a jumping jack. None of them wear bras or any sort of supportive clothing, so there was a lot of extra movement, if you know what I’m saying. Moments like these make it so fun to be out here.