September 20, 2010 "And the Rains came down and the floods came up..."

So, it rained this week. And when I say rained, I mean R-A-I-N-E-D - All day. It was quite annoying. We had to bike down a river - not alongside a river, but DOWN a river, as in, IN the river (water came up to the middle of my tires; fun stuff) - and stuff like that happened all day. I just realized that the super awesome scripture bag JD got for me isn’t entirely water proof. I'll have to come up with a solution for that. Probably just stuff a plastic bag around it or something; haha.

Speaking of the rain, we were still outside, going from place to place, with each appointment failing (apparently no one likes talking to soaked, muddy missionaries in their house, go figure). Finally, one lady - who thought we were crazy - asked us why we didn’t just stop and rest while the rain was coming down like that. I responded "If the tempests didn't stop the Master, why should a little rain stop His servants?"  She was caught off-guard by that, thought about it, and then told us she was really proud of what we were doing and how dedicated we were to the work. She then promptly shut the door on us and went back to sleep; oh well. I really liked that phrase, thought. Metaphorically, it has a lot of applications in life - it's really been a fun, snappy boost for the week.

Oh! Speaking of the people. It's so daggum annoying as no one allows us to help them. The men find it an insult to need help (destroys their 'manly image' or something) and women are scared to let us help as then the men get angry that the women would have the audacity to ask men to help them. We have to more or less force them to let us help most the time, and then they warm up to us and let things go. However, we were biking the other day, every appointment had fallen through up to that point, and we saw some lady with a giant bowl of fish (500+ easy). She was sitting there scaling them, so we asked if we could help. She looked up, laughed, and then said yes (probably thinking we really wouldn’t). But we sat down and started scaling the fish with her. She was surprised, and so was every other woman who passed through the area (apparently, it's a place where a lot of shopkeeper women prepare their food and stuffs to sell). We talked a bit, introduced ourselves, and got to know her, and then just scaled fish for 1 ½ hours. It was fun; she asked how I knew how to do it so well (E. Zadi wasn’t all that skilled at it; haha) and I told her my grandpa was a fisherman (explaining fishing as a hobby here doesn’t make sense to them). It was really nice, and I enjoyed it, and she now really likes us and says hi to us all the time. Of course, we smelt like fish all day (fish here is disgusting, btw; definitely not the good stuff we get back in the good 'ol USA) but it was well worth it.

Speaking of fish. They have a tradition here that I absolutely hate - if you don’t eat all the food they give you, it's an insult against them, their cooking skills, AND their family. But holy cow, their portions are huge! I can’t believe how much they all eat here! It's ridiculous. I'm about to explode every time we have an FM (free meal) and now I dread having them. I'd rather spend 70 cents on some rice and chicken and just eat how much I want (which isn’t much as my pallette doesn't handle stuff here very long). Don’t get me wrong; the fufu and baanku and stuff are all delicious (so long as it doesn’t have fish; ugh), but I can only have so much before I'm fighting my gag reflexes. Plus I'm sick with a cold - stuffed nose, sore/swollen throat, 'runny tummy' (you can figure that one out) - so I have trouble swallowing as it is. Ugh. Anyway, I just really dread eating down here, not because of WHAT we eat, but because of HOW MUCH.

Oh! We had another baptism last Saturday. We got to combine with Odorkor Ward, which was fun. We baptized Redeemer's younger brother, who's 13 (remember that he had already been attending church - he knew half the primary songs; it was nothing more than an interview with him), and also baptized Clinton, a long-time investigator. It was awesome. There were two others there, too.

It's amazing how this mission changes your outlook. In the past two weeks, we've had electricity at the apartment for a mere 3 days. No electricity means no lights (<--grrr), no fridge (<-- even more grrr), and, of course, no water (<-- grrrrrrr!). That means that we had to go downstairs, draw water from a plastic portapotty-looking water tank thing using a pot and some rope (pics of all this to come when I get decent internet), and then fill up our garbage cans of water with said water, so we can scoop it onto ourselves for 'showers'. It reminds me of the stories JD had on his mission. We also have no drinking water, so we have to buy some and haul it up the hill so we can drink, cook, and brush our teeth without getting Typhoid. But the thing is, when this happens, we just grab a candle, light it, and go on like nothing happened. You learn what the real priorities in life are, what the real necessities are. Elder Bills and I laugh at picturing how we would handle losing electricity back home; I remember not having electricity for a day or so once back home, and it was miserable! Everyone freaks! Now I get out here, and it's just "eh; I'll get the candle." I really like it; you learn to just ignore that which would hamper you, which makes it much easier to focus on the work, to be humble and to forgive people. It's a great lesson to learn.

I also would like to say that I don’t want ANYONE to EVER complain about laundry day again; hahaha. Here, we wash everything with our hands. Not a washboard, mind you; we don’t have such fancy things. We use our hands - nothing more. You grab a piece of the clothing in one hand, and rub it against the other parts in the other hand. It's just you, the clothes, and a bucket of nasty water that you have to use to clean all your clothes; it's too expensive to use detergent more than once per P-Day.

We also have fun washing the dishes. Here's a tutorial for all you folks back home to follow!

1.  Turn on water

2.  Pick up dirty dish

3.  Scrub food off dirty dish with your fingers

4.  Look at dish quizzically for any food that might be remaining

5.  Repeat steps 3-4 until no food remains

6.  Shrug your shoulders, flip the dish in the air a bit to kinda dry it off, and go use it for dinner

Dish soap is a privilege of the rich and the famous; we only get to actually use soap on it during laundry day (yay laundry soap! Cleans clothes AND dishes!). We were told that’s how it would be by the President, so you just get over it, bless all your food very very well, and get on with life.

Fun note: I was running late Sunday (no water, remember?) so I didn’t have time to eat breakfast, so I just grabbed one of the PopTarts my parents sneaked into my bags (thank you!!!) and headed to Church (had to be there at 0800 for the meeting that didn’t happen due to the person not showing up; that's life here; haha). I got it out, and offered some to Elder Bills. He had some, and was blown away by how amazing it is; he hadn’t had stuff that good for over a year. He said he was literally fighting back tears at how utterly delicious it was - chocolate here is a loose term referring to brown stuff that has a hint of sugar flavor in it.

Welp, with the power going out in the middle of writing this, I can’t think of anything else to say. I'll end it for now, and catch you up later. Good thing I write in my journal every day so I don’t have to worry about forgetting this stuff.

This Gospel is true! Take care, and God bless!

--Elder Collings