Wednesday, March 28, 2012

February 27, 2012


Momma,

This last week was hard. My companion requires every ounce
of patience I have left in me every second of the day. I'm not trying
to be negative, but he really is like working with an eight-year-old
sometimes. It can be embarrassing especially when we're teaching a
lesson and he does something immature. I have to support him and it
takes a lot of humility, not to mention humiliation sometimes. he
talks a lot, very fast, and comments on everything possible thing he
sees. and he always goes "HEY!" as loud as he can when something just
the slightest out of normality surprises him. The "HEY!" is
embarrassing when we're in the middle of a lesson and he just shouts
because of something he sees. But in a way I'm training him and I'm
trying to be patient with him. But who knows, maybe him or myself will
be transferred tomorrow and I'll be finished. But I am a little afraid
of going another transfer with him, I might lose it. Whatever happens,
I'll do what I'm supposed to and deal with everything the way I should
deal with them.
We had 3 baptisms this weekend! The baptism went through after a lot of trial, and we
completed a family into the church by baptizing the mother and her two
children (the father was already a member).
This week has been interesting. To try to explain every
detail about what happens during the day is difficult because you just
won't be able to understand unless you experience it and understand
the culture here. But my Twi is at the top of it's game. I can
understand more than I can speak. We talked with that Claudia's
grandson about Ghana and he told me to learn the Twi because the
people will trust you more if you can speak some Twi to them. It's so
true. I have such an easier time talking to anyone because I can speak
some Twi. About half of the people we talk to won't talk with us
unless we show we know at least a little bit of Twi. After we show we
can speak some Twi they will open up and speak english to us too. It
sounds silly, and at first I thought everyone was immature for acting
like that, but that's just how they work and I have to work with them
so I adapted. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em', eh? I've found that to
be crucial in missionary work. I'd rather compromise and adapt to
others than wait too long to see if they'll compromise and adapt to
me. Maybe I'm just afraid to face them and tell them to change. But
I've found that as I give everything up and let them beat on me a
little bit. They find that they're just beating on someone who won't
fight back and eventually they stop and question their purpose. It's
like the spongebob episode with "Flats". I'm sure at least Connor
remembers this one. Flats always says to spongebob "I'm gonna kick
your butt". Spongebob tries to run from him everywhere he goes, but
finally he just has to face him and let him "kick his butt". When
Flats starts to punch him, it just tickles Spongebob and he starts
laughing. But Flats doesn't give up, he keep punching hoping it to
affect Spongebob. But finally he wears himself out and gets tired and
realizes what he's doing isn't accomplishing anything. So that's
probably too deep that anyone should look into a spongebob episode, ha
ha, but I thought it applied :)
Anyways, everything is going well here. I'm eating well, and
I'm enjoying the fruits. Especially the Mangos. I love Mangos. You can
buy oranges for just 10 pesewes here. which is like 5 cents. So I buy
some oranges occasionally. I took out 100 cedis a couple weeks ago,
just so you know. It's just emergency or in case I really need
something. So I don't know what happened, but the hair clippers won't
charge and last for longer than 30 seconds, sorry :-S I think it had
something to do with having it plugged in during a power outage and
then the power came back on and surged into the plug too much and
burnt it out...... or something, I don't know. Speaking of cutting
hair, i cut Elder Thom's hair for him all with just a pair of
scisscors. and It looked.....not bad, ha ha. He said I did a really
good job, so that's all that mattered. I tried to do what the woman
who cut my hair do and use my fingers to measure the length to cut. It
really did work out well and Elder Thom didn't look half bad.
So some questions to answer and some to ask.  I'm following the rules, and I think the main purpose of
them asking me not to e-mail anyone else besides my family is to not
distract me. Dad asked some
questions so I want to answer them before I go. I loved the pictures
you guys sent, I always download them onto my mp3 player to look at
later and to show other people. I love you guys and everything there
sounds practically perfect! Thanks for the letters too, I love my
family.
---Elder Littlefield

Dad,

So I guess I answered most of your concerns in the last
e-mail, but either way, I'll let you know if I really need anything
sent to me! It's been pretty awesome lately, I've been getting a
package a week so I can't thank you enough. Not many other missionaries get letters and packages
like that, so I feel lucky. Mostly I'll just need some small money
here and there to buy things here. The 100 cedis ($66.66 U.S. dollars)
i took out ought to last me a good while though. I don't cook with any
recipes and I'm everything tastes good. I'm glad I experimented a lot
before my mission so I don't end up ruining anything now. I've made
some nice bean stews to put over rice. I add beans, chicken, green
peppers, ...... I think I've already said this. Anyways, it tasted
really good. Those spices sure come in handy, I might need some more
of those soon. I've used at least half of each one. Anyways, Thanks
for everything, I love you guys!

--Elder Littlefield

     

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