Thursday, March 27, 2014

New Apartment is Bigger.....But Way Trashier!

Ok, so yes everyone behold........I am healed!   My eyes are pretty much completely better.   They are just a little wrinkly and tired from being heavy and stretched out!   Now there is just some very minor swelling in my forehead, and that is good.   There is just a little hole up in there now.  I am much better. The only think wrong now, is my wrist.  The vein is kind of iffy. :) What do yo do when your vein is hard and hurts when you poke it?  Hehe, oh well I guess I will just continue to not use my left hand for awhile!


I got famous in the mission and the ward before I even got out of the hospital!   It was weird.  Everyone I met asked me if I was ok and if I was feeling better.

Ok now don't even start talking about how bad my typing is!  You race against the clock while half the time the buttons don't work.  The keys are printed incorrectly, so you try to put an ! and you get an ".  It isn't nice, and currently the keyboard I am using is actually covered in Arabic symbols.  So I am having a lot of trouble trying to do this!  There are 4 keys that look like an N!!  Agh!


And oh goodness, yes eye in "eyedea" was on purpose, but some things really are the crappy computer equipment I am using!  And I spelled it "in tents"  instead of "intense" because of a joke Elder Nelson told about when he went camping.  He also told me about his job back home, where he crushed pop cans, and how it was "sodapressing"!!!  HAHA!


TY:   Ok bro service is on! I will serve as I serve while I scare and eat and teach no problem! Did you read the Book of Mormon this month? Because you should.You should just try to read it as fast as you can because man that thing is so sweet! I just finished it yesterday and I have to decide if I am just going to read it it again! love you bro.

TAY:  So were these  CTR360  the yellow and black ones or  the yellow and white ones that I have been wanting forever?  If so, I am grumps bro! Man I need to get some new shoes here. I totally tore out the bottom of my Predators  like 2 months ago.  I have been using these ones that are a mix brand between DC, Adidas, and Ghana trash :) Yeah I partially built them! But no problems, they look pretty good on me :) Carve it up at Tamarack!

Tali: Hey, so you just like going on trips without me now huh??! haha just kidding... kind of.  Is anyone using my snowboard, because if someone wants to that's cool since I know mine is da best! Girl you gotta be able to wait till I get home, because I still have a whole sister mission left! (that means I still have 18 months left!)

Gracie:  Oooo new curlers cute!  Oh my goodness! Bet you like those!  Well I would guess it's going to be cold since there will be snow there. But I guess you will just have to find out and let me know when you get there!

Ok so transfer news.  I got moved to Kasoa, which is actually just a larger city with a bigger market.  It is still in the same zone, so I am still close to the hospital.  My new companion is Elder Azalwa from Uganda. He is way cool, he came at the same time as Elder Allen, so they both just hit a year.  We are having some fun here and doing a bunch of work!  It seems like half of the people we meet are recent converts, which is really cool.  
Now our apartment is even bigger!  It could pretty easily fit 10 missionaries, but right now there are only 6 of us.  Elder Legg(6months, USA)-Elder Azalwa(1 year, Uganda), Elder Crotz(6months, South Africa)- Elder Damane(9months, South Africa) , Elder Chatterley(9 months, USA) - Elder Burisa(a few days, Ethiopia).   It is way fun!  We think there was a little mix up with Elder Burisa's MTC experience, because he only received 2 weeks to try to learn English!   He's way fun though!
The apartment is bigger than my last one, and it is colder by a little bit, but it is way trashier.   It is seriously just a cement house with some window slats.  The shower is seriously a cement room with a shower hose sticking out of the side!  I like it here though.  The members seem pretty cool and our compound is right next to the chapel.  I have about a 30 second walk to get to church now instead of a 30 minute walk in Odorkor! 

Oh oh,  just so everyone that is thinking I am losing weight knows............I broke my bed 3 times this week!  Yeah yeah any body sayin fat elder woop woop!  Now it looks like I have one of those sweet beds where you can move the head and the feet up and down.  Now I make a cool looking v while I sleep!

I am now using a tall bike, which is a special set of bikes that the mission acquired.  It has an extra tall frame for some of those bigger guys that are way tall.  Yeah like Elder Allen.  Oh well I'm like the third tallest in the apartment, so I guess it makes sense that I should get the tallest bike!  Gosh missionaries am I right?!

So here it's 7:00 and I still haven't washed my clothes.  We will see how that works. 

Hopefully we will get time to still play football this week because I am feeling it!

Everything here rocks, so I hope everyone keeps up the awesomeness back home!

Love Elder Legg

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

A Face Only a Mother Could Love

Infection Strikes........
Then a medicine/allergic reaction.....
Ok so here it comes...
This week we did next to no work......
This week I had an IV..........
This week I spent 3 days in the hospital.............
This week I went blind! duh duh duhhhhhh................

Hehe ok so hopefully everyone is freaked out now.  My AP said, very harshly, not to let you guys know, or you all might ask me to come home!


So Sunday I started with a little sore on my forehead.


        Monday I had a small to medium sized bump on my forehead with some puss.


        Tuesday my eyes started to get some swelling in the way, and my nose got huge.  We had one of the older couple missionaries take us to the hospital.   We were seen by Doctor Kissi's wife.  She gave us some sweet drugs and we were on our way cool.  That night we had a little operation party in our room with Doctor Allen and Nurse Hoskins (probably a bad idea, and might have just made everything worse, but oh well it was way fun).


        Wednesday I wake up and AGH I'm blind!!!!!  My eyes were so swollen you couldn't even pry my eyelids open (now you may think you know, but you have no eyedea! You cant even comprehend, so I will attach pictures!)  And so we just decided, eh no problem, take my drugs, and we won't go out today. I'll just lay in bed.  Problem, we were supposed to go on exchanges with our zone leaders that day, but we told them would couldn't and they came anyways.  They were in for a wild surprise, so they just kind of did some stuff with the other guys in our apartment.  Then randomly the APs (assistants to the president, they are 2 missionaries assigned to help the president for a little while) show up.  One just gets shocked and seemed as though he was going to cry, and the other one acted like he pooped himself and just took charge.   We were ordered into the car so they could take us to the hospital. That was really difficult, because Elder Allen had to lead me around since I was blind!  We get there, and I get placed in a wheel chair, soo sweet....... until I got motion sick.  But everyone was freaking out except Doctor Kissi. He just told us they'd take care of it, and I'd have to stay for a while.  We got moved into a room so the nurses could get me an IV.


I'm kind of freaking out because needles are scary always!! And now I cant see anything!  Plus they were holding on to my arm for at least 10 minutes!  So I started getting kinda dizzy... "umm Elder Allen come hold my head."  Nurse asks if I'm in pain, and I say no.  Other nurse just gets this scared tone and asks if I'm going to vomit .  "No...well maybe... yeah... yes I'm going to vomit!   I'm going to vomit NOW....... bleeeeehhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"  Luckily they handed me a bag a split second before I up heaved my bread and egg with pepe all over everyone. (pepe-powder version of hot sauce). 


 So they were all saved. So they said that whole episode happened because of the medicine. But yes, I am man enough to admit I had a panic attack. I almost passed out too.  You know the feeling when you stand up too fast?  Get that feeling, but now be blind!!! Haha, oh no, I couldn't take it.

 Ghanaian Style IV

Then I was hooked to and IV and left to rot with some dude with malaria who I almost murdered!  Freak man! I can't see anything, and you think you can just snore like some sort of wild banshee!???
Heck no!!   That is not ok! When we first got into the room the bathroom was locked with no key, the front door wouldn't shut, the tv wouldn't even plug in, and the air conditioning wouldn't work! The doctor was appalled with his VIP Ward!


Ok, so you can get a little bit of perspective on how much pain I was in at the hospital I will tell you about the shots I got.  Since I had them all the time, they had me hooked to an IV.
You know the things that you use to measure/ squirt medicine into our mouths?? (a little medicine syringe) Yeah, it was literally one of those full of liquid that they were just forcing into my veins.  Ugh like every 3 hours they'd just mess my wrist up.  And It used to look like my arm was broken, because my wrist was at a funky angle and I couldn't move it back because it hurt too bad :) Don't worry it's just pretty discolored and kind of swollen now.

The VIP Patient


Good news Is Doctor Kissi's son, Dickson, found us and got us food and our real room.  So for three days I had to suffer in the VIP Ward with Elder Allen.  Our own tv, our own bathroom, 3 free meals a day, and air conditioning, it was brutal :)
But don't worry, I got let out on Friday.  Almost all the way cleared up and I am now doing much better!


On another note I am being transferred. I will be in the same zone, but about 45 minutes away in Kasoa with Elder Azalwa.
That's pretty much all I know, but I will know more next week so love you guys!
 Love,
Elder Legg


















The Reason for No Post for the Week of 3/10

Ok, sorry about last week.  The power went down.  Then the link went down.  Then the link tower went down for 4 days.  And there was just no doing anything about it, because the man who owns the tower was on a trip to the US.





Wednesday, March 5, 2014

New Mailing Address & March Madness

Yes, there is a new address.  They are moving the mission office (that no one uses) closer to president's house so the post office that they use is going to change   But for about the next 6 months they will go to both, so you can  just switch now, but anything already sent should get here!  
NEW ADDRESS:
Elder Travis Legg
Ghana Accra West Mission 
PMB  CT  209  
Cantonments 
Accra Ghana 
West Africa

So far Elder Allen, Elder Hoskins, and I have been spending our free time making up sweet adventure stories!  Last week we went to Utah state to visit Elder Allen, and we met some girls and they were basically a band, and we went to church there. FHE was to a lake with a really cool rock climbing place next to it!  And currently we are at a super cool resort thing in New Zealand where everything is all inclusive, so we have some ridiculousness happening.   And the concierge who is named either Connie, Chelsea, or Evelynn, she has a triple identity because she was trying to figure out if Elder Allen liked her. But she is making us dress up as modern day super heroes!

How much was Tay's ottoman?   We do realize I bought mine for like $5 at a yard sale! I bet skiing was crazy awesome! I can't wait till I can go again! 2015-2016 season pass would be ok, just so you know mom. ;)
Tali/Gracie:  You know what, that drink kind of tasted like mud too, so don't worry! (from the previous pictures)

Ty/Tay: Yeah I have a lot of foods that had better be waiting for me when I get home!  The item added to the list today was pot stickers!  I'm talking a huge bowl of them, so that I can just eat them like popcorn!  Tay will love stake dances, so find him some cute girls that he can dance with!  When he gets into high school try to do a lot of things with him, or else you will go on mission and wish you had done a lot more! Sorry man I should have spent more time with you. Thanks for being on my state soccer team though! I was really grateful for that! You are the bomb bro!  You know I didn't really understand why you would want to look up to me, because I always looked up to you! 



I have stolen a lot lately!  We stole a big box of dishes out of Elder Hoskin's room while they were out. Also Elder Allen and I stole pretty much all of the dishes from the kitchen this week }:)   If people can't wash their gosh dang dishes, then I guess they don't deserve to have them!  Flippen ridiculous when you've got a 23 year old man who is getting his dishes stolen because he is too lazy to walk out to the poly tank and wash them off!


Hmm what happened this week? Sheesh it was a pretty regular and quiet week!  Just a sec let me see what I can come up with...
Oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  March Madness started! How did I forget that?  I have been reading the Book of Mormon, like some sort of lonely kid with no friends!  So now you all have the rest of March to start and finish the Book of Mormon!  This challenge comes from me to you!  It's a race, but still make sure you know what you are reading, and you are not just skimming the pages!  I've done some math, people can finish the book in 24 hours.  So that means you need to read less than an hour a day.   To read it in a week though, you need to read about 77 pages a day... I want to, but I am at day 3 and I am only on page 78 oops. Let's see what y'all got!  Hopefully I can email that I am finished within the next week or two!  But prepare yourselves for next year, because I think I can read the Book of Mormon 4 times in a month. That is going to Blow Elder Hoskins' mind! Oh sorry, yeah he is in the competition too (about page 30 psh haha) just kidding he is doing good, but we are the only ones in the apartment doing it!


Ok I may or may not have gotten to watch a little Fresh Prince of Belaire this week, and yes it is super freaking funny! Wow I didn't realize I had been missing so much!

AGH why am I so boring?  I guess we just spent a lot of time working this week except not really! We did do more work than the last couple of weeks though. Elder Kagoza called Elder Allen in yesterday, all surprised like, and asked him what happened and why our numbers were so good.  All we could answer with was that we talked about it last week, and we tried a little harder to do more work this week.

Oh ok, so there is a woman who is a frequent at our cafe, but we don't know her name.  Chris has been asked plenty of questions about our church by her, so he tried to refer her to us a few weeks ago but nothing happened.  I took it upon myself to contact her and basically force her to become an investigator.... 

Yeah that ended like this:   "Hey how are you? I'm Elder Legg", blah blah blah interesting conversation about where she lives if she wants us to come visit her, and some small stuff about me so that she would feel comfortable.  

Then boom, me: "Do you have any questions about anything right now?" 

Her:   "Oh sure how do you feel about slavery?"... "Some people try to blame it on their forefathers, do you blame your forefathers and say it has nothing to do with you, or do you just take responsibility?"... "Someone in England said that the whites were ashamed for what they had done, are you ashamed?"... 

Then Chris tries to step in and change the subject/ save me, but she would have none of that!  The butterfly was relentless in her attack, trying to flank me and force me into the corner.

 I decided there was only thing to do," Yes I am ashamed!  Slavery was a terrible thing that I wish had never happened!  Oh how I wish I could turn back the clock, and take back those things that people, I don't know, and have never met, did that terrible thing! What can I ever do to help?" 

She replied with: "You could apologize, and then when you go home you could say something about it!" " 

Me:  "Ok ma'am, I am sorry for those things that those people did! When I get home I will say something :)" 
Finish, she left all grumps, and Chris was amazed. He told me how he wanted to blow up on her and was so surprised that I kept my cool in such a way!  Yes nailed it!


Another occurrence of people accusing me of being racist: 
  Last night I was contacting someone, when out of no where a drunk dude started yelling at me.  He yelled a bunch of malarkey about him being black, and me having a problem with him because of that.   The guy I was contacting got pretty mad and was going to beat the drunk guy, but I stepped in between them and told the drunk man off.   I let him know that, in fact, I am not white, but I too happen to be black.  If you compare skin, I am, in fact, much darker than him (Not even close!!! This guy was way dark heehee) He looked, but it seemed like he couldn't find my arm.  And he asked if I was sure.  I let him know that there was no problem, and he was losing the person he was following (there was no one there).  He got worried and yelled after the imaginary person, and told me he had to go.   Oh man, I hope I am really as good at talking to others now as I hope I am, or am at least making myself out to seem!


Ok I hope I get some more good stuff together this week! I will try to have some sort of adventure!
Love Elder Legg 

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Pictures from Ghana

Ok so we are not actually sure what this drink is... the lady definitely either said white palm oil or white palm wine... and there is a super alcoholic drink her called palm wine... our investigator bought it for us and she knows we don't drink so it hopefully was ok!


Take a look at the condition of the surrounding buildings. 
And look how great Trav looks!

                                           
Looks Tasty!!


This is a party they had before one of the missionaries was transferred. 
Banana shakes??
This is a man juggling eggs---sooo cool!
Check out the surroundings and conditions in this picture.