Sorry but I only get an hour for everything this week because I
went on an emergency transfer. I am now in a place called Asamankese,
which is not nearly as nice as Oda, which makes me pretty grumps. But I
am now with a missionary who just came here from Liberia. He seems ok
so far, but I have only been with him for like 30 minutes!
Tell me how the start of school goes and everything! I'm glad soccer
was sweet and the schedules are ok!
Ok so my sweet story for this week! Got to play a sweet football match!
So we had a bi-branch soccer match that I was recruited for last week.
I was pretty much underplaying my skills when people were asking. Everyone
was laughing and expecting me to be a flop, since I'm white, I'm sure.
We played, and within the first 3 minutes I smoked some defender and
slammed a sweet shot that just ticked off the keepers hands and the
pole then out. By the end I was awarded player of the match. Some of
the people were coming up to me and asking what team I was going to
play on when I get home. And they all thought I was super in shape and
need to try out for the national team when I go home. So needless to
say, even though I got a belly and big cheeks, and I can only walk to
the refrigerator and back to bed without getting tired, I still got it!!
:)
Oh and so mom, I got pretty sick this week, but no need to worry. It is a
new sickness that has recently come up in Ghana. We got a pretty nasty
strain of the flu that just got out here and I have been kind of messed
up with that. It was sweet! We had a less active member and our ward
clerk that work at this hospital so my companion and I were there
visiting. We were eating some lunch when I got hit pretty hard. I ran
to a wall and just started vomiting like crazy! Oh it was not fun to
have a bunch of nurses laughing at you!
Alright so I will be on next week now I gotta go ball it up woop woop!
Love Elder Legg
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Monday, August 11, 2014
Ebola Enters Ghana & a Cholera Outbreak!
The bush here is great! I love the area and the people here! So I am starting to get my 3 week welcome. Now that all the members and people are getting to know me, they all just want me at there house all the time! I have a bunch of sweet friends and we get fed all the time. Friday I had 3 dinner dates in a row. Gosh it doesn't matter if you are a member, or an investigator, or I just buy things from your shop! Everyone just asks me when they should feed me and what.
On Friday I went to an investigators and she said sorry I don't have time to learn today because I have to take this fufu to my sick mother, but I made you some here. You can just give the dishes to that little girl when you're done. Ate it, then ran to our less active members, taught him. Then he said sorry elders you can't go yet. My wife is just finishing your dinner, so make sure to eat all. His wife brought out a massive bowl of rice and stew. Halfway through the meal, another investigator keeps calling over and over until I pick. Then she yells at me and tells me she is waiting and doesn't want the food to get cold! We finished our rice and stew then ran to the investigator. She was super mad at us, but in like 5 seconds, I had her smiling again. And she brought out some bomb ampesi and garden egg stew! Oh man right now that food is my jam! Don't worry about the girl investigators though, because both of them are married and with kids! But seriously one of my strengths is working with the women like 10 years older than me. I don't know why, but they just all love me. Maybe it's because I'm super cute and funny. Maybe it's my punctuality and ability to eat all. Maybe it's because I'm just super great with kids. I guess you can have your pick of all my many wonderful qualities! :)
I had a 2 people on Saturday call me, and all they said was where are you, the food is ready, I'm waiting... beep beep beep. It's way fun when it is like this!
Sister Rose, one of my many good friends, dashed us a "few" oranges. We stopped by her house on the way back from one of my villages the other day. We were just talking, seeing how she was doing, when she offered us oranges. I didn't reject, because 1. That's super offensive and 2. She has an orange tree. She runs to get them, then comes back 5 minutes later with a big bucket full of oranges. There were about 50 oranges in all. Her family ate 10 ish, then my companion and I ate the rest.
Here in Ghana, if someone gives you food they normally say eat all. If you fail to do so, you are offending them, and saying their food is not nice. So when someone gives you 50 oranges, and tells you to eat all, you don't ask questions. You just sneakily undo your trou and make room in your belly!
Haha mom you said that people feeding me well is one less thing for you to worry about. But let's throw this out there. Ebola is passed through body fluids. We are in the sweatiest place ever. I shake hands with about a hundred people a day. Then when we eat. It is all out of one big bowl. With the other people there. All of us using our hands to take the food from the bowl, then into our mouths. Hhhmmmm......I wonder what that could lead to ;)
But mom don't worry about Ebola coming to Ghana because well... it's already here! duh duh duh. There have been a few cases so far. One was in a place called Nsawam, which is between me and Accra, and only like 50 miles away :) Very close! I will be meeting people from there tomorrow actually! Oh and Ebola thrives in the bush by the way. (I love this kid for some reason!)
Best protection is to wash your hands with running water........yeah so I am in the danger zone! I get to wash my hands a little less than once a week!
But we got the water tank in, and of course, after 9 hours of work, it wasn't hooked up. Now a week later, and they still haven't taken care of it.
Can you believe I got smooshed by the polytank??! The thing is like 1000 gallons and it fell on me, and I broke through our neighbor's wall!! The tank got wedged in between 2 walls while we were moving it. It was my job to lift, while everyone else pushed, and bam! Big ol' nasty tank gets me! Hehe but it's ok, I only got hurt a little bit, and no blood!
Don't worry, Tyson will do fine (he got his wisdom teeth out) and of course he vomited! He is my little brother!
I think i am getting better at riding my bike again because I lost my companion twice in one day. The best loss this week though is we were up on this huge hill, that we had to walk our bikes up, just to find out the investigator wasn't there. I strapped in really tight, and raced down the hill. Yeah I did almost crash, it was sweet! I had no control. And my feet weren't on the pedals. And my chain wasn't even on the gears. But I ran through a little bush, and got yelled at by some guys. But in the end, I got to our next appointment and had to walk back to find my companion at a junction totally lost :) He is hard to get along with. He doesn't listen to anything. And you how some people talk about following God and the Spirit and that's how they fakely justify everything? He's one of those kind of people. And he always tries to point out what I'm going wrong, including being too talkative with our investigators when we saw them on the street!
Ok so that is what has happened this week. You got the stuff for Ebola, cholera, and polytank.
Love Elder Legg
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Ebola-----Ain't Nobody Got Time For Dat!!
We don't have Ebola here, but really there isn't a whole lot I can do. But we are being careful. I have only heard a little bit, but they have been talking about it down in Accra. It's kinda freaky, but I'm not very worried. I would rather survive Ebola than have to transfer missions to the USA honestly.
We have to shake hands with about a million people everyday. They told us to wash our hands. We asked them with what water??? And then they stopped telling us to wash our hands. They told us to take our doxy. We asked them if doxy prevents Ebola??? And then they stopped telling us to take our doxy. They said to sleep under our bed nets. We asked them if blood was in the air??? Then they stopped talking about Ebola, and went to malaria protection. Hehe ugh they don't know what they are doing. So on the Ebola front, just so everyone is aware, I am not worried and it isn't going to bother me because I'm a super missionary and ain't nobody got time for dat!!! (Typical Travis response)
Gracie: Yeah there is just a lot more rain here than in the other places. So I guess there is more shade. There are no cool animal anywhere here!!! Goodness! I'm glad you had a ton of fun in Oregon!
Tyson: Flip you are coming up on your senior year?!?! Gosh! Send me all your senior pics as you are taking them! Dude that is so cool! Gosh do you feel old? Are you feeling like the guy ruling the school?
Taylor: Sheesh high adventure is way fun, right?! I have decided I want to be a young mens leader because I want to woop on all you guys there! Sorry about your ankle, but such is the life of an uber boss am I right? Freak braces and soccer tryouts! Are you worried? Because you shouldn't be! You are going to do awesome!
I email at the cafe like always! Oda is a little city out in the middle of the bush. They don't have everything, but they have most of the normal stuff. My house is regular. It is the 2nd best house I have been in, but we also don't have running water, so I have to fetch water out of a well if I want to get water. Good news for that is that we should be getting a tank put in this week then the water will be running. This is pretty much the same as before, but the village is smaller and the area has a ton of trees everywhere! There is more shade because there are a lot of clouds all the time. It is a little bit cooler, but it is still way hot! Um, not very many animals. I saw chickens, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, birds, cows. Plenty!
I got away from most of the guys that I didn't like. Being senior companion is a joke so I don't really care :) it just means people will try to yell at me more!
Yeah hmm what did I do this week? I'm not too sure. I know I am getting way popular here which is sweet! I have had nearly 1 person every day this week ask to marry me which is really flattering! Even today the 80 year old mommy selling tomatoes asked for my hand in marriage :) you know I got that!
People have been enjoying feeding me, so I have gotten fed a lot. You were asking if fufu is what they eat a lot, but for that one it can take a while to make, so one of the most common foods we eat here is called ampesi. It's boiled yam, cocoyam, and plantain then dipped in a stew. Preferably a really sweet garden egg stew! mmm
So for my laundry, we have a solution already! Elder Forrest has a super cool investigator/ future recent convert named Bill. Bill is 13 years old, super ripped, and super smart. He has been offering to do our wash and we enjoy it. We wanted to pay him, but he said he wouldn't accept any money, so I cooked him breakfast instead! He just comes to our house, we bring the stuff outside, then we pick it off the dry line in the evening. He is actually accompanying us around all day which is way fun! I had him on my bike with me when we were riding to the market and a ton of people were yelling nasty things at us! A couple of guys tried to get a security guard at a government shop to stop us by saying it was illegal to ride 2 people on a bike. But too bad for them, the guard is my friend so he just laughed and waved!
We go out to a village called Asene and it is way cool! It's like 45 minutes away from the church by car. I really like going there because there are a lot of sweet people there! We only go once a week, but I call people there like very day! I make a lot of phone calls now! On Saturday I made like 50 phone calls it was nice! They limited us to 400 minutes a month and 20 texts. Neither of those are enough. I get 13 minutes a day. I have to call my investigators in the morning, then right before the appointment, then in the evening to remind them of commitments. Each call is 1-2 minutes so I talk at least 20 minutes a day. Also all of our texts go to reporting our numbers, so we can't even send referrals or anything it's a bunch of junk and they don't know what they are doing.
Yeah so I am having tons of fun and we will be enjoying a bunch of jollof rice tonight with Bill so Love yall!
Love Elder Legg
We have to shake hands with about a million people everyday. They told us to wash our hands. We asked them with what water??? And then they stopped telling us to wash our hands. They told us to take our doxy. We asked them if doxy prevents Ebola??? And then they stopped telling us to take our doxy. They said to sleep under our bed nets. We asked them if blood was in the air??? Then they stopped talking about Ebola, and went to malaria protection. Hehe ugh they don't know what they are doing. So on the Ebola front, just so everyone is aware, I am not worried and it isn't going to bother me because I'm a super missionary and ain't nobody got time for dat!!! (Typical Travis response)
Gracie: Yeah there is just a lot more rain here than in the other places. So I guess there is more shade. There are no cool animal anywhere here!!! Goodness! I'm glad you had a ton of fun in Oregon!
People have been enjoying feeding me, so I have gotten fed a lot. You were asking if fufu is what they eat a lot, but for that one it can take a while to make, so one of the most common foods we eat here is called ampesi. It's boiled yam, cocoyam, and plantain then dipped in a stew. Preferably a really sweet garden egg stew! mmm
So for my laundry, we have a solution already! Elder Forrest has a super cool investigator/ future recent convert named Bill. Bill is 13 years old, super ripped, and super smart. He has been offering to do our wash and we enjoy it. We wanted to pay him, but he said he wouldn't accept any money, so I cooked him breakfast instead! He just comes to our house, we bring the stuff outside, then we pick it off the dry line in the evening. He is actually accompanying us around all day which is way fun! I had him on my bike with me when we were riding to the market and a ton of people were yelling nasty things at us! A couple of guys tried to get a security guard at a government shop to stop us by saying it was illegal to ride 2 people on a bike. But too bad for them, the guard is my friend so he just laughed and waved!
We go out to a village called Asene and it is way cool! It's like 45 minutes away from the church by car. I really like going there because there are a lot of sweet people there! We only go once a week, but I call people there like very day! I make a lot of phone calls now! On Saturday I made like 50 phone calls it was nice! They limited us to 400 minutes a month and 20 texts. Neither of those are enough. I get 13 minutes a day. I have to call my investigators in the morning, then right before the appointment, then in the evening to remind them of commitments. Each call is 1-2 minutes so I talk at least 20 minutes a day. Also all of our texts go to reporting our numbers, so we can't even send referrals or anything it's a bunch of junk and they don't know what they are doing.
Yeah so I am having tons of fun and we will be enjoying a bunch of jollof rice tonight with Bill so Love yall!
Crappy Excuse for NO email At All on 7/21 -------At Least it's Not Ebola!
Ok, so here is my crappy excuse for not emailing last week! It contains some bad news, some not great news, and some ok news.
Bad news: I got transferred, so I had to Leave Kasoa.
Not great news: I am now a senior companion and my companion is 5 years older than me, it's hard to be in charge, ugh.
Ok news: I now live in Oda, which is the farthest east I can possible be from the mission home. I live in the bush and I am and I am farthest missionary east.
So I am coming onto this week's email now. I am really sorry!
7/28/14
Ummmmm. So is it bad then if I just got some money out! I didn't know! I moved so I can't do anything at the other ATM or bank anymore! ugh sorry!! (missing ATM $ saga continues)
SO YEAH I have been transferred to place called Oda. I went from Central Region, to Greater Accra Region, to Eastern Region, and finally got to my house 6 hours later. The branch here is way cool and our chapel is suuper nice. But it's a pretty small, but the compound is gigantic! So we have a nice volleyball spot, a basketball half court, and plenty of grass for football.
Sometimes we will go farming, and literally, we have to take a cutlass and hack our way through the bush! Sweetness!
Ty: Sheesh 19 year old councilor!? Dude it sounds like you are having a super fun time holy cow! I am glad everything is doing well. For me my time for getting my Patriarchal blessing was when I was 17. I was praying about it, but so many people were talking about it, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just getting it because others were talking about it. It took me until I was getting ready for the mish before I finally got ready for it. If you think it is time then don't waste any time, just get it. It is really sweet, and it will give you a lot of strength. One thing that I always remember from mine is that I "will be blessed with confidence in my walk" so yeah I done been blessed with swag! Good luck bro!
Ok, so one thing I have been wanting to share, but keep forgetting, is that the names of churches here are ridiculous! The funniest church I have ever met had a huge billboard right near the market in Kasoa. It had a big pastor holding a gavel saying, "Objection over ruled." The best thing about this church is how they wrote their name. So this church is called "Overcomers Praise Assemblies International." But on the billboards sign they abbreviated Assemblies different than we would. So the sign said, "Overcomers Praise Ass." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Ugh, so obviously you can tell THAT must be a true church :P oh man I just thought that was the funniest thing!
Also my District Leader here in Oda is Elder Forrest and he is all about getting them baptisms. You hear plenty things about the church booming here in Africa and why that is, is because us missionaries baptize everybody and anybody (of course that isn't true........ this was actually just a mix up) He had a baptism last week for a super sweet little girl who was 9 years old. This week we were going through her records and discovered that she is only 7! For those who know about the age of accountability, you know that you cannot be baptized until you are 8 years old and that the baptism of children is an abomination, because children are innocent and taken in by Christ. It's super funny, and so we had to tell a little girl that she definitely has not been baptized!
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
EEEEWWWW!!!!!!!!!!! (GROSS!) (you've been warned)
Ok, so as a start, I will begin with my apology. Because I didn't do really anything this week because I have been deathly ill with a case of awodemi (aka I got a cold). But it has given me this one great story....
So for those of you that have been along this journey from the beginning, you may remember about 9 months ago when I learned what exactly it took to become a real missionary. And then 6 months ago I was a witness to someone else completing that task and entering into the elect brotherhood. 3 days ago, I myself made the pact, signed the deed, and fulfilled the act of becoming a REAL missionary.
Here's what happened......
So I have been sick this week with a runny nose and a terrible cough for a few days. I wouldn't last longer than a minute without a coughing spasm. Also standing was accompanied by exceeding dizziness, so I spent a lot of time lying in my bed.
One day at about 5 pm, I was experiencing some irregular gastric disturbances in my belly! So my smell chased my companion out of the room, and he opened all of the windows and doors. I decided to try to stop, so I could get a little rest. I closed my eyes, when without warning a horrible coughing fit struck me. It looked like I was having some sort of seizure. In an attempt to gain control over my throat, I lost concentration on all other parts of my body... thus causing my buttocks to release a disgusting shart... but without the art part. For those of you who have yet to catch my drift, what I'm saying is I pooped my pants! Woop woop!! Yeah you know that's what's up! I ran to the bathroom to clean myself up, quickly washed my bottoms, and then proceeded through out the day to wear a towel, until my clothes dried! It was pretty awesome!
PS EXPLICIT ADDITION
Here one of the greatest services I can give, is allowing others to serve me! So yeah I haven't cooked hardly at all this week! I have these investigators that love to cook. So, of course, I let them! I just give them supplies during the day, then they call me later to pick it up, and I come when I can. Back home people will do like a midnight Denny's run, but here I do a 9:30 joll of rice run! Woop woop! Too bad she definitely spoiled the rice last night, but it's ok. What was left was still ok!
Ok and mom, we have a problem! I was trying to withdraw the money from the atm, and it said I withdrew it, but no money came out. When I checked my balance again, the money I had tried to take out, was gone. Sooo I have the receipts, and I took them inside the bank, but they wouldn't help. They just said I need to talk to my bank back home! So what should I do??! I told my companion that if this had happened back home, I totally would have taken you to the bank with me!
Love Elder Legg
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Elder Legg & Elder Lyip (pic)
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Me with Elder Lyip
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Really things are way hard, but it's weird, because some how they are just becoming normal. We haven't had water in about 2 months, but it doesn't feel really like that big of a deal. It's just like, oh well......no power, no water. I guess I will just bathe a little less and yell a little more. Even though my hands hurt like crazy from washing my clothes, it doesn't seem like I have done anything hard. When I get home though, I will teach you all how to wash and everything! That will be super fun! I can go on a week long camp out with 2 sets of clothes, no problem, then come home perfectly clean!
Yeah I am basically a Book of Mormon master now :) I have stopped reading it cover to cover, and just read individual books because its fun to jump around sometimes. I just started Ether again because Elder Leakehe and I were talking about it, so I was like why not?!
I am having fun right now, but one of the Elders that I live with is bothering me so much. He is just rude all the time. He is always bumping me, or poking me, and I just want to place him on his buttocks all the time. I have been trying hard to just ignore him, but it's been like 4 months! So I get tired of it!
I love you dad and I miss you soo much. I hope all is well!
Love your son Elder Travis Scott Legg
Yeah I am doing great, and still no water! I will need to be calling someone soon because both of our tanks outside are almost finished! Ugh, but you want to know the worst part? When we were walking here, just in the middle of the street, there was a huge fountain from a burst pipe and all of the water was just wasting everywhere! As soon as the kids get home from school though there are going to be a bunch of people with buckets and bowls collecting water and taking it home!
So the entire time I was cooking, both the investigators and my companion were just insulting me on how I was doing it wrong, you can't put that in there, no no that's way too much! So you get the idea. So I finish and pretend to get really angry. I walk out complaining that they all hate my cooking and I should just go home. They rush out to get me, all taking tiny, tiny nibbles, telling me to wait because it tastes so good. Then, because they are obviously struggling to put it down, they start feeding me huge bites thinking I will get distracted and just eat it all.
One of the people was definitely trying to get away from it, so I pointed her out and asked if she didn't like it. She got all shy and told me how good it was. I told them all that if they didn't like it then they shouldn't eat it. Of course, trying to be polite she grabs a big bite and pushes it in her mouth. 5 seconds later she is outside, vomiting back up all that indomie she tried to eat. I was laughing because I told her not to eat it, but no one listens to me. That was them having to experience what it is like to be a missionary in a foreign land where the food is nasty :) Shh don't tell them i told you that!
can you believe that while I was distracted with the vomiting, my companion was behind me chopping all the rest of the food! Well at least he liked it!
Ok and request mom, can you please send me some money! Have I mentioned that I have spoiled a few pairs of trou, and I was needing to replace them. Also I had to get some shirts fixed. Ugh so I kind of way need money because all my subsistence went to water, power, and clothes!
Love, Elder Legg
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
A Mushroom Cloud of Vomatrocious Stench
Um so yeah, sorry about the last week (he got cut off), but power here has been a killer, because they are trying to get it on during the World Cup and off when we need to go email our families! This place has been so jacked lately! We went all over to find a cafe with a generator and then they ran out of petrol! What the what!??
(This is left over from the email he couldn't send on 6/23/14)
Sheeesh you guys' outside showers are nice! (at Swalboski's on our trip to the Black Hills) When I can get pics I'll get you a pic of me showering outside! It's a little bit different than what you went through, but no problem!
Goodness four wheeling, and faces (Mt. Rushmore), and animal gardens, and all of this! Man my stories are going to sound dumb this week! Let's see what did I do... um well I stepped in a puddle!6/30/14
We haven't really done anything yet today, except we went for a big meeting and then it was boring and not everyone even showed up. So we just spent like 2 hours partying with the YSA, but they are crap, so Brother Charles, a super stud from Nigeria, was trying to get stuff going. But flip, these Ghanaian guys got no game. They have no idea how to talk to girls or do anything!
.................Here's the email exchange we had about YSA before he sent the rest of his story:
Me: The mishes are supposed to mingle?? Or the locals?? & I though YSA stood for yellow spotted asparagus!
Trav: Umm mom please, they don't let the yellow spotted asparagus go on missions! Only the red ones. Flip! Please stay with the times!
Me: Yea, I was afraid I had missed an announcement or two. I can still remember when it was just the little green striped ones that could go. My how times have changed!!
Trav: Yeah, the world is a movin' for sure!
(I'm always glad when he emails & I can hear his sense of humor is still in tact)
The rest of his email......
So today we had a big young single adult (YSA) activity at the church. It was stake wide, so there were plenty of people. The whole point of this activity is to mingle, and help get some single adults get unsinglized! But we have some problems with that.Boys problems:
Girls problems:
As you can see, this makes for a severely dis functional party! There is one boy named Charles, who is all the man at the entire party. He gets all the girls, and he deserves them, because he is the only on doing anything! He was trying his best to get the party going, but these kids just do not like to participate! So we eventually had to leave.
So I think you have heard about black eggs. When you crack them open, and they are so rotten, that the inside is black and it explodes all over everything! My companion has been on mission for 20 months and has never heard of that. So the other day, he went into the kitchen to begin cooking himself some delicious food. As he went to crack himself some eggs, the unthinkable happened! His perfectly new egg exploded into a million pieces of black filth. And out from the filth billowed a mushroom cloud of vomatrocious stench. My companion screamed, opened the window, and began projectile vomiting into the neighbor plot :) Hehe!! Oh my gosh! It was the best!! He rushes in to tell all of us his story of the black egg, thinking it was a once in a life time opportunity. But then all the other guys open up with their list of times when it had happened to them.
(I asked him what he needed/wanted for his birthday in Sept.)
Flip, ummmmmmmmmm, I'm not sure what I want. I need to think about it more! It's hard to think of something that you want when you don't have anything around to inspire you!
Love Elder Legg
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