Transfers & Training

Jan 12-18

Tuesday. Today was somewhat miserable. Martineau and Asumani left for Winneba today. Martineau has become on of my best friends so it really sucked to have him leave and go so far away. My new companion is Brother Ansah, a ward missionary from Asamankese, and I am officially a senior companion. There's no going back now. I'm not ready for this responsibility. I was just fine chilling at junior companion and looking to my senior companion to lead and teach me. Now I'm the one that someone will be looking up to and I have no idea what I'm doing. I didn't get a chance to test my wings today though because of the need to move my stuff from my old room to my new room. That and the fact that I had to deep clean my entire room because Asumani isn't a very clean guy. After a few hours of cleaning and arranging I have a sweet little set up. I have so many fans on me I'll probably freeze at night. I finished putting my room together just as it started getting dark which meant it was too late to go see anyone. With the down time we started joking around and Kochevar and I ended up shaving our legs with my hair clippers. I still can't decide if I like it or not but I had to try it. Judge me all you want but this is Africa. We play by different rules. All in all I feel like I accomplished a lot today even though we didn't go out proselyting. 

Wednesday. My first real day as a senior companion and it was not fun. I feel like I can put some of the blame on the area but I still don't know how to do things yet. We didn't see a ton of people today. I'm still just learning the area and what roads lead where. This area is a labyrinth. Little back roads and trails through the forest that lead every which way. I'm going to get so lost. We had coordination at 6:00 tonight but no one showed up. Kochevar and Uzoho had MLC so they were gone and the ward mission leader never showed up. We left around 6:50 and were almost home when we got a call saying that he has just showed up. We turned around and went back for coordination. It wasn't the most productive meeting but he is a new ward mission leader so it's expected. On our way home we picked up some mango. Mango just came back in season and I'm so stoked for it! Fresh mango here is amazing. 

Thursday. We got lost today! We started contacting in a new area that Brother Ansah had never been to. Before long we found ourselves halfway up a small mountain with no clue how to get back to anything familiar. So we did the most natural thing in the world, we kept contacting. We contacted and tried to find our way back at the same time. After a few hours we found ourselves on the opposite end of the area. I don't know how we did it but we did. Then my day ended. There is a 3ft ledge that I usually jump off of but that didn't work today. My bike broke as I was coming up on it and I ended up going over the handlebars and off the ledge. My legs were wrapped up in the bike frame so that too followed and ended up on top of me. It hurt like none other. My day ended there and we made our way home slowly so that I could get cleaned up and check my wounds. 

Friday. I'm the new apartment leader and I'm not too happy about the job. It means that I am supposed to buy all of the supplies the apartment needs and get water trucks and everything. Asumani left with nothing done and with no supplies in the apartment. We had no water, no soap, no bleach, no toilet paper, nothing at all. I called a water truck which was supposed to come in the morning but by 1:00 we hadn't seen it. I called again and they said they would come in one hour. They came at 5:00. By the time they left we didn't have any time to go out anymore. The lack of respect that people have for time here really makes me mad. It was an unnecessary waste of a day. It wasn't all bad though, I did get some supplies for the apartment. I am now waiting for 150GHC in reimbursement from the mission. Being apartment leader is expensive!

Saturday. I guess the plethora of cleaning supplies inspired Uzoho to clean because he just started cleaning this morning. You must understand that this is very out of character. Uzoho hasn't cleaned a thing in this apartment since the day I came 4 1/2 months ago. His cleaning caused the rest of us to want to clean. We deep cleaned the entire apartment until it shone and you actually wanted to be inside. There go all those cleaning supplies I just bought. When we finished, we were informed by the APs that in order to get transfer news we had to go to the cafe and check our email. What I saw on that computer screen scared the crap out of me. It assigned me as a trainer. Not only a trainer but one in a new area that has just been whitewashed. I am so scared. I really hope I don't mess this kid up. I've seen how much I loved my trainer.   My trainer loved and helped me grow.  I don't want people to say "Oh you were trained by Elder Goodrich? Sorry about that". I want him to be proud that I was his father, I want to be a good father. Kochevar said his son wasn't his favorite companion, but he is the one he loved the most. I don't know what to expect from this but it'll be an adventure. The cool thing is that Elder Barr (MTC buddy) is training too. He's in Winneba but still it's cool that I have a close friend going through this with me. 

Sunday. Getting ready for church is so much easier with just 4 missionaries in the apartment instead of 6. We were all completely ready to go by 8:30 and we even had time to mess around and have fun instead of just rushing. It was really relaxing. It was weird having just 4 of us in church though. I kept looking around for Martineau and listening for Asumani throughout all of the meetings. After church we all went to the apartment and just decompressed. Uzoho and Brother Ansah both had to pack so we just stuck around and hung out together. Then, much to our surprise, our landlord brought us food. That was a blessing since all of us had been stupid enough to purchase no food at all. It was a pretty good afternoon just hanging out for one of the last times. 

Elder Goodrich doing the "Dew"

Monday. We had a blast today. We played soccer with a bunch of missionaries for a good part of the morning. We played 5 on 6 and had a total blast. When we finished playing everyone came to our apartment for a quick rinse in the shower before we went to the mall. We got lunch and hung out together. Reeves is being transferred across the mission so I spent most of my time hanging out with him. Then we came here to the cafe to email. The rest of our night will be finishing packing and making transport arrangements for tomorrow.