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huzzah! i have a camera. one of my supervisors from SLC is here for a week so he brought it with him. thanks jules! i'm excited to finally start documenting some of the sights here. and dang, are there a lot of them. how bout a man carrying a huge bowl on his head full of.... live chickens. that's talent right there. here's an recap of the week:

we taught our first workshop on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. we started with 13 participants, but about 15 minutes into the first class, one left to go to the bathroom (we thought) and didn't come back. guess he wasn't interested. it felt GREAT to finally start doing what i came here to do. we got a lot more exposure to the culture as well, especially as it pertains to education and businesses. for example, there are basically no intellectual property right here (the laws are there, they're just not enforced) so people are very wary to be creative because some joe schmoe off the street can steal their idea and market it for cheaper. rude! but really, it makes me grateful to live in america were innovation is for the most part encouraged and protected. one of our most promising participants from the group was nawal, a lebanese/ghanaian who joined the church about a year ago. she wants to start a business doing personal grocery shopping for people. i love her enthusiasm and energy, so hopefully she'll follow through with her business plan. so yes, it was definitely a rewarding week and i'm excited to keep teaching!

on saturday we went with elder and sister maughn (he is the church's doctor for west africa) to the MTC in Tema, a city about 20 km from accra. random fact: tema is the closest city to 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude, so ghanaians like to say that they're at the center of the earth. this is of course assuming that they know what latitude and longitude are... ghanaians are completely directionally oblivious. if you ask someone for directions, it'll most likely involve turning right or left at the tree with the low-hanging limb, or something of that sort. addresses usually include the business across the street as a reference point. example:

the lord's supermarket (an actual store)
across from __________
accra, ghana

it doesn't help that 90% of the streets aren't named. so, you learn to just roll with it and laugh along the way. if you're uptight, you just won't survive here.

i was officially called as a primary teacher and i already have my favorite student. is that terrible or what? but his name is kelvin. and he is 5 and adorable. and closes his eyes in order to hit the high notes during singing time. i'm going to like this calling, i can tell.