The forecast is.......

(Entered by his brother Ryan)

Ghana is definitely a little different than Utah, that is for sure. Utah is pretty much either dry and very hot, dry and cool, or dry and freezing. Ghana on the other hand is humid and pretty hot all the time. Nothing ever really changes here. The difference between really hot days and the really cold days is about 15 degrees. Haha, back home the difference between hot and cold is closer to 100 degrees. Instead of "hot" days here we get humid days. I gotta say though, those aren't fun. Any given day here I sweat more than I would in a week back home. On the humid days though it is insane. I am sweating before I even get on my bike to go to appointments. I tell ya, I am going to shrivel up like a raisin when I get back home to 0-3 % humidity. We don't really have seasons here either. Technically there are three-ish seasons here. Rainy (really just cloudy), sunny, and windy. Even these are pretty much all the same.

Enough about the weather though. The work here is going very well. My third baptism is in two days on the 20th and then numbers 4, 5, & 6 are on the third of Oct. Some missions are teaching mission. Some missions are member retention missions, some are service missions. My mission is a baptizing mission, thats for sure.

Like I said, the work is going well. I teach all the time and it almost always goes pretty smoothly. I did have an old lady want and almost try to beat me up.....luckily I survived. The hardest part is when the people don't speak English very well, or even don't speak it at all. About six months ago the rules changed and we are not taught Twi (the local language) anymore. I can introduce myself in it and do some small talk and whatnot but thats about it. The hard times are when the person (usually only the middle aged/older people) only speak Twi. I can understand a little of what they say but I have to speak through a son or a daughter as a translator in order to teach. That gets annoying after like five minutes. The really hard ones are the people that only speak Gha or Ewe (pronounced e-hway). Those people I usually cant teach at all. Thats not really good. I don't like not being able to teach someone. It's super frustrating. Another few months and I should be able to teach at least the first lesson in Twi. That should be pretty cool.

We are teaching some awesome people though. Most all of them that we have baptized are either young (30 years old or younger) or older (55-60 and up). For some reason none of the middle aged people listen to us nearly as much. If they do, they are super stubborn and they listen because we are teaching their family. I wonder what the difference is. Maybe I will figure it out eventually.

So we were told that an Elder ran away from the MTC here in Ghana today.......... This morning everyone woke up like normal but sometime throughout the day, this Elder ran away. What? Who in their right mind would run away from the MTC? It's the best place ever. Free food and lots of it. They wash all of your clothes for you, there is air-conditioning in every class room. You get an hour and a half to play football (soccer) everyday, you can take long hot showers and you get to hang out with at least twenty plus Elders every day. No one can figure it out. There is not much of a chance of finding him if he does not want to be found. Accra alone has several million people in it, and he could blend in easily. There is now a mission wide search for this Elder. Hopefully we find him.

Well, Thats about all the news from New Town for now. I'll write all of you soon. Hope all of you will too.

Elder Tollstrup

Greetings from New Town

(Entered by his brother, Ryan)

Hey everybody I've officially been in my first area for one week. Its called New Town, area 2. My companion is Elder Adaranijo, he's an awesome guy, he is 24 and from Nigeria. He gives me way too much credit for crap though. The biggest news is that by the time this letter is up, so you can read it, I will have had 3 or 4 baptisms, pretty quick eh? I am super excited for that. It's gonna be awesome. Were gonna have like 5ish next transfer if we keep on the investigators we have now. We're teaching some freaking awesome people.

Other than that exciting news, everything is chill here. Still getting used to eating fishy stew on rice with bread everyday. We did have a guy tell us that he would make us fufu soon though. I'm excited to try it cause everyone says its awesome. Oh so you know apple beer? Good stuff right? Well here we have something very similar, except instead of apple, its pineapple. It's pretty much amazing. I can't always buy it though, we get about $2.50 for food everyday. Not much. It's alright though, I can get fried rice and a piece of chicken for about one dollar. I am far from starving.

The people here are definitely different from back home. Most of them are awesome. Though we did have a lady tell us "If you come back I will slap you! I will beat you!" That was intense. Crazy old Roman Catholic Grandma. Hopefully I can get though the mission without getting beat up by an old Ghanaian woman. That would sad. Especially because my only allowed defense is running away from the Ghanaian grandmothers. Everyone here is super buff too, even the old women.

If you read this though you should email me. My new address is elder.tollsty@gmail.com. I don't have everyone's email address though, so you gotta email me or mail me first. I gotta go right now though, cause we are about to start our mission tour with our president. It sounds impressive but it is really just one very big long meeting. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you.

Elder Tollstrup

Hello! I'm in freakin' Africa!

(Entered online by his brother, Ryan)

Maa ah-che. Ye fre me Elder Tollstrup Ye ye missionary na ye kaw nyame asem. Translation: Good afternoon. My name is Elder Tollstrup. I am a missionary and reach the word of God. That as in Twi (sounds more like "tchwee"), the language that I'll be speaking. So much for this being an English mission, Hun? Luckily most people speak english, they are just much more comfortable speaking Twi. That combined with African English is going to give me the weirdest freakin' accent when I get home. Oh-well.
The MTC here is pretty tight. Instead of the 2,500-ish people of the one in provo, this MTC has 25 missionaries other than me. Just a titch smaller. It's cool though, I like it here. Probably helps with the culture shock thing, being in Ghana and not Provo. At the very least its getting used to the food. Lots of yams, rice, deep fried fish (head included) and some kind of fruit. Its definitly not cheese burgers and fries.
My comp. is Elder Okechakwu, from Nigeria. He's a big kid, but INCREDIBLY quiet. Makes things tricky sometimes. Well, most times, but he's only my comp. till the 19th anway. Thats when we get transfered to our first areas. I'm suoer excited for it.
My teachers are pretty sweet too. They're Brother Tei & Brother Mobio. They're both pretty sweet. Tei is freakin ripped and leads our excercises. Brother Mobio is just hilarious, easily one of the funniest people I've ever met. We're trying to convice him to come to school at BYU or something.
They keep us freakin busy here though, luckily we get gym time once a day where we get to go play football (soccer) in the field. I am gonna be amazing at the game when we get home.
I don't have a whole lot of time left to write, but everyone should write me. Instructions on how are on Facebook. Ignore the MTC instructions because by the time this is posted I'll be out of the MTC anyway. If you write me I'll write you back, but I don't have anyone's address unless they write me first. I can't really e-mail, so regular mail is it. Hope to hear from you all soon.
Nyame Boa okyena
(Translation: God willing, tomorrow. Thats the closest thing to goodnight that is not about death.)

Tollsty-

nonsensical-ness

Yeah, so i dont really know why i'm writing right now. I'm just talking through the blog cause there is no one around me right now to actually talk to in person. If today's post seems random, that's cause it is. That is just how my head is working right now as i'm sitting crosslegged/laying on my couch in my dorm listening to my music on Songbird. I've decided that having my collection on random is amazing. I continually run into songs that i've forgotten about, or have never really appreciated until now.

I've just recently discovered how much i love Citizen Cope (recently being 15 minutes ago)

So just becaues i'm bored, i'm gonna make a list of cool/interesting/random thoughts that have been going through my head lately:
---Quantum Physics............


....Gneargglegarb.....My.spacebar..has..just..stopped..working..so
i..have..to..use..periods..instead..of..spaces....That..is..very..annoying
as..you..can..probably..read...In..light..of..this..new..development..im
gonna..have..to..sign..off..and..finish..later

Told..you..this..would..be..random.

Moving to Africa

So yeah, i finally got my mission call on Friday and it was intense. Ok, well, first off, i shouldn't probably say "finally" cause from the time i sent in the paperwork, it only took 8 days to show up at my house in Salt Lake, which is quite a bit faster than normal. Anywho, I found out that starting on July 31st, I will be spend the next two years of my life Living in various parts of Ghana Africa.

Holy Freakin Crap........

I'm gonna live in Africa......my head is still trying (quite in vain i might add) to grasp that. Everyone that i talked to guessed somewhere in Scandanavia or however you spell it. Even i was guessing that. Even i was guessing somewhere close to there. I think the closest person to guess had South Spain, but that's still like 1500 miles off.

Oh well. Regardless of my inability to grasp that i'm moving to Africa, i am So excited, and because of that i cannot concentrate on pretty much anything else.

I just got out of an Integrated Sciences test, and ....well ....it was interesting. Everything like that in my life now just seems to automatically move back in importance. The only thing (othere than researching Ghana) that seems to be able to hold my attention is the ever conscious effort to expand my music and movie collection, and now, aparently, writing non-sensically on this little blog that i am still figuring out.....

The sad thing, however, is that now, after only 15 mintues, i am once again bored and finding my thoughts drifting elsewhere.....