October 19, 2005

Dear Family,

I don’t know if today was a typical day, but I’ll tell what we did. We go up at 6:30 am, shower, shaved and got dressed. We typically individually read scriptures until breakfast at about 8am. At 8:30 this morning we crossed the street to visit the sister missionaries who live across the street from us.

As we have told you we live in a three story apartment. The road in front of our apartment is named Oba Moses Awolest Erinwole II Road. The road is named after an oba. In Nigeria they still have kings and chieftains. An Oba is the Nigerian name for a chief or king. There are different levels of obas. The highest is like a king and presides over a region or area. Then there are lower ranking obas. In Nigeria there is also the government structure with national, state, local and town governments. When the English came they established the typical British style government but didn’t eliminate the native system of government that uses obas. Today the obas still exist and still govern in a tribal way. In this part of Nigeria the dominant tribe is Yoroba. It was explained to me that the obas meet in a council and select the top oba. The top oba then becomes the most revered person in the region. People consult him about things; he often acts as judge and settles disputes between people, kind of like a Godfather in the movie. Anyway, our street is named after a famous oba.

We went over to the sisters to fix their faucet. It was old and leaking so we got a new faucet for their kitchen and replaced it this morning. There are four young missionaries in Sagamu, two elders and two sisters. Sisters Asiamah and Ansah and Elders Wilson and Obasi. When we first came it was impossible to pronoun anyone’s name. They pronounce things differently and put the accent on words differently. Most words have alternating vowels and consonants. When is it true you usually break the word up by vowels and consonants. For example. Asiamah is pronounced – A’-si-a-mah. Obasi is pronounced O-ba’-si. Oba is O’-ba.

After fixing the faucet we showed the sisters their new apartment. Well, at least the outside. They currently live in what is called boy’s quarters behind an apartment complex across the street.

Here when apartments or homes are built, most of the time they build a wall around the building for security. Many times they place glass or wire along the top of the fence to keep out people. At the entrance gate they construct a gate house for the gateman. This is usually a small building (12’ by 12’) and the gate lives there. The gateman’s job is to open and close the gate when people come or leave. When you drive up, you honk you horn, he comes out of his little house and opens the gate. This system provides security to the apartment building. The gateman is there 24/7.

Our gateman is named Lawan. He is a Hansa (muslim) from northern Nigeria. He barely speaks English, can’t read or write English and says he can read a little Ibo (a language from eastern Nigeria). Sister Gilmore has Lawan do small jobs for her, for which she pays him, small-small. Today she had Lawan clean up in front of our apartment complex. In many ways it’s like Mexico here. People throw their trash everywhere. Nobody picks it up, so there is paper, plastic, junk everywhere. So Sister Gilmore thought the road in front of our house should be cleaned up. Lawan cleaned it up Nigerian-style and showed it to Sister Gilmore. Sister Gilmore then showed Lawan how she wanted it. He smiled, didn’t say anything, but you could tell he was thinking “what is this crazy white woman wanting this stuff picked up for. In two days it will full of trash again” So Lawan spent about an hour cleaning up in front of the apartment, hauled away the trash (we don’t know where) and it looks good. For this Sister Gilmore paid him 300 nira (about $2). That doesn’t sound very good, but he was happy. If everyone in the apartment building pays him what he is supposed to get, he earns 12,000 nira/month ($82). Here everyone is supposed to pay the gateman for his services every month, but if you don’t pay him, he has no real recourse. But I think most people do pay him.

I am guessing Lawan (La’-wan) is in his mid-20s. He is a good young man, but when you talk to him he shakes his head up and down and says ya, ya, ya, or ok, ok, ok. You can only guess if he understands you. He talks in one or two word sentences to you. i.e., when he wants to know if Sister Gilmore is coming, he says “mother comes?” First thing in the morning when he asks how Sister Gilmore is, he says “Is mother good?” You get the idea. Here in Nigeria people often refer to an older women and “mother” or “mommie”.

In addition to the gate house, they also build boy’s quarters behind the apartment building. Again these are small rooms meant for the servant for each apartment. So if there are 6 apartments, there will be 6 boy’s quarters. I don’t think most people have servants anymore, but they still build the boy’s quarters. Our building has 4 apartments and there are four boy’s quarters behind our building. Four small rooms (10’ x 10’) in a row house. The boy’s quarters for each apartment is included as part of the rent for the apartment. Our boy’s quarters is used by the Branch as the Branch President’s office.

The Sisters across the road currently live in a boy’s quarters. It consists of three small rooms, a bedroom 10’x 8’, a bathroom 5’x5’ and a kitchen 5’x5’. When Sister Gilmore first saw it she couldn’t believe anyone lived in it. It’s pretty bad. So we have been trying to find a new apartment for them.

We have been making it a matter of prayer. The mission president has been negotiating with the landlord of the sister’s building to move them into one of the full apartments. But the guy is a crook and was making life difficult. So we have been praying and searching for another place close to us (the church is downstairs).

Last night the real estate agent who runs our apartment came to visit us about an issue with our power system. (that story will have to wait). Anyway as we were talking to him we mentioned we were looking for an apartment. He said he had two available in the building right next door to where the sisters currently live. So we went over to look at it. It has two bedrooms on the second floor of a two story building. It is very nice and it looks like the sisters will move there. It is a direct answer to our prayers.

So after we fixed the sisters faucet, we took them outside and showed them their potential new apartment. They were very happy.

Later, a new member dropped by. His name is Brother Raymond. He was baptized two weeks ago with his family. He is 45 and is jobless. He came looking for help to get to Lagos. We had told him about the church’s Employment Center in Lagos. He wanted to go down and see them but didn’t have the 300 nira ($2.10) for transport. While he didn’t come out and directly ask us for it, we knew that was what he wanted. As you might guess, we have been instructed not to give anyone money. Because we are white, people think we are rich and will give them money. If you do, the word gets out and suddenly you become very popular. Instead of giving him money, Sister Gilmore suggested we give him two ties. He could sell them and use the money for transport. So we did that and he went away happy.

In the afternoon we drove to Ijebu-Ode (E-ja-bu-o’-day). That is about 50 km (30 miles) to the northeast. In addition to Sagamu, we have responsibilities there too. We went and taught with two missionaries there. We helped teach the 2^nd lesson, the Plan of Salvation with Elders Otikor (O-tee’-cor) and Essien (Es-sea’-en). We taught a 30 year old man. We taught him in his shop, a 20’ x 20’ building where he sells block ice. As we have said before, most Nigerians are very religious. He is an Anglican, attends his church and sings in the choir. We talked to him about the pre-existence, why we are here, and what happens afterwards. He was very receptive. We taught him many of the gospel principles out of the Book of Mormon. In our brief stay we have been surprised how easily people accept what you teach them. Most have the faith like a small child, just as Christ described we should be. You teach them a principle, testify to them and then ask if they will pray about it, and people say yes. It is an amazing difference from my Irish experience. There you would try to teach and testify, but most people rejected you straight-away.

Sister Gilmore and I have taught several lessons now, some with missionaries, and some by us. It is great. We really love it. It is such a great feeling to teach the gospel and testify and you can feel the spirit and you know they can feel the spirit testifying too. It brings back great memories of my first mission and Sister Gilmore is really excited about it too. This is her first opportunity at this and she is really great at it. She has no trepidation about opening her mouth. We strike up conversations where ever we go. We are such an oddity. The only white people for 50 miles around, that almost everyone will stop and talk to us. People have a hard time believing that we would come from all the way from America to talk to them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But because of it, they will listen to us. Clearly, this is the most fun part of our mission. And we are having fun. We are really enjoying ourselves.

We are also teaching our real estate agent. He and his wife are planning to attend church with us on Sunday.

Until next time. Love, Dad