November 7, 2005

Dear Friends and Family

2 months in the mission field. I have the top ten things I’ve learned here in Sagamu, Lagos State, Nigeria, West Africa.

10. Sweat is your constant companion, the stink of which does not easily wash off of you or out of your clothes.

9. It is ok for men to stop and urinate anytime and anywhere they feel the urge.

8. You can take a shower in the corner of the bathroom, with no curtain, under a trickle of luke- warm water and not get cold.

7. Cars do not have heaters and if they did, they probably would not work anyway.

6. There is no speed limit on the expressway, nor any other driving law that we can observe

5. Car horns are used in place of brakes, turn signals, rear-view mirrors, tapping your feet to the beat of the music on your radio, or expressing that you have just had a bad day.

4. A small three drawer dresser has plenty of room for both our clothes leaving ½ a drawer still empty. A 2 foot wardrobe is not quite large enough for both our hang-up clothes but we make it do.

3. Make-up melts and, therefore, it is not worth wearing

2. Contractions are not used in Nigerian English, so we have stopped using them.

1. After almost 32 years of marriage, I found out Doug really does know how to clean house.

It was a little more trying this week. Elder Gilmore is dealing with some disciplinary action with the leadership and missionaries. I spend a lot of time reading in another room. We had so many things go out in our apartment in the last 3 days. Our shower faucet won’t stay tight enough to turn off the shower so we use pliers, the burner of the toaster oven went out, the satellite service got scrambled so we have no service, the plug to the regulator for our TV, vcr and dvd broke, and the wall plug that the regulator was plugged into is shorting. Last but not least after fasting for 24 hours without getting into our frig we found that the wall plug that the frig was plugged into went dead sometime during that period. When I opened the frig last night to prepare dinner to break our fast, it and all the contents were warm. There is a bright side, I did not have to defrost my frig today. And oh yes, 3 of our tires separated from the tread…or so the mechanic said that happily sold the mission 3 new tires for our car. I do not know how it could have happened but then I am not the one responsible for taking the car in for its monthly check, another mission couple does that. I have to defer to their judgment, though I think we got taken.

Love Sister Gilmore