What the Ghana MTC is like

Going to the Ghana MTC

The Ghana MTC is really an epic experience. I went there from October 11th to October 28th 2018.

The first thing you have to do to get to the MTC is first arrive at the Salt Lake City Airport. I flew in from Newport Beach and walked to the terminal that was going to Ghana. The airport was filled with missionaries–missionaries going home and missionaries going out. There were 8 Americans going to the Ghana MTC. Me and one other Elder were going French speaking, but he was going to Cote D’Ivoire. I told the guys I was going to Congo and and they were surprised and wished me luck even though they were going to places like Liberia and Sierra Leone.

We flew off to Amsterdam and then took the last leg of our journey to Ghana. The flight to Ghana felt like the longest flight in my life. The plane was hot and had barely any air conditioning and I was just thinking to myself, “What is going to happen to me for the next 24 months?” The scariest thought was that I was never going to be the same after this experience and that my life would change because of this mission.

We landed in Accra, Ghana around 9 pm. All the other Americans had their “Yellow Cards”, which show that you have been tested for Yellow Fever, stapled on their passports. I did not and had to dig around my bag to find my yellow fever paper. My first impression of Ghana was that it was hot and humid and that there was a lightning storm going on outside. We all went outside and regrouped and met some other Elders coming from Nigeria. They were fun and we talked to them with no problems.

Then we took vans to the MTC. There were no speed limits and the vans literally must have been driving at 80 mph down the deserted city. There were no street lights either so I didn’t get a good view of the city. We got to the MTC around 10 pm and went to our rooms. I met my companion, so that was cool, then went to sleep.

The next day, I woke up at around 6 am. Me and my companion were the only ones up in the whole MTC and so we started exploring. My companion was from the Republic of Congo and so he was native French speaker. Luckily, I already knew French so I could talk to him alright. We started exploring and took some pictures.

Then we went back up stairs to our apartment where we go to know the other guys in our apartment.

There was one American–me, the Elder next to me was from Zimbabwe learning French going to the DRC, to the right of him is my companion from Congo who was also serving in DRC, and to the right of my companion was a Nigerian learning French going to Cote D’Ivoire.

We went downstairs at around 7 am for breakfast, but first I took some shots of the apartment.

We went down and had breakfast.

This was the first breakfast I ever had in Ghana. It was actually really good. The pudding/cereal stuff was really good. The bread was delicious. The fruit was always fresh.

Next we had a meeting in the auditorium.

I found out that this group at the MTC had the most Africans ever and that there were only 10 Americans in the whole MTC.

We then went and did an orientation of the MTC where there were stations and we had to go around and do stuff. I met another guy going to Congo from France. We got to go to the computer lab to write our parents saying that we had arrived safely. The Americans got to write an email to their parents while the Africans got to call their parents since that their parents probably didn’t have computer access back home. I thought to myself, “Why email when you can just call them?” So I called my parents on Google hangouts at around 4 am their time. They were like, “What’s going on?” and I said, “I’m in Africa.” It was a funny conversation that they weren’t expecting.

Then we got into our districts.

As you can tell from this paper, I was the only American in my whole district who were all French speakers mostly from DRC and Congo.

I was an exception since that I was already a French speaker before going out. They put me in the accelerated group that was only 3 weeks long instead of 6 weeks that most Americans go through.

Class in the MTC took about about 6 hours a day. 6 hours of reading Preach My Gospel. Practicing teaching and other things.

We did practice teaching with the instructors and with each other. Practice teaching with the instructors was funny since the instructor had to put on a persona and act like someone else. The most useful teaching was to each other because we would give each other advice and learn from each other.

We had some fun antics in our district. I taught them a funny hand trick and they all loved it and were copying it.

The one on the right knows what he’s doing the one on the left is thoroughly confused.

I would dab (ironically) and they liked that too.

For me the MTC was really stressful. I was surrounded by French speakers all the time. I could understand and speak French, but it would give me a headache every time to have to listen to it all day. I was speaking French for 10 hours a day.

After about 2 hours of class, we would go down to the cafeteria for lunch.

This is a pretty good representation of what we had for lunch. I’ve heard that they changed all the food in the MTC to make it more American with stuff like pizza and hamburgers but the fare back in 2018 was African to the max.

They gave us Ghanaian fufu for one lunch. It was alright.

After lunch, we went back to class and did the same thing over again then had a break to workout. The Africans would mostly play soccer. Americans played basketball in the gym with other Africans. I played table tennis and foosball with another American going to Congo with me. It was so hot it would be insane to actually try to workout outside. No way.

Then we would go back to class and do more class stuff and then we had dinner.

Honestly, I felt like they were trying to kill us at the MTC. They gave us so much food. It would make you go crazy. You sit all day doing classes, then you get a sweet respite from the drudgery of class, and they stuff you with food.

I must say though I think they give you all that food at the MTC so that you will have energy reserves when you get out to the field. My first week in Congo, I was starving and ate very little, so I am thankful that I ate least got a lot of food at the MTC.

I would say don’t bring a suit to Africa but the only good reason to bring a suit is to look good on the day that you get to go the temple. When I was there for 3 weeks, we only got to go once ’cause the temple was under renovations. Other groups got to go everyday if they wanted to, but we only went once. My entire district except for me and the sister from Cote D’Ivoire was going through the temple for the first time. It was interesting to be with them. I got to be in a session full of people going through the temple for the first time. Needless to say, they were all confused after going through it and the majority of gospel conversations following focused on the temple.

Finally, after 3 arduous, treacherous weeks at the MTC we were finally done!! It was the best day of my life. I was much happier to leave the MTC than to enter the MTC.

There were only four Americans in the French program leaving: me, an Elder going to Benin, another Elder going with me to Congo to my right, and an American sister (wow) going to the Reunion Islands near Madagascar.