What the Ghana MTC is like

Being in the Ghana MTC is a really epic experience. I was there for 3 weeks from October 11th to October 28th 2018. I got my mission call on June 26 to serve in the Congo Brazzaville Mission French-speaking.

My experience with the Ghana MTC started with getting there first. I flew into the Salt Lake City airport from Newport Beach and walked to the terminal that was going to Accra, Ghana. The airport was filled with missionaries, missionaries returning home and missionaries going out. There were 7 other Americans going to the Ghana MTC. One missionary was going to Cote D’Ivoire. The other 6 were going to English speaking missions in West Africa like Liberia and Sierra Leone.

We flew to Amsterdam and then took another 6 hour flight to Ghana. The flight to Ghana felt like the longest flight in my life. The plane was hot and I was just thinking to myself, “What is going to happen to me for the next 24 months?”

We landed in Accra, Ghana around 9 pm. All the other missionaries 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 there was a lightning storm going on outside. We all went outside and regrouped and met some other missionaries flying in from Nigeria. They were fun and we talked with them while we waited.

Then we took vans to the MTC. There were no speed limits as far as I could tell and the vans must have been driving at 80 mph down the deserted streets. I didn’t get a good view of the city since there were no street lights. We got to the MTC around 10 pm and went to our rooms. I met my companion 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.

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 including the 8 of us that just came in and 2 others learning French at the MTC for 6 weeks.

We then did an orientation of the MTC where there were different stations and we had to go around and do stuff. I met a guy from Paris, France also going to Congo with me. He spoke super fast French so it was a good thing I already knew how to speak French before I talked to him. We got to go to the computer lab to write to 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 send an email when I can just call them?” So I called my parents on Google hangouts at around 4 am California 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 and one from Côte D’ivoire.

I was already a French speaker before going out so I was put in the native-speaking French group that was only 3 weeks long instead of the 6 week French learning group that most Americans go through.

Classes in the MTC were about six hours a day. Six hours of lessons from Preach My Gospel, practice teaching and other things.

We did role playing with the instructors and with each other. Role playing with the instructors was fun 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 my district. I taught them a funny hand trick and they all loved it and were copying it.

I would dab and they liked that too.

Daily Schedule

Everyday we would wake up at 6:30 and get ready then have breakfast. The breakfasts were always very good with fresh fruit and bread and juice.

Then we would go up to the classroom to study. 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. This is some fruit with juice, and boiled cassava with chicken in a tomato sauce. This is literally the best thing ever.

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 food back in 2018 was very African. Still you could gain a lot of weight cause the food is so good.

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

After lunch, we went back to class and did another 2 hours of learning and then had a break to workout. Most of the people would play soccer and some people would play basketball in the gym. I played table tennis and foosball with another American going to Congo with me. It was so hot it would be crazy to actually try to workout outside. No way.

Then we would go back to class and do 2 more hours of 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.

Going to the Accra Ghana temple

I would say the only good reason to bring a suit on your mission is to look good on the day that you get to go to the temple. When I was there we only got to the temple once because it was under renovations. Earlier groups got to go to the temple everyday if they wanted to, but we only went once. My entire district except for me and the one sister from Cote D’Ivoire were going through the temple for the first time. It was interesting to be with them through that experience. I got to be in a session full of Africans going through the endowment for their first time. Needless to say, they were all confused after going through it and the majority of gospel conversations following focused on the temple.

Last day of MTC

All the French speaking missionaries in the MTC, we were a little under half of the MTC

Finally, after 3 weeks at the MTC we were finally done!! The MTC was pretty stressful for me. Speaking and listening to French all day gave me a headache.

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 going to the Reunion Islands near Madagascar. White sister missionaries can only serve in Reunion and having them in the Ghana MTC is extremely rare.