Ghana MTC: Blessings, and hardships, of going directly to a foreign MTC

It seems like Ghana has received its fair share of good press in the Church News in Dec-Feb 2013 & 2104.  Time spent at the Ghana MTC allows for a more gradual adjustment to many aspects of the local culture such as food, language, and companions from a different culture while the missionaries are still in a rather sheltered environment.  Rather than facing all of the changes at once upon arriving in the field, it is an advantaged because when they leave the MTC and go out into the field, it is easy for them to adapt.  It is the missionaries from the Western countries that have the adjustment.

Another advantage of the Ghana MTC experience is that those from outside of Africa have an African companion so they can adapt to the food, the culture, and the languages right from the beginning.  As missionary trained in the MTC will be already acclimatized when they go into the field.  For example - the food prepared for them is a mixture of Nigerian, Congolese and Ghanaian. And the language?  Non-Africans have a little trouble understanding the Africans just as the Africans have trouble trying to understand these "English Speakers."

Here is a photo of Elder Wilding from Fort Payne, Alabama.  He is now serving in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission.