You're early if you're only one hour late! ;) August 13, 2018

Martin was baptized on Saturday.  The font here is nice. Elder Kainesie baptized him, the bishop confirmed him and I gave both talks but it started 3 hours late.  That's just how it is here in Ghana, if you are early here it means you're only and hour late!  I think that's what is most frustrating right now is that it's kind of hard to convince people that the church is true with hardly anyone at the sunday meetings on time.  But we're really trying.  We had our president interview on Wednesday and he gave us some great council.  I'm going to hope for the best! I feel like the Twi is really coming... more than any other area before because most people here really only speak it.  I can't believe school starting back home.  It feels like summer just started. It's starting to get hot here. It's still kinda in between. It will really get hot about October. Lots of change here in the mission.  A bunch of Elders went home last week and another group next week.  It will be transfers next week and we'll be getting 16 new Elders.  Elder Kainesie has been here for 5 transfers so I bet he'll go.  Well, till next week. 

Elder Kainesie and I at the Stake Center in Fosu.  It's a really nice building. 

Martin August 6, 2018

Hey I'm doing good.  We will have a baptism Saturday so that's exciting.  His name is Martin, he's 22 and a farmer.  Pretty much everyone farms here in Akonfudi.  We're excited for him.  Something funny this week was a really weird guy that I think was on drugs walked around with us all day on Saturday....... 
(He lost wifi after this message and we weren't able to hear from him until the next week!)

My comp Elder Kainaisie (border of our area)

KFC July 30, 2018

I have been trying to send pictures but I'm on the worst computer in the eastern hemisphere so they are not loading.  There's not tons to write about this week but I'm doing good. There are tons of snakes and scorpions here so I'll try to get pictures of them.  My new area is nice but so far I think it might be my least favorite of the 3 so far but I may change my mind before I get transferred again :) There is just not a lot here and the ward is really struggling. We've got a lot of work to do. We started sacrament meeting at 9:25 with about 6-7 people...which was 10 minutes earlier than last week so little by little I guess.  By the end of the meeting there are about 60 members.  We're trying.  They speak Twi here.  I've gotten pretty good at Fante but I'm going to need to learn Twi quick. We use a translator a lot. My comp speaks pretty broken English too.  We'll keep trying for improvement. 
We have walk 30 minutes from our apt just to buy anything, and there is not hardly anything there so we get everything we need in Fosu on Mondays. In the jungle I can't just go out my door and buy chicken and rice so I just usually make an instant noodle stir fry and eat bread with skippy peanut butter (which I can get in Fosu and I forgot how good peanut butter is!) 

This pictures is from Elder Brown the last night before they all went to their new areas. They were traveling and went thru Takoradi where there is a KFC.   Elder Brown told his mom that he and Elder Harris combined their money together so they could buy the BIG KFC bucket.  Elder Brown said "There is something about biting into chicken and actually having some chicken on the bone!"  Elder Harris said "The KFC was sooo good.  It tasted just like it does back home.  It was like a little jump back into America!  It made us happy."  A good farewell dinner for great friends!

New area Akonfudi July 23, 2018

Well I've been transferred up to the other far corner of our mission in a place called Akonfudi. It's in the Assin Fosu zone. My comp is Elder Kainesie from Sierra Leone. He is a stud, a super nice guy.  He has been out since March 2017. Our area is pretty crazy bush. It's like walking trough the jungle and coming up on a mud hut or bamboo house every once and a while. Our apartment is really big and nice. It's far away from everything except for our chapel. It's about a 25 minute taxi ride to go into to Fosu to get the internet cafe. We're the only two in the apartment. It's a ward here but It only has 70 active members. We started sacrament meeting at 9:35 with 7 people in the congregation yesterday, but its a sweet place. So yeah, hopfully everything will go good here!

 at the mission home for transfers...

I'm Leaving Tarkwa July 16, 2018

Well sadly I've been transferred from Tarkwa so this is my last day here. It'll be nice to go somewhere else but we have three people that will probably be baptized this transfer. Other then that I had snails for the first time. They were a lot better then I expected. The best way I can think to describe them is they taste like beef fat.

 snail soup.. 

Also on Saturday I was getting out of a taxi and my pants got caught and ripped really bad. We were really far away from the apartment so i just untucked my shirt to cover is mostly and we went and taught a lesson, luckily it was the last one of the day haha. But yeah everything is going good here.

saying goodbye to members of my branch in Brenu Akyirim

Here is a little part of Elder Browns letter home from today.

here is what is left of my pants ;0

4th of July July 8, 2018

I just have a minute!  Doing great.  Transfers are coming up next week and I'm afraid I'm going to be leaving.  We have the possibility of 3 baptisms coming up, one for sure.  Her name is Sima and she is away in Accra and will be baptized as soon as she's back.  She is a members wife and has been very stubborn but now she's not. Elder Owens and I made tin foil dinners again to celebrate the 4th of July.  They tasted so good. We can get potatoes at the market but they are tiny and not that good and kind of expensive. They're grown in Ireland.  Hope everyone is doing good and had a good 4th of July.

Back to Axim for Zone Conference July 2, 2018

On Tuesday this week we got to go to Axim for a Zone Conference. It was super cool to go back.  Elder Hess is back in the Tarkwa Zone so he was there too.  So after the meeting me, Elder Hess (who trained me in Axim), and Elder Owens (who trained Hess in Axim) got to go around and see a bunch of people we know there.  It was super cool.  Also this week me and Elder Owens decided to try to make tin foil dinners.  It worked out pretty good.  They tasted great but not quite like at home ha ha.  It's been raining tons lately so we didn't have a very productive week, but this next week should be good.  I'm still doing good and the work will go on.

Elder Owens posterity...