First Email..July 5, 2010

Griffin now has access to email. The guidelines are that anyone can email him, friends or family. He can send emails to any family. His email address is: griffin.brown@myldsmail.net

Hey! Well I'm out in the field now...it's crazy. My area is a little fishing village about 10 minutes east of Cape Coast, it's called Moree. It's right on the coast and it's the only area in the mission where you do your baptisms in the ocean, so hopefully I get to do some of that!

My apartment is in the middle of a village. The apartment has one other companionship living in it, and the four of us is the extent of our district. My companion's name is Elder Adams. He's from Reno and has been out for about 5 months. He's a really cool guy and we get along really well. The other guys in the apartment are Elders Keller and Chesa (SLC, Nigeria). We cook on a little camping-style propane grill and have no hot water. It's a pretty cool place to live :)

Thursday was our first day of proselyting. We have to take a tro tro (a 12 passenger van from the 70s that they cram about 25 people into) and then a taxi to get to our area every morning. The first couple days, Elder Adams took me around town and introduced me to some members and investigators. It's a legitimate fishing village. Tons of people are gone right now because it's fishing season. The houses are all one bedroom kind of things, and there are a bunch of 2 story compounds with about 10 one room apartments in them. There are no street names (there are only about two roads in the entire town), so it's going to take a while to remember where everyone is. There's no chapel in Moree, so the ward meets in a school building in the middle of town. They're breaking ground on a chapel across the street this month though.

It's the cool season right now, so it actually doesn't get too hot during the day. I handle it pretty well. January and February are the hottest months. My diet in the apartment is pretty much oatmeal, bread, indo-mie noodles (ramen), and eggs. When we're in Moree, we'll eat this really good ice cream stuff called FanIce, this doughnut kind of thing we call bowl fruit, and bread with peanut butter. They sell water here in little plastic bags called sachez's. It's the only pure water you can get. You bite of a corner of the bag and suck the water out. One thing that is convenient here is that littering is what you're supposed to do. People are paid to walk around and pick up trash. So there are no trash cans. You just throw your trash on the ground.

The little kids here are awesome. They're so funny and so dang cute! They all chant this little song when we come by "Abruni, how are you? I'm fine, thank you." Abruni means white man, and that song is the only English they know, literally. EVERYWHERE we go, the kids sing that!

They speak Fante here, and I'm learning a little bit every day. Everyone says you can pick it up pretty easy, so hopefully I do! We have a couple people we're teaching that are doing well. Most of all the people we teach come from member referrals.

It's just so cool being here. I absolutely love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Love, Elder Brown.