August 23, 2010

Wowzers, I am really tired right now, so if I say anything weird, I apologize in advance :)

Sounds like all is gong sweet back there. That's exciting school starts today! BYU independent...I don't know about that! But we'll see I guess, I'm glad I'll get to see Texas in Provo when I get back though!

So this week was kind of weird, we were doing a bunch of other stuff so we didn't have a ton of time to proselyte. We only had one day of full proselyting scheduled. Tuesday we had zone conference, it was pretty sweet. President Sabey spoke about agency and it was super sweet. So that took up our whole Tuesday with travel and everything. Wednesday was our only full proselyting day so we worked hard to prepare for our baptism (in the ocean!) next week. We're starting to get all the records of the people together so we don't have to worry about it last minute. 5 people are getting baptized on the 4th of September, and then we're going to have another at the end of September for a few more people. Thursday the new zone leader, Elder Wright, came on splits with us, and we spent the first few hours clearing the land for the chapel. I got to use a cutlass (machete) for the first time, my hands got eaten up!! It was sweet though, we and like 6 other guys cleared a ton of land. Thursday night we taught Sammy, I don't know if I told you about him, with Elder Wright. Friday we started the day by clearing the land again for the chapel. Elder Adams and I went to town on this gnarly bush with our cutlasses. It was sweet!

Saturday morning there was a Pan-African service project, so we went and helped with that. Moree ward was assigned to paint an old hospital in Cape Coast, so we went with them to do that. You should've seen the hospital dad...It was basically 10 or so little one-story, one-room houses, each with its own function. It looked like an old scout camp or something. And it's still a pretty busy hospital! After that Elder Adams and I went to Moree to meet with some people that are getting baptized. Then we went straight back to Yamoransa for a baptism. Two people I taught several times on splits, Randy and Timothy, got baptized. They're both sweet guys. Me and Elder Adams were the witnesses for that, 10 people got baptized. I played the keyboard at the baptism, first time I have so far! Oh we also taught Francis on Saturday. Sunday was pretty normal, just church and then visited some people.

Anyway, other than that the week was sweet! We had a "world cup" between the Cape Coast, Assin Fosu, Swedru and Abura zones today. Cape Coast cleaned up, and I scored my first goal! It was so sweet haha. I can see why people get addicted to football, it was like the best feeling ever when I scored! And it tied the game up and sent it to penalty kicks so that was sweet too :) Learning Fante is pretty rough, but I'm doing my best. There are no books or anything so it's all oral pretty much. And the language is soooo subtle. For example, to say "I know you" you say minyim." To say "I don't know" you say "minnyim" holding the n for a split second longer. But it's coming.

Hope all goes well with school for H and all that is going great for you guys! Africa is still sweet and I'm loving life here! We got some burgers today and Elder Keller paid because it's his one year mark, so that makes you love life a little more :) Brother Pratt is cooking jollof rice and....octopus (!) for us on Thursday!

Elder Brown

August 16, 2010

Wapume?? Last week was a long week. It was good, but I'm definitely glad it's P-day. Nothing really got shaken up with transfers, our apartment is the same. We got new zone leaders, both from Kumasi, because one of the zone leaders, Elder Strong, went home last Tuesday, and the other one, Elder Hill got called to be the new AP. But other than that, our zone is pretty much the same. I'm officially done with my first transfer! And I just started using my second planner today...time flies haha.

So nothing too crazy happened last week. On Wednesday it rained ALL day. It just poured and poured and poured. The Buabins gave us some umbrellas to use but we really didn't even use them. We just got soaked instead! When it rains here, people stay inside all day. Moree looked like a ghost town while it was raining because no on was outside doing anything. They were all cooped up in their houses. It was still cool though, we got to visit a lot of people because they were all home! haha. Two of my favorite people to teach are Albert and David. Albert is about 16 and David is probably 14 or15. They have both been coming to church for a while, and now they're getting ready to be baptized. They're really tight kids.

I don't know if I've told you about Francis. He speaks perfect English so it's sweet to be able to teach him and actually understanding everything. Our lessons with him are usually an hour and a half, no matter what. He says the church makes perfect sense. He says he wants to be totally sure before becoming a Latter-day Saint, so he said it might take a while for him to make a decision to join the church. It'd be super sweet to come back and check on him if he's not a member ;) Eric had a dream he was getting baptized and confirmed, so he committed to baptism yesterday. Spiritual dreams are super common here. The area president said that all Africans just have a greater sensitivity to spiritual gifts like that, and so it's really common to get things like that. A guy here, I can't remember his name right now...had a dream about Thomas S. Monson before we even taught about him. He recognized the picture of him. He traveled for fishing season though we haven't seen him in a while.

I'm starting to like fufu. I had some at somebody's houseon Wednesday and it was soooo good. He made the most delicious soup ever with it. It's called light soup and it's basically just spicy tomato soup. Sooooo good. I ate so much haha.

So anyway, that's really it from the week. We've got zone conference tomorrow so that will be sweet.

So...
News on BYU football...who's the QB, what's the RB situation looking like, all that jazz. Any major injuries or newcomers? Give me a two-deep of offense and defense :)

Love you guys!
Elder Brown

Fun picture- 8/16/10

Griffin sent this picture with his letter from this week (which I will post later). Here he is doing laundry with his companion:

August 9, 2010

So, the week was pretty sweet, we got a new guy in the apartment on Tuesday. Elder Wiah from Liberia. He's really tight. He's like 6'4" and really chill. He's pretty quiet but he's really cool. We had to go to a bus station in Cape Coast on Tuesday to get him. So he's companions with Elder Keller now. A while ago we randomly me this guy named Eric. We were teaching someone on their front porch and he just came u and sat down and listened for like a minute and left. He doesn't speak any English, but we told him we'd come teach him some time. So we teach him on Wednesday, not thinking he was super serious or anything. We taught him about the Restoration. Then he said he's been to every church in Moree except the Latter-day Saints and he'd never found the truth. It was pretty sweet. He came to church on Sunday that was sweet too. He's got nine kids, four sets of twins and one single! Crazy! So hopefully all goes well with that.

There's this guy in the ward that's so sweet, Nana Kofi. He just joined the church a little under a year ago. He's probably like 80 or 90. His wife died not too long ago, so he's super excited to go to the temple in September. We visit him a ton just because he's so cool. We pass by his house every day, and he's always just chillin in the window, and when we come by he pumps his fist in the air and gives the sweetest toothless smile ever. The only English he knows is "How are you" and "I'm quite fine sir." So sweet.

I got to do my first baptisms on Saturday. They were people some sisters taught, and they asked us to run the baptism. So since I haven't done it before, I got to baptize. It was pretty sweet. I wasn't very good, but I didn't drown anybody :) It was a mom and three kids, so it was really cool. Me and Elder Adams have a baptism scheduled in a few weeks, so we'll be busy preparing some people for that in the the next few weeks. It's gonna be in the ocean! It'll be sweet.

Anyway that's the big news of the week. We went to Takoradi today to play football against the combined Takoradi and Sekondi zones. We beat em 5-3. Takoradi is about an hour and half west of Cape Coast. This week is the last week of my first transfer! People will find out about transfers today, so I could get transferred but...I'm not. haha. Our zone will get shaken up a little bit though because both our zone leaders are leaving. One is going home and on is becoming AP. So we shall see. I didn't eat anything too funny this week...just eating a lot of rice, egg sandwiches and Gari. I had some banku that was suuuuper spicy. I had it when I was getting sick and it made my nose run so bad. I like Banku though, it's pretty good. It's like fufu but it's made out of corn and casava instead of just casava. The food is so spicy here, I love it. I got a package from Greg and Mindy today, stocked with candy :)

Well mission life is going great! Couldn't ask for more!

I heard Shaq went to the Celtics, that's weird. Let me know how its going as college football gets ramped up again. Thanks for everything! And remember, always stay fresh! :)

Elder Brown

August 2, 2010

Elder Brown playing frisbee with his zone near the Cape Coast Castle

Hello again! It definitely feels weird that its already August, but thats good I guess! This week was pretty sweet. Last P-day, right after we e-mailed, we heard about the only place in Cape Coast that has American food. I blew 11 cedis on two burgers and two orders of fries. It was soooooooooooo good it was ridiculous. Today we went to the beach, right by the Cape Coast castle, and played some ultimate frisbee. It was pretty sweet.



Anyway, so I did my first instruction at a meeting on Tuesday, at district meeting. I taught on chapter 11 of Preach My Gospel, Making and Keeping Commitments. One thing I don't think I've told you about yet that's different about Cape Coast mission is that we have something called the Promise Pattern. It's the first thing we'll ever teach to anyone. It's only like a 15-minute lesson, but we have to teach it to absolutely everyone we teach. Basically it just teaches about the importance of making and keeping promises. Its really sweet, President Sabey's such a stud for using it. I went on splits with Elder Chesa again on Tuesday. We went out to a place called Asieduthats in their area to teach a guy named Timothy. He committed to baptism, so that was sweet. He'll be baptized on the 14th of August. While we were out on splits, we were climbing some stairs up to an apartment to teach a lesson, and there was this cat sleeping on one of the stairs. I was like 6 or 7 steps below Elder Chesa, and I wasn't really paying attention to what Elder Chesa was doing. All of the sudden he calls my name, and being the crazy guy he is, he throws the cat at me. So I've got this cat flying at me and I just let it hit me in the fact and it just falls to the ground. Elder Chesa got quite a kick out of it. Thursday was pretty normal, too, the coolest thing was that we taught again (the guy whose wife died) and he committed to baptism. It was really sweet. And I saw a goat give birth. It was weird.



Saturday was a little different, we didn't do any proselyting. Our zone got to go play a football game against a recent convert's club team so that was cool. We thought we were gonna get killed like 8-1 or something, but it was only 3-1 haha. All the guys on the other team were telling me I was pretty fast for an abruni haha. Then later in the day we had interviews with President Sabey. The interview was really good, we just talked about getting used to the mission and stuff. President Sabey is so cool. Elder Chesa got transferred later that evening, so we've been with Elder Keller for little while, he's got a new companion coming tomorrow though. Sunday was pretty cool, since we were in a threesome, we decided to all split and go with a ward missionary to visit tons of people. We visited like 15 plus people in a couple of hours between us.



Other than that, the work is going great! We're going to grab a burger (or 3) today again. I had some weird food this week...cow skin. I'll just leave it at that. My favorite African food so far is still jollof rice, but banku is pretty good too. And I'm addicted to this stuff called Gari for breakfast. It's made out of ground up cassava (like a yam) and I put chocolate powder and peanuts in it, very good.



So everything is going good! Thanks for all the support, reading emails is so sweet, I got like 15 today, it was very nice :) The work is so sweet, I've really gotten used to how I need to teach and everything, and I'm really starting to feel comfortable. My testimony is growing everyday and I'm learning new things everyday. It's so awesome to be here, and I'm loving every minute.



Love you guys so much,

Elder Brown