December 13, 2010

Well good morning! Hope all is well in Texas again and that last week was as sweet as ever. We just got done playing some football (just with our own zone on a short pitch, 7 on 7). I tried my hand at keeper today, it was pretty fun and I did ok, but midfield is where I belong :) Keeper is just too stressful! I didn't give up any goals though, so it was all good. Today is transfer news day, so there might be a change coming. There are three guys from our zone going home this week. Elder Hill (Kaysville, UT) who was the AP< id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Izekor (Benin City, Nigeria). So there will probably be a lot of changes to our zone, we'll see I guess.

So the computer I am on is being crazy, so hopefully I actually get this email sent today, and get to read some of yours! But I guess I just need to count my blessings that I've actually got a computer huh?? Haha. So the week in Moree was sweet again as usual. I don't know if I talked about Elmina Castle in last week's email, but that's what we did last P-Day. Elmina is about 10 minutes west of Cape Coast, and that's where the other castle is. We went there for a zone activity and it was pretty fun. The main reason I wanted to go was to buy some Twi books. That's literally the only place in Cape Coast to buy them! So I bought three books that look like they will be good in helping me to learn it better. In one of out lessons this week I actually noticed myself being able to hear stuff without having to try to listen too hard. It's coming kakrakakra!!!!!!!!! I'll just keep working hard.

Tuesday was good, we had a combined district meeting in Cape Coast so that we could all see the guys going home one more time. It was a good meeting. I was really tight with Elder Hill, so it was weird seeing him for the last time. He was my zone leader for a transfer and then was the AP for three, so I saw a lot of him. After that we had a good day of proselyting. Jacob has started doing some family history stuff, and he's really excited about the temple. He filled out a full 4-generation pedigree chart and a few family group records, pretty serious stuff for Africa. The records are difficult here. Like for his Grandpa, the record was "Kweku, born about 100 years ago". It's good he is working on it! Oh yeah, that reminds me, here's a list of Ghanaian names if you wanted to know:

Day you were born.........Name (Male/Female)
Monday..................(Kojo/can't remember the girls)
Tuesday................(Kobina/Aba) they usually shorten Kobina to Kobe (as in Bryant)
Wednesday.........(Kweku/Ekua)
Thursday......(Yaw/Yaa)
Friday..............(Kofi/Efua)
Saturday.................(Kwamena/Ama) usually shorten Kwamena to Kwame (as in the worst #1 pick ever)
Sunday...........(Kwesi/Esi)

Tuesday night was epic. Elder Saunders told us that when he was on his mission, he would jump rope 1000 times without messing up every night, and when he got home, he could dunk. So Elder Mortensen and I have been jump roping every night to do that, but we've never been able to get to a thousand without messing up. We were starting to think it wasn't possible. But then Elder Mortensen got 1,120! So then I had to beat it, and I got 1,501! It was so sweet, I felt pretty good haha. But then, two nights later, Elder Mortensen broke 2,000! He got 2,166! I went to break it again, got to 2,000 and messed up at 2,024 :( Very sad. So Elder Mortensen is the Yamoransa jump rope king...at least for now. I'm gonna break it tonight!

Wednesday was a solid day again, we had our baptism class at night, not as many people came this time, but it was still a good class. We taught about Faith and Repentance and then we'll teach about Baptism and the Holy Ghost this week. The people that come seem to really like the class, they are always really engaged in the lesson, now we've just go to get 50 people coming a week so we can create a stake in Moree! :) We also taught this guy named Jephther- we had a good lesson- now he's excited about learning. It'll be cool to see where it goes with him. We also taught his mom after, and Jephther told us that he helped her to her reading too. Pretty cool!

Friday was sweet because Andrew went to the temple! We found out Tuesday that the Bakano branch in Cape Coast was going Friday, so we asked Andrew if he wanted to go with them and he said "Heck yeah!" (well not exactly, but basically :) They left early Friday morning and he called us at like 10 saying "guess where I am???" He was so excited. It was awesome to see him getting ready to go. He had the names of all his grandparents to do there, so he was pretty stoked about that. We saw him Sunday and you could just tell had had loved it so much. I let him take my camera and he took some cool pictures. Luckily, my camera didn't get lost in Accra haha. I wish we could have gone with him, that would've been SO tight!!!!!!!

We saw Elder Ahadgi again at the chapel site on Saturday. The chapel is coming along well, they're about to start building the roof. We talked to Elder Ahadgi for awhile, we talked a lot about Sunyani and what he thinks about the work there. He basically said that what is going on in Sunyani right now is going to be the model for the rest of West Africa. I don't know if I explained it very well, but as of two months ago, Sunyani had zero branches and zero members, but it is a city of over 1 million. The mission bought 4 missionary apartments across the city, all with a room big enough to have a small sacrament meeting. The missionaries go and contact and invite people to church at the apartment on Sunday. They are already getting 100 people at Church in Sunyani now. Elder Ahadgi said that at the rate its going there, there should be TWO stakes in Sunyani in 5 years. There's not even a branch right now. It'll be interesting to see.

We went to Yamoransa's baptism Saturday night, it was good. They haven't had a baptism in Yamorans in a while, but Elder Mortensen and Elder Katoa have been working really hard and they're about to baptize a lot of people there! We proselyted with Bismark again on Saturday, that guy is such a stud!!! I can't believe he speaks Twi, Fante, English (fluently) and French (fluently) and he's only like 21. He needs to be a missionary now! Church was sweet on Sunday. Dennis, our convert from a couple of months ago, got to bless the Sacrament. We had a lot of investigators at church, including a sweet family, the Ano's. They've got four kids and are just really humble people who want the best for their family! Sunday night we chilled out by playing Settlers of Catan...man that game is ridiculous! Elder Mortensen got it from Elder Valentine (he was trained by him) and we played it for the first time. Too much fun! And way too frustrating! Haha.

Well that was it for the week. Next transfer is going to be sweet for Moree. We've got 11 people with baptismal dates right now.

A few random things I jotted down to mention:
-Justin's chocolate hazelnut spread is the bomb!! Thanks Amanda :)
-I FORGOT TO SAY HOW CRAZY IT IS THAT SHE HAD THE BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wowzers....I feel tooooooo old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-How bout you guys Grandma and Grandpa?!?!?!?!?! Geez louise that's insane. The pictures are ridiculously awesome. Say hello to little Olivia for me!!!! Give her a "wapume" from Africa :)

Well, nothing else I can think of. Send my love to Denton 2nd Ward on Christmas Sunday. Love you guys!

Yebehyia wae

-Elder Brown