December 20, 2010

What's up?! Merry Christmas! In Fante they say Buronya Pa...it means "white man is celebrating", haha. There's really no Christmas celebration here. We just saw a guy in a Santa suit though, so that was pretty cool, but other than that there's not much. A few things here and there but not much. The email will be a little shorter today since we will be talking on Saturday, so I'll just fill you in on the cool stuff from the week :)

I got some more packages today, one from the California Browns, one from David and Valri, two from Grandma and Grandpa brown. And one from you guys that had been mis-sent to Sri Lanka! How tight is that?! You sent it in October and its just now getting here! It has a big stamp on the front that says "sent to Sri Lanka" and then says that it was sent through Dubai too. So that thing has been all over the world! Haha. Thanks everybody for the packages!!!!!! I can already tell they have got sweet stuff in them :)

Sad to hear Guyer lost, it seems like they had it in the bag. Glad that BYU rolled, seems like they've got a solid foundation for the future. Hoffman is only a sophomore right? I played some pick up ball with him every now and then in the RB. Lived in one of the Helaman dorms while I was there.

Still can't believe that Olivia is actually here! The pictures are so cool. It just doesn't feel like it has happened because I'm not there, but obviously it has! So glad that everything is going well with her and that she's in the apartment now. I'm sure Mom is just loving it, but doesn't even know if it's real still! Seems like you and H have had a lot of times by yourself in Denton since I've been gone! Been living it up I'm sure :)

Oh yeah I forgot to tell you! I'm emailing you from......................................Cape Coast:) Me and Elder Adams are staying together in Moree! We will have been together for 7 1/2 months at the end of this transfer! No one ever stays together that long really, so it will be another sweet transfer in Moree. It'll be weird though, for basically the first third of my mission I will have been in one area with one companion. It'll be sweet! Elder Mortensen and Elder Katoa are staying together as well, so our apartment is the same. The put elders in Abakrampa, which is about 15 minutes down the road from Yamoransa, so we are in a district with them and Mannkesim now, Elder Adams still the district leader. We got to go to Mannkesim on Saturday for interviews, and it is a sweet place. It's a really really busy town, it has a giant market and a big big tro-tro station. It's about 45 minutes to an hour outside of Cape Coast. One thing I've never really talked about is how small Cape Coast is. You might think of it like a big city, but it is not at all. It's honestly the size of downtown Denton. There are tons of people everywhere, but there are no big buildings, everything is under three stories. To drive from Cape Coast to Yamoransa , is basically like driving from the Square to Forrestridge or something. Really small. But there are tons and tons of people, just because it's so densely populated.

So the week of proselyting was good. We have a lot of Fante speakers to teach again. The sweetest part of the week though was that we taught Seth a couple of times, and he came to church on Sunday! He's another guy like Andrew, so it's been sweet teaching him. We didn't even have to pick him for church either, he came himself! He even said that his brother was trying to get him not to go, but he came anyway. It was sweet. He was scared at first, but he saw when he got there that there was a bunch of people that he knew there, he even knew Andrew! So Andrew was with him throughout church helping him out, which was perfect! Bernard received the Aaronic Priesthood, he is doing really really well. We proselyted with an awesome guy from the ward on Sunday, Elliot. He's so happy, he works at the chapel, he travels to Ola (other side of Cape) to go to mission prep class every week, he comes to our ward missionary meeting every week, and he is just the happiest guy at church. He even dresses fresh! Yesterday he had on a fresh black v-neck sweater (don't know how in this blessed earth he could do that in the heat), nice and slim black trou, and fresh matching topsiders. I asked him if he read GQ! Haha I told him he could move to New York and work for the magazine one day if he wanted to. He really is a stud though, he was so good at translating and he took us to three referrals yesterday! He's doing great.

Welp I'll just leave it there for today. I hope you guys have a great week, a great Christmas Eve, and Merry Christmas! But I'll get to talk to you for that one :) Just don't turn off the phone or anything :) haha. Tell Olivia Merry Christmas for me! And tell everyone in the ward and in Denton!

Love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Elder Brown

Oh PS- I didn't do anything too for special for my six months. Me and Elder Bunker (my MT) were going to go for Burgers in Abura, but it's just too much of a hassle to get there. so we just got some killer fried rice in town.

PSS- The Ghanaian name for a girl born on Monday is Adwowa. That's the only one I forgot last week.

Love you guys!!