February 20, 2012

Ayeeeko. Congrats to the H-Man!!!!!! The Browns are gonna destroy Provo, because you know how crazy me and H are... haha. And yep, the mission is splitting! So get ready to be one of the first in the Ghana Kumasi Mission Hayden!!!!! Haha that would be so tight. Elder Adams' bro got his call a few weeks before he left to Paris - funny how two brothers can be so different. It'll be sweet to see where H will be off to. They told us at the end of ZL Council that the mission is splitting in July. It will be what we have in our mission right now in Kumasi and Sunyani, plus a small part of Accra mission - a city called Konongo. It will be interesting, since that means there will only be 1 stake (Kumasi) and 1 district (Konongo) plus a handful of mission branches (Sunyani, Bibiani, etc) for one mission. Hopefully that means we will be able to start going to northern Ghana in the next few years - up to Tamale and places like that. So it will be interesting to see what all happens leading up to the split and everything (they said they might announce the Kumasi mission president this week - let me know if you see that), but hopefully I just get to stick up here in Sunyani and watch the sunset... Life has been good the past week, I have just been soooo tired. I can't even describe how tired I have been.... it’s been ridonkulous. Sometimes I feel like I can't function properly. But, I guess that’s just part of the work. Our trip to Cape was an adventure. Long bus rides as usual. Both the rides to Kumasi and to Cape were pretty rough this time around.... but we got to Cape safely and had a nice meal of chili for dinner. Then we just chilled at the mission home - he even let us watch a movie - the Errand of Angels - about sister missionaries.... ha :) ZL Council itself was cool too, more good information - President's job is not easy at all!! Man oh man.... he is doing well, seriously. Anyway, the meeting was cool, and just as it was finishing, that’s when President announced the split. He is sad to see it split (he and Sis Shulz served a couples mission in Kumasi 10 years ago), but I know he is relieved - having a mission this big has been tough I am sure - 160 or so missionaries and it takes him a whole day to drive from Cape to Sunyani (on absolutely terrible roads). Now the waiting begins to see which missionaries end up where. The worst part about the trip to Cape was that we had to take a trotro from Cape to Kumasi..... a trotro!!!!!!!! It was pretty terrible, but we survived. Basically it was 4 hours on a rickety mid 90s 15 passenger bus with absolutely no leg room or personal space... but no wahala!!!!!! Bibiara bokoo!!!! We made it to Kumasi safely, and since it was like 8 at night, we spent the night at the Zoll's place - gotta love the Zolls!!!!!! They are pretty amazing people, and treat the missionaries way too well! They were heading up to Sunyani to clean the Thayne's (the new couple) apartment, so we got to hitch a ride with them, which was much better than a trotro :) They were cleaning the Thayne's place, because they are getting here on Wednesday. It’s gonna be pretty sweet! They are from St. George and are going to be such a big help up here. Just in training the branch presidencies and what not, they are going to have a really big impact. We have a few solid people right now, we had like 8 people come to church on Sunday, a lot of them had come for the first time visiting with their friends though. So hopefully we can turn them into new progressing investigators this week. Our best guy right now is named Appiah, an older man about 55-60 or so. He is scheduled to be baptized on 3 March. We had a good discussion with him about the Book of Mormon on Saturday, and also met his wife who is currently living in, guess where, Kwamo!!!!! Haha that’s so funny, both me and Elder McFarland were there, and she just happens to be living there. Well, all is awesome here, I love Ghana. Mission is great, thanks for your support, congrats again to H, and I love you guys seriously!!!! -Elder Brown