Wapume! Hope all is great in Texas. I'm sure it is! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! Hope you're enjoying, I am sure you will go chop some delicious food tonight somewhere (save some for me!) It's been a good day so far here. We went and played some football at the Yamoransa pitch. We combined with Abura zone and played against Swedru zone, who came in on a trotro. It was fun, it is always nice to play at the Yamoransa pitch. It's really secluded so we don't have to worry about any visitors with sticky hands, and of course, its in Yamoransa! We just get to walk there in our moftee! Very sweet. We won I think, I scored one goal. I didn't play too well today. It was fun though. I got some packages too! Thanks for everything in last weeks-everything was awesome! One note about what gets here well and what doesn't. M&M's=very good. The single serving wrapped oreos, chips ahoy, and nutter butters-not so much. If you send them in one of the big packages, they are fine, but not in the ones that have like 4 cookies. They were pretty much powder when they got here. Beef jerky is always good, as are the pasta sauces. Drink packets are the bomb, and of course, EASY CHEESE! Haha it is sooooooo good. So anyway thanks a ton for those. And the packages today are great too. Pictures are always the best, and I am excited to eat the sour punch straws! Stop sending so much candy tough, too much sugar! Haha. My favorites are mashed potatoes, gravy, and pasta sauces- tons and tons of those would be awesome. And the bacon of course! Elder Nzuki also got his package from you guys today too. He really loved it.
Welp, it was another week in Moree. We had district meeting Tuesday like normal, Elder Smith (Accra, Ghana), the father of our district (oldest one on mission) instructed for us. After we went to a nice ghetto chop bar in Yamoransa and chopped some fufu together. It was good as always! Tuesday was a good day for proselyting, taught a lot of people, helping several people get ready for baptism. I feel like we are just teaching the same people over and over though. So we are working to find more investigators and diversify our teaching pool. It's been fun to do that. The three guys we are preparing to be baptized this coming Saturday are doing well. Kofi, a fisherman, doesn't speak a word of English. Then there is Ransford, he is in his early 20s. His friend Isaac, a member, referred him to us a little while ago. He is doing well, we always have to teach him with a translator though. And then there is another we are excited about, Solomon. We contacted Solomon a few weeks ago while we were looking for Ransford to teach him, in fact he was just sleeping on a bench and we woke up, h0ping he could help us. He did, he actually turned out to be one of Ransford's best friends, and then also agreed to meet with us the next day. Solomon speaks really good English, and as we started to teach him, it started slow, but after a few lessons, he started progressing so fast. After about a week and half of teaching, he was ready for baptism. We had just had to make sure he would come to church, and he has! Three weeks in a row! So we are excited for his baptism on Saturday, as well as for Ransford and Kofi.
We did find some new investigators this week that seem cool. 4 of them even speak very good English! It's a Moree miracle! The only thing is that they are all between 18-25. Which is cool, but, I would say 90% of the people I have ever taught have been in the age group.
We have been working some serious days lately...the last two weeks we have probably averaged 10 and a half hours of proselyting daily....man oh man its made us seriously tired, but the work has been picking up because of it. More investigators, more less-active coming to church, more opportunities to serve more activities with the ward. It's fun. Thursday I was pretty dead, I didn't know if I would have the energy to leave the apartment, but, somehow I did! And we stayed out in Moree working non-stop until 9 that day. Usually we leave Moree after it gets dark, (7ish), because there are no lights in Moree, but lately we have been just working through the darkness. It has been fun, because it's so much cooler, it makes you feel better. Def have the spirit more.
Well that was it for the week. We will be busy getting ready for the coming baptism on Saturday. Oh yeah, almost forgot, an emergency transfer is happening today. I am going to Wa...! Just kidding, but Elder Alba is leaving our district, he is going up to Sunyani. We are getting a displaced missionary from Cote d'Ivoire named...Elder Adams! Haha how funny is that? He is from Tema, where the MTC is. He had only been in Cote d'Ivoire on mission for one month. But all the non-Ivorians have been taken out of Cote d'Ivoire now, so we have three new missionaries new to Ghana Cape Coast Mission, met them all today at the football pitch. All are African (two Ghanaians, one Nigerian). Elder Adams will be Elder Bunker's companion in Mankessim, and then also Mankessim will be getting an additional two elders- Elder Stats (transferred down from Kumasi, from Utah) and Elder Togag'ae (from Samoa, transferred from Odoben). So our district will be 10 now, should be fun. Other than that...nothing really! Dad, you better start golfing plenty, you gotta do something! I want you breaking 80 when I am home. And upgrade your 1980s clubs, or use mine at least, so you don't look like a weirdo :) I love you guys TOOOOO much! Hope your anniversary is sweet, hope all goes great for Hs Eagle Project, and congrats to Keegan on getting into the Y!!!!!!!! (I was going to ask that today!) Congrats to Tristan Mayfield as well, and it well be nice to have another Hebertson in Africa soon! That's so tight! Is Greg learning Portuguese with all these Portuguese countries he is going to??
I love you! Thanks for everything, the packages, the letters, the pictures, the emails, the updates, the love, the support. I need every bit of it!
Love,
Elder Brown
PS-CRAM PACK the packages when you send the flat-rate envelopes! As full as they can possibly be! You are leaving valuable space free in those things! :)
Monday, March 14, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
February 21, 2011
What's up?! Today has been sweet, we found out last week at zone conference that Bishop McMullin of the presiding bishopric and Elder Gonzalez of the presidency of the Seventy would be coming to our mission, and they came to speak to us today. It was a cool little p-day activity of sorts! It was a really great meeting, only an hour long, but it was good. Bishop and Sister McMullin talked for a little-Bishop McMulling has the most awesome General Conference voice ever. He gave a really powerful instructions, just about the power of our callings- "who we really are" I guess you could say. It was cool, he gave some powerful experience he had while a missionary and mission president in Germany (Sister McMullin also served as a missionary in Germany. Elder Gonzalez was awesome...seriously, he was so funny. I don't know if he was trying to be, but he was the man. He is from Uruguay (Maybe Brian met him there?) and so hearing his accent was pretty cool (I have just been used to British/Twi accents here). He talked mainly about the "fundamentals of Preach My Gospel" that missionaries throughout the world have been directed to focus on. It was cool, he did a role play with some missionaries-him acting as the missionary and the missionaries being the investigators-that taught us a lot about the focus of our first meetings with investigators. Like I have talked about before, we invite people to be baptized in the first lesson now, so he showed us how we can most effectively do that. It was sweet, a really cool dude for sure! Elder and Sister Sitati and Elder and Sister Dickson of the area presidency also attended. AND I got three packages and something from Syd and Matt! So it's been a good day, even the emails I got have been top notch! So thanks everybody :)
Welp, another week is in the books. Everything is starting to blend together. I saw Elder Keller and Elder Bahme on Tuesday at zone conference....seems like yesterday they were walking out of the door of Yamoransa apartment to catch thte STC to Kumasi/Sunyani. But it was like we didn't miss a beat. They're both as awesome as ever, enjoying life together as companions. Their area seems sweet-Winneba. It's a little beach town getting towards Accra. There is a university there so everybody speaks English the say. They both just hit 18 months today...crazy. Maybe one day I will be there!
So like I said, we had zone conference on Tuesday. Zone conference is always awesome. The big news is that we have a new mission goal. Our current one will come to a close this Sunday. This goal will be President and Sister Sabey's last as they are going home in July-so President made it serious and to the point. He said it's the "impossible" goal. So anyway, it is simple, but it's going to be tough. By June 26th, every missionary will help one family who has not been sealed in the temple to go to the temple and be sealed. On top of that, every missionary will baptize someone who has a family member in the church. It's a pretty serious final goal for the Sabey's; it's going to mean a lot for them and for the mission.
We also got a new daily schedule at zone conference! We get to sleep until 6:30 now! I feel like I'm sleeping in everyday haha. We used to wake up at 6 and go to bed at 10, but now we are back on the schedule given in the white handbook. I like it way better. It's geared to let us proselyte in the evenings for longer, which is a more productive time. The reason it got moved up to 6 was because most missionaries' areas had no lights, but now most do. Moree doesn't really though, but its fun proselyting in the dark haha. My birthday will come before the next zone conference, so I got my birthday present at this one! I got a nice carton of milk- I enjoyed it with a nice box of corn flakes. Mos def the best breakfast I have had on the mission.
I did an exchange with Abakrampa on Wednesday, so on Tuesday we went to ABK (abakrampa) to switch. I took Elder Meinzer (SLC) to Moree with me. It was a sweet day. He has had an interesting time in ABK. It's straight village, not much English koraa, and his companion Elder Smith is a Ghanaian. We had a great time in Moree. We have been teaching a lady named Sister Sama, and we taught her husband for the first time.
Thursday was pretty solid..Also Thursday night I stepped in a gutter. I'll just leave it at that. I almost threw up.
Friday we went on splits with the zone leaders. We went with Elder Jackson (Centerville, UT). He is a funny funny man. I swear he is related to the Jacksons (as in Dad's best friend) in some way. He looks so much like them. But he doesn't know...maybe some remote way though. We worked at the chapel in the morning with them, always fun.
Saturday was Godfred's baptism. It was sweeeeeeet..we hiked down to the beach, and had our own little service there. I presided as the district leader. And then Elder Nzuki baptized him in the ocean. It was the first time Elder Nzuki had been in the ocean! He got swept off his feet hard core as they were coming back to the shore, it was so funny. But we could tell that Godfred loved it. It was sweet. We walked with Godfred back to his house and had a small lesson with him there. The Spirit was strong. And then he was confirmed the next day. He was very very happy. Then I sat next to Godfred at church, and I let him use my little hymnbook to sing while I was playing the piano. I saw him after reading in the inside cover--you guys gave me that hymn book when I was baptized! He thought it was pretty cool.
Welp, time is short today. The computer was being dumb, so sorry if I sounded a little perturbed in the email! Haha. we ate octopus last night at the Pratt's, and then when we got in the taxi to go home, I was humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers". I was sitting next to an old old lady (maybe 3 or 4 teeth) who started humming too. I started singing the words, and so did she! We sang all of the first verse together while riding in an old Opel from the late 80s that was about to fall apart, down the palm tree-lined road to Moree Junction. It was legit and the best ending ever to a week.
I love you guys so much! I finished the Book of Mormon this week, we started on Jan. 1 as a mission. It's mos def true and it's awesome. I love the Book of Moroni- he's the man. But that's about it. I am so super excited to rip into the packages tonight! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Elder Brown
Welp, another week is in the books. Everything is starting to blend together. I saw Elder Keller and Elder Bahme on Tuesday at zone conference....seems like yesterday they were walking out of the door of Yamoransa apartment to catch thte STC to Kumasi/Sunyani. But it was like we didn't miss a beat. They're both as awesome as ever, enjoying life together as companions. Their area seems sweet-Winneba. It's a little beach town getting towards Accra. There is a university there so everybody speaks English the say. They both just hit 18 months today...crazy. Maybe one day I will be there!
So like I said, we had zone conference on Tuesday. Zone conference is always awesome. The big news is that we have a new mission goal. Our current one will come to a close this Sunday. This goal will be President and Sister Sabey's last as they are going home in July-so President made it serious and to the point. He said it's the "impossible" goal. So anyway, it is simple, but it's going to be tough. By June 26th, every missionary will help one family who has not been sealed in the temple to go to the temple and be sealed. On top of that, every missionary will baptize someone who has a family member in the church. It's a pretty serious final goal for the Sabey's; it's going to mean a lot for them and for the mission.
We also got a new daily schedule at zone conference! We get to sleep until 6:30 now! I feel like I'm sleeping in everyday haha. We used to wake up at 6 and go to bed at 10, but now we are back on the schedule given in the white handbook. I like it way better. It's geared to let us proselyte in the evenings for longer, which is a more productive time. The reason it got moved up to 6 was because most missionaries' areas had no lights, but now most do. Moree doesn't really though, but its fun proselyting in the dark haha. My birthday will come before the next zone conference, so I got my birthday present at this one! I got a nice carton of milk- I enjoyed it with a nice box of corn flakes. Mos def the best breakfast I have had on the mission.
I did an exchange with Abakrampa on Wednesday, so on Tuesday we went to ABK (abakrampa) to switch. I took Elder Meinzer (SLC) to Moree with me. It was a sweet day. He has had an interesting time in ABK. It's straight village, not much English koraa, and his companion Elder Smith is a Ghanaian. We had a great time in Moree. We have been teaching a lady named Sister Sama, and we taught her husband for the first time.
Thursday was pretty solid..Also Thursday night I stepped in a gutter. I'll just leave it at that. I almost threw up.
Friday we went on splits with the zone leaders. We went with Elder Jackson (Centerville, UT). He is a funny funny man. I swear he is related to the Jacksons (as in Dad's best friend) in some way. He looks so much like them. But he doesn't know...maybe some remote way though. We worked at the chapel in the morning with them, always fun.
Saturday was Godfred's baptism. It was sweeeeeeet..we hiked down to the beach, and had our own little service there. I presided as the district leader. And then Elder Nzuki baptized him in the ocean. It was the first time Elder Nzuki had been in the ocean! He got swept off his feet hard core as they were coming back to the shore, it was so funny. But we could tell that Godfred loved it. It was sweet. We walked with Godfred back to his house and had a small lesson with him there. The Spirit was strong. And then he was confirmed the next day. He was very very happy. Then I sat next to Godfred at church, and I let him use my little hymnbook to sing while I was playing the piano. I saw him after reading in the inside cover--you guys gave me that hymn book when I was baptized! He thought it was pretty cool.
Welp, time is short today. The computer was being dumb, so sorry if I sounded a little perturbed in the email! Haha. we ate octopus last night at the Pratt's, and then when we got in the taxi to go home, I was humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers". I was sitting next to an old old lady (maybe 3 or 4 teeth) who started humming too. I started singing the words, and so did she! We sang all of the first verse together while riding in an old Opel from the late 80s that was about to fall apart, down the palm tree-lined road to Moree Junction. It was legit and the best ending ever to a week.
I love you guys so much! I finished the Book of Mormon this week, we started on Jan. 1 as a mission. It's mos def true and it's awesome. I love the Book of Moroni- he's the man. But that's about it. I am so super excited to rip into the packages tonight! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Elder Brown
Monday, February 28, 2011
February 14, 2011
Happy Valentine's Day! Everything is normal in Cape Coast.
So I guess I should clarify...No one in Ghana has any idea who Jimmer is haha. I was completely joking about that. But that's so tight they are doing so well- hopefully they finish the season on a run, lock in a number 2 (dare I say 1???) seed and run deep in the tourney. I'm sure 60% of the people at the TCU game will be BYU fans, so that will be sweet. Enjoy it while it lasts! And YES! I have to participate in the March Madness! I will figure out a cool way to make picks without having any knowledge. Something Ghanaian style.
I got two packages today from Grandma H, but still not any of the latest ones from you. Maybe I will get them tomorrow at zone conference, usually they will save my mail to give there bc its the easiest. Elder Nzuki got his package from Grandma H, he's never tried most of the American snacks before, so he's excited for that. (side note for everyone who sends packages-you can LOAD up the flat-rate envelopes. Weight doesn't matter, there is no duty at all. Cram them completely full, when you think it's full, cram more! You should see how much people fit in those things :)
Also, send pictures of everyone- family, friend, the ward, whoever and whatever, from whenever. Tons and tons! The first thing all missionaries do when they go on splits is ask to see pictures, so I need more haha.
Alrighty, so now the weekly report from the field! The biggest news in Ghana Cape Coast Mission is that...We found a place that sells authentic, legit, true-blue OREOS!!!! No joke. Elder Bunker and Elder Alba found a place is Mankessim that sells them, so they supply our district with Oreos now haha. And they are cheap! 2 cedis for a whole container with like 24 Oreos! Somehow a lady gets them from her Bro that lives in Chicago that works for Nabisco. It's awesome. So...anyway, on to important stuff.
It's always hard to get going on Tuesday after a P-day. At the end of our companion study, Elder Nzuki chose to sing hymn 342. But if you look in the hymnbook there is no 342! It's our GCCM mission hymn. It's to the tune of "Adam-ondi-ahman". The first verse is the same as the first verse of the real song (Adam-ondi-Ahman). Here are the rest of the words:
I'm really glad he chose it, singing that song is awesome. We usually sing it at zone conference (President has to fight tears every time we sing it...heck I do to). But it always helps me to get more excited, enthused, to be here in Ghana, in Moree to be serving here. I think of families I have helped to follow the Plan of Salvation, to make it to the temple and be faithful forever. I think of guys who are going to be future leaders- bishops, presidents, who knows- here in Ghana. And I think of just how awesome this place is! Sure there are difficulties, it's not perfect by any means, but it's awesome. Ghana is da best.
So we sang that song at District meeting too, district meeting was good on Tuesday.
I was having some serious digestive issues last week....the diet here is just not too exciting! I did make an awesome stew last week though, if I may say so myself. The staple of our diet is tomato stew. We put it on rice or noodles, and eat it pretty much every day. I must say, I'm starting to like most of the stuff I hated growing up. I loaded up my stew with fat chunks of onion, green peppers, and even carrots. I even found some cucumbers and threw them in (oh yeah, send me the recipe for that delicious cucumber salad, I think we might have all of the stuff for it here). And then I got a nice can of corned beef and added that to the stew, so I made a delicious meat sauce, and enjoyed it with spaghetti all week. Onions and Peppers? YES! Haha those are like my favorite now.
Wednesday was good. We have a new investigator that is so tight. His name is Solomon, we contacted him a couple of weeks ago. He is about 21 and speaks English pretty well. He is already almost in 2 Nephi and came to church on Sunday, even bringing two friends. He is the man. He has already come to translate for us in lessons, and he knows so much already. He is a stud! He has committed for baptism on the 5 March.
Thursday was pretty good too. In the morning, the power was out, so we couldn't iron our shirts. We had a cool thing happen Thursday night. President has been emphasizing lately to proselyte the full 9 hours every day. In Moree, because we travel away from the apartment, we proselyte for 9 hours straight, from 9:30 am-6:30 PM, not taking any breaks for lunch or dinner. Thursday our last appointment for the day, at 6 PM, failed. We were right by the taxi station to go back to Yamoransa, so we were tempted just to head back to Yamoransa right then (it was about 6:10). We were about to go, but instead decided just to go see if a guy we hadn't seen in a long time was home. He was there, and we set an appointment for tonight (it is with Francis and his wife). I hadn't seen him in probably 2 months, he was just never home. And then, on top of that, we ran into one of our recent converts, Bernard, who we hadn't seen in two weeks. So it was sweet, the day had been slow, it would have been easy to head home early, but I'm glad we stayed for the full 9 hours, it made the day worth it. Finding Francis and Bernard were probably two of the most important things we needed to do, and it didn't happen til we showed a little extra faith!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I hope you guys had awesome days. I thought of you on both days! I went on an exchange with Elder Mortensen, and we sang "You've had a birthday, shout hooray" for our closing hymn to companion study for you Mom! So I hope that made your birthday in 2011 extra sweet! and Happy Birthday to Sammy! Hope you are enjoying Disneyworld and that your baptism goes sweet! Send me some pictures of that!
I think I am getting fat. This is not good! Just kidding, I'm not really, but every time after I eat fried rice and chicken (the most delicious thing ever), I look in the mirror and my belly is quite large. But it always goes down after like 30 minutes. It just makes me scared at first. I don't know how in the world I could get fat here...I honestly must lose 2 pounds in sweat every day.
Saturday, we had another Movie Fireside for the ward. This one was even better! We watched the Joseph Smith movie (the one at the JS Memorial building at temple square) with them. The movie is awwwwwwwwwwwesome. And the best was that Brother Frank translated for it. He is the most awesome guy ever He works at the MTC, but he comes back to Cape Coast every 3 weeks, he lives in Moree. He went on his mission to Cote d'Ivoire, so he speaks French, and he speaks perfect English. He is THE MAN. His life is the church, seriously. He was the best translator for the movie ever, and like 40 people came so it was perfect. About 10 recent converts, so it was exactly what we wanted again! Very very cool.
Me and Elder Nzuki taught institute Sunday night; they do it by ward here since it is hard to travel to the institute building in Ola (the University of Cape Coast is in Ola). Andrew came and a few other guys, it was fun. The institute teachers in Moree moved a few weeks ago, and they haven't found anyone to replace her, so me and Elder Nzuki just took over.
So, other than that...life is good in Ghana. We had a FanIce party for Valentine's day with CC and Abura zones, it was fun. Tomorrow we have zone conference, we are combining with Swedru so I will get to see my boyz Elder Keller and Elder Bahme for the first time since they got transferred in October. I'll also get to see my MT Elder Rosquist, I'm excited to see him too, he's so tight. I hope Hayden killed the ACT. (Give me some golf news! Elder Alba's parents sent him a little advertisement of the latest Taylormade driver today...it was sweeeet to see).
Well, I love you guys. A lot. I'm so happy everything is going so great for you back home. I can tell life is good for everybody. I know it's not easy, but that doesn't mean it's not good! Man mission is crazy, but I love it. Time is not even real right now. I love you! Each and everyone of you! Love you, thanks for the pics, I'm sure the packages will be here soon (I'll pray for tomorrow :))
Me do mo paapaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Opanyin Brown
So I guess I should clarify...No one in Ghana has any idea who Jimmer is haha. I was completely joking about that. But that's so tight they are doing so well- hopefully they finish the season on a run, lock in a number 2 (dare I say 1???) seed and run deep in the tourney. I'm sure 60% of the people at the TCU game will be BYU fans, so that will be sweet. Enjoy it while it lasts! And YES! I have to participate in the March Madness! I will figure out a cool way to make picks without having any knowledge. Something Ghanaian style.
I got two packages today from Grandma H, but still not any of the latest ones from you. Maybe I will get them tomorrow at zone conference, usually they will save my mail to give there bc its the easiest. Elder Nzuki got his package from Grandma H, he's never tried most of the American snacks before, so he's excited for that. (side note for everyone who sends packages-you can LOAD up the flat-rate envelopes. Weight doesn't matter, there is no duty at all. Cram them completely full, when you think it's full, cram more! You should see how much people fit in those things :)
Also, send pictures of everyone- family, friend, the ward, whoever and whatever, from whenever. Tons and tons! The first thing all missionaries do when they go on splits is ask to see pictures, so I need more haha.
Alrighty, so now the weekly report from the field! The biggest news in Ghana Cape Coast Mission is that...We found a place that sells authentic, legit, true-blue OREOS!!!! No joke. Elder Bunker and Elder Alba found a place is Mankessim that sells them, so they supply our district with Oreos now haha. And they are cheap! 2 cedis for a whole container with like 24 Oreos! Somehow a lady gets them from her Bro that lives in Chicago that works for Nabisco. It's awesome. So...anyway, on to important stuff.
It's always hard to get going on Tuesday after a P-day. At the end of our companion study, Elder Nzuki chose to sing hymn 342. But if you look in the hymnbook there is no 342! It's our GCCM mission hymn. It's to the tune of "Adam-ondi-ahman". The first verse is the same as the first verse of the real song (Adam-ondi-Ahman). Here are the rest of the words:
verse 2: The field is white in Ghana's land/we fill our high commission. We're leading families hand in hand, to follow the Savior's holy plan/in Ghana Cape Coast Mission.
verse 3: We're teaching those the Lord has shown/they're those with ears to listen. They're future leaders who we know/will help the church to greatly grow/in Ghana Cape Coast Mission.
verse 4: Our lives a light in unity/in us lies no division. We're rooted like the might oak tree/in faith, obedience, charity/in Ghana Cape Coast Mission.
I'm really glad he chose it, singing that song is awesome. We usually sing it at zone conference (President has to fight tears every time we sing it...heck I do to). But it always helps me to get more excited, enthused, to be here in Ghana, in Moree to be serving here. I think of families I have helped to follow the Plan of Salvation, to make it to the temple and be faithful forever. I think of guys who are going to be future leaders- bishops, presidents, who knows- here in Ghana. And I think of just how awesome this place is! Sure there are difficulties, it's not perfect by any means, but it's awesome. Ghana is da best.
So we sang that song at District meeting too, district meeting was good on Tuesday.
I was having some serious digestive issues last week....the diet here is just not too exciting! I did make an awesome stew last week though, if I may say so myself. The staple of our diet is tomato stew. We put it on rice or noodles, and eat it pretty much every day. I must say, I'm starting to like most of the stuff I hated growing up. I loaded up my stew with fat chunks of onion, green peppers, and even carrots. I even found some cucumbers and threw them in (oh yeah, send me the recipe for that delicious cucumber salad, I think we might have all of the stuff for it here). And then I got a nice can of corned beef and added that to the stew, so I made a delicious meat sauce, and enjoyed it with spaghetti all week. Onions and Peppers? YES! Haha those are like my favorite now.
Wednesday was good. We have a new investigator that is so tight. His name is Solomon, we contacted him a couple of weeks ago. He is about 21 and speaks English pretty well. He is already almost in 2 Nephi and came to church on Sunday, even bringing two friends. He is the man. He has already come to translate for us in lessons, and he knows so much already. He is a stud! He has committed for baptism on the 5 March.
Thursday was pretty good too. In the morning, the power was out, so we couldn't iron our shirts. We had a cool thing happen Thursday night. President has been emphasizing lately to proselyte the full 9 hours every day. In Moree, because we travel away from the apartment, we proselyte for 9 hours straight, from 9:30 am-6:30 PM, not taking any breaks for lunch or dinner. Thursday our last appointment for the day, at 6 PM, failed. We were right by the taxi station to go back to Yamoransa, so we were tempted just to head back to Yamoransa right then (it was about 6:10). We were about to go, but instead decided just to go see if a guy we hadn't seen in a long time was home. He was there, and we set an appointment for tonight (it is with Francis and his wife). I hadn't seen him in probably 2 months, he was just never home. And then, on top of that, we ran into one of our recent converts, Bernard, who we hadn't seen in two weeks. So it was sweet, the day had been slow, it would have been easy to head home early, but I'm glad we stayed for the full 9 hours, it made the day worth it. Finding Francis and Bernard were probably two of the most important things we needed to do, and it didn't happen til we showed a little extra faith!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I hope you guys had awesome days. I thought of you on both days! I went on an exchange with Elder Mortensen, and we sang "You've had a birthday, shout hooray" for our closing hymn to companion study for you Mom! So I hope that made your birthday in 2011 extra sweet! and Happy Birthday to Sammy! Hope you are enjoying Disneyworld and that your baptism goes sweet! Send me some pictures of that!
I think I am getting fat. This is not good! Just kidding, I'm not really, but every time after I eat fried rice and chicken (the most delicious thing ever), I look in the mirror and my belly is quite large. But it always goes down after like 30 minutes. It just makes me scared at first. I don't know how in the world I could get fat here...I honestly must lose 2 pounds in sweat every day.
Saturday, we had another Movie Fireside for the ward. This one was even better! We watched the Joseph Smith movie (the one at the JS Memorial building at temple square) with them. The movie is awwwwwwwwwwwesome. And the best was that Brother Frank translated for it. He is the most awesome guy ever He works at the MTC, but he comes back to Cape Coast every 3 weeks, he lives in Moree. He went on his mission to Cote d'Ivoire, so he speaks French, and he speaks perfect English. He is THE MAN. His life is the church, seriously. He was the best translator for the movie ever, and like 40 people came so it was perfect. About 10 recent converts, so it was exactly what we wanted again! Very very cool.
Me and Elder Nzuki taught institute Sunday night; they do it by ward here since it is hard to travel to the institute building in Ola (the University of Cape Coast is in Ola). Andrew came and a few other guys, it was fun. The institute teachers in Moree moved a few weeks ago, and they haven't found anyone to replace her, so me and Elder Nzuki just took over.
So, other than that...life is good in Ghana. We had a FanIce party for Valentine's day with CC and Abura zones, it was fun. Tomorrow we have zone conference, we are combining with Swedru so I will get to see my boyz Elder Keller and Elder Bahme for the first time since they got transferred in October. I'll also get to see my MT Elder Rosquist, I'm excited to see him too, he's so tight. I hope Hayden killed the ACT. (Give me some golf news! Elder Alba's parents sent him a little advertisement of the latest Taylormade driver today...it was sweeeet to see).
Well, I love you guys. A lot. I'm so happy everything is going so great for you back home. I can tell life is good for everybody. I know it's not easy, but that doesn't mean it's not good! Man mission is crazy, but I love it. Time is not even real right now. I love you! Each and everyone of you! Love you, thanks for the pics, I'm sure the packages will be here soon (I'll pray for tomorrow :))
Me do mo paapaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Opanyin Brown
Monday, February 14, 2011
February 7, 2011
Morning morning morning! Random fact, 90% of the time you say good morning to a Ghanaian they reply "Fine morning" or "morning morning morning." I'm sure you were wondering that, Ghanaian English is the bomb!
Anyway, thanks for all the emails this week. I had like 13 or something when I signed in, always sweet when that happens! It's been a good p-day in Cape Coast. We played football in the morning with Abura and Assina Fosu zones. We found a sweet pitch in Yamoransa this week, so we decided to play there. It was awesome getting to play in Yamoransa, not having to travel 30 minutes in a trotro just to get to the pitch. We even got to walk to the pitch in moftee(aka street clothes), so that was cool. Let me just say, the few opportunities we get to wear moftee outside the apartment (walking to a service project, things like that) are awesome. Wearing my fresh levi's and my white macbeth shirt, and my gray macbeths is awesome. We don't get to wear moftee on P-days, have to wear white shirt and tie into town to email, buy food, and all that. No biggie though. I didn't score today, was a little off my game, but I had two assists, so I kept on the score sheet at least :) I probably have an 8 or 9 match scoring streak going on. I lock down in the midfield! Haha I'm not that good really...Last week we played bball on the beach, always fun. You can just call the Ghanaian Jimmer. He's all I hear about hear! Even Ghanaians are talking about Jimmer! No jok! When we contact people they say, "wati, are you from the church that owns the school Jimmer goes to?" It's pretty crazy. People show up to church in Jimmer jerseys...! (In Griffin's email this week (2/14) he said that he was joking about the people in Ghana knowing about Jimmer--guess you could say "We got Jimmered" :)
We had another great week in Moree, still can't complain. It's the dead of dry season though...veryyy hot. Elder Nzuki's fan broke the other night, he couldn't sleep at all. He said he took a shower at 2 am to cool off. I guess it is a lot cooler in Kenya. But there was one day it was a little overcast that was nice. As hot as it is, whenever we get to hot, we can climb a hill in Moree just by the beach and get a few minutes of a refreshing sea breeze, it's really nice. A member has a sweet house on the hill, and you can climb up on the roof and sit there, it's awesome. When I sat sweet house, it's two rooms, dirt floors, no bathroom, but the view is awesome :)
Tuesday was good, I gave an instruction at district meeting about revelation- the stuff that we learned at a Leadership training a couple of weeks ago. The new focuses they are giving us from Preach My Gospel are really helpful, they are working very well. At night we hopped in the 1 cedi tro tro for the one hour trip to Mankessim for an exchange with them. I went with Elder Alba (SLC, UT) in Mankessim and Elder Nzuki went with Elder Bunker back to Moree. It was a really good exchange, Elder Alba is young on mission (Elder Bunker trained him) but he is doing really well. Mankessim is a really sweet city. It's a little smaller than Cape Coast, almost everyone speaks English. A lot different from Moree. It was nice to have a day of proselyting in an area where I understood most everything that was going on. It was market day there, so the town was just cram packed with people from all around selling stuff. I almost bought some sweet shades, Ray-Bons (not to be confused with Ray-Bans) but they guy wanted five cedis for them- they really try to just take oboruni's money, and usually they do. If you come to Ghana, we'll ahve to do some serious talking about how much to pay for stuff! Tuesday night in Mankessim, they showed us a sweet chop bar in town. A chop bar is a Ghanaian restaurant, usually consists of an old woman pounding fufu and another lady cooking some groundnut soup in a pot over an open flame, and then you sit on a little wood bench to eat. But this one was sweet, it was a legit building, and reminded of an actual restaurant back home. It had a counter where you went to order, they had four pots of soup you could choose from, and the fufu was ready on demand. Then you sat at a real table, and they had a bowl on the table where you could pour water to wash your hands, and even had a roll of paper towels! And a salt shaker! And the fufu was pretty good too.
I did a baptismal interview while I was there in Mankessim, a cool guy named John. His brother had been baptized a little while before, and so his brother baptized him in the ocean on Saturday. Elder Alba played golf in high school, so we had fun talking about that. He sounds like he was pretty good. We decided that we are going to play in Takoradi when we go there the last week of the transfer for our football match. I'm getting so excited, even though its five weeks away!
Thursday was normal, the only thing interesting was that we taught a lady named Ekua. I think I have talked about her before, but it is an interesting situation. She is a referral from a less-active. Friday we worked at the chapel in the morning. I love doing that. Just good ol' fashioned manual labor. We basically dig ditches every time. Cool thing though- while we were digging, we started talking to a guy named William. He isn't a member, but we were able to start talking to him about normal stuff. He lives in Yamoransa. We talked to him the whole time, and at the end, invited him to go to church in Yamoransa on Sunday. And guess what? He did! Pretty sweet- that is the whole point of us working there.
Saturday was cool, we held a fireside at night at the chapel. Watched The Testaments. It was good, at first there was only like 7 people there, but by the end of the movie there was about 30, with probably 6 or 7 investigators, a few recent converts- and we got two new referrals. So I would say it was a success! We are going to start showing a movie every Saturday night at the chapel. We have one of the really good English speakers translate the movie, we stop it every 10 minutes or so to explain to the Fante speakers. I am honestly going to have The Testaments memorized by the time I get home.
We started a mission fast Saturday when we got home. With the current mission goal (baptize a referral from a recent convert and help a recent convert prepare names to go to the temple) there are still 31 missionaries who haven't completed. The goal ends February 28th, so we are working hard for that. Our whole zone is finished- our zone is one of the more "fruitful" areas of the mission. Kumasi is a lot more dry than the south. Fasting is always tough in 100 degree heat, but it was ok. Seeing the kids selling the pure water sachets on their head throughout the day is straight up torture though. It was a food fast though (I almost lost this whole email! luckily my good friend Mavis helped me out with the old computer though). Anyway, at then end of the day, we found our friend Christian, one of our old English-speaking investigators. He had somehow disappeared, but he walked by us at the chapel in the evening. He had traveled somewhere for a few weeks. Not sure how serious he is, but he was really happy to see us. We shall see. We have quite a few more English-speaking investigators right now, we have done a lot more contacting to do that. We figure if we contact, we will only be able to teach people that actually do speak English! None of them speak very good English....Just gotta keep working on da Fante.
Welp, I love you guys. Life is good, it's not easy, but its good. We are working hard here in Moree, nothing to complain about. I think our next baptism will be the 19th of February for Godfred, Phillip's best friend. Oh yeah, Phillip received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, he is excited to get to baptize Godfred and bless the Sacrament. Phillip is so awesome. He's gonna be a stud.
I love you guys! Thanks for everything!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't gotten your packages yet, but I"m sure they are getting here soon. They might even be in the mission home right now, the assistants forgot to bring mail to the football match today. Sorry you had so much craziness with the flights, but that's great everything went well with the blessing. Just saw you sent a bunch of pictures, so I'll be excited to look at all of those!
Love you!
-Elder Brown
Anyway, thanks for all the emails this week. I had like 13 or something when I signed in, always sweet when that happens! It's been a good p-day in Cape Coast. We played football in the morning with Abura and Assina Fosu zones. We found a sweet pitch in Yamoransa this week, so we decided to play there. It was awesome getting to play in Yamoransa, not having to travel 30 minutes in a trotro just to get to the pitch. We even got to walk to the pitch in moftee(aka street clothes), so that was cool. Let me just say, the few opportunities we get to wear moftee outside the apartment (walking to a service project, things like that) are awesome. Wearing my fresh levi's and my white macbeth shirt, and my gray macbeths is awesome. We don't get to wear moftee on P-days, have to wear white shirt and tie into town to email, buy food, and all that. No biggie though. I didn't score today, was a little off my game, but I had two assists, so I kept on the score sheet at least :) I probably have an 8 or 9 match scoring streak going on. I lock down in the midfield! Haha I'm not that good really...Last week we played bball on the beach, always fun. You can just call the Ghanaian Jimmer. He's all I hear about hear! Even Ghanaians are talking about Jimmer! No jok! When we contact people they say, "wati, are you from the church that owns the school Jimmer goes to?" It's pretty crazy. People show up to church in Jimmer jerseys...! (In Griffin's email this week (2/14) he said that he was joking about the people in Ghana knowing about Jimmer--guess you could say "We got Jimmered" :)
We had another great week in Moree, still can't complain. It's the dead of dry season though...veryyy hot. Elder Nzuki's fan broke the other night, he couldn't sleep at all. He said he took a shower at 2 am to cool off. I guess it is a lot cooler in Kenya. But there was one day it was a little overcast that was nice. As hot as it is, whenever we get to hot, we can climb a hill in Moree just by the beach and get a few minutes of a refreshing sea breeze, it's really nice. A member has a sweet house on the hill, and you can climb up on the roof and sit there, it's awesome. When I sat sweet house, it's two rooms, dirt floors, no bathroom, but the view is awesome :)
Tuesday was good, I gave an instruction at district meeting about revelation- the stuff that we learned at a Leadership training a couple of weeks ago. The new focuses they are giving us from Preach My Gospel are really helpful, they are working very well. At night we hopped in the 1 cedi tro tro for the one hour trip to Mankessim for an exchange with them. I went with Elder Alba (SLC, UT) in Mankessim and Elder Nzuki went with Elder Bunker back to Moree. It was a really good exchange, Elder Alba is young on mission (Elder Bunker trained him) but he is doing really well. Mankessim is a really sweet city. It's a little smaller than Cape Coast, almost everyone speaks English. A lot different from Moree. It was nice to have a day of proselyting in an area where I understood most everything that was going on. It was market day there, so the town was just cram packed with people from all around selling stuff. I almost bought some sweet shades, Ray-Bons (not to be confused with Ray-Bans) but they guy wanted five cedis for them- they really try to just take oboruni's money, and usually they do. If you come to Ghana, we'll ahve to do some serious talking about how much to pay for stuff! Tuesday night in Mankessim, they showed us a sweet chop bar in town. A chop bar is a Ghanaian restaurant, usually consists of an old woman pounding fufu and another lady cooking some groundnut soup in a pot over an open flame, and then you sit on a little wood bench to eat. But this one was sweet, it was a legit building, and reminded of an actual restaurant back home. It had a counter where you went to order, they had four pots of soup you could choose from, and the fufu was ready on demand. Then you sat at a real table, and they had a bowl on the table where you could pour water to wash your hands, and even had a roll of paper towels! And a salt shaker! And the fufu was pretty good too.
I did a baptismal interview while I was there in Mankessim, a cool guy named John. His brother had been baptized a little while before, and so his brother baptized him in the ocean on Saturday. Elder Alba played golf in high school, so we had fun talking about that. He sounds like he was pretty good. We decided that we are going to play in Takoradi when we go there the last week of the transfer for our football match. I'm getting so excited, even though its five weeks away!
Thursday was normal, the only thing interesting was that we taught a lady named Ekua. I think I have talked about her before, but it is an interesting situation. She is a referral from a less-active. Friday we worked at the chapel in the morning. I love doing that. Just good ol' fashioned manual labor. We basically dig ditches every time. Cool thing though- while we were digging, we started talking to a guy named William. He isn't a member, but we were able to start talking to him about normal stuff. He lives in Yamoransa. We talked to him the whole time, and at the end, invited him to go to church in Yamoransa on Sunday. And guess what? He did! Pretty sweet- that is the whole point of us working there.
Saturday was cool, we held a fireside at night at the chapel. Watched The Testaments. It was good, at first there was only like 7 people there, but by the end of the movie there was about 30, with probably 6 or 7 investigators, a few recent converts- and we got two new referrals. So I would say it was a success! We are going to start showing a movie every Saturday night at the chapel. We have one of the really good English speakers translate the movie, we stop it every 10 minutes or so to explain to the Fante speakers. I am honestly going to have The Testaments memorized by the time I get home.
We started a mission fast Saturday when we got home. With the current mission goal (baptize a referral from a recent convert and help a recent convert prepare names to go to the temple) there are still 31 missionaries who haven't completed. The goal ends February 28th, so we are working hard for that. Our whole zone is finished- our zone is one of the more "fruitful" areas of the mission. Kumasi is a lot more dry than the south. Fasting is always tough in 100 degree heat, but it was ok. Seeing the kids selling the pure water sachets on their head throughout the day is straight up torture though. It was a food fast though (I almost lost this whole email! luckily my good friend Mavis helped me out with the old computer though). Anyway, at then end of the day, we found our friend Christian, one of our old English-speaking investigators. He had somehow disappeared, but he walked by us at the chapel in the evening. He had traveled somewhere for a few weeks. Not sure how serious he is, but he was really happy to see us. We shall see. We have quite a few more English-speaking investigators right now, we have done a lot more contacting to do that. We figure if we contact, we will only be able to teach people that actually do speak English! None of them speak very good English....Just gotta keep working on da Fante.
Welp, I love you guys. Life is good, it's not easy, but its good. We are working hard here in Moree, nothing to complain about. I think our next baptism will be the 19th of February for Godfred, Phillip's best friend. Oh yeah, Phillip received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, he is excited to get to baptize Godfred and bless the Sacrament. Phillip is so awesome. He's gonna be a stud.
I love you guys! Thanks for everything!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't gotten your packages yet, but I"m sure they are getting here soon. They might even be in the mission home right now, the assistants forgot to bring mail to the football match today. Sorry you had so much craziness with the flights, but that's great everything went well with the blessing. Just saw you sent a bunch of pictures, so I'll be excited to look at all of those!
Love you!
-Elder Brown
January 31, 2011
Morning, morning, morning. We're going to play basketball at the beach after this, always excited to ball it up.
Anyway, this week was pretty good. A hundred times different than last week, but it was another great week. Monday we had a French toast party with CC, Abura, and Assin Fosu zones. There was like 40 missionaries there, so it was sweet. We also played volleyball, Elder Katoa is an ANIMAL. If that guy came to America, he would be like the best outside linebacker ever. He is such an athlete. He is so giant, but he is so fast it's crazy. Anyway, with transfers, there were no changes to our whole zone! The only thing is that there was an area that didn't have elders last transfer, but now they do again. But no on left the zone...really weird! 9 months in one area is really long, I just feel like a citizen of Moree haha. Elder Bahme and Elder Keller (two guys in my district from my first two transfers) are coming down from Kumasi/Sunyani to be companions in the coastal town of Winneba (Swedru zone), so that means I will get to see them at some point in this transfer.
So with last week being so busy and cram-packed, this week being a normal proselyting week was kind of weird haha. On Tuesday our first three appointments failed and we didn't really know what to do, but it ended up ok. We taught some good people that are serious, Kofi, Godfred- who is Phillip's best friend- we taught Phillip, and then at the end of the day we taught Solomon.
Wednesday was tough...in the morning, our first appointment failed, but then we had an appointment to go to Belinda's house and help her mom make Kenkey (its like a really thick corn dough, you eat with stew). We did clean Nana's house for him, though. He's 90....it was really cool, he was so thankful.
On Thursday, we went to Belinda to teach her. Phillip came with us to translate for some lessons on Thursday. He did so well! Honestly some of the best translating anyone has ever done for us. We also had a young men's activity on Thursday night. The auxiliary leaders here don't really know what an "activity" is, so we have started to help out trying to teach them. There has never been a Young Men's or Young Women's activity since I have been here. So we bought some stuff to play table tennis and played on a table at the chapel. It was sweet. People LOVE table tennis here-and they are reallyyyyy good-but it costs ten pesewas to play one game. So bc it was free, a lot of the YM came, and a lot brought friends. It was fun. We have been playing table tennis for exercise in the apartment for our exercise haha. Its gotten pretty intense. Elder Katoa is amazing, and Elder Mortensen is a little better than me, so it's always fun.
Friday was pretty good. It was sweet because we ran into one of our former investigators (an English speaker!) named Augustine. He had progressed really well, came to church, was praying about the church and about Joseph Smith and stuff, but then he just fell off the face of the planet. We would call him, go to his house, he was never around. He was a referral from Andrew, and Andrew didn't even know where he was. But we ran into him, and he had been in Sekondi for about 3 months. He was excited to see us, and we taught him on Friday. It was good, hopefully he starts progressing again. He even gave us a referral, his friend named Richard.
Saturday we worked at the chapel, I love doing that. Just sort of lets you get your mind off things, but it is like the best thing we can do for the missionary work in Moree. The members see us working and they introduce us to their friends. The members who work on the chapel show us all of the non-members that are working there, and they all want to learn more about the church that they are building for. It's hard work, but it's fun!
So then everything else was cool. Not as crazy as last week, which was good in some ways, not good in others, but it was just another solid week. Can't complain. I am working harder at Fante, I actually somehow taught a lesson in Fante yesterday to a recent convert, but it's still hard. I'll just keep plugging along at that. So the work is still going great in Moree, nothing to complain about, thanks for everything. Hopefully I get some packages when I see the zone leaders today! I love you guys, thanks for everything you do. Just keep being awesome and sending sweet emails! I'll try to do the same :)
Love you!
-Elder Brown
Anyway, this week was pretty good. A hundred times different than last week, but it was another great week. Monday we had a French toast party with CC, Abura, and Assin Fosu zones. There was like 40 missionaries there, so it was sweet. We also played volleyball, Elder Katoa is an ANIMAL. If that guy came to America, he would be like the best outside linebacker ever. He is such an athlete. He is so giant, but he is so fast it's crazy. Anyway, with transfers, there were no changes to our whole zone! The only thing is that there was an area that didn't have elders last transfer, but now they do again. But no on left the zone...really weird! 9 months in one area is really long, I just feel like a citizen of Moree haha. Elder Bahme and Elder Keller (two guys in my district from my first two transfers) are coming down from Kumasi/Sunyani to be companions in the coastal town of Winneba (Swedru zone), so that means I will get to see them at some point in this transfer.
So with last week being so busy and cram-packed, this week being a normal proselyting week was kind of weird haha. On Tuesday our first three appointments failed and we didn't really know what to do, but it ended up ok. We taught some good people that are serious, Kofi, Godfred- who is Phillip's best friend- we taught Phillip, and then at the end of the day we taught Solomon.
Wednesday was tough...in the morning, our first appointment failed, but then we had an appointment to go to Belinda's house and help her mom make Kenkey (its like a really thick corn dough, you eat with stew). We did clean Nana's house for him, though. He's 90....it was really cool, he was so thankful.
On Thursday, we went to Belinda to teach her. Phillip came with us to translate for some lessons on Thursday. He did so well! Honestly some of the best translating anyone has ever done for us. We also had a young men's activity on Thursday night. The auxiliary leaders here don't really know what an "activity" is, so we have started to help out trying to teach them. There has never been a Young Men's or Young Women's activity since I have been here. So we bought some stuff to play table tennis and played on a table at the chapel. It was sweet. People LOVE table tennis here-and they are reallyyyyy good-but it costs ten pesewas to play one game. So bc it was free, a lot of the YM came, and a lot brought friends. It was fun. We have been playing table tennis for exercise in the apartment for our exercise haha. Its gotten pretty intense. Elder Katoa is amazing, and Elder Mortensen is a little better than me, so it's always fun.
Friday was pretty good. It was sweet because we ran into one of our former investigators (an English speaker!) named Augustine. He had progressed really well, came to church, was praying about the church and about Joseph Smith and stuff, but then he just fell off the face of the planet. We would call him, go to his house, he was never around. He was a referral from Andrew, and Andrew didn't even know where he was. But we ran into him, and he had been in Sekondi for about 3 months. He was excited to see us, and we taught him on Friday. It was good, hopefully he starts progressing again. He even gave us a referral, his friend named Richard.
Saturday we worked at the chapel, I love doing that. Just sort of lets you get your mind off things, but it is like the best thing we can do for the missionary work in Moree. The members see us working and they introduce us to their friends. The members who work on the chapel show us all of the non-members that are working there, and they all want to learn more about the church that they are building for. It's hard work, but it's fun!
So then everything else was cool. Not as crazy as last week, which was good in some ways, not good in others, but it was just another solid week. Can't complain. I am working harder at Fante, I actually somehow taught a lesson in Fante yesterday to a recent convert, but it's still hard. I'll just keep plugging along at that. So the work is still going great in Moree, nothing to complain about, thanks for everything. Hopefully I get some packages when I see the zone leaders today! I love you guys, thanks for everything you do. Just keep being awesome and sending sweet emails! I'll try to do the same :)
Love you!
-Elder Brown
Monday, January 31, 2011
January 24, 2011
Wowzers, what a week! I think I can just end the e-mail there....too much! Geez louise this was quite the week. But oh well, I like the busy-ness way more than boring-ness. Not that any week has been boring! So let me just jump right in with what happened this week.
So, I don't know if I talked about it last week, but the focus of the week was Saturday, our district was having a combined baptism, about 25 people were going to be baptized. So basically everything for the week was focused on that. Tuesday we had our district meeting, we did a lot of talking about what we needed to do for the baptism. We and Yamoransa decided to take the lead for getting everything organized, since we are the ones living next to the chapel. Remember how many problems came at our last baptism? Imagine my fear looking at a 25 person, four unit baptism. So we had a lot of planning to do. On top of that, we heard it through the grapevine that there were going to be cameramen from the church in Yamoransa and Moree filming for a new "Introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" film, so of course we were talking to the Stake President (President Kaku), bishops, and President Sabey trying to get them involved. President Sabey said there was a good chance they would come, so that added pressure made everything seem crazier! President Sabey told me everything needs to be perfect, so I was pretty freaked out about a 25 person baptism. So all of my focus was on that all week.
Tuesday was the only day I actually was in Moree until Saturday. We went, taught Phillip, taught a family, and visited some other people and the bishopric to make sure everything was cool for the baptism. But preparing Phillip and the family was the most important. Phillip is a stud by the way, I love that guy. He is awesome, one of my most favorite baptisms yet. I had been frustrated about how I really hadn't been teaching full families, so the family we are teaching makes me so happy. They are going to help Moree ward have a solid foundation of families. And to see them go to the temple next month will be awesome! They are so excited for that.
Wednesday I went to Mankessim to interview Elder Bunker and Elder Alba's candidate. Man is he a sweet guy. His name is Kwesi. He is about 60 years old, and has been looking for a true church his whole life. He was so excited to be joining the church. Honestly, the interview was so cool. In the afternoon I came back to Yamoransa to do their interviews. They had 6 to interview, all really cool people. Most spoke English. Oh yeah, there is a really cool story about one of them. His name is Michael. Elder Mortensen and Elder Katoa had been teaching him for a little while, and they learned he was married and they always asked to meet his wife, but she lives in Abakrampa. So they never really met here. But how awesome is this: When they asked Michael if he would like to be baptized on the 22 Jan, he started crying and said, "Yes, and that is the day my wife is getting baptized too". His wife was being taught by the missionaries in Abakrampa the whole time, but for some reason, he didn't tell them that! So he knew she was going to be baptized that day too, and so when they said that, he just lost it I guess! How sweet is that?! They were pretty excited about that. I had the privilege of interviewing them both, so that was awesome.
Thursday, we had a leadership training meeting in Ola. Friday I went to Abakrampa for their interviews. They had 12 people to be interviewed, so it was a very long day. But it was fun. They are the first Elders there ever, so they are finding lots of success. It's a village, and since Elder Smith speaks Twi, they are going to teach a lot of people there. I got to interview Regina (Michael's wife) while I was there, so that was a sweet experience.
And then Saturday....holy moly. I think I used all of my phone credit for the entire month on Saturday. In the morning, we hiked up to the chapel, set up the chairs in the chapel, set out everyone's clothes in separate changing rooms, we labeled everyone's clothes so there wouldn't be confusion (we got the clothes out on Thursday so we didn't have to worry about not getting the closet door open :) We labeled the changing rooms, wheeled out the TV, set up the piano, made sure that the font was filled, set up the Relief Society room for the baptisms, and a million other things I can't remember right now. The camera crea was there the whole time, interviewing a guy from Moree named John (aka Sika sam, a way cooler name. Sika means cash. Haha) And they told us they would be coming for the baptism. Oh man, way more stress! Then we jetted off for More to meet the Zone leaders so they could do the interviews for our candidates. The baptism was going to start at 4, so we told everyone we were leaving at 1:30. I did one more interview for Yamoransa, and all of their candidates were there by 3, changed and ready to go. Mankessim showed up a little after 3, as did Abakrampa. Every candidate was changed and sitting in the chapel by 3:30! No joke!! It was a true Ghanaian miracle, not kidding at all. The camera crew showed up around then, and filmed us doing normal baptism stuff, taking pictures together, greeting people at the door, etc. The chapel was pretty much full with people from Mankessim, Abakrampa, and Yamoransa to support, and their bishop was there ready to start. It was like an actual meeting back home! Everyone was there early ready to go! So I played some prelude music from 3:45 to 4, and the baptism started at 4 o'clock sharp! CRAZY!!!!!!! President and Sister Sabey walked in right at 4 o'clock, so they were impressed haha. The baptism went smoothly. 22 people were baptized. It was crazy running around everyone's clothes between the classrooms where they changed and the bathroom after their baptisms, but everything went well. Elder Bunker got a close-up from the cameramen. The baptism wrapped up, the talks were powerful, the crew was impressed, and president said he had never been to a better baptism. Man, it was a miracle. An absolute miracle. I was so worried about it, but the guys in our district did awesome. Man it was awesome. And maybe you will get to see it on the film that will come out in the summer! Keep an eye out for it in the distribution centers/bookstores. The cameramen followed Elder Mortensen and Elder Katoa on Sunday and interviewed them today, but I'm glad I got to be a "behind the scenes" guy haha. If you just get a glimpse of my face, that'd be awesome :) They are interviewing Andrew tomorrow, so I am way more excited for him to be on it than me. I hope you get to meet him through this video! He is so powerful.
Sunday, another miracle, everyone was at church on time to be confirmed. Phillip was so excited, and our family looked as happy as ever. This week was crazy, but so so awesome. I felt more accomplished Sunday night than I ever have on the mission. Man oh man. Then, to top it all off, we had another miracle Sunday night. Remember Seth, our sweet investigator that was going to be baptized but moved to Takoradi? Well, the missionaries there could never find him. We tried calling him every day, but no answer. We thought we had lost him! But, as we drove home in the taxi, the taxi randomly stopped right outside of Seth's old house. I looked out the window and what did I see? Mr. Seth standing right under the tree. As the taxi started to pull away I yelled to Elder Nzuki to pay the drive and get out and I jumped out of the moving car. When Seth saw us running over to him, he got the biggest smile on his face. He had gone to a village to work for a few weeks before going to Takoradi and didn't have any phone service there, and his phone had been lost. He had got a new phone a few days before and said he was praying that we would call. I am so happy that taxi stopped there for no apparent reason. Seth is going back to Takoradi today and is going to meet the missionaries on Wednesday. Man oh man, what a week.
So anyway, a lot happened this week. It was an awesome, awesome, awesome week. The most taxing I have had, but the most accomplishing I have had. Today we got transfer news. I'm not going anywhere, another transfer in Moree. Elder Nzuki is still here too. I love you guys so much. It's hard here, but this week was incredible. I can only pray that I will have more weeks like this. The baptism, finding Seth, wow. Thank you so much for everything. I love you guys so much.
-Elder Griffin H. Brown
So, I don't know if I talked about it last week, but the focus of the week was Saturday, our district was having a combined baptism, about 25 people were going to be baptized. So basically everything for the week was focused on that. Tuesday we had our district meeting, we did a lot of talking about what we needed to do for the baptism. We and Yamoransa decided to take the lead for getting everything organized, since we are the ones living next to the chapel. Remember how many problems came at our last baptism? Imagine my fear looking at a 25 person, four unit baptism. So we had a lot of planning to do. On top of that, we heard it through the grapevine that there were going to be cameramen from the church in Yamoransa and Moree filming for a new "Introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" film, so of course we were talking to the Stake President (President Kaku), bishops, and President Sabey trying to get them involved. President Sabey said there was a good chance they would come, so that added pressure made everything seem crazier! President Sabey told me everything needs to be perfect, so I was pretty freaked out about a 25 person baptism. So all of my focus was on that all week.
Tuesday was the only day I actually was in Moree until Saturday. We went, taught Phillip, taught a family, and visited some other people and the bishopric to make sure everything was cool for the baptism. But preparing Phillip and the family was the most important. Phillip is a stud by the way, I love that guy. He is awesome, one of my most favorite baptisms yet. I had been frustrated about how I really hadn't been teaching full families, so the family we are teaching makes me so happy. They are going to help Moree ward have a solid foundation of families. And to see them go to the temple next month will be awesome! They are so excited for that.
Wednesday I went to Mankessim to interview Elder Bunker and Elder Alba's candidate. Man is he a sweet guy. His name is Kwesi. He is about 60 years old, and has been looking for a true church his whole life. He was so excited to be joining the church. Honestly, the interview was so cool. In the afternoon I came back to Yamoransa to do their interviews. They had 6 to interview, all really cool people. Most spoke English. Oh yeah, there is a really cool story about one of them. His name is Michael. Elder Mortensen and Elder Katoa had been teaching him for a little while, and they learned he was married and they always asked to meet his wife, but she lives in Abakrampa. So they never really met here. But how awesome is this: When they asked Michael if he would like to be baptized on the 22 Jan, he started crying and said, "Yes, and that is the day my wife is getting baptized too". His wife was being taught by the missionaries in Abakrampa the whole time, but for some reason, he didn't tell them that! So he knew she was going to be baptized that day too, and so when they said that, he just lost it I guess! How sweet is that?! They were pretty excited about that. I had the privilege of interviewing them both, so that was awesome.
Thursday, we had a leadership training meeting in Ola. Friday I went to Abakrampa for their interviews. They had 12 people to be interviewed, so it was a very long day. But it was fun. They are the first Elders there ever, so they are finding lots of success. It's a village, and since Elder Smith speaks Twi, they are going to teach a lot of people there. I got to interview Regina (Michael's wife) while I was there, so that was a sweet experience.
And then Saturday....holy moly. I think I used all of my phone credit for the entire month on Saturday. In the morning, we hiked up to the chapel, set up the chairs in the chapel, set out everyone's clothes in separate changing rooms, we labeled everyone's clothes so there wouldn't be confusion (we got the clothes out on Thursday so we didn't have to worry about not getting the closet door open :) We labeled the changing rooms, wheeled out the TV, set up the piano, made sure that the font was filled, set up the Relief Society room for the baptisms, and a million other things I can't remember right now. The camera crea was there the whole time, interviewing a guy from Moree named John (aka Sika sam, a way cooler name. Sika means cash. Haha) And they told us they would be coming for the baptism. Oh man, way more stress! Then we jetted off for More to meet the Zone leaders so they could do the interviews for our candidates. The baptism was going to start at 4, so we told everyone we were leaving at 1:30. I did one more interview for Yamoransa, and all of their candidates were there by 3, changed and ready to go. Mankessim showed up a little after 3, as did Abakrampa. Every candidate was changed and sitting in the chapel by 3:30! No joke!! It was a true Ghanaian miracle, not kidding at all. The camera crew showed up around then, and filmed us doing normal baptism stuff, taking pictures together, greeting people at the door, etc. The chapel was pretty much full with people from Mankessim, Abakrampa, and Yamoransa to support, and their bishop was there ready to start. It was like an actual meeting back home! Everyone was there early ready to go! So I played some prelude music from 3:45 to 4, and the baptism started at 4 o'clock sharp! CRAZY!!!!!!! President and Sister Sabey walked in right at 4 o'clock, so they were impressed haha. The baptism went smoothly. 22 people were baptized. It was crazy running around everyone's clothes between the classrooms where they changed and the bathroom after their baptisms, but everything went well. Elder Bunker got a close-up from the cameramen. The baptism wrapped up, the talks were powerful, the crew was impressed, and president said he had never been to a better baptism. Man, it was a miracle. An absolute miracle. I was so worried about it, but the guys in our district did awesome. Man it was awesome. And maybe you will get to see it on the film that will come out in the summer! Keep an eye out for it in the distribution centers/bookstores. The cameramen followed Elder Mortensen and Elder Katoa on Sunday and interviewed them today, but I'm glad I got to be a "behind the scenes" guy haha. If you just get a glimpse of my face, that'd be awesome :) They are interviewing Andrew tomorrow, so I am way more excited for him to be on it than me. I hope you get to meet him through this video! He is so powerful.
Sunday, another miracle, everyone was at church on time to be confirmed. Phillip was so excited, and our family looked as happy as ever. This week was crazy, but so so awesome. I felt more accomplished Sunday night than I ever have on the mission. Man oh man. Then, to top it all off, we had another miracle Sunday night. Remember Seth, our sweet investigator that was going to be baptized but moved to Takoradi? Well, the missionaries there could never find him. We tried calling him every day, but no answer. We thought we had lost him! But, as we drove home in the taxi, the taxi randomly stopped right outside of Seth's old house. I looked out the window and what did I see? Mr. Seth standing right under the tree. As the taxi started to pull away I yelled to Elder Nzuki to pay the drive and get out and I jumped out of the moving car. When Seth saw us running over to him, he got the biggest smile on his face. He had gone to a village to work for a few weeks before going to Takoradi and didn't have any phone service there, and his phone had been lost. He had got a new phone a few days before and said he was praying that we would call. I am so happy that taxi stopped there for no apparent reason. Seth is going back to Takoradi today and is going to meet the missionaries on Wednesday. Man oh man, what a week.
So anyway, a lot happened this week. It was an awesome, awesome, awesome week. The most taxing I have had, but the most accomplishing I have had. Today we got transfer news. I'm not going anywhere, another transfer in Moree. Elder Nzuki is still here too. I love you guys so much. It's hard here, but this week was incredible. I can only pray that I will have more weeks like this. The baptism, finding Seth, wow. Thank you so much for everything. I love you guys so much.
-Elder Griffin H. Brown
January 17, 2011
Wazzup fam. Life is good in the neighborhood. PS-the church is true. I'll start off with a sweet little story that happened this week. As I have talked about earlier, pretty much all of our investigators right now are Fante speakers. We have two that speak English right now, Solomon and Christian. We weren't able to meet with Christian this week because he traveled or something. But we met with Solomon a few times; we have taught him a lot, are on the commandments right now, but he has always had trouble coming to church. But anyway, we got to church nice and early on Sunday, and were waiting outside the doors to greet people as they came in. While we were standing there, I sort of turn around towards the wall and just said a silent prayer that Solomon was on his way coming to church and we would see him soon. Before I even finished the prayer, the phone starting buzzing in my pocket. It was a Solomon, telling us he was on the way coming!!!!! He showed up 5 minutes later, 10 minutes early for church. It was so tight, made and Elder Nzuki preeeeeeetty happy. So that was a great start to Sunday.
Anyway, the week was sweet! Pretty normal week, but it was solid. We went to Takoradi today for P-day, w combined with Abura zone to play Takoradi and Sekondi zones. It was fun, we won like 7-1 or something, no big deal. I started off the scoring today, I'm getting the hang of the old futbol. My position is center-mid #8. Tuesday we had a great district meeting, Elder Meinzer instructed on "Will you come to church" and talked about what it really means to go to church for our investigators and for us. I thought about it a lot this week because we were focused on helping some investigators (like Solomon) come to church for the first time. At the meeting, we talked a lot about our district's upcoming baptism. Every companionship in our district is having a baptism this weekend, so we decided to combine for a big district baptism in Yamoransa. It's going to be sweet. There is going to be 20 total people baptized. We're going to make it ultra awesome, nothing is going to go wrong!!!! (we can only pray...haha, maybe the door won't open again). So that will be fun this week. 3 people from Moree will be baptized. Phillip, a young man who has progressed really really well. He will be baptized and also two young boys, Peter and Andrew. Their parents are both members. They started coming to church about a month ago, and are now preparing to go to the temple to be sealed. So it's been cool helping Peter and Andrew prepare for baptism-but it's been cooler as their whole family has been there for the lessons. They have two other boys that are younger than 8, so that will have a sweet time at the temple in a few months!
Wednesday I went on splits with Elder Katoa in Moree (Elder Nzuki doesn't know Moree well enough yet, but he will have to by Friday because I have to go to Abakrampa for the day to interview their ten people for baptism!) It was a pretty normal day, Elder Katoa is awesome. Thursday was cool, Elder Nzuki didn't receive his patriarchal blessing before his mission, so I got to go with him to Ola so he could get that. It was his birthday, and he was veryyyy excited to have an awesome birthday present from the Patriarch. Friday we worked at the chapel in the morning. I realized that working at the chapel would be sweet, and so I just went and talked to the foreman, who gave it the ok. Elders Mortensen and Katoa came to help too, and the Zone leaders called us Thursday night to go on splits with us for Friday, so they came too! It was sweet, we moved a bunch of dirt to fill in an area...pretty serious work :) haha. It was cool though, I think it will help us be more one with the ward since so many members work there. We are going to start doing it every week. Elder Leko came with us for the rest of the day, he is our newer zone leader. He is from Uganda, pretty sweet guy!
The weekend was pretty normal as well. I had to call Elder Adams on Saturday to ask about a baptismal record that he accidentally packed and took to Kumasi. He sounds like he is having fun up there-it is 100 times different than Moree though. Everyone speaks English. It's basically like neighborhoods back in America he said. So he contacts A LOT, pretty much all day he said. He and his companion are also in charge of the "unit" there in Atonsu. It's not a ward or a branch, but it's just a group. They meet for sacrament meeting in Elder Adams' apartment. So he's having fun with that I think. That's the new strategy for the mission, start "groups" in places where there is no place to worship. It should help the mission expand pretty rapidly.
Before I forget, here's some things to send (if you haven't already):
-Pretzel M&Ms (elder mortensen got them and they are awesome!), peanut m&ms, almond m&ms, any kind of m&ms! They get here really good and they are delicioussss.
-Don't send Reeses, they completely melt and become destroyed on the way here.
-EASY CHEESE! Sharp cheddar is fine if there is no bacon and cheddar,
-precooked bacon! Elder Mortensen got it and oh my sweet goodness I need some!
-Cran cherry drink powder. If they don't have cran-cherry, any kind, cran-grape, whatever kind of thing. Send a ton of drink powder in general
Welp I think that's it......Another great week on the mission. Also, it was awesome to open my inbox this week and have 13 emails!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks everyone for e-mailing this week, it was great:)
I love you guys! Thanks so much for everything, sound like you guys are doing great. Hope everything goes well for you this week, it's going to be a crazy week here getting ready for baptism!!! I'm going to be doing interviews everyday, so it will be crazy. Thanks for the great e-mails, packages, letters, and everything! Always feel free to send more stuff :) Haha, esp always throw in some pictures with letters or packages!
Love you!
-Elder Brown
Anyway, the week was sweet! Pretty normal week, but it was solid. We went to Takoradi today for P-day, w combined with Abura zone to play Takoradi and Sekondi zones. It was fun, we won like 7-1 or something, no big deal. I started off the scoring today, I'm getting the hang of the old futbol. My position is center-mid #8. Tuesday we had a great district meeting, Elder Meinzer instructed on "Will you come to church" and talked about what it really means to go to church for our investigators and for us. I thought about it a lot this week because we were focused on helping some investigators (like Solomon) come to church for the first time. At the meeting, we talked a lot about our district's upcoming baptism. Every companionship in our district is having a baptism this weekend, so we decided to combine for a big district baptism in Yamoransa. It's going to be sweet. There is going to be 20 total people baptized. We're going to make it ultra awesome, nothing is going to go wrong!!!! (we can only pray...haha, maybe the door won't open again). So that will be fun this week. 3 people from Moree will be baptized. Phillip, a young man who has progressed really really well. He will be baptized and also two young boys, Peter and Andrew. Their parents are both members. They started coming to church about a month ago, and are now preparing to go to the temple to be sealed. So it's been cool helping Peter and Andrew prepare for baptism-but it's been cooler as their whole family has been there for the lessons. They have two other boys that are younger than 8, so that will have a sweet time at the temple in a few months!
Wednesday I went on splits with Elder Katoa in Moree (Elder Nzuki doesn't know Moree well enough yet, but he will have to by Friday because I have to go to Abakrampa for the day to interview their ten people for baptism!) It was a pretty normal day, Elder Katoa is awesome. Thursday was cool, Elder Nzuki didn't receive his patriarchal blessing before his mission, so I got to go with him to Ola so he could get that. It was his birthday, and he was veryyyy excited to have an awesome birthday present from the Patriarch. Friday we worked at the chapel in the morning. I realized that working at the chapel would be sweet, and so I just went and talked to the foreman, who gave it the ok. Elders Mortensen and Katoa came to help too, and the Zone leaders called us Thursday night to go on splits with us for Friday, so they came too! It was sweet, we moved a bunch of dirt to fill in an area...pretty serious work :) haha. It was cool though, I think it will help us be more one with the ward since so many members work there. We are going to start doing it every week. Elder Leko came with us for the rest of the day, he is our newer zone leader. He is from Uganda, pretty sweet guy!
The weekend was pretty normal as well. I had to call Elder Adams on Saturday to ask about a baptismal record that he accidentally packed and took to Kumasi. He sounds like he is having fun up there-it is 100 times different than Moree though. Everyone speaks English. It's basically like neighborhoods back in America he said. So he contacts A LOT, pretty much all day he said. He and his companion are also in charge of the "unit" there in Atonsu. It's not a ward or a branch, but it's just a group. They meet for sacrament meeting in Elder Adams' apartment. So he's having fun with that I think. That's the new strategy for the mission, start "groups" in places where there is no place to worship. It should help the mission expand pretty rapidly.
Before I forget, here's some things to send (if you haven't already):
-Pretzel M&Ms (elder mortensen got them and they are awesome!), peanut m&ms, almond m&ms, any kind of m&ms! They get here really good and they are delicioussss.
-Don't send Reeses, they completely melt and become destroyed on the way here.
-EASY CHEESE! Sharp cheddar is fine if there is no bacon and cheddar,
-precooked bacon! Elder Mortensen got it and oh my sweet goodness I need some!
-Cran cherry drink powder. If they don't have cran-cherry, any kind, cran-grape, whatever kind of thing. Send a ton of drink powder in general
Welp I think that's it......Another great week on the mission. Also, it was awesome to open my inbox this week and have 13 emails!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks everyone for e-mailing this week, it was great:)
I love you guys! Thanks so much for everything, sound like you guys are doing great. Hope everything goes well for you this week, it's going to be a crazy week here getting ready for baptism!!! I'm going to be doing interviews everyday, so it will be crazy. Thanks for the great e-mails, packages, letters, and everything! Always feel free to send more stuff :) Haha, esp always throw in some pictures with letters or packages!
Love you!
-Elder Brown
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