"I like these guys! they are funny guys!...just kill one of them" - The Three Amigos

Elder Ferrin, Elder Christopherson and Elder Peters...the Three Amigos

Dear friends & family,

Yes its true we are in a three some (sum?) and yes, Elder Ferrin was my companion before in Mamponse where Elder Perry is now serving. Weird. This week was a lot of just getting business
stuff done and things like that. unfortunately not as much proselyting as I would have hoped for.

On Tuesday we had transfers and I’ve learned that when you are at the mission office, you've gotta take what you can because if you request for it, you'll never get it until after you get transferred. (i.e.: the bikes in Kasoa) So I was running around trying to get stuff to supply the zone, get Elder Christopherson set up with everything at the office, the paperwork and all that. finally we got in a tro tro and were able to get home. It was fun to see a brand new missionary staring out the windows of a tro tro at Ghana for the first time again. It reminded me of the first time I was headed home with elder Liera and George Amah. I’ve also realized something that I am working to do different, and that is have higher expectations for people. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time new missionaries get treated like the 8th graders treat the 7th graders on their first week of junior high. Haha! Look at the dumb little sevies running to class after the bell! It’s the same. And I realized that it doesn't help them at all. so I’m trying to do a lot better at that, as easy as it is to laugh at the little things that an 18 year old from the us would find or do that are strange in a country that has basically become normal to you.

I've posted this before but Elder Peters and Elder Perry are in front of the Accra Mall, it's in this next story...

On Thursday we went to Accra to Dr. Andersen so Elder Christopherson could get some medication from him and we could only get it at the Accra mall. Dr. Andersen decided to drive us there himself. He lives in Alaska and has been here in Ghana for 3 months. He is pretty old and it was funny to drive with him in Ghana where your horn is much more valuable tool than your brakes. He has raced the Iditarod (dog sled race) and had some cool fish stories to tell. He was getting more and more impatient the longer we sat in traffic because he had a temple session at 5:30 he was trying to make it back for. When we got to the pharmacy, they didn't have what he wanted and it took them forever to find it. He did his best to keep a cool head, but it was funny to watch him get more and more frustrated. Elder Christopherson needed to draw subsistence so we went the ATM. Dr. Andersen occasionally looked at his watch and sighed while he drew his money. As soon as he finished he said, "hurry up, follow Me." we followed him and started walking toward the exit. He then crazily veered left in the food court and went strait to a frozen yogurt place and told us to take our pick, and to hurry up. Surprised and elated I chose a mango frozen yogurt and it was awesome! It was SO good. On the drive home, Dr. Anderson flew! It was funny because at one point he went through and intersection and exclaimed, "Get out of the road! Why do you sell stuff in the road?!! where are we supposed to drive if you’re standing in the middle of the road with big barrels of stuff on your heads?!!" it was fun to see an 18-year-olds first few days in Ghana, and a 70-80-year-olds first few months in Ghana.

Then on Saturday we had a really weird birthday party we were invited by our landlady to attend. It was cool because as missionaries we gathered together and huddled around and sang you've had a birthday shout hooray! For her son and they really got a kick out of that having most likely never heard it before. (I’m pretty sure its one of those Mormon songs) it was also strange because when he cut the cake everyone said, led by his mother: "We cut this cake in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit!" WHAT?! What is going on? I was really lost, but I thought it would be a good example of how Christianity is more like a pop-culture to many in Ghana. But it’s great because it’s really easy to talk openly and freely about the gospel.

Josh! Incredible race! Congratulations! STATE!!! (Josh ran a PR of 9:29 in his 3200 Meter at Region taking 2nd place by 7/10ths of a second)

Alexa, way to go as well, in answer to your question I didn't run at south end in 7th grade, in fact I didn't run at all. I was still doing soccer. I had met Stockton by this point though, we were doing hurdles. Things change small

James Percy Jackson is a great book! That’s great that you did good at your soccer game. I decided to try to draw my journal as a comic book, what do you think about that? What stories do you like best?

Dad sounds like you are enjoying the new truck. I can't wait to drive it, fill it with stuff, just don't put a Ragnar sticker on it; everybody has those stinkin stickers on their car...

Mom it’s good to hear that preschool going great
 
Answering Mom's Questions:

Track helped you learn to manage pain. Just curious to know what's the worse kind of pain have you had on mission so far? This is funny. I hoped on a scale at Dr. Andersen’s office just for fun and I weigh 158 now. So I’m gettin fat. Pain isn't as intense as track. I got a headache when I was with Elder Liera once that made me squint all day and kinda grumpy as we walked around the streets of Mamponse but really I haven't had to deal with a lot of really painful stuff.

What's the craziest prank you've pulled or most fun thing you've done on mission? So far? There have been a lot of funny moments, I told elder Varo that I saw I pig run into the bush one time and it sent him sprawling to find it even though there really wasn't anything that was pretty funny. I scared the seamstresses outside our house with the rubber snake pretty bad. Right now I’m working making a water ballon catapult out of some old exercise bands to launch off the roof of our balcony. The other day I was being stupid and sat on my bike like a princess sits on the back of a horse and tried to pull my leg up over the bar to sit on it normally and just fell over.

You mentioned that at market you "fight for someone's pants?" Explain! You have to really fight for a price on pants. You have to really get aggressive to get the right price on a lot of things. today a dude we hired to fix our bikes wanted to cheat us and we had to resort to telling anybody that walked by that this guy likes to cheat obruni's until he finally cracked down and gave us the right price.

What have you collected so far that you want to bring home? Letters, journal? Don't bring the roll up piano back. It was only $15. If we send things like your hammock, piano, etc...Don’t feel obligated to bring any of that stuff home! We fully expect you to leave stuff like that there to free up room to bring home African stuff. I have some wood carvings, some kente, a really cool kente scripture bag (ill work on getting more of those...) my journal, some letters, a US national team soccer jersey, not to much yet. If I find something cool that I really want I will buy it, but I’m not really focused on collecting a lot of stuff right now. Mostly looking around.

I love you all! You are incredible!

                                                                                                                          

Love, Elder Peters

P.S. Next week we are planning to climb a mountain in Achimota for Elder Christophersen's birthday and they just barely got a Pizza Hut there so we are pretty pumped for it. I haven't had pizza since Pres Hill bought us some for the Christmas Conference...