"It's where my demons hide.." - Imagine Dragons

Dear Family,

Saturday mornings we usually go to the chapel to clean it up for church the next day. this particular Saturday we went and there was a man who was about my height, thin, had a scraggly beard with yellow hairs in it, wearing a dirtied up lab coat and a hairnet with cargo shorts pacing back and forth on the stand. (Our chapel is really open, almost outdoors). He walked kinda slow and it almost appeared like he was floating like a ghost, back and forth. We were kinda confused about this and were trying to figure out what to do with this mad man. He grabbed the pulpit and
shrieked:"WELCOME TO GHANNNAAAAAA!" it freaked the bajeebies out of me. He then shouted gripping the pulpit again, "WE WELCOME ALL THE MISSIONARIES TO GHANNAAAA!!!!!!" now it was really getting scary. Elder Pohlsander kept his distance but started to talk to him a bit. Brother Irastus was there with some of his buddies doing Karate in the morning and they also came in to talk to this dude. They were able to usher him out of the compound but he came back with a watermelon slice that he stole off of some poor woman’s head and took a few bites out of and wanted to give it to Elder Pohlsander but a member of the karate dudes stopped him before he could come into the sacrament hall. The crazy man set the watermelon on the ground outside the door. he then went and stole a bag of pure waters and brought it back for Elder Pohlsander and the karate dudes ushered him out of the compound again and took him somewhere, I’m not sure where. Probably the police station. It was scary because they kept asking this guy, "Where are you from? Why did you come here?" he would just reply, "they have sent me" creepy stuff. Don’t wanna freak anybody out, mom I’m fine. We think he had schizophrenia or something like that. Elder Pohlsander thinks he was possessed. I don't know. Creepy stuff.

On Tuesday Elder Pohlsander was on an exchange with elder Lambson cuz Elder Ombaka and I were in another area. While they were on exchange Elder Pohlsander told a woman living in their area that he could paint PSALM 91 on her wall. So the next day we went and painted a big ol, PSALM 91 on the side of her green house. But before we went to her house we had to get the paint. After we bought the paint from our shop woman Elder Pohlsander and I were walking toward the woman's house and the sun was really hot. Elder Pohlsander said, hey there's a fire in the sky today, I’m burning. After a little while he realized that it wasn't only the sun that was burning him, but that the box of paints that he had bought was a nest of fire ants. They had crawled all up his arm and onto his body and were biting him all over. He threw the paint's and was running around smacking himself and I felt really bad for him. Some people around were really confused about what was going on and kept coming over to ask me if my friend was ok. I did my best to help him but ended up taking a video of him. It was fun to paint the woman's house and do some service for her.

I was thinking about home and I have honestly forgotten how nice everything we have is. We are SO blessed. Most families like ours live in houses made of concrete that could fit in our living room. I had to think pretty hard about what our house was like the other day and as I got thinking about it, I felt almost kinda sick with how blessed we are.

I won't end up giving a talk in sacrament meeting this week because it’s the primary program. Maybe I will go my whole mission without giving a talk in sacrament meeting. I sure hope not, but maybe.

Today my I accompanied my companion to this kinda sketchy black market that a member in Korle-bu ward showed him where he could buy chimpanzee heads and lion teeth and stuff like that. It was a place with these little shops that sell stuff to people who practice juju. They had little dolls and these weird spices, knives and things, it was a freaky, eerie place and I didn't like it there at all. We went in long enough for him to pay a woman 250 cedis for a rotting baboon head that he will clean up and bleach cuz he's into that kind of a thing, then we got out of there.

I'm out of time, I had some other stuff to tell you about, but don't worry next week

Good luck at State Davis!

Be sure to send me some of the film from the race!

Love, Elder Peters

We asked him to tell us a bit more about what people said to them about their Machete's last week: Oh people would just say, Obruni can you do that in your country?!! You going to kill someone? Why the cutlass? I’m scared that I will come home and be just super aggressive toward people because that's how they are here.  I get mocked a lot... I get it almost everyday. I’ve been spit on, had rocks thrown at me, etc. not for being a missionary, but for being a white man.

We asked him about some of the costs of living: (one Ghana cedi is about .25 US cents) Shampoo and conditioner is anywhere from 20-30 cedis. Mouthwash is 25 cedis, Shaving cream is 15-20 cedis (all these items I would use in 1 month-ish) if you add that all up that’s food for a week. I’ve been lucky that I haven't had to buy deodorant yet, but it would cost 18 cedis.