"Fly you fools!" - Gandalf

"A mission is a bunch of 'hellos' and 'goodbyes'...
it's especially tough when you really love the people you work with. 

Dear Family & Friends, 

I sat in the back of the AP's truck bumping down a dusty hill from the new Gbawe district meeting. Elder Tohouri was talking about transfers and I was reading the most recent new era magazine. We happened to run into them on at the district meeting, it wasn't planned at all, but we convinced them to give us a ride back to our area. Elder Tohouri asked how many new missionaries would be coming, then I heard the conversation change to. "You should give my companion a treat and send him to the bush, he's never been there!!!" 

Moving from Gbawe to Kade is about as far from civilization as you can go. Elder Peters is excited to be 'in the bush'

Elder Tohouri is flying home tomorrow and I will load all my bags onto a trotro and bounce out to Kade (pronounced ka-dey). Deep bush from what I hear (about 3.5 hours from Accra). And I will literally bounce, I hear the road to get there is pretty rough. I guess the cafe there is pretty good though, they have a generator so I think I will be able to communicate with you guys pretty well still. I'll be in a 4 man district that all live together in one apartment, so District meetings will be like a big companionship study, so that will be fun. I will be with Elder Ofosu, a Ghanaian and he's 27 years old. It will be fun because he can speak Twi. He is 3 months old on his mission. Gbawe has been a lot of fun, and I feel good about the work that Elder Tohouri and I have done here.

Going from this....

...to this.

I learned something this week that elder Tohouri taught me. we were walking to the Weija chapel to receive transfer news from the AP's with our district and earlier that day I had splurged an bought a cheeseburger at a American restaurant in our area for 25 cedis (6 bucks) and I was lamenting to elder Tohouri that I had, 'wasted my money' and he kinda chastised me a little and told me that I look for the negative too much. The burger tasted good right? I enjoyed it right? So what if you regret you spent your money on it, focusing your thoughts on that doesn't make the money come back. It only makes the memory you had of that burger less sweet. Relish in the joy that it brought you, and forget the regrets. It was awesome advice, and something I have struggled with my whole life, sometimes unconsciously. Later that night I found out that I was being sent to the bush, no cheeseburgers there! That was my first cheeseburger in like 8 months and it will probably be my last until I come home. So learn the lesson of the cheeseburger and look forward and back on life in positivity. 

The ward was not surprised that elder Tohouri would be going, but when they found out that I was going people were really sad, some were even mad. There are two other elders in our ward who are pretty new here and they don't have the relationship with the ward that elder Tohouri and I do. Our ward mission leader spencer, and our faithful ward missionaries Deborah, Esther, and Evans Tetteh were pretty bummed out that I was leaving. So I feel bad for them, but I think that it will be the best thing for this area. I learned from president that both elder Tohouri and I leaving wasn't a reflection of the work done here, or the area, but that other missionaries needed leadership opportunities. So I am excited for them. 

Rain clouds moving in.

Yesterday after church it started raining. We usually go to grandma Anno and Grandma Akulakye to give them the sacrament after church and so after we visited them we went to our apartment to pick some things up and drop some things off and there was a big truck outside our house with a huge load of lumber. It was stuck in a rut in the road and the driver was trying to maneuver it out of the road. He ended up causing the truck to do a barrel roll and sent all of the lumber flying. A lot of people came to help him but it was pretty crazy. I took a picture of it to show you guys.

Elder Perry will go to Swedru, also bush, but far away from where I will be. It’s been fun with him for the past two transfers here in Kaneshie zone. 

I love you guys, I’m out of time so no photos but I’ll try next week!

Love, Elder Peters