"Cuz they keep comin' from wall to wall!" - Chris Brown

Dear Family and Friends, 

This week was good. We got referrals and baptisms coming up that will fill our church building from wall to wall. Literally, last week Elders Paddon and Varo went to this area that has a school house where a few members meet because the church building is really far. They are opening a group there for them to take the sacrament. Quickly it will be a branch and then we will need two more missionaries in our district to cover their area. For now though, two of us will go there every week until we get two more missionaries. I think next week Varo and I will go.

"It's a good day to be a DART!"

Yesterday we were able to catch Elder Peters online again and both Kaylin and I got to send a few short emails back and forth to him.  I didn't include them in my post yesterday, so here are some of the more interesting/funny things that he shared with us.  There is also a more detailed account of his reaction to the DXC Boys winning state that is really funny if you visualize the "Obruni Cocoa" (red headed white man) jumping up and down and cheering in an internet café full of Ghanaians.

From his notes to Kaylin:

 

"HONEY??!! WHERES MY SUPER SUIT???!!!" - Incredibles (with some sweet photos)

Late last night I got a text from my friend Thomas Apiah, who is from Ghana and went home to visit family last week.  In the text were these three photos:

Elder Peters holding a package that we sent him.

Elder Varo, Elder Friday, Elder Peters and Elder Paddon

Thomas Appiah with Elder Peters

Dear Family and Friends,

I thought that I would start off by sending a few journal entries that I made this past week because they really describe things here well.

"Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop to look around once and a while you might miss it!" -Ferris Beullers Day Off

So we did find out that Elder Peters is serving in the Kasoa 2nd Ward in an area known as "Top Town"  He's doing a lot of biking and trying hard to find new people to teach and baptize.  Unfortunately he could not get his camera to talk to the computer in the Café where he was, so no Photos again this week.  :(

Dear Family & Friends,

It feels like only yesterday I stepped off the plane here into Ghana for the first time. Mission goes FAST! So I’m doing my best to make the most of it. Apparently the mission is changing a lot right now; there are plenty of missionaries that are going home, and a lot of new missionaries that are coming. 

I have learned that having the skill of a super good memory will benefit you so much on a mission. This transfer, being the first time I have been transferred, I have realized that every 6 weeks to 18 weeks you will have to memorize several miles of a new area, an entire new ward, all new investigators, contact about 5 new people every day and remember their names, and everything about them, find new places to eat, figure out how to bargain with a different shop lady who doesn’t know you yet. A lot of memorizing. Oh ya and you’re supposed to continue to try learning 2 or so new languages. Asemole! (It’s no small thing in Twi)

"Cool beans" - Hot Rod

Dear Family and Friends,

I am going to be transferred to Kasoa 2b area with Elder Varo (of the island of Fiji). Islanders have an awesome reputation here and they know how to kill and cook goats and pigs so that will be fun. I am sad to leave Mamponse, I have made many many good friends there and I will miss them very much.

So this is pure speculation, but in his email Elder Peters says he's going to Kasoa 2B...I don't know if this is a typo, or if he's going to the 2nd Ward.  The 2nd ward is the highlighted area on the map.  If he ends up somewhere different I'll update it.

"Don't whanna be an American Idiot..." - Green Day

The first paragraph here in Elder Peters letter might be shocking at first, but it is a fantastic lesson on how NOT to be a missionary in the service of the Lord.  Unfortunately too many missionaries are just like this and it makes it tough on those who genuinely want to love and serve and he wraps it up beautifully with his example at the end.  With that in mind...here is his letter for this week: 

So this week went well but I have some chastisement to issue. Today I just finished lunch at KFC with several of the other white elders in our mission (we were eating at KFC to "escape Ghana"). They were talking about the beats (headphones), Ray Bans, Nixons (watches), and other stuff that they have bought over the week. A lot of missionaries view their missions here as a 2 year waiting period to buy expensive stuff for really cheap (compared to how much you would get it for at home, its actually really expensive here. i.e: 240 Ghana cedis = about 80 us dollars.) They whine and complain about the Ghanaian people. How much it sucks to not have this or that or whatever they want to complain about. When they aren't whining they just talk about how many days they have left to go home, how nice home is compared to "this place", they walk down the road and insult people in twi. I'm sitting here cafe-ing with them watching them watch music videos on YouTube. They have no love for the country in which they are serving or the people which they are serving and its really sad because I know that one day they will look back on their mission and think to themselves, "if only I would have enjoyed it, then maybe I would have worked hard and seen miracles,perhaps it would have changed my life..." They will go home small boys, instead of men. Sad.

OK enough negativity. 

"Theres all this dough ya see, and its all under A BIG DUBAWYA!" -Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (With lots of pictures)

Dear Friends and Family,

This was a very eventful week. First of all we are currently teaching 3 people with alcohol addictions. that's why the quote about the big W. I always write the lesson next to the persons name we are teaching so restoration is L1, plan of salvation is L2, and so on until you get to commandments then its TI (tithing), CH (law of chastity), and (WW) the word of wisdom. I guess its really rare for someone to have this problem, according to other missionaries, because most people can't afford alcohol. So Francis has a family of 2 kids one girl and one boy, he is also married. (still need clarification on if he's actually married, that's a big problem here because of bride price) he came to us while we were teaching Abigail one day and asked us if we could help him overcome his addiction because he wants to send his kids to school. It was pretty cool, people will literally come up to us and ask us to teach them. We are helping him, we helped him create a plan and sat with his whole family and a friend named Sarfo and talked about ways they can help him, and ways that he can get help from them. I feel way unqualified to help someone break a habit that is so incredibly powerful, but I know that with Gods help, all things are possible. If anybody has any advice, it would be readily welcomed by my companion and I. also we had two dudes almost in a fistfight on the road, and we were walking by and one yelled, "Hey elders!" that always gets our attention because most people just call you obruni and they aren't serious so we don't mind them. They guy said, "help my friend, he wants to go drink and I'm trying to keep him, to tell him it wont do him no good!" The one wanting to apiteshi (alcohol in twi) got mad and stormed off, but we were able to sit down and talk with Stephen about how he can help his friend and taught him the restoration. I'm still not sure if he's serious because he has another church, but we will see.

Rooftop panorama of Elder Peters Area