Reactivation assignment, teaching Anna and Kojo, & my first ghana dinner (second email from the field)

Hey family. I made a new email because my old one was too slow.

So glad to hear you are all doing the whole "tradition" thing for Britt’s Fiddler on the Roof play (throws up arms in the air). I too am doing the "tradition" thing. The people here are very nice and accept Jesus a lot. They always let you in however, as Brittni said in her email, it is hard to do keep people active. Families here are not just 1 religion. There are multiple religions under 1 roof. Scarcely is a husband and wife in the same church. They have church multiple times a week and all have very active callings in their church. There is a different church every couple of feet here. We are on a reactivation assignment from the stake prez. We located a goldmine on how to find them. We knocked on a door and found this dude who was a pioneer in the church in Ghana, however he is inactive as well. After sharing a message with him, he agreed to take us around to all the inactives in the area. SWEET! So we are using the inactives to find the inactives. Weird I know. It works out in mysterious ways.

In order for people not to fall away, they need fellow-shippers. What better fellow-shippers than a whole family!!! I really want to teach families. It is how the gospel works. I started going on a highlighting crazy fest in the Book of Mormon and highlighted everything in purple that relates on how the gospel blesses the family and stuff. Even in the first couple chapters of 1st Nephi I found a bunch of stuff relating to family. So family, do scripture study everyday from the Book of Mormon. Cool? This way everything will work out better. Deal? Nice. Promise?

Kojo Larte Otu and Anna Hammond both have baptismal dates. YES! We are teaching Kojo's dad and hopefully will baptise him, that way Kojo, his bro and dad will be members and they will not fall. Kojo is 14 and looks like he is 9. All the people here are way older than they look. I made it a goal this week to make kojo a sandwich. He needs some peanut butter. Anna is a sweet lady who reminds me of Grandma Patsy. She is so sweet and loves the gospel.

So we have to wash our clothes in a bucket here and dry them on a string.
Takes forever. BOO! I will learn how to get all the soap out of my clothes soon I hope, they are still stiff sometimes haha. My companion Elder Riding (white dude from Payson) is teaching me. I'll learn. Elder Riding is a sweet dude, he works hard. I love him right now because he made me pancakes while I was washing my clothes. Those acts of tiny service really make a difference. We get home every night and then plan for the next day and then crash the second our heads hit the pillow. We work hard. I figured out how to not get so wasted. The key is to teach more and bike less. Elder Riding likes to do just that, ride around all over. I, having guitar teacher stamina, like to teach more. I will just teach a lesson, sit down enjoy some pure water (sold in a little baggy here, most families give you some) and then I'll go right next door and teach again. Less traveling around and more teaching! It works. I want to focus on building a lot of members in a small area and then branch out, like what Paul did. Teach Jerusalem first, then the Jerusalem area, then branch out. Creates a strong community, rather than just polka dotting the area with members. Dig?

The people here like it when you try to accept their culture and adapt. I am learning words small small (that’s what they say here "small small" meaning little by little or a little bit) like "medasaye" (thank you) etc. I got invited over for my first fufu yesterday. And yes Brit we have to eat the goats... The food is challenging, let me give you an example. The meal started out with me pounding the fufu with this big ol stick thingie, i got blisters on my hand (pictures soon to come, maybe next email), then they cooked up some tiny snails (called "kissme", clever eh?) then we had some fish with the bones and all, and that is all served on top of the fufu with some stew of some sort. Yesterday it was palm nut soup. Also they gave us some satan goat skin... You gotta eat it or it is extremely rude because people don't have much and they are offering you a lot of food, it is a great sacrifice. The snails were fine, kinda like a gummy worm mixed with chicken taste. The fish is great. The fufu blows. Stew is weird. The goat skin is hhhmm very poo. The trick is not to chew anything haha. I kinda puked in my mouth eating the skin, luckily nobody saw except my companion. I almost finished my whole huge bowl. He said I did good, everyone almost pukes he says. I will get used to it.
The freaking fruit here is freaking fantastic! The pineapple is the best thing EVER!!! Also the bananas and the oranges kick! We seem to get a never ending supply of fruit from people we teach. For instance we taught the Roland family a couple days ago and they gave us a whole bag of oranges and then this dude went in the backyard and cut us off a whole branch of bananas still on the tree type of thing. They are good. I am doing okay here.

At the apartment (cockroach infested haha) we make mostly normal food. I located some "ground nut paste" kinda peanut butter thing. It is good but the oil and peanut thing separate so you gotta stir it for a while to have it resemble something kinda like peanut butter, you gotta add sugar though.
It is really thick and oily. Hard to explain. The bread here is like pure sugar, very nummy. We make lots of rice and stuff. We make stew with vegetables and things. My fav thing is to cook oats and add the nummy fruit, add a bum load of sugar, get some sugar bread and put a cooked egg on it and then pour some milk on the oatmeal. oh yeah, milk here does not exist. You gotta buy icky powder and add it to water or get some evaporated milk or something. I just do the powder because it is cheap. I just bought some chocolate powder stuff, so it'll be good. All is well.

My room is pretty cockroach free, they don't bug us. They hang out behind the sink, there is a gap between the wall and stuff. I’m a clean freak i guess so we bought some bleach and are going to clean out the cupboards and make a place to store the dishes, instead of just the drying rack, so the cockroaches won't be hanging around the dishes. This will mean I won't have to keep washing the dishes before, after, during use haha. The apartment is getting nicer. No hot water for showers, it wakes me up really fast.

WE are going to the temple friday, so i will get that name you sent me with done mom. Let grandma pepsi know ;) You can keep sending letters. Email time is limited. I don't have enough time to write everyone so i'll just send one big email out like this every week okay?

Glad dad is having fun with his computer. Hopefully he will rock on the computer when I get back. Glad to see he is saving lives as usual. Keep up the hard work dad. Glad grandpa and grandma carol and having fun on their trips. Glad to see grandpa is still doing stuff like putting spaghetti in the freezer haha. Thanks dad for the info. Keep on helping britt and mom by building all the stuff they need, they are very important. Keep on chugging.
Remember dad to study the book of mormon nightly with mom, don't just listen to the cd but study it with each other and discuss sections. Take a purple pencil and mark all the places you read that have to do with the gospel blessing the family. I feel strongly that I should ask you to do that. Also Brit do the same with Dave, cool?

How is the hobbit door coming?

The homes here are very humble, small, hot, nothing much in them, no cars really for most people. The ward is brand new. They do not have a 2nd counselor or secretary because nobody is qualified to do so. Most people are new. There are a few select people that have all the responsibility.
Stressful. We will help as much as we can. It is cool being a missionary. We have this extra power to help and organize stuff, it is weird to explain.
During church a class was discussing the Book of Mormon and people were stating things that it wasn't necessary to read it and I stood up and declared Joseph Smiths testimony, in the introduction of the Book of Mormon, very boldly and then chastised people a little bit and declared the need to read it and then sat down. I was thinking "what just happened?"
People actually listened and were changed. It is weird what happens. I don't usually do stuff like that.

Well no worries. I am doing well. I am learning the ways and stuff. Keep on rockin family.
You all rock!
Keep sending letters. I don’t have enough time to read everything in detail on email, now that I started this new email though I might have more time, less errors.

Church is true.
Love you all.
Brady or Elder Bills