SHADE AND A SEA BREEZE

Dear Mother and Company,

I'm now sitting in the middle of Takoradie, enjoying the super fast net of Vodafone. I'm pretty tired after a tough match on the crappiest pitch I've ever played on. Dirt and stones. We won 6 to 5. I played D today and actually did pretty well.

I'm now in an area known as Kojokrom and is pretty sweet for such a small area. The members are way cool. Cooler then any other ward I've been in. Being with an Mt is the sweetest part of all. We both are just on the same page with everything and the work has has been so enjoyable.

Well not much is going on right now. I don't really know my investigators very well yet. We are preparing to baptize two people, Prince and Portia. Portia is super sweet and I love teaching at her place cause there's lots of shade and a sea breeze which brings me back. Being here is just like being in a new mission. Everything is totally different.

Well I guess we will talk more next week.

Love you all!
Elder Harris

That there
That's not me
I go
Where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the Liffey
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here

In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah it's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here

Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here

How to Disappear Completely: Radiohead

TRANSFERRED TO SEKONDIE

Hey! What's happening?

I'm in Bantama today after a long busy P-Day where we played plenty of games till our football exploded. It was a lot of fun anyway. Everybody was there which was sweet cause I might never see any of them again!

I've been transferred to Sekondie which is just next to Takoradi down south! I'm excited to be with my MT Elder Hadderlie. He's a funny little kid from Wyoming but I love that guy. It's just what I need right now to get back into being a missionary. I love Abuakwa but I've been pretty tired in the area. It happens sometimes. If President Sabey were to hear something like that, he would say something like, "well, what would have happened if Jesus Christ said he was tired in the garden of Gethsemane." Frick! It's not easy! I'm trying though;)

This week we had a few crazy things happen. Mr. Sprinkles, the mouse we found on Christmas, made a reappearance. I was walking into the kitchen at about 10 and when I switched on the light, he went scurrying out of the sink! I spent an hour and a half hunting him down before he managed to break through my towel barrier by the door. He got away! I was so mad but luckily I managed to find a couple mouse traps in a closet which I loaded with peanut butter which I got from Grandma. That prideful mouse decided he wanted to come back to the kitchen for some more sink food but along the way he smelled something better. Hey what's this, sniff sniff, WHACK. I WIN ONE TO NOTHIN! Up yours Mr Sprinkles!

Before I forget again, Elder Hill was a freaking sweet dude. I never heard him play but I heard he is pretty legit on the guitar. He's into the Shins and a lot of stuff I really liked. You should send a message for me through all those people. Tell him Elder Harris loves him and misses him! Haha, that's funny you ran into him.

The Saunders are the Office Couples for the mission. They are in charge of all the money and other stuff. They are really cool. The Hamatan is going away a little bit and it even rained really hard last night. I hope the rainy season comes soon so we can enjoy.

This week Elder Rogers and I were walking through a shady graveyard on our way to an investigators place. As we were walking we ran into a bunch of rasta guys who were smoking weed. One of them called out, "Hey, a real California Nigga!" I was a little surprised. I don't remember ever meeting this guy but he knew I was a California nigga! He then asked us where we were going and I said, "Well, we niggas are going down there!" and I pointed the way we were going. That's when they all got up and came over. Oh man. Luckily this is Ghana and they were high out of their minds. They asked us if we wanted to smoke weed and we said no way, lol. That's when I told them that they need to repent in a loud voice! They all agreed and we went on our way. Not long afterward this drunk guy started talking to us and wouldn't go away. We had an appointment so I told him Yenko, Let's go. So he followed us for a good two miles just talking nonsense even when we contacted a few people. He told this one contact that he was a madman but the guy seemed to understand he wasn't with us. At one point Elder Rogers started singing (he's learned from me) Don't worry! About a thing! Cause every little thing is gonna be all right! The drunk guy loved that, and pretty soon all three of us were singing Bob Marley. We finally escaped by crossing the road, dodging traffic as we went. The drunk guy was too wasted to get across! Sorry!

It's been in the 80's at least for the last 15 months here! I should be right on the coast so I'll see the ocean again!

So I'm gonna go pack! I'm going to miss Kumasi but it's time for a change. It's sad cause I won't be here for Emmanuel's baptism, but that's Ok. I'll meet him again. I may never see this place again! You never know though. My new area, Kojokrom, is supposed to be way sweet so I'm stoked. Hadderlie is also one of my bro's from the Mtc! I'll miss Elder Rogers though. There's a special thing you have between Father's and Son's. I love my Father Akoki and my son Rogers! Elder Rogers is going to enjoy with a french man named Elder Yapo from The Ivory Coast.

Well I love you all! Next week I'll be in a different place! Bye Bye!

Elder Harris

Ps. 6 more transfers!

Dear Family,

I'm kicking it in Asuoyeboah with Elder Holmes and Jaggi. We just finished another uplifting District Meeting and we've come to the cafe to email. Yesterday, Elder Vancherie and Elder Bahme came down from Sunyani to visit some members so we just rolled around with them in Brother Simon's hatchback. They got mad at me when I called it a van and they gave it to me very well. Sorry if I'm not as smart as the all mighty Sunyani Elders. Never knew there was a difference. I guess the back of a hatchback is different from a van, hence the name "hatchback." We visited a bunch of people and then ate Jollof at brother Francis' place. It was a pretty good day.

We had a pretty sweet week except for the fact that everybody is sick from the Hamatan. It's really really dry and there is tons of dust everywhere. The dust is the only bad part. It just gets into head and won't come out. We all have sinus problems and colds. I don't sweat though! We went on splits with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. Elder Mackay is pretty sweet. He's in Elder Lehr's group and they are both from Vegas. We walked the crap out of him but our appointments were great. We taught Emmanuel, his Sister, and now his cousin George. One by one the whole house is getting more interested in why we are there. Emmanuel is still set for getting baptized on the 30th and he even brought a friend to church on time for the Sacrament. Everytime he talks about the church is calls it our church. I'm really excited for him. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Jennifer at all and her attitude seems to have changed a lot since she started her business. It is far easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle then to baptize a hair girl. They are always too busy and never serious. Everytime we go there now I walk away heavy with anxiety for her but there's only so much we can do for her. I now know how Jacob felt in the Book of Mormon. Frank said he was sick and couldn't come to church, but we did teach him a great lesson on the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. John doesn't seem to care all that much. We have a young referral named Helen coming to church but we'll see if she's still serious once Mike, our branch missionary, leaves for school. I think she will be. We also have another family but the husband, Kingsford is pretty stubborn. He made a promise to come to church if we came to pick him, so we did and his excuse for not coming was that he didn't have clothes for church. I'm pretty sure he would have known that when he made the promise but I'm sure he never meant to come at all. His wife told us that he hasn't been to any church for over five years. We will see what we can do for him.

So all in one email, you mentioned homemade macaroni and cheese, in & out burgers and fries, tri-tip stake, and steamy baked potatoes. This week I ate egg sandwiches, some fu fu (some freaking good fu fu), bread and butter, fried rice and some coke. I do need a nice big meal!

Transfer news comes next Monday. Elder Rogers and I have been together for three transfers but I won't be surprised if we go one more. 6 months is usually the minimum for staying in an area here but you never know. I'm getting a little bit tired of the area, especially the traffic, but my companion is sweet. I can't complain at all. I just don't want to be in a leadership position that's all. I just want to proselyte.

All right, I need to get back to my area. I love you all!

Elder Harris

Hey Family!

I'm in the Vodaphone Cafe today so I'm gonna upload some pictures! Yay! The first one is a pic of me doing stuff I'll never do on mission again! The next is me flying into action against evil at a baptism! The last one is me with the Kiffer's. This was their last P-day before they go home on Thursday. We sang them a song and gave them a card and picture today. We will miss them a lot since they pretty much keep Kumasi running. I'm not sure what will happen without them. I know what you might be thinking: Ghana has really made Elder Harris look like Shiz. It's true! I look pretty beat up but that's OK. One day I'll be able come home and hopefully start to look normal again, lol.

This week has been pretty sweet. I've made some more reforms in my life that has made it easier for me to feel the spirit. I've decided that I'm going to work my butt off for the next 9 months and sprint to the finish line. At our interviews President Sabey already gave me the sprint to the finish talk. In my head I thought, "well, president, I'm only on the third lap and you don't really sprint on the third lap," but I didn't say that. In fact the third lap is the hardest lap of all but I'm not going to think about that either. Let's just stick with the work your butt off for the next 9 months. That's what I'm going to do and thats why this week has been pretty sweet. Now that the holidays are over everything is going back to normal. The traffic isn't so bad. People are at home. We had a good 5 new investigators and many of them are good ones. Brother Emmanuel agreed to be baptized on the 30th and we are now teaching his sister and a good friend of his. 4 investigators came to church yesterday and Emmanuel came to a baptism our companions had. I'm afraid we are very close to either baptizing or dropping sister Jennifer. This week I'm going to sit her down and really ask her what she really wants. If she wants to join Jesus Christ's church then we can help her out.

I had a crazy dream this week. I was in a cultural hall in Bantama and there was this receptionist there behind this desk. I was in between him and a big ping pong table, playing with this big fish pokemon kind of disdang. It was taller then me and was weakened for some reason. It kept running into me while I pushed it back playfully. At one point I grabbed it and threw it behind the receptionist who with a bewildered look told me that the thing was trying to kill me. It had razor sharp teeth and now gained back it's full strength. I ran out side away from it but now I was running in slow motion and couldn't get away. Just as it was about to catch me, I looked back and it had turned into a big octopus with a big giant smile on it's head. Then everything went blank and I assume I was dead.

Well I know this is short but my mind is really blanking out on me right now:( I have to refer you to Elder Roger's cause I know he's typed a lot. I want you to know that I love you all. Next week I'll try to do better. The last picture is Elder Hernandez and the Kiffers!

Love Elder Harris

Dear Family,

I'm here in Elder Holmes area to email. It's been a pretty grueling day but I don't want to talk about it. I'll just say that we played football with the Sunyani Elders and I actually played pretty well. I'm really not good at all though.

This past week has been pretty crazy for us. We haven't had too much time to proselyte but we have been working. We had a bunch of activities to go to in Abuakwa, Bantama, and Dichemso. The first was an all day young single adult activity where the missionaries had their own team. We owned everybody in every sport they could come up with. I don't know about the other wards but we did get closer to our members that day and we had a lot of investigators come. One, named Frank, was looking at a painting of Jesus Christ getting baptized and was asking me questions about it. On Friday we went to a stake activity in Dichemso and enjoyed for the new year. Some of us couldn't help not dancing a little bit for the whole crowd of members (in a well lit room, with no one of the opposite sex, lol). They loved it of course and even encouraged us. I don't feel any guilt for it at all because it wasn't inappropriate in any way but we got in a little bit of trouble with President and now he's a tad bit angry at us. Interviews should be interesting for us, haha. Oh well, you make mistakes and you learn from them.

On Saturday we had our branch party at the chapel. It was insane first of all, everyone was packed into the main courtyard in the front of the chapel, where they had music and games. The missionaries were asked to come in from outside and make themselves comfortable at a table so we did not to offend. We sat down and of course they bring us big bowls of the worst fu fu i've ever had with goat soup and meat. It was placed in front of us but we didn't want to eat in front of everyone so we decided (me, holmes, jaggi, and rogers) that we would take the fu fu to someone else and start helping the members dish out food. Well we didn't realize that they fed us first on purpose (why i don't know) and as we tried to hand the food off to other people they refused to take it and instead of looking like the kind missionaries we were trying to be, we just looked like idiots and probably offended everybody. So we sat down and ate the terrible fu fu (which had a delicious side of goat meat and intestines). Afterwards, they finally let us serve by collecting the bottles for the minerals everyone was drinking. This was pretty sweet, but after a while more and more people were coming in (many of whom were drunk and not members) and they started treating us like we were servers at a restaurant! I firmly told these people that we aren't servers and I didn't have any clue why food hadn't been brought to them. I also refused their request for guiness and other alcoholic drinks. Finally I got fed up and retreated into the apartment. Only a couple of my investigators had come and most of the others there were drunk, or just there for food. It was so confusing that I didn't feel comfortable contacting them. Over all it was fun, but I was way tired on Sunday.

This week we had that conversation with Jennifer that I told you about last week. It went pretty well and she said she had told the pastor that she would be leaving his church. He was mad and said that she couldn't because it would make him look bad to his regional overseers. He doesn't care about her salvation at all! Well, she showed us her seriousness by not coming to church and I was really sad. Hopefully it was just the rush of the season and everything will cool down soon. I really do have great hopes for her.

We are also reading the book of Mormon as a mission. It's a little more then 2 pages a day but it doesn't matter how much as long as you get the spirit from it. We are reading 9 pages a day to finish by the end of February. Our focus is on Christ and everything we can learn about him. It will be a sweet start to the new year and the spiritual boost I really really need right now.

Well I'm happy your new years was awesome. Sitting around doing nothing and not feeling bad about it sounds awesome. I'll have to do some of that when I get back. The dog sounds sweet and her warmth would be awesome in the mornings here because I've been freezing my but off in the Hamatan mornings. Well I love you all but I'm out of time.

I miss you a lot, freak, too much sometimes.
Love, Drew