I Don't Want to Leave this Place

Hello family! 

I am so sorry, but today i have like zero time to write.. it has been a bit of a rough day, but i will try my best to sum things up. This week was difficult but good. we have been working hard. while the numbers might not show it, i realized that numbers don't matter as much as the spirit that you share. i have had to remind myself of that a lot this week. teaching lessons is coming along as we are white washing this area. but things are good. 

My apartment is actually really nice! it is huge. there used to be 6 people in it, but now it is just me and my companion. it is a very nice apartment too. 

The bush is so good. i don't want to leave this place! it is so pretty here! i want to send pictures but the computers suck here.. so i am so sorry! i will try my best next week! 

anyways, i am out of time. i love you all so much!!! have a great week!

Elder Eldredge

Bush - week one: I Felt Like I was in Africa for the First Time

Happy Monday everyone! 

Wow that is a lot of questions, but i am glad because i had no idea where to even start. 

the bush is soooo pretty! i absolutely love it here! it is just a bunch of trees, and grass. And the houses are made out of mud. it is so cool. when i first got there i actually felt like i was in Africa for the first time. it is awesome. my new companion is super nice. he is quiet and very spiritual. i like him a lot. Zimbabweans are always super nice.

This week has been a little crazy tho.. the area that i taking over, is an area where the sister missionaries are working. so for the week we had to proselyte with them along with a ward missionary.. so we were five, everywhere we went. you can imagine how difficult it was to teach with four other people.. it was hard to know who was going to speak and what they were going to say. but in all the week was great! we met a lot of members, and recent converts. and the sister missionaries are so nice! my companion and i are taking over two areas, so we switched off with two sets of sisters every other day. two of them were from Uganda (sister Nakafeero, and sister Namutebi) and one is from ivory coast (sister Zadi) and the other was from Nigeria (sister Udo) so since they were still living in their apartment, we had to stay with the other elders in the area next to ours. it is called Kojo Bedu. we had 11 missionaries staying in a 6 man apartment.. 6 cape coast missionaries, and 5 Accra west missionaries. and one bathroom.......... hahaha it was crazy. i felt like i was in home alone 2 when they wake up late to go to the airport and they are running around like a ton of ants. haha it was bad, but no one got in a fight. some were close, but it never happened lol. but only one more night haha. 

I like my area a lot! it is huge, but it is nice. we have one area that is pretty bushy, and then our other areas are just small town. but i like it because it is so quiet and peaceful. in Kasoa you couldn't escape the loud noises and the lessons were always disturbed. but here the spirit can thrive. i love it. 

we just have one branch, and it is very small. but the members are super nice. when they sent our missionaries to the new zone they chose a ton of young guys. except for the zone leaders and district leaders, we are all under six months on mission. haha it is crazy but it is fun. we all know each other really well. i am so happy to be in Winneba.

Sounds like you guys have had a great week! i cant handle hearing about all this amazing food tho.. haha that all sounds so good you don't even know.

ill have to figure out a way to get in contact with whoever is coming to Ghana so i can give them the scripture bag i guess.

Dang! I don't have any idea where they might be, but you can find some exercise bands at sports authority for cheap. and can you try to find me a calculator watch as well? That would be so nice!

haha i almost forgot to write about something that happened to us this week. our fist day in Winneba we went to the main street and we were walking by the road side when i just heard someone yelling at us. he was this super drunk rasta guy who told us to leave his country, or else he would kill us.. haha i haven't seen him yet so don't worry. then we saw a guy just walking around town... naked. BUTT NAKED hahahaahah people just didn't mind him or anything. it was a normal thing i guess lololol 

Anyways my week was awesome. interesting, but amazing! thank you for everything! stay safe and have a great week! love you all!!!

Elder Eldredge  

I AM GOING TO THE BUSH!!!!!!!

Hello, everyone! 

This week was great! this week felt like it was two seconds long.. it is insane! i had a great week tho! i got my package finally! hahahah the flickin chickens are hilarious! and the candy is well-appreciated! thank you so much! also i played the baseball game with elder Broadhead a ton! we played a world series, and i swept him of course.. he needs to get better closers. i would always come back in the ninth inning and win. lol

Missionary work is going so well. we have some great new investigators, and we committed another to baptism this month on the 23rd! i love the people in kasoa! sadly i am leaving tomorrow. i woke up this morning with some missed calls from the zone leaders, and a text with transfer news. I AM GOING TO THE BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahahahahahaha i am going to unknown territory a.k.a Winneba! my new companion is Elder Sakala from Zimbabwe. he has only been on mission for 5 going on 6 months hahaha just a couple of greenies in the bush. it will be quite the adventure. i am not sure if i will be white-washing the area, or what. i heard a rumor that they will stick us with cape coast missionaries for a week to learn the area and then just go for it, but im not sure. we are taking the whole zone from the cape coast mission. and it is huge! 32 missionaries and none of us have been there before. it is going to be such an amazing experience. my new area is called Ansaful. haha sounds cool i guess. hahah so today i have been busy packing and getting all of my stuff ready to leave tomorrow morning. its gonna be SWEET!!!! 

Anyways not too much to talk about. but this week will be interesting to see new land never before seen by Accra west missionaries. heck ya. 

glad to see all of the pictures and that all is well. miss you and love you so much!!! 

Elder Eldredge 

Elder Broadhead and Elder Fyar 

people love to play football on sundays here. made for a pretty picture

African toy.. these kids were walking around with their home made car: one juice box, four cans, and a whole lot of fun! lol

just a pic of some kid that i bought bananas from. the bananas here are incredible!

matching moles! hahaha

THE WATER CAME ON!!!!!

ma macheian! i realize that as i am writing this all of you are probably asleep, and will wake up to this email. so good morning! 

This week was great! trying, but great! we found ourselves walking around a lot trying to find people to teach. a lot of contacting. a lot of our investigators were gone for the new year. Ghanaians love the new year for some reason. it is a big deal. but our lessons we taught were awesome! i committed two people to be baptized at the end of this month, and we will commit one more this week. and we got three investigators to church! hahah i was so happy! although there were points where i just wanted to give up and just stop, the Lord blesses us for our hard work, and determination. December was the hardest month i have had on my mission. it tested my physical and mental well being. i am so grateful for the trials that i had tho. they forced me to think solely on the work, and forget about myself. doing the work makes you forget about how dirty, tired, discouraged, homesick, and frustrated you might be. the Lord will always provide away, but we have to work to find it. i love this gospel so much! put your full faith in the Lord. He knows you, and what you need perfectly. if we put our trust in something else before the Lord, it truly is foolish..  

This morning, THE WATER CAME ON!!!!!  hahahahaha hallelujah. i almost cried tears of joy. i never thought taking a shower with a hose would feel so amazing and clean. wow it was great. and we finally cleaned our apartment for the first time in a month. you don't even want to know what it looked like or what it smelled like. you can only imagine it as... death... but we brought it back to life hahah and i ate food off of a plate! a plate! haha finally. annnddd.. elder broadhead and i went to a store this morning in our neighborhood and found mountain dew!!!!!!!!!!! it is from Dubai, so it tasted different, but it was still wonderful haha. 

Yesterday, a recent convert had us four over for dinner. first of all it was a miracle that i found her house. it was dark, and i had only been there like two times before. when we got there, there was a giant cake, and alvaro which is this super good soda, and we all got two. then she brought out the biggest plate of rice i have ever seen in my entire life... I'm pretty sure she was trying to kill me. it took a good twenty minutes, but i chopped all!!!! hahahaha i could barely walk afterward. and this morning i woke up and it was one of those "why did i eat that much food? i think i am going to die." feelings. ( the Norton fam knows exactly what i am talking about lol) but it was so good. she is an awesome person. 

Looks like you had a great time in Mexico. i cant wait to go back there! I love TJ too much. thank you for all the pictures! i will try and send some in a few minutes.  also, my package hasn't come yet, but it could be in the office or something. the office elders have been super busy with president hill leaving and president snow coming. so hopefully they will be able to come to the apartment with it soon. 

Have a great week! love you all! 

Elder otoumfore ketchwe nana kojo Eldredge

me and the other elders in my apartment. the leaf represents your age on mission. my is super green, along with elder fryar, while elder kabwika and elder broadheads are getting a little yellow. 

the beautiful african sun. sorry for the low quality pictures.

just a pic from a while back, when i was with yao. his pants ripped and someone let him wear this cloth while his pants were being mended. then i wanted to wear one too. people just laughed at us.. i learned why later. apparently in ghana if you wear cloth like that and you are a man, it means that you just got circumcised... lololol

now i am just sending random pictures. this is the fabric for the suit i am going to have made. the picture makes it look kind of brown, but it is more of a maroon. it will be sweet!

i did a little decorating in my closet :)

elder broadhead and i popped the champagne with one of our friends selorm at the stake christmas party, that was a mess lol

me and one of L-----'s little brothers

elder nilsson and i after our birthday lunch. we were in the mtc together! he is super cool. sorry the picture is super dark..

my delicious birthday dinner! banku with pepea and chicken instead of thalapia! so good!! but so spicy!!

we showed up to a less-actives houses on saturday, and he gave us this. it is called ebba. it is a nigerian food made out of gari. which is just ground up casava root served with stew. it was different, but good. he didnt come to church tho..... 

MTN DEW!! hahahaha

A Christmas Party

Hello family!! one day i will learn how to say that in twi just so i can type in as the subject line in my email. 

I dont have too much to talk about. i feel like i said a lot on the phone. but i will try to remember some stuff that happened.

This week we haven't been able to proselyte as much as i would have liked. almost everyday we had something that we had to go to, and lost half a day or a whole day even. but we made the most of our time. we taught 17 lessons in about a total of two days work haha. i was sad that we couldn't see more people. on Christmas eve we had a stake Christmas party, and all of the wards did a musical program. and the missionaries from the kasoa zone had to do one as well. we sang how great thou art in twi, and a twi Christmas song called a fiesha pa, and then we sand little drummer boy, and feliz navidad. it was so fun!! there were drums and trumpets and trombones and it was a blast. Ghanaians love their music. then Christmas we had a good day calling. on the 26th we had another party for the ward. it was their end of the year party. people just kept giving me food and soda! i ate so much food!! and today we are going to a members house for a Christmas party with the whole kasoa zone and all of the keneshi zone! there will be 50 missionaries there. haha that is a third of our whole mission.. it will be fun. that is why i am emailing so early. we have to be there at noon, and it will go until 6 probably. 

But i hope you all have a great week in mexico! I will miss that place so much!! 

love you all, stay safe!! i dont think i can send pictures this week.. :( sorry! we have to leave the cafe soon. but i will send as many as i can next week! love you tons! tell oakley i said hi! and lexi. and tell him to email me! talk to you next week! 

Love elder eldredge