I LOVE IT HERE!

Well right now I'm in an internet cafe with my companion and my two roommates. There's also about 10 other elders in here too from different areas including a couple of my friends from the MTC!!! My area is the Asuoyeboa area. My apartment is super nice (for Ghana haha).

First off, let me just say I LOVE IT HERE. I have no idea why. Like, literally everything about this place is just more difficult but somehow I still love it. Here's a list of things that are interesting/gross:

-People deposit their 'waste' on to the little ditches on the sides of the road.

-Little kids yell "BRUNI!!!"(brew-nee) everytime they see us. It means 'white man'. It's funny

-So far the only real Ghanaian food I've had is Banku. It's like fufu, but gross. It was with a fish stew and it was super thick. You have to take piece from the ball of Banku, roll it in the stew, and swallow it whole. I almost puked. My companion was laughing at me, but I guess I ate more than he did his first time.

-YES IT'S ALL AMERICANS IN THE APARTMENT!!!!! :D

-Basically in terms of stores, it's just roadside shops. There are no actual buildings with stores.

-At the apartment we usually just eat sandwiches with groundnut (basically Ghana's version of peanut butter, I honestly think it tastes exactly the same), LOTS AND LOTS of oranges (they're only 1 cedi for 9-10 and they are WAY better than American oranges), eggs (yes mom, I like eggs now. I usually fry em and make an omelette), and pancakes (the ingredients are cheap and you mix it by hand).

-So far at this one recent converts home we have eaten dinner almost EVERY day. She makes us pancakes (BEST EVER) and rice with red sauce and eggs. She's the best!

-This is a VERY high baptizing mission, however, it's tough to keep them involved.

-The Asuoyeboa area has a legit ward. It's super nice.

-I'm getting VERY tan.

-I will be sending letters to people now that I can haha.

-R.O.U.S's (Brian's referring to the Movie Princess Bride - "Rodents of Unusual Size") are real. They're called 'grasscutter' and they are expensive and people sell them on the roadsides.

-Everybody carries things on their heads except us haha.

-I washed my clothes this morning. It was VERY tedious, but not difficult.

-My shirts are already getting dirty.

-Having a shoe polishing kit is pointless, walking 10 feet turns them orange.

-Not many Elders wear shoes. Sandals are the way to go, and I agree.

-It smells like poop everywhere bleh.

-The people here all seem to be AMAZING cooks, even if i don't like the food sometimes, I can still tell they know how to make tasty things with what they have.

-Transportation is by 'TroTro' which is just a dirty crowded van that costs about 20-30 pesuas (like cents to a dollar) to get to your destination.

-If you saw how driving and traffic was here? You'd cry. I did. Think New Jersey X 10000000. And the drivers are 10000000 X more aggressive too.

-They way you drink water here is by 'satchets' which are just 5 pesuas and are like those milk packets we used to get in kindergarten. You just bite the corner off and gulp it down! (As long as it has a printed label on the side it's usually safe)

-I've already gotten used to the fact that bugs just crawl allllll over our food, doesn't matter what you do they're just going to keep coming.

-There's no garbage system in Ghana, you need to either pay someone to take it, or burn it.

-Even though the people here have almost nothing and are very poor, they still give us HUGGGEEEEEE (haha fuccillo) servings of rice and other stuff. It's great!

-English speaking? English speaking?!?! ENGLISH SPEAKING?!?!?! FALSE. If someone can speak english you're lucky. If they DO speak english they know about as much english as I know Twi. yeah. Pft....English speaking.....totally not true. But it's all good. Twi is VERY easy and it's a very how would I describe it.....laid back language. When I come home instead of saying, "really?" I'll just go, "saaaaaa". And instead of saying, "okay" I'll just say, "Yooooooo". And instead of saying no I'll say, "dabioooo (dah-bee-oh)" Haha it'll be weird. And I'll also say, "I'm coming I'm coming" to everything. And instead of saying, "kinda/kind of" I'll say, "somehow" (don't ask me why they say that, I have no idea. But when I come home I'll just be talking wayyyy different, AND I'll be doing this weird handshake with you all hahaha.

Can't think of much else just yet hmm... well pretty much I am enjoying it SO much even though it's tough to manage our money and stay fed and it's SUPER hot everyday and it smells bad everywhere and you're CONSTANTLY hoping not to get fed nasty stuff but yet I still love it. I haven't even felt sad or homesick or anything yet. It's just finally so different and so real and I'm helping real people it's awesome. People are soooo receptive here. They'll talk about anything and just love conversation so it's very easy to share the gospel.

Good you got the picture of me with the Mission President and his wife! Yeah we didn't actually go to the mission home at all. He came to the MTC the day before we left for our orientation since our group is so large. It's the largest group for the Cape Coast mission EVER! Oh and btw the Asuoyeboa mission is in Kumasi, which is inland. It's the second largest city besides Accra. So yeah 8 our of the 30 of us went to Kumasi and the other 22 went to Cape Coast areas. I was one of the few to Kumasi!

GOOD I NEED PACKAGES. Pleaaaase.

In my package please send me:
-Instant noodles (those alfredo ones and butter and herb and broccoli and cheese you know what I mean)
-Hot buffalo pretzels
-Ramen (if you can, if not, they have something similar here that I actually like more than ramen.)
-Any kind of candy that won't melt. PLEASEEEE haha
-Milk packets (like the instant milk powder, there is no such thing as milk here, at least not cow milk......)
-Clif Bars (chocolate or peanut butter)
-Anything else you can think of that is quick to prepare, will last a while, or is small
-pictures of the family

I hope Jen did well! Tell me how it went! Send me pictures of the snow! Even if it's just over e-mail. I just wanna see it!

I got the DearElder letters from you and dad's old friend the day before I left the MTC. So yeah that works.

My companion says Ghana mail is actually faster than pouch so I'll be using that for now.

Awesome for Jacob! I know he will have an awesome mission! Tell him if he wants to send letters just send them to the mission home! I'll be sending a letter for him next week, I still have to write it (you guys know me).

Anyways, that's about all I can think of this time. I'll e-mail you guys with more stuff next monday! I still have 10 minutes left so I'll write something to Jen quick too :)

Tell grandma and grandpa I love them and miss them! Thanks!

Love,
Elder Gagne