June 24, 2013

Greetings everybody!

I hope you all had a good week!  Mine was pretty normal I guess you could say. My companion wasn't feeling well the end of the week so we just did a lot of sitting around which was pretty boring, but we had to do it so that he could start to feel better.  To be honest...it was kind of one of those weeks that's really hard to come up with what happened.  One funny thing that happened during the week involved a mouse in our apartment.  We've been seeing him every now and again since we got there but we could never catch him.  Then in the morning, Elder Moffitt found it hiding in some extra room that we don't use and so I grabbed the cutlass, trying to be the big tough guy and I said that I would kill him. But of course, when the mouse jumped out of his hiding place and ran straight for my feet, I jumped in the air and screamed like a little girl and then I jumped up onto a chair.  We started chasing the mouse around the apartment but he kept getting away.  The little guy was just too dang fast.  We ended up losing him and so we were pretty ticked.  Luckily the next night, I heard a scuffle in the kitchen and ran into see what was going on. As I arrived at the door, I saw one of the elders standing there and he had his foot on the mouse. It tried to get away again but then he crushed the little annoying guy. So that was the last of little Jerry.  So....that's really all I can think about...Today we came to Takoradi and played soccer and now I have a headache because it's so dang hot here. haha.  Well, life's good and everything is still going well.  I can't believe that next Monday will be in July....time is just flying by. Well, talk to you guys next week!

Love Elder Kitchen

p.s. sorry if this email just has a lot of random stuff that doesn't make sense...my head hurts right now...

June 17, 2013

What's up!?

How's life?  Everything is still pretty cool over here. No complaints I guess. :)  Most of the interesting stuff that happened this last week was at the end of the week.  I went on splits with the district leader so that he could come and do the interview for the baptism that we were having. Her name is Celestina and she has been progressing really well since we got here. The other missionaries were the ones to start teaching her.  We got hit pretty hard by rain that day while we were out so we got pretty soaked. Whenever it rains here it just seems to pour. There doesn't seem to ever be just a slight drizzle.  So the interview and everything went cool and so the baptism was cool for Saturday.  Then Saturday the person who was to fill the font went to do it but after it was about knee-high, the city water stopped flowing and so the water was really low. So when you are in
Ghana you just do it anyways.  Elder Moffitt did the baptism and he did a really good job.  I thought it might take a couple of tries because of the water level but it was just once.  The next day she was confirmed at church and everything was good.  So right now we are just trying to build up our teaching pool and find serious investigators.  The members are still helping us out a lot and so it's making the work a lot easier.  Not too
much else it going on, but I'm still really happy here in my area. Hopefully it continues to go well like this.  Well, I'll talk with you all later!

Love Elder Kitchen

June 10, 2013

Hey everybody!

Had another great week this last week.  Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes.  It was quite the birthday...flooding, seven people stuffing into the bed of a truck with two of them being Tongans...it was awesome! haha.  As for this week though, we have mainly still just been getting used to the area and the members have been helping us out a lot. It has been nice to have a lot less responsibility and just be able to focus on my area.  My companion is adjusting well to everything about as fast as you really can adjust to this place. There are no other missions like these ones here in Ghana....I think I can even guarantee it. We should be having a baptism this coming Saturday.  We came and started teaching somebody that the past missionaries were teaching and she's come to church both Sunday's we have been here and so we thought she was ready and so did she. So we'll be preparing her for this Saturday.  During the week we have been working
with some new people that have been referred to us by the members and so hopefully soon we will be having some strong investigators. It's hard coming into a new area when both you and your companion have never been there, but we are managing.  Today we went with a big group of missionaries and also President and Sister Shulz to a cocoa processing factory. It was pretty fun to see how they process everything and get it ready to export to the world. Ghana is one of the leading producers of cocoa and they supposedly have the most quality cocoa.  So the picture here is of us just outside of the factory. Left to right: Elder Moffitt(my comp.), me, Sister Shulz, and Elder Dikane(from South Africa).  Well, we'll talk more next week! Love you all!

Love Elder Kitchen

June 3, 2013

Hey everybody!

I've had such a great week and also day today!  Thanks for all of the birthday wishes!  I've had a pretty good birthday today.  I'm sitting in a vodafone cafe and so I'm actually pretty freezing because of the a/c, also because we were walking in the rain most of the day so I am pretty soaked.  So last Wednesday I left Praso and went and met the person that I would be training. His name is Elder Moffitt from South Jordan, Utah.  He's a really good kid and we have been getting a long really well. So from there we went to our new area  which is called Sofokrom which is about 15 km outside of Takoradi. It's a small town but it has so many members there.  The church has been there for quite some time.  We don't live in our area and so we have to take a short tro tro ride everyday.  Our welcome into the area was really great. The members have been so nice to us and willing to help because we are both new to the area and so we don't know where to go or anything.  So once we got to the area, we just started getting to know places and everything.  Saturday was a lot of fun because there was chapel cleaning and so we went so that we could meet a lot of the members and then after they set up a volleyball net and we played with them. The only problem is that I tore a huge hole in my shirt! Haha, don't worry though, I was able to fix it with my needle and thread. :)  Church on Sunday was great because there were so many people at church!  I haven't been in a place like it since I was home. I'm really excited to have this as my final area.  Today we all came to Takoradi and played soccer and basketball.  It was fun to see a lot of the missionaries that I hadn't seen in a long time.  We ate some good fried rice for lunch and the other missionaries paid for me because it was my birthday!  So pretty much, I'm really loving everything right now.  I can't believe it's actually June of 2013 already.  I don't know how I'm going to leave this place in August.  haha. Well, thanks again everybody for the birthday wishes!  I'll talk to you all next week!

Love Elder Kitchen 

May 27, 2013

Hey everybody!

So I have good news! I received the call to be a trainer which means that I will be released as a zone leader and I will be moving to a place called Sofokrom which is near a bigger place called Takoradi on
the coast in the Western Region. I'm excited to go there because I hear that it is a nice ward with lots of members and also it's on the coast so I'll get to see the beach a lot. It's going to be sad to leave this place though. I've been here for over seven months so I've made a lot of friends that I am going to miss. It's certainly time for me to go though. I've been waiting to be released as a zone leader for quite some time now. President called me last Tuesday and gave me the news and so I went down to Cape Coast on Friday for a meeting where all those that are training came. I ate ice cream and awesome brownies that Sister Shulz made. It's been too long since I've had brownies. So I'll be leaving on Wednesday to pick up the person I'm training and then we will head over to the Western Region of Ghana. I'm pretty excited. It's weird to think that I'll be going to my final area to finish. I'm going to make sure to leave a great impression on those in Sofokrom and finish strong. Thanks for all of the support! Have a great week!

Love Elder Kitchen

May 21, 2013

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty good and also fast.  I can't believe that it is already time to be writing again.  The weeks are going pretty fast. We went on splits in the middle of the week and I stayed in my area. It has been raining almost everyday where I am.  It's nice because it cools the weather down a little but it's bad because everything ends up getting really muddy and then when the rain goes away, the sun comes out and it's super hot and humid.  Splits went well though. I was with a new missionary from Botswana.  It was fun to learn about that country because I've never really heard anything about it.  It seems to be a pretty nice place though.  During the weekend, my companion and I had to go and try to fill up the baptism font but we couldn't because there was no electricity to pump the water out of the bore hole into the church so they zones baptisms had to be pushed back another week.  Sunday was a good day at church. We had one
investigator come. We were hoping for more but it was okay.  Transfer news is this coming Saturday so we will find out what is going to happen and I'll let you know next week.  I'm running short on time so I'll just write more next week!  Have a great week!

Love Elder Kitchen

May 14, 2013

What's up everybody?  

It was fun to be able to talk to some of you.  It was weird to talk because it makes all of you feel like you are so much closer than you really are.  The coolest part is that there is no more next phone call...next time will be face to face!  This week was pretty normal before that though. It still seems like we don't get enough time to be able to actually be in our area as much as I would like to be.  It feels like there are only about 3 days where we are usually able to go around our area and so things seem  to be going a little bit slow at the moment.  We did have a new investigator come to church on Sunday.  He's probably around thirty years old and he came to church with his father who is the 2nd counselor in our branch.  We are hoping to be able to meet with him tomorrow to start to teach him.  One investigator named Peace is hopefully coming back into town this week.  For her, we still just need to get permisson from the father so that she can get baptized which is hard because the father doesn't live in Praso and so we are only able to talk with him on the phone. Hopefully everything will work out.  So nothing else is really happening...transfer news will come at the end of this month on May 25th so everybody cross your fingers so that Elder Kitchen will get what he is hoping for!  :)  Well everybody, have a wonderful week and we'll talk next week!

Love Sam