Hello

Hey everyone,

   I am glad that your weeks went well.  

   I guess that I can do the homecoming talk that Sunday, I havn't really thought about it except for some few funny things to say at the beginning. (We were asked this week which week he would prefer to speak.)  President Clawson didn't play football with us, he came just as we were taking a picture at the end to see how we were doing.  But he is a cool guy.  (see the soccer pictures from a few weeks before) That beach was pretty clean, there was only a few trash things, mostly plastic bottles and water sachet bags.  The market around our house isn't the cleanest place, so we only buy some few items to make a stew for the week.  Things like tomato paste, onions, pepe, fish.  The kids just call me white man or sometimes China.  It still makes all the whites angry when we are called China.  But the kids are much less annoying here then they were in Ghana.  Instead of 30 kids shouting obroni or China every hour, there is only like one or 2 every couple days.  I can handle that.

    This week we had a zone meeting of some sort with mission president.  We had instruction and Sister Clawson talked to us on cleaning food.  We also talked about things that needed to be done in the mission.  One thing that we are having a hard time with in this mission is that we are rebuilding a mission culture and we have missionaries from 9 different missions here.  So everyone is giving things that they did in their old missions and it is hard to come up with ideas to apply to our new mission.  Right now, everything we do is an experiment to see if it works like when we come home for the day (right now, we come home around 7 because that is when it gets dark) and then come June when the 27 new missionaries come, things will start to become normal.  I don't think things will become standard until next year when all these ideas are tried and we know what will work and what won't.  I will go home before that happens, so I am just laying the foundation for them to build off of.

    We taught an older woman this week who has been coming to Grafton branch for some few weeks now.  She lived in Europe for a while but came back because she got sick I think.  While she was living in Europe, she was discussing with missionaries, but she did it for bible studies mostly, because she said the church was too far for her.  Now she is here and she has been coming for a while.  So this week we started teaching her. We hope that before the month finishes, we can baptize there because she is excited for it.

    I hope that you all have a great week.  If I didn't answer all your questions, forgive me, I will try next week.  I love you.  

Love, Elder Warner Ashby