Week 60: Riding a Motorcycle Through West Africa

Jumping right in, I was out in a little village called Twepiase doing interviews for the Zone Leaders. It is a twenty minute motorcycle ride out there and twenty back and on our way back I was like "Wow, I'm riding a motorcycle through the jungle in the middle of West Africa." It was one of those moments that reminds you where you are and how crazy it is.

A chicken was stuck in our apartment compound for a few weeks so me and villa found it killed it and ate it. It didn't have much meat... honestly it wasn't that good...

We paused to rest one day and were waving to people as the passed on the road in front of us. We waved to and greeted this guy and he stopped, put his hands straight up in the air and said, " Yes sir yeja (a twi word meaning respect) good evening!" Hahaha me and villa were cracking up. Villa then said, "Ok new goal is get someone to raise the roof." Haha Ghanaians are so funny sometimes. 

Shout out to Memmott cuz I have better luck in finding jerseys than him.

Shout out to Wunderlich, the most feverish missionary I've ever met and who tried to shake my hand while holding a plucked chicken.

Random news: I will be training a new missionary and taking over a new area in Asuom for the next while. 

Also it’s likely that because of transfers I will be returning home on September 18. So that is exciting!

Week 59: Ayriem and Agradda

You know that scene in the Martian where he has to rebuild a mars rover and do some other crazy science stuff just to communicate with earth? Well that is how I feel right now. We just took an hour long taxi ride through the middle of a huge forest on a nasty dirt road to get to nearby city so that we can email home. That is life, I guess...

This week was pretty sweet. We are teaching a ton of kids from a nearby school. We play basketball there on Saturday mornings and so the entire school knows us. (We are two white guys who dunk on people all day... its not hard to miss us.) They call me Ayriem (lighting) and they call Elder Villa, Agradda (thunder) haha pretty cool I’d say. Then later in the day we go and teach all of them.


Out here in the deep bush there isn't much variety to what we eat. I’ve eaten the same things the whole week. Tuna sandwich, egg sandwich, and indomie (top ramen in the USA). Oh and I made french toast also.... I’m gonna get scurvy from lack of variety. Is that how you get scurvy?


Two of the people we have been teaching were baptized this week. We are so happy for them. One is named P. the other is J. They are great and so happy to be members. I’m so grateful to be in a fruitful area!

Week 58: Awesome Transfer and New Companion

Update from Dad: Elder Janda wasn't able to send a formal letter this week. However, we received some brief correspondence from him. He is loving Asuom and his great new companion Elder Villa from Hawaii. Elder Janda is very happy.

Week 57: Transferred to the Bush, Asuom

Big news of the week is that I am getting transferred to the deep bush of our mission. I am going to a place called Asuom. It is very far from everything, haha, so it will be an adventure. My new companion is Elder Vila from Hawaii. He sounds like I cool guy and he is from the best place in the world so that is cool. I'm expecting we will have a lot to talk about together, haha.

Had calamari at a Chinese restaurant this week. It was nice.

Emailing might be a challenge for the next little while as the internet in the bush is somehow. So if I don't email some weeks, know that I'm probably ok, but might be in some survival situation or something, I don’t know…the bush is crazy so we will see. Hahaha.

Here is a YouTube video about Asuom where Elder Janda will be serving for AT LEAST the next 6 weeks.