Elder Harris in Ghana!: My First Mission Email

OK, so here starts my first mission email!

Attack at the Airport

So I got to waiting for the plane, and the first person I saw was this guy who had a huge My Little Pony Applejack stuffed animal. It was amazing. I think he was a little socially odd, but who cares when you have a ginormous applejack? Also, when I got on the plane, one of the flight attendants was like "Hello Elder!" And I thought "You know me! You are totally the best!" And I know I told Whitney I would talk to and convert the first person I talked to on the plane, but it turns out that on my first two flights I sat alone, and had no one to talk to.

I flew first to Seattle, which was about an hour and a half, and then I flew to Amsterdam in The Netherlands, which was a nine hour flight. I followed Whitney's advice and did mostly sleeping.

When I got to Amsterdam, I made my way to gate F08 and sat down waiting, when all of a sudden I saw a couple of guys walking around, my age, and equally fancy. Turns out I had just met Elder N and Elder S! They claimed me, and we went to where the other missionaries going to Ghana were. Elder N and Sister D are going to Madagascar, French, & Elder Mi and Elder T are going to Benin, also French speaking, and Elder S, Elder G and I were all going to Accra. Also, there's a senior couple with us, the B's, who aren't as old as the title suggests. They were super cool with everything and we had a good time.

Meeting up at the Amsterdam Airport. Many thinks to The B's for this great picture!

The flight to Accra was slightly sketchier. We got on a KLM flight, which was not as fancy as the Delta flights I'd had up to that point. The guy next to me had like, 5 or 6 glasses of red wine, and then the lady next to me just slept the whole time, except for a brief time when we talked about faith, so I just sat there and tried to sleep for 7 hours. Then we got off at the plane,and I have never felt such a solid wave of heat in my life. It's beautiful, but I think I've given up a hope of ever not sweating again. Then they took us to the airport where the first sign we saw was about ebola. Joyful. Then we went to go through customs, and nobody could understand the people who were helping them, and when the guy asked what I had in my bag, I think, also based on the questions of people around me, he just wanted to know if I had anything interesting in my bag. Then once we were getting out, it totally got sketchy. People kept trying to touch my cart to help me out, and people kept coming up to me to ask for "tips" and it was just this constant barrage trying to get out of the airport. I very well think it might have been the most frightening thing of my life. Then, somehow I ended up in front, and my 3 excessive suitcases labeled me as someone fancy, so they all just flocked to me searching for more "tips" despite my protests that I needed no help with my baggage. Then all these people were trying to lead us to these cars, probably to cab us, and... when we all got in the car, we shared an enormous sigh of relief. Then we got back, settled into our dorms and fell asleep.

I got my nametag! I am officially Elder Harris, which means that I am the best! Haha, aside from that, my companion is still in Mozambique or something, so I'm in a companion trio with Elder G and Elder C. Elder C is going to Angola and speaking Portugese,but there is no Portugese program here, so he's just doing his best with English for the next two weeks until he leaves.

I have been getting better at understanding the instructors and the natives. Many of the native people speak English, but it's choppier and heavily accented, and often hard to understand. I love the MTC here. They gathered us at1:30 for class today. During that class,I also hit the jet lag pretty hard, and I can't wait to fix my sleeping schedule. Anyways, I think that's all for now! Catch you on the flip!

Etesen!

- Elder Harris

View from the plane window over Wales.

The Ghana MTC

Me with Elder C and Elder G

The following pictures are from the www.ghanamtc.blogspot.com website and President and Sister Robison (President of the Ghana MTC). Thanks to them for the wonderful blog and pictures.

American Missionaries with a couple of Africans.