New Area

 

Winneba from the Bishop's house

 

Dear Mom, 

 

I'm back in the bush! Winneba is absolutely gorgeous. I'm still on the coast and I'm loving it! this place is really clean.  It's the first place I've seen that has garbage trucks, so it's nice to live here.  The work here is kind of the same as it was in Kwabeng, as in it's somewhat of a rest area. It's a welcome slow time.

My companion is Elder Maloba, who is from the DR Congo.  He is awesome!  He goes home at the end of the transfer, so he is super chill.

 

This week, we met some of the members of the ward.  One of them, Brother Toufor, is a massive health nut. He has aloe and prickly pear cactus all over his compound.  He is, at some point, going to make us a smoothie that is supposedly a super drink. I don't know - ask Dedi if it's good stuff, she might know.   The members here are really nice. Sunday meeting was just like Kwabeng, all Twi speaking, so i couldn't really follow along.

 

We were fed banku with this really nice stew with some special meat to go along, I'll try and upload a picture.  I'll also try to upload a pic of a shot of Winneba. (From wikipedia:  Banku is a Ghanaian dish which is cooked by a proportionate mixture of fermented corn and cassava dough in hot water into a smooth, whitish consistent paste. Served with soup, stew or a pepper sauce with fish.)

Banku (in the back) with crab and stew

I love you guys so much i pray for you everyday.  I love you!

Love, Elder Seanshine Keddington

Does it really surprise me (or anyone) that Sean prefers the chill life of the bush?  Nope, not at all.  I'm so glad this move seems to have been a good one for him.  Love hearing from that boy!

Moving to Winneba

Dear Mom, 

 

I got transferred! My new area will be Winneba. It used to be part of the Cape Coast Mission.  My new companion will Elder Maloba from DR Congo!  From what I've heard, he is an amazing guy.  He goes home at the end of July.  I've also heard that we baptize in the ocean. I'm super excited!

I got my package.  Thank you for everything! All the missionaries loved the goodies. The Warheads were awesome!  We need more of them - they were gone too quickly.

We went to our zone training this week.  President Snow was saying how when bad things happen in our mission, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror, and say "you are not the problem, you are the solution".  That has really stuck with me.  There have been times in my mission when i wasn't living up to my potential.  But I will dig deep and do what I need to do.

I love you guys so much.  I forwarded some pics of the zone training.

I love you forever! 

Elder Seanshine Keddington

He also said on FB that the rains are really heavy, but they haven't had any problems - yet!  He sounds wonderful and is really excited to serve in another part of his mission.  Ghana doesn't feel so far away on Mondays!

Zone training

Moving down the coast a bit

Winneba

 

Winneba

Winneba

The Rainy season is here!

Hi Mom, 

This week was pretty good. We confirmed our recent converts this week, so we are not failing.  Our transfers are this week.  We will find if I stay or leave.  My companion and I are not fighting as much anymore, but I feel like we are both ready for a shake up. 

So, this week I don't have a ton to share. I watched Hayden Bush's mission call opening on facebook! Mexico! Man, that's crazy!  He was always the little kid in our little threesome and now he's going out. It's crazy!

Thank you guys for the package. I am loving my mp3 player and the music. 

Today we had a zone vs zone water balloon fight and our zone won. It was awesome!  Afterwards we got pizza!

I love you guys.  I'll send some pictures.

Love Elder Seanshine Keddington

I also got to chat with him for a bit on FB.  That's a really fun way to instantly communicate.  We're pretty good to keep our visit short, though:

Hi Mom

Hello my love!

How's the homefront?

It's good. You got your package?

Yep, thank you for everything in it. Especially the CTR rings

You're welcome! Did you like the socks?

 

These are the cool socks we found for him at the Jazz Game!  Long live Stockton to Malone!!

Oh man! those were Awesome. Elder Fryar was jealous. Have Connor email me.  He wanted a detailed reaction to the Jungle Book song.

We are definitely in the rainy season. A little 2 year old girl was killed in Tema Onj on Friday.  She was washed away in a flash flood 

Oh my gosh - so sad!! Please be careful!!

I know.  They are saying don't take risks.  When it rains get to cover!

This time last year, there were terrible floods in Accra.  There were incredible and sad stories that we were hearing from that part of the world including this from some missionaries:

http://ldsmag.com/the-water-got-so-deep-we-were-forced-to-start-swimming/

It makes me nervous, but he's in the Lord's hands.  He looks happy and sounds great.  What more can I ask for?  We are blessed.

More than one way to communicate!

Elder Friday and Elder Keddington (not sure who the other Elder is)

Today's post is going to be a bit of a mash-up of several "Sean" contacts from this week.

First, I looked at my phone Sunday afternoon and realized that I had missed a call from Ghana!  That will send you for a loop!  I listened to the message and it was from a dear woman named Lisa Trujillo.  She is from Ogden, but took a service group to Ghana to do medical stuff.  She invited Sean's district to join them for some activities, a mexican dinner and wanted to let me know that he was doing well.  Phew!  What a great message!  You just never know.  What a sweet woman to take her time to contact me.  I am very grateful!

Then, as I was working at my computer this morning, my facebook messenger box popped up with a "Hi Mom!" from Sean.  How fun!  We spent the next couple minutes chatting about things.  It was great!  I've needed a way to get direct answers from him!!   Here's a couple of excerpts:

Hi Mom!

Hey love!! How are you today?

I'm good. I am really happy right now.  I weighed in at 232 last night. That's 70lbs!

Wow! That's great! How 

are things with you and Elder Friday?

Better. We are working out our differences

That's good. Not as bad as last companion though, right?

Oh, not nearly

Good. You need pants!! How much are pants if you buy them there?

Like 30-40 cedis. Also all my socks are shredded

How are your shoes holding up?

My Danskos are done. I swerved away from a taxi and tore open the sole. they were already pretty worn

What are you using for shoes right now?

I bought a pair of Hunters for church at 30 cedis off the street.  They are ok. Still have my Timberlands, and for normal days just my exercise shoes

OK - does your camera still work? Haven't seen pics lately. You need to send me pics of the dead Danskos and socks and any problems with the pants or shirts, pronto!  I need to get them replaced at Missionary Mall

Yeah, but uploading is really slow and at my cafe it almost always fails, Elder Msomi from South Africa takes his memory card and uploads with no prob so he forward my pics to me then I to you

 So, still a man of few words.  Holy cow, though - all of his "supposed to last his whole mission" stuff is dying!  Not sure how I'm going to send replacement shoes.  He may just have to buy off the street stuff.

Then, I got his letter for today (I told him in our chat that he needed to write a nice big letter for the blog.  Haha!):
 

Hey Everyone!

This week was one tough week, but ended amazing. I was having trouble with my companion and it made me angry. I was miserable until President called. He said he felt impressed to call me and ask me how I was. After I explained my frustrations, he told me that I was doing an amazing job. It was a very uplifting experience.

The end of the week was superb! We had our baptisms! It was for a couple. Now we are focusing on a brother and sister ages 18 and 15 of the same family. It will be amazing.

This week will be awesome because I will get my package with my mp3 player and my music on Wednesday finally.

I love you forever!

And finally, I got pictures:

 

This is the service group from Utah

P-day fun

Making memories