I'm so happy to be an uncle!

Elder Eppich and sweet little girl in Kaneshie, Ghana

February 25, 2013

My wonderful family!!

Wow I honestly don’t know where to start! There is so much crazy stuff I want to talk about and hopefully I can remember everything. I’m so happy to be an uncle finally and I’ll expect 2 more when I get home :) Bree is a cute baby! Ok, so my comp is an amazing guy who has been out for 6 months, he is from South Africa and his name is Elder Van Scheltema(scale-tema) he has 5 brothers and an awesome accent. I told him to write Karigan because I think they would be cute together. So my area is called Kaneshie and it’s on the outside of Accra. Its super poor and hard to see some of the things I see. I’ve seen more than enough things I need to see already (if you know what I mean) we were in sacrament meeting and the lady next to us just started to breast feed and I was like OH MY HECK I’m a missionary!!! Don’t let Kortneigh do that!! So Ghana is a Christian country and so everybody loves Jesus, we probably have 2 people a day tell us “come over and preach about Jesus”, but the only thing is they don’t keep their commitments, we had like 15 people committed to attend church but only a couple came but they brought their friends so we had 10 investigators there. Oh my heck, African kids are so cute! A few nights ago like 5 kids between the ages of 4-8 stopped us and asked us to teach them about Jesus, so we did! I have a few pictures Ill try and send. Oh and all the little Africans come running to us and grab our legs and say "Obruni, Obruni" (means white boy) and it’s so cute and funny!

So when we were at the MTC they told us to be careful when eating at the chop bars (little stands on side of road that sells food) and.........that’s all we eat, you just have to be smart about it, if the place looks super sketchy (everything looks sketchy) than we don’t eat it. But it’s so good! You can get rice, chicken, fish, bonku(Ghana food), pepe (Ghana food) for very cheap. So I can eat at one of those bars for breakfast, lunch, dinner for less than 5 cedis (2.5 American dollars) it’s pretty sad how cheap everything is here but it’s nice for me. For breakfast we have a lady across the street that makes us bread with eggs and veggies and its delicious!!! Only 1 cedi Haha and the fruit here is simply amazing!! The mangos are straight from heaven!! I’ve never tasted anything as good as it Haha. They’re only 1 cedi and they peel it for you and you eat it on the way. So our apartment is not very nice. Haha the best thing is we have lots of spiders, mice, and lizards as pets. I sleep in a net and I make sure there is no way in heck anyone of those can get in to bed with me! Today I washed all my clothes by hand and it wasn’t very fun! I dont kmow how people do it all their life, the little washing tool I brought works good, but like the neck area you have to scrub hard to get out because you sweat so much!"

So the electricity works about 50 percent of the time which stinks because no electricity means no water to shower, no fan, and no filter for the water. We had a night when we had no electricity and it honestly felt like a green house except 10 times worse Haha you are just covered in sweat the whole night because there is no air flow, but I love our apartment. And taking a shower with no electricity is easy we just fill up a bucket and then poor it on us with a cup but with the filter not working makes it very hard because we don’t have access to drinking water anywhere except to buy it. There are tons of little store venders on the side of the road that sells "pure water" and it cost 10 cedis but they are just in cute little bags that you bite off the edge and drink it up. We have a baptism on Wednesday for a man name Richard. He is so awesome but he works in a bad shop that deals with the law of chastity but he is trying to find a new job. We commit everyone to baptism the very first lesson but whether they follow through or not we will see, let’s hope so!! We ride bikes and walk about 50/50. One day we walked 10 miles or so. It’s so scary riding the bikes because the car drivers are so crazy here and the roads are so narrow, all the drivers do is honk their horn and we have to move or else we get hit Haha they are literally 6 or so inches from hitting us every once in a while, but we pray before we ride. Haha the thing I don’t like about riding bikes is it kills my bum!! I don't know how people ride their bikes so much.  I sweat like crazy!! Today was a killer and my arms got burned crazy bad, but it’s ok cause it will turn to a tan soon :) there is always a nice cool breeze but that sun shows no mercy, I guess during the rainy season it’s always cloudy so that will be nice. I think that starts in April. there are two other Elders in our apartment  - Elder Kanu (Nigeria) and Elder Rane (Alabama) both of them are awesome! Ok so one thing I’m craving here is a symphony chocolate bar! I kid you not if someone was holding one in their hand and was taunting me with it I probably take it and run with it. Haha  The mission field is so much nicer than the MTC, except the AC Haha the days go by quick here! But I haven’t been here for very long but I’ve learned so much about the gospel and you seriously feel the spirit all the time!! It’s so nuts! I don’t know what I’ll do when I get home and not have that with me constantly! We were teaching an investigator named Diamond and we had a member with us there that referred us to this girl and he had a crazy conversion story......he had a really bad stroke and his left side didn’t work very well, he couldnt lift anything with his hand and someone had to help him walk everywhere he goes, and he started taking the lessons and wanted to be baptized and when he came out of the water he was perfectly normall! He could walk (small limp) hold things in his left hand and even drive!! It was such an awesome experiences to hear that!! The people of Ghana are all a little different, the kids and women all love us especially when we try and speak twi (I have like 10 words down) the men look scary but if you smile and say etsen (how are you) than they smile and say something back, but some of the older men are grumpy (only some not many) we actually got kicked out of a house one time because we were teaching a 20 yr old kid and his dad got really mad. I’m never really scared except at night walking between shacks to get to the roads. The main roads are paved (really bad paving job) and everything else is like red dirt so it gets my nice kicks dirty :) well I hope I’m not forgetting anything but I love everyone and this gospel is so true!

Elder Eppich

Elder Van Scheltema (South Africa) and Elder Eppich

adorable African children

Elder Eppich's apartment

I'm excited to get out in the field and preach to the people of Ghana

**In the Ghana MTC the missionaries cannot receive mail so they let the missionaries write emails twice a week.

February 18, 2013

Family,

Well not much has happened since I last wrote you except keeping busy at the MTC. I have no clue how Kraymer lasted 12 weeks in the MTC, maybe the MTC is different here than Provo, but I’m excited to get out in the field and preach to the people of Ghana. So some of the things I forgot to tell you about is the native sister missionaries here don’t shave their legs. They have a bunch of little places to fill up our water bottles all over the MTC and I drink so much water because of the heat that I kid you not that I can pee for at least 45-50 seconds each time. haha There will just be random power outages here at the MTC for like a minute and then the power will come back on. I’m always hoping it won’t come back on so we can all take naps (I miss them so much! but I’m not as tired as in used to be) it’s funny how the Africans conduct music here, they will sing the first line by themselves and then they will tell everybody to sing and we start singing at the beginning, it’s really interesting. OH MY HECK so last night somebody left the window open at night for a little bit and if that happens mosquitoes get in and carry Malaria so I went and closed it and this huge spider came running inside and almost killed me!! Haha I totally forgot about the spiders here cause I hadn’t seen one forever and it wasn’t a small guy either! One of the Africans came and killed it! Wow I bet Kortneigh can’t wait to have her baby! I’ve been praying so hard the last week that the baby doesn’t look like Shayne hahahahaha Kade's funny :)  well I don’t have much time and I love all you guys, I’ve had really awesome spiritual experiences the last few days but also some trials but it’s for my own good, so keep sending the prayers cause I know they help! Love you lots, the church is true! Elder Eppich

February 19, 2013

So there was a few things i forgot to talk about yesterday and one of them was that a few days ago there was a ward party right next to the MTC and they had like a dj playing African music loud and it was so awesome!! all the little black babies were dancing at it was so cute! haha Oh i forgot to tell Karigan that I may have sold her to some of my African friends to be their wife. haha I think it was like 100 cds (ghana money) or something like that. They all want white wives haha President Graham said something that hit me a few days ago, it was....You have two years to serve your mission but eternity to look back at it.....and its so true! he told us to not have any regrets on the mission field. We leave to the mission home tomorrow at 6 am so hopefully once I get there they will let me check my email to see if Kortneigh had her baby.

Ghana MTC

Elder Eppich at the Ghana MTC. He is here 12 days then out into the field. Africans wear their ties short so he wanted to be like them.  He said he already knew how to sport this fasshion because of Uncle David :)

February 14, 2013

Family!!!!

Wow what a crazy week so far! There is so much to tell and not very much time. So mom can you fix all my grammar mistakes Haha thanks. Well the food is alright the first couple of days but I think I’ve started to get used to it. It’s just rice; beans, some spice sauce; fruit and either fish or chicken and water. Not too bad of a diet. But I guess once I get out to the field the food is different! My comp is a good guy! He is 24 and from Liberia. I’ll try and send some pictures. a lot of the African missionaries that are here are 22-25 years old but look like they’re 17-19 because of not being feed very much and getting their nutrients (thanks DR. Brown Haha) but its super sad!! Some missionaries came here with hardly anything and it kills me!! I’ve already given some money to my comp and some ties because they only had one. Guess who came to the MTC to speak to us yesterday?? If you guessed President Monson..................your wrong Haha if you guessed Elder Cook from the quorum of the 12 you’re correct!! It was very awesome to shake his hand and the spirit is so strong with him! He came with Bro and sis Curtis (2nd counselor in the Africa west mission) and bro and sis Clayton I want to say he is in the presidency of the 70. But Elder Cook talked about how awesome we are and DC 31. Both Brother Clayton and Curtis knew where Tri Cities was and asked how I was adjusting lol.

The first night I slept terrible and honestly very hard for me because I was thinking about home and 2 years is a long time but I just started to read my scriptures and everything is ok :) I’ve been having really bad allergies so I just pop a beneydrl in at night and I’m out cold Haha I only did that one time but I’m starting to get used to the heat at night and normally only wake up once. The MTC isn’t what I really expected kind of crammed packed cause they shortened our stay to two weeks and we’re always doing something. In the last 5 days I’ve been outside about 1 1/2 hours so that stinks cause I’m still white :( Wow there are so many languages here just at the MTC! Probably 65 percent of the people speak French, and everybody speaks English (which is still very hard to understand) but it’s getting easier, then there are about 8 different countries with their own dialect language. So it’s crazy!! I’ve already started to learn French because all the French guys love me. (Actually everybody loves me, but they make fun of me and my white skin) I know the basics of it and then in Ghana there dialect is called twi and everybody speaks that in my mission. I talked to a white missionary from Utah at the temple today and he said I will learn it for sure if I head out to the bush because they hardly speak English out there! But he learned most of it and said it wasn’t very hard. So today we went to the temple like I said and we went to 2 sessions because probably about half the African missionaries here hadn’t received their endowment, so we went twice and it was very nice! It’s a beautiful temple! Kind of reminds me of our temple but the colors are different! I don’t have much time left because I want to send pictures but I love you all and the church is true!!

Love,

Elder Eppich 

Companion (Liberia) and Elder Eppich

Best meal ever at the MTC

Elder Epipch and his "buddies"

This is posted in the bathrooms in the MTC for missionaries that come from places where they don't have toilets.

Elder Eppich and his buddies from the Congo

This is on the highway. People just walk right next to the cars when there is traffic and try to sell stuff. The drivers here are crazy!! There is no speed limit on highways and there are like 15 accidents a day. They just push the cars off the side of the road and go haha

He Made It!

February 8, 2013

Holy cow!!! I honestly feel like I’m in an oven! It is so hot!!! I started to sweat after 10 feet off the plane. The lady that I sat by was really cool so she walked me through the airport and customs and helped me get my bags, so I was the first missionary out of the airport. I just met a few MTC workers outside. So right now I think there are 37 missionaries here, possibly more but there are only three white people two from US and then one from Australia, most of them are from DR of Congo and Nigeria. My comp is from Liberia but he isn’t here right now, so I’ll meet up with him later tonight I guess. We ate lunch and dinner here at the MTC and so far it’s been good! We had rice with chicken for lunch and then spaghetti with this spicy sauce on it. The drivers here are so crazy!! It’s scary, they will just pass you on the ride side of the road even if there is no road haha and there isn’t any speed limit signs so everybody goes fast. I’m glad I don’t have to drive here. The MTC is really nice except on the bottom floor and in the hallways because there is no Ac so it’s just as hot as outside. Or rooms aren’t too hot but it’s going to take a long time to adjust too! Accra has most the roads paved and lots of old cars, but once you get out of the big city then the roads are really crappy and practically dirt roads. Well I have class so I’ll email again later. Love ya guys

-Kade

**Kade left the PSC airport Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 6:25 am. He flew to SLC where he had a 2 1/2 hour layover then flew to JFK where he met his traveling companion. They had a 3 hour layover at JFK then flew directly into Ghana - an 11 hour flight. We tracked his flight through the night. His flight landed at 3:53 am our time which is 11:53 am Ghana time - an 8 hour time difference on February 8, 2013. We were so happy to hear from him so soon and that he got there safely!

The Best Two Years Begin

And he's off... Kade was ready for his missionary service to begin. His mother and sisters weren't quite as eager. You would think sending a second missionary off would be easier but it's not. My friend said it best as a joyful torture. You know it's what's best but it's still hard.  I try not to dwell on all the what if's of disease, danger and going without food but of unselfishly sharing the happiness of the Gospel and inviting all to come unto Christ. We have experienced the wonderful blessing of having one missionary serving, I can't imagine the blessings of having two. Kade has been preparing all his life for this day to begin and now it's here. We love you Elder Eppich. Let the best two years begin.



Before the mother's tear fest began...

and the journey begins



Elder Leavitt and Elder Eppich in JFK airport awaiting their 11 hours flight to Ghana. A random stranger sent this to my cell phone! I love it!