Half way home

hey fam!

can you believe it's been one year?? it's gone way too fast. lets think about what has happened in this one year. when i left, lisa was pregnant and brynlee couldnt yet walk. we didnt have beatles rock band, and shan and kev lived in nevada. we had just moved davis and becca into their house and shauna couldnt drive. oh and mylie hadnt started ballet classes.

thanks for the one year song, i havent listened to it yet, i'll see if i can put it and your hymn 44 song on my ipod to listen to it! i'm way excited, i'll probably wait until saturday (the 21st) to listen to that one.

i can't really decide if/how i want to celibrate the one year mark. some missionaries in the apartment say there's a place to go eat good pizza but it's 18 freaking cedis. i can eat 18 meals with that much money. i'd say it's the equivalent of about a 40 dollar meal back home... so we'll see haha.

shauna is 18!?! thats even crazier than me being a year on the mission. there's gotta be some mix up... someone did their math wrong... happy birthday shaunamac. you too sidneymac.

mom you'll be so happy about what i did this morning... i took money out of an atm!! i'll start trying to think of things to send you guys. tell me if i'm still spending too little or too much...

Here's Jesse on his bike with his former
companion Elder Halling.

speaking of packages, i got that package you told me about this week! the missionary newsletter came last week (sorry i was in a rush last week and forgot to mention it). the picture book is cool, people always find it entertaining to see pictures of my long hair. it's sweet to have the extra room in the back of the photo album so i can put other pictures there. i'll be sending a cd of pictures home soon, i just gotta find a place in takoradi to burn cd's. it should have the following; pictures of my time with elders ekeatte, adams, and halling taken by my camera, pictures of me and elder kalinja that were taken on his camera (i don't remember if i've already sent those to you or not), and pictures of me and elder adams taken on his camera (don't expect too many new ones with elder adams that you don't have already, though, cause he always had his camera with him so i used his camera a ton and just copied his stuff. so most of that stuff you already have i believe).

Upper middle shows the dreaded stairway.

i forgot to mention that we have bikes here. our apartment is not in our area, so we ride like five or ten minutes every day to get to our area and lock them up and walk around the area. there's one part of our area that missionaries dread. between essikado and mempeyasem there are two big long stairs. they are both up on hills, and there is somewhat of a valley between the two with a road passing through it. so the two stairs make a V shape. missionaries have counted it and it's like 100 plus steps down and up. i'll take pics for ya.

Well, his week was another week of finding people to teach. our ward mission leader chastized us pretty bad cause we don't have alot of people at church, but the members dont give too many referals so what do they expect haha!

well im still loving life over here. i love and miss you thanks for everything. half way home!

love, elder mackay