Elder Doggett's email from July 23, 2014:

"MAN'S BEST FRIEND" IS NOT A PET IN GHANA........

Dear Family and Friends,

                I ate dog for the first time last week! It was pretty good; tasted like beef really.  Except Elder Etim boiled it with WAY TOO MUCH fresh red pepper  It was insane. After gorging myself on dog and rice, my head felt like it would explode and I was sweating a waterfall.  I had to crash on my bed with the fan blasting into my mouth haha.  E. Etim was just laughing his head off, but even he was dying.  Man there is nothing here with enough base to neutralize the sting-- there's no milk!

                Elder Nakedi and I were discussing recently about one great evidence in an investigator's progression: they will volunteer information such as stories, insights, personal concerns, how they are feeling, etc-- without you having to ask. Most people will just sit and let you preach at them while you have to try and pry participation out of them. We have a few good people you exemplify this. One is P., we've been teaching him for a while, we met him thru his sister, whom the missionaries were teaching since before I came to the area. Another is K., we met him just last week. He used to attend the church some years ago.  He traveled for work a lot and fell out of contact, but now he has settled down with his wife and son.  He's ready to start over and fix some problems with his life; he and his family show a lot of promise, I'm excited.

                Our area is seeing progression, except I don't think we'll make our trimester baptism goal of 7. We've had some hang-ups and all the new people we meet and contact don't live in our area! We had to refer K. to the sisters; he doesn't live in our area either.  Our area is really small... The zone however, should be very close to our collective goal by the end of August.

                Transfer news is in: only one change in our zone. Everyone is staying together except for our Achiase elders.  Elder Boamah, the Ghanaian is shooting off to Sekondi.  We don't even have to do anything, he is just leaving from Achiase with his comp, and his comp will come back with the new missionary.  That's incredibly easy for us... and our pocketbook :)

Love,

Elder Doggett