Ghana Friends

I wish I had pictures of all our the friends that we have made in Ghana. But I am the person who is so caught up in what is happening, I don't remember to take out my camera or when I want to take a picture of something, by the time I take my camera and get it ready we are already a mile down the road. This is a picture of Elder Latham with Terry  and they were talking so I had time to take a shot,

This is Sister Otoo, she came every Monday and Thursday morning and cleaned our office and even our back porch. 

This is Joseph Ahsume and he is such a hard working man, he is a guard at the other mission, but on his days off he fumigates the missionary apartments and cleans the poly-tanks. He has a wife and 3 children and the Elders Quorum  President. He is one of our favorite people in Ghana.

Below is our generator, when our electricity goes off this baby kicks in automatically 

Last month in Ghana

Our office Elders Morrison and Bay with Elders Iyip and Gudgeon going home to Nigeria and New Zealand .  To go to N.Z., Australia or the Islands in the S. Pacific, they have to fly first to Dubai, all night and then 15-17 hours to get home. Then our AP's Elders Hansen and Ikorro. This was the end of Oct. and we only had the 2 Elders going home at that time.

We went to a bead factory, they make beads out of recycled glass bottles they break the bottles by hand and then pound it to glass dust.

Put the glass dust into the little hole in the mold that this man is holding put a stem of a dried cassava plant in the middle (for the bead hole) and heat the mold in the little oven behind him. The stem will burn away and then they have the beads. Then they will paint each individual bead, the day we were there, there was just one painter. There was a festival and everyone had gone to that.

I wanted to take a picture of this cart, they are all over even in the middle of the traffic. They usually have one guy pushing and one guy pulling. They collect any usable or sell-able trash. Usually metal.

This is Ben and Pearl's new Baby Boy. He is so cute, they are deciding on if he will be called Eli or Garret. I will continue with more pictures on part 2.

The Royal Senchi on the Volta River

The Royal Senchi on the Volta River

This is part 2 of our trip to Volta, after the baboons, fishing villages, and mango orchards we have arrived at the Royal Senchi Hotel. It is very beautiful and really looks like something they have reconstructed at Disney World it is so beautiful and nice.

This is a Mama Peacock strolling through an eating area with her babies.

The river is right out in the back of the hotel, we are expecting the jungle tour next. They have boats you can go out in.

 Here we are on the jungle cruise, no jungle music just Kenny Rogers - kids are out swimming, taking baths, and doing laundry. No wild animals, even the Baboons are not here.Very Beautiful

Love going to the Volta River

We are stopping at Blue Sky to have some juice, We just delivered a stove to Adoajyiri, to the Berret's Apartment, the Lathams (pink and red shirt) came down from Asamankese to help some missionaries with a water pump problem. So after we  put in the stove with an oven ( Sister Berret makes awesome banana muffins) we had to go get a nice cold juice before we went back to Accra.

The young woman with the baby was at another table and just wanted to be in the picture. Sister Berret is in yellow and Elder Berret is sitting on the bench next to me, Terry is taking the picture.        

On our Saturday P-Day we went up to Senchi,
on the way we stopped, because there were about 30 Baboons on  the side of the road. This guy is saying where is my banana. We did not have any, on the way back we bought some bananas, and the baboons were not there. We drove up next to the Volta river, it is a very beautiful area. They have
little fishing villages along the river. The river isvery wide and goes from the top of Ghana, down the eastern side into the Atlantic Ocean.

We stopped and delivered some supplies to Elders in the other mission. The Berrett's took w us, they had been working up in Kpong with the other mission, now they are with our mission. They are a Senior Couple that had been evacuated from Liberia several months ago. In Kpong there is a brand new university that some U.S. members of the church have built, it is for public health degrees. Not only will it be great for the students, but will help out the town, because they will hire, cleaners and other workers.

This is a picture of the Ensign University, they are in their 1st semester with 24 students, they are still working on it, they were putting some of the pavement in (yes pavement) and we could not go in.

 The above trees are young mango orchard, below is a banana orchard, they cover the banana bunches with plastic to protect them until they are ready to go to market. The next picture is a garden next to the river.

This is a good area for agriculture because they can get water from the Volta River.

Having Fun in Ghana

Terry with Joseph. Joseph is a guard at the  other Mission, Ghana Accra Mission Home, and he also fumigates our missionary apartments and cleans the inside of our mission poly tanks. He is a hard worker, he has a wife and 3 cute children to support, and the labors here are paid very little.

It is getting so hot here that wearing a hat is not such a bad idea and they have lots of hats to buy off the street.

The missionaries enjoy getting together as a group during zone conference and have fun visiting after. This is the whole Kaneshie Zone. The Sisters always  sit in the front. When we were driving the Sisters home we got a flat tire, luckily some men were fixing some  cars on the
side of the road and they fixed it for us.

On the way home that day a cart overturned in front of us and it had to be cleaned up before we could move, Now you know why it sometimes takes us 1 or 2 hours to get to a chapel that is maybe 5-10 miles in actual distance.

One of the couples that we know had their 45th Anniversary so we went to dinner at the Movenpick and very fancy hotel out of Germany. Terry and I are in the front. I can't up load anymore pictures and I have a bunch so I might have to write another blog.

Just a word about Ebola they are being very careful in Ghana, We had an Elder sick with Malaria ( yes we have about a 1/3 of our elders who do not take Doxy everyday, not because we don't furnish the Doxy and remind them all the time, because we do, just because they are 19,20 and think they are invincible) and we had to take him to the hospital because he could not keep his Medicine down and was becoming dehydrated. When he was in the hospital he had a bloody nose (dehydrated!) and they had to report it and give him a blood test. He was negative and now he is better and back out teaching. I just wanted you to know that they are being very careful here and investigating anything.

Morning Walks in Ghana

I though I would send a little picture essay of our morning walks in Ghana. We usually leave at about 5:45 and get back by 6:30. In some of the northern climes we have lived in we have always it seems walked in the dark. But here the sun rises between 5:30 and 6:00 P.M all year round. This from our drive to the gate. It's Sat. so it is 8:00 A.M.
This is right turn from our gate . Notice the open gutters, my greatest fear is falling or tripping into a gutter, I have managed to avoid that so far.

Along our street, 4th circular road, there is a lot construction going on. This a pretty expensive area
of Accra, Last week one of the guards at the Gate, Alice a young girl came and asked us if she and her sister could stay in our maids room in the back of the Garage. Of course we could not, mainly because it is a Mission Office and the room is full to the brim with missionary supplies. Alice told me that they were living in an unfinished house (many people start a house and then stop many times for years until they money to finish) so lots of people just live in unfinished houses all the times,not necessarily their house.So Alice and her sister were living with some other people in an unfinished house and the owners came and told them to leave because they were going to start building again. The problem is there is no housing for medium and working poor. But they are building for the upper class.

Our 4th circular road is about 3/4 of a mile and then we come to a circle with grass in the middle and you take the 1st exit and you are on 2nd circular road or on the road to Osu. Osu is about a mile, it is the happening place with casinos, restaurants,little stores, fabric shops etc.

We only walk either 1/3 the way to Osu if we take the shortcut or 1/2 the way on our regular walk. Here is a nice display of mops and brooms and then sofa's across the street there is a basket vendor that usually hangs his baskets from the branches of the big tree that she sits under.

We meet lots of people on the road, even in the morning early, the road does not look very busy but on week days it is really busy even early in the morning. There are no laws about billboards, they are everywhere!

A little family lives here , it is right off the main road and they probably sell something during the day, but usually on weekday mornings they are all getting ready for school (4 kids) we always say hi to them and they are our friends, at least the kids are, they probably tell all their friends that they have  white friends, that would be as interesting as having a friend with 6 fingers.

This road goes down to a dead end then a footwalk that we use as a short cut if we are late or in a hurry to start the day. It is a very nice Street, because it is a dead end hardly any traffic. Look at that razor wire, no one is going to jump that fence.

 Government buildings are everywhere, This is a new Minerals Commission building they are building on the nice quiet dead end street . One of the reasons, I am sure they are in trouble financially,here in Ghana is that they are building so many huge government buildings.

Fancy new apartment building across the way a Hotel!

 This was a most precarious rickety wood footbridge just last week. Now a cement bridge, great progress! This is where you go over the sewer and go on a foot path to the main road.

This is one of my favorite houses on the dead end street, it is very nice and looks like maybe it was built by the British some years ago.

I will have to do a part two to a morning walk since my pictures are no longer downloading, it is a slow night on wifi.

WORRIED!!!!!!

I looked at the calender today and thought yikes we only have 3 months left. Already we are excited to see our family and sad to leave our mission and friends we have here, but most of all I am WORRIED ! I am worried because usually we are notified 3-4 months ahead of  time that couples that are coming to our mission and we do not have a replacement yet.  So I am putting out the word here and and letting you know about this great calling in the Ghana Accra West Mission.So all of you that are the right age and thinking of going on a mission this is for you!!!!

Reasons You would like to be the Office couple for the Ghana Accra West Mission!!!

1. You are Serving the Lord-helping the lives of the people you serve here on earth and beyond.
2. You get to know and help all these great young men and women, who sometimes act more wise and     mature then their age, and sometimes they don't, but they are fun to get know!
3. You will get to know and understand a culture and people you did not know before, and get
  to  know and love them, and know that the Lord loves all of his children.
4. You will be working and be very needed!!!! So the time flies.
5. You will be around about 20 other Senior missionaries that are in the Area Office which is about
   1-2 miles from the West Mission Office.
6. You are 1-2 miles from the Accra Temple
7. Even if you are not an expert at the job, people appreciate and are grateful for what you do.
8. We have been able to save money, because - our mission cost us what we figured it would and not more because we haven't had extra time to spend our money foolishly.
9.When we were called to Ghana, we were worried about our safety and we found out that we are probably safer here then we are in most places in the US.
10. There has not been any Ebola in this country and they are not letting any people in who are from the infected countries. If it does come will  probably evacuate us quickly.
11.You learn new skills all the time.
12 It is great to work together as a couple.
13. We have been very healthy not even a cold.
14. Our family at home has gotten several special blessings, that even they say was because, Mom and Dad are on a mission

13. They have such cute and happy children here they make you smile. A new baby being blessed in our Nsawam Branch.

14. You get to work with a very positive, happy Mission President.

Friends

This is our Sunday evening therapy group. We have about 18 West Africa Area couples that are missionaries. and these are all the ones that live in Alema Court. We used to live there and every Sunday evening we have a dinner and even after we moved they wanted us to come. Yeah! We love the company and some of these ladies are the best cooks every and without a doubt, it is the best dinner we have all week. One of couples, do the auditing, another family history, another self reliance, 2 are Humanitarian, one Public Affairs, and one is Lawyer and we are so sad because they went home this week because of a health problem. These are just wonderful friends we love them all.

Elder Wall busy doing a little bit of everything, I don't know why he is carrying mops and buckets around the area office.

A couple of stories to share with you. One of our Sister's who was going home, told me why she got interested in the church- she had a friend that was a member of the church and had been for several years. This friend had invited her many times to come to church or meet the missionaries and she never would. One time when she was with her friend, she was introduced to the missionaries. That night she had a very vivid dream. She  had a dream that she was in a deep hole and she kept on trying to get out but could not. Suddenly the missionaries appeared at the edge of the hole and they held out their hands and pulled her out of the hole. She decided to take missionaries lessons. This other story I heard from my friend Marva and her husband Lynn who are temple missionaries in Germany. This was told to Lynn by a lady whose children were grown. When she and her husband were young, the missionaries came to their house. They liked what they had to say but, they thought they would check with their Pastor and see what he would say. Well when she asked the Pastor, all he could say was terrible things about the Church. After he was finished berating everything she said to him, she asked, "isn't there anything nice about them". Well he said those young missionaries are certainly fine young men, I hope my sons grow to be like them. The lady immediately thought of the scripture "By their fruits shall you know them" (Matthew 7: 16) come into her mind.  She went home and called the missionaries.  The Lord is collecting his children as they will hear.  

Brother and Sister Bram with their two children from Nsawam.  Bro. Bram is our Young Men's President, the physical facilities representative.  Professionally he produces pineapple juice about 100 US gallons a week.  He employs 7 plus himself.  His story is not unique to those who wish to build Zion in their home areas.  After his mission, he was invited by a friend and missionary companion to join him at school in the United Kingdom, but he felt the need to stay in Nsawam to build up the kingdom and decided to not take advantage of the offer.  He located across the street from the chapel in a rental apartment, next to the missionaries and he aids them with whatever is needed.  Well for those who give as he has, sooner or later their prayers are answered.  His goal is to be able to employ the members who want to go to school or pay back their Perpetual Education Fund loans or start their own small business.  He even offers to teach them the juice business.  His goal is to help the youth in his home branch so they will have employment and stay in the area building the membership and strengthening the branch.  Over the last several Sundays we have driven around looking for lost Aaronic priesthood members and while doing that he expressed the yearnings of his heart to me.  I have been impressed with his dedication, organization and business mind.   Heidi and I made his desires a matter of prayer asking for guidance to know what we could do. About three weeks ago sitting in the bank waiting to cash a check, I visited with a bishop from Tema who told me of a couple from BYU-I Entrepreneurial Center who were in Ghana, "I know them, I said".  Thinking their knowledge might bless this budding entrepreneur, I wondered how to contact them, but had no way to find out.  Once again, prayer was the answer.  The Pothiers contacted me.  We arranged to meet at the Mission office and I shared Bro. B's  story.  A week later we again arranged to meet with Bro. Bram at the Mission office. Subsequently this Sunday we took the Pothiers to Nsawam to see Bro. Bram's operation.         

Brother Bram, Brother Pothier in the fruit squeezing shop.  1 machine, pots that have heat under them to pasteurize the juice.  I believe that this will be a great blessing to the members we so love in the Nsawam Branch.  Another testimony of God's Tender Mercies.