They all asked us if we were part of the famous Durrants and we said of course we are. They all laughed. (We are related but they don't know us from Adam.)
The other two Senior Couples came in Monday night. Elder and Sister Clements came and spent the night with us. We got up early on Tuesday and went to the Mission Home for breakfast. We left for Accra about 7:50 am. Elder Havea drove in the car with us. He had to catch a plane on Wednesday. We got into Accra about 11:30. We were to take Elder Havea to the temple and attend the 12:30 pm session. We got there on time and got dressed. We then found out that we didn't have a reservation for our small group, but they would try to get us in. Which they did. And then it was all in French. Most of the people in the session were from the Ivory Coast. And they asked Elder and Sister Clements to be the witness couple.
Here is Pres. and Sister Stevenson and Elder Havea
Here we all are right before we left for Accra.
Here is Elder Havea in front of the temple.
Since the session was so big, we didn't get out until 3:30 pm. We had to go over to the Area Office to get passports and money. So with Elder Havea in tow and the two couples we all went into the office. First stop was to get the passports. I had emailed the person in charge and told her I would be there after the temple session. She didn't have anything ready for us and told me that I didn't email her. I have to learn patience, because that started the frustration. She needed the names of the missionaries and I finally remembered them all. While she was getting them put together I ran upstairs to the finance office to get the money for the missionaries leaving to go back home. They send them with some money, in case there is an emergency. What they don't use they have to give it back to their Stake or Mission President. He then turns it back into the general missionary fund. Anyway, the sister that I emailed (twice) wasn't there. I told one of the brothers in the office that I had missionaries going home on Wednesday and what was I to do. He asked me if I had the amount of money I needed. I remembered that I had the list down in my bag, so I ran downstairs, got the list, ran back upstairs and showed them the list. He asked if I had emailed Sandra and I said yes. I got the feeling he didn't believe me. But then he told me that Sandra had been sick for a week and never said anything to anyone. They did give me the money - all in 100's and 20's. It didn't mean anything to me at the time, but it did later. I then went back downstairs to get the passports and some other cards that are needed to get Non-Residency cards for the new missionaries. Also, I needed to get some medicine from the area doctor and he knew we were coming. I ran back upstairs to the medical offices and found out that he had left already. Someone called him on the phone and he told that he had left. Really!!!! He asked if we were staying the night in Accra and I told him he was in luck and that we would be back in the morning. The new missionaries from Provo MTC were coming in at 8:00 am and I told him that I needed to be at the airport at least by 9:00 am. He told me he would be in about 8:45am. We left the area offices about 4:45. We took Elder Havea to KFC in the Marina Mall. It should have taken us about 15 mins. It took us about an hour.
Here we are at KFC. It was so good.
Then Wayne and I took him to spend the night at the Alma House - hotel. We passed through a bunch of trees that were infested with bats. They were flying all over the place. Elder Havea was kind of nervous being all by himself and asked Wayne to give him a blessing. It was a wonderful blessing and made me realize that we were in the Lord's hands and that everything would work out. We got to the hotel and met the other senior couples there. Come to find out that the President made our reservation alright, but it was for the wrong night. We asked if they had any available rooms and she took a long time to find us three. Anyway, while we were waiting, we heard a familiar song coming from the lounge area. It was "Love at Home". So Sister Clements and I went over to the lounge and went in. The person singing was LDS and when he saw us, he started singing our names and welcoming us to Ghana. That was fun. We all went up to our rooms exhausted. Then our phone rang and it was Dave Holman calling us from downstairs. His son, Elder Holman, was one of our departing missionaries and they came to pick him up. They are also from our ward in Salem. We had a pleasant visit and then let them get to their rooms. They had just spent the last 14 hours on a plane. We all had breakfast in the morning. The Holmans joined us also.
Here we are at breakfast. E/S Clements, E/S Sorensen and the Holmans.
After breakfast, Wayne and I drove to the Area Office to meet with the doctor and the other couples went to the airport.
So we got there at 8:45 and the doctor didn't show up until 9:10. More frustration. Good thing the other couples went to the airport, because the flight got in early and the missionaries were coming out through the doors. Oh, by the way, we found out that the missionaries that attended the Ghana MTC did not receive their credit cards from the church for their monthly subsistence. So we went back upstairs to finance and asked them what we needed to do. They told us to call SLC to find out where they were. After we got to the airport, we put three missionaries in each of the trucks and started our drive back to Cape Coast. After about 30 mins. the missionaries were all asleep. We got back to the Mission home about 1:30 pm. The president fed them lunch and then put them all to bed.
Here's our new missionaries.
Here they are eating their lunch of chicken and rice.
Our day wasn't over yet. At about 2 pm or so, the departing missionaries started arriving to the mission home. We weighed their bags and got them ready for their famous FuFu dinner. It was then that I realized I needed different denominations of the money so that I could give one person $50 and a couple of them got $80 and one of the got $150.00. So I went over to President Stevenson to ask him what I should do and he had some money from the US that I could use. It all worked out.
The new missionaries got their first taste of FuFu that night. They were all good sports about eating with their hands. The testimony meeting was awesome. These young men and women sure do grow up. After the meeting, we had six sisters come to our home along with the Clements to spend the night. I don't think the sisters slept at all. And of course they were late in the morning. They had to be at the mission home for breakfast by 6:00 and didn't leave here until 6:15. A bus took all of the missionaries into Accra and the temple. That night, the APs called me and said that 2 of the missionaries going to Uganda were bumped from their flight. I called the travel department and just left a message. They did call me back that night and I explained everything to him. He said that we would need to take them over to the Alma house to spend the night. So that's what they did.
So on Thursday, I called the Accounting Dept in SLC and they told me that the missionary's subsistence cards were held up in customs. But they couldn't tell me when we would get them. Then our internet service went down in the afternoon and was off all day Friday also. We had decided that we would put the new missionaries subsistence on their companions card and then they would have their monthly allotment. But couldn't do that until the internet came up. Friday morning the Clements called and said that they had been robbed. But they were asleep in the house when the people robbed it. They took their TV and VCR and all of their Ghanian money. Elder Clements woke up and scared them away.
We decided to check our filter system to make sure it was working okay. The church provides a system for every apartment in countries where the water is unsafe. So we were told our filters were changed the week before we moved in. But I don't think so. This is a picture of the filters. There are three in each system. The dirtiest one is #1 filter, then #2 filter and the white one is the 3rd filter. they hadn't been changed since the last couple was here. Good thing we haven't been sick because of it.
Love you all and miss you.
We had a grandson and granddaughter get engaged this weekend. We are very happy for the four of them.
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