Week of 20 November 2017

Internet is working and here are some pictures from last week.

Kids are starting a game of soccer.  They love it here.  This is right behind the Elmina Castle

Beautiful sunset over the ocean.

This is Johnny.  He is a domesticated African Antelope that lives up in Axim.

Wanted to show off some of our missionaries.  They are all awesome!!

Elders Buckhannon and Erhunmwunse

Sister Ekpiken and Juru

Sisters Ogbonna and Ekpah-Krakani

Elders Berg and Bayles

These are the Elders from the Shama District

Elders Uwaoma, Rugundana, Mbyui, Pahulu, Cossa, Ntow

Tarkwa District:  Elders Massaquoi, Singer, Wendel, Bills, Wilhelm

Piutau, Bingham and Jeppson

Sisters Mawasha and Ajike

So during the week, we had the "Finisher's Wanted" meeting.  They combined the January and March group.
They love signing the shirt!

We did get together as Senior couples for Thanksgiving,  But it was on Friday, not Thursday.  So here is our food.
We had chicken (our turkey), fruit salad, jello salad, rolls, stuffing, dutch oven potatoes, green beans, pickles, olives and lots of laughs.  It was really fun.

After dinner we watched Arthur Christmas because no one had seen it.  And then we had pie.
Banana cream, pumpkin and cherry.  It was a feast for us!

 On Sunday, we had two more baptisms for our Komenda branch. All the kids want to be in the picture.  They are so darn cute!

And this is Felicia.  She is the sweetest lady.  She has been trying to get her uncle to give her permission to get baptized, but he refuses.  He is Muslim.  The missionaries will keep trying, tho.

That's it for the week.  It's going by too fast!

We love you and miss you all.

Week of 13 November 2017

The drive on our computers that is issued through the church is not working.  All of my files are on that drive.  This is very frustrating.  And the one and only person who can help is in Benin this week.  So here I sit!!!

And needless to say - no pictures.

It has been a slow week with no computer.  Wayne and I left the office for a while to do apartment inspections again. 

On Wednesday, the missionaries that will be leaving in January and March came to the mission home for their "Finish Strong" meeting.  There's only 3 going home in January and 6 in March, so the president combined them. 

Also, the MTC informed us that they forgot to make copies of the non-citizen cards of the missionaries that arrived to our mission on November 7.  They use the non-citizen card at the immigration office to get a visa for a one year period.   So now we have to get a picture of each one of them.  Thank heaven the President and his wife are doing interviews, so they will be able to get the majority of them for me. 

We had another missionary go home on Thursday.  The Sorensen's were happy to drive him into Accra.  Another blessing.  We certainly did not want to go!

I guess that is it for this week.  We both wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.  There are so many things to be thankful for, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We love you and miss you all.

Week of 6 November 2017

Busy day on Monday (13th).  Didn't get to do anything I usually do.  So here I am a day late!

Last week was transfers.  We had 21 missionaries arrive in our mission and 10 go home.  Here are the "newbies" arriving.  There are some that are really excited, some scared and others that don't even care.  (or so it seems)

2 sisters and 19 elders

After we got everyone settled, the President started interviews.  Later that night, we had a spaghetti dinner fixed by Sister Hillam.

Here they are, ready to meet their new companions and start the best 2 years of their lives!

That same afternoon, the 10 missionaries going home arrived to begin their final interview with the President.  And we didn't have Fufu for dinner,  Everyone wanted chicken and rice!

This is Thursday morning, getting ready to leave the mission home for the last time for these ten.

In the back are Elders Udo, Edzeameh, Konan, Kazimoto, Quartey.  In the front are Sisters Johnny, Mofya and Ekarika.  And Elders Masendi and Mbarume.

We just got a small bus this time to take them to Accra.  They all fit in nicely.  We also took a Ghanaian that was beginning his mission to Accra.

Wayne and I didn't go to the temple this time.  We needed to get some shopping done because we are not spending the night, but coming right home.

And here they are in front of the temple.

So these are some things that went wrong this transfer:

1.  The Area Office couldn't find Elder Udo's passport

2.  I got a call on Friday morning that Elder Masendi didn't get off the plane in Uganda.  We put him on in Accra, so we didn't know what happen.  He finally made it to Kampala in the afternoon instead of the morning.

3.  The sister and elder that flew to Lagos and spent the night, missed their flight in the morning to their hometown in Nigeria.  And since there is only one flight a day, they had to spend another night in Lagos.

4.  We also had a missionary that was going home because of something he had not confessed prior to his coming.  So when we got him to the airport, President called and told us not to put him on the plane.  We brought him back to Cape Coast with us.

TRANSFERS ARE SO FUN!!!!!!!!

So Friday morning, we left with President and Sister Hillam and Elder Davis and his wife (Area Seventy).  We traveled to Axim, Tarkwa and Takoradi.  It took us 4 hours to get there.  We had District Conferences in each area.

When we arrived in Axim, we held the Adult Session from 4 to 6.  It was very well attended and very good. We then went to the place we were staying and ordered dinner.  There were 12 of us there.  It took 90 mins before our meal came.

This is where we stayed in Axim.  

I walked down to the ocean in the morning.

Quite the adventure.  The water we showered in was definitely brown and our air conditioner(?) didn't work.  At breakfast, I grabbed a glass of orange juice and ordered some scrambled eggs.  After drinking some of the orange juice and eating some pineapple and watermelon, my stomach started to feel very weird.  I ran to the bathroom just in time.  Everything came up!

Here we are just prior to me running:

Around the table is Sister Davis, Sister Nelson (wife of the 1st Counselor in the mission presidency), Sister Clements, and Sister Adjei (wife of the 2nd counselor in the mission presidency)

The six of us were together for most of the day.

We left at 9:45 am and picked up our husbands after their priesthood session of conference in Axim.  Then we traveled for another 2 1/2 hours to Tarkwa.  Once again the roads were horrible.  So we held the Priesthood session and then the Adult session.  During the Priesthood session the 6 of us traveled all over Tarkwa.  It is a beautiful little town.  It's a mining community, so there are a lot of well to do people that live there.

After the conference, we left Tarkwa to travel to Takoradi.  Everyone from Axim and Tarkwa traveled also on Sunday so that we could hold the Main Conference Session in the Takoradi Stake Center.

On our way back to Takoradi that night we hit a pot hole that ripped our back tire apart.  So there we were in the dark of the night trying to change a tire with these huge mining trucks passing and they don't go slow.  Sisters Davis, Nelson and Adjei kept singing hymns and saying prayers.  After 90 mins, we finally got it changed.  So the hotel in Takoradi was very, very nice.  It was a welcome sight.  

This was our view from our room.

Sunday's meeting was awesome.  It was really hot, but everyone endured and was well rewarded.

We finally made it back to the Cape and slept in our own bed Sunday night.  

We are loving it here.  I know I keep saying this but the people are so nice and so willing to help.

We love you and miss you all.

Week of 30 October 2017

What an awesome week!!!  We held our Zone Conference with Elder Nash and his instruction was very inspiring.  We are hoping and praying that the missionaries took everything to heart.

First off, we started with the Follow-up trainers meeting.  This is where the president brings in the trainers and trainees who have been here for only 5 weeks. 

 

They all seemed to be doing very well.

Then we had the Central Region Zone Conference.

 Elder Nash spoke how being a faithful servant of God and Jesus Christ.

Sister Nash talked about Preach My Gospel.

And here we all are. Awesome!

Of course, we had to feed them lunch.

Chicken and rice anyone?!?!

And here's the Western Region.

After the Zone Conferences, Elder Nash conducted the MLC with our Zone Leaders and STLs.

On Friday, Sister Hillam called Elder Durrant and had us both drive up to Assin Foso to get an elder that just wanted to go home.  So up we went.  It took about an hour to get to them.  But on the way there, we were stopped by the police to check driver's license, fire extinguisher, road hazard signs, the tires and registration.  Everything was good.  About 5 miles down the road we were pulled over again - this time for speeding.

Now there were other cars that had passed us and behind us that they pulled over also.  The police officer said that he would be giving us a ticket. And we said okay.  Then he said again, I will be giving you a ticket.  And once again we said okay.  He was expecting us to pay him some money to get out of it.  All of the other cars that were pulled over did exactly that.  So he kept Wayne's driver license and gave him a ticket.

And told us we would have to appear on Monday at 7:00 am in Assin Foso for court.

When we got home, we called Samuel Laing, our FM guru, and asked him what we should do.  He said he would take care of it.  

But also on our way home, going the other way now,  at the same police stop, we were pulled over and asked for our driver's license and Wayne told them that he didn't have it because not less than 10 mins ago, an office on the other side took it.  The new policeman looked at the ticket and told Wayne to go resolve the issue with the office right now.  In other words, go give him some money.  We did not.  Then a little bit further down the road at the very first stop we were pulled over again to check on the same items as listed above.  But when he noticed our name tags, he called another officer over and this officer started to tell us of one of our Elders that was in a tro-tro riding up to Assin Foso, who was making fun of the police.  This policeman was not a happy camper.  In fact, he told us that he should have arrested him.  Needless to say, Friday was not the best day we have had.

On Saturday, it rained and was very hot and muggy.  I did some baking and the sweat was just dripping off of me.  

Sunday we went to Komenda.  When we arrived the kids were all sitting down singing some church songs.

Trying to decide what to sing next.

During Sacrament Meeting one of the Branch President's children came over and sat next to us.  He is what one would call a holy terror.  But so cute!

Just wouldn't close his mouth!

So Sunday night it rained also.  And our power went off at 9:00 pm.  Off all night long.  It was a very long night.

That's it for this past week.

We love you and miss you all!