Week of 24 October 2016

Boy are we glad this week is over!  I think everything that could go wrong, went wrong!

Monday was a day for getting everything ready for the people that were going to stay behind in Cape Coast and to do our job while Wayne and I went to Accra.  Elder and Sister Clements drove in on Monday and spent the night with us.  We got up and 4:00 am and was on the road by 5:00 am with Elder Hasiata to get him to the airport by 9:00 am.  Traffic was horrendous and we had to go to the area office first to pick up his passport and travel money.  We got to the airport by 9:15 am.  Not bad.
Wayne dropped us off at the gate and then he went to park.  I couldn't go up to the check-in counter with him so I just stayed in the main foyer.  Soon Elder Hasiata was waving at me to join him and the airline person checking him told me to come also.  When I got to the counter, the airline told me that he was not listed on the flight roster.  I told her that we have a ticket right here, pointing to Elder Hasiata's ticket.  They even tried to look it up using all 4 of his names.  So I had to call the church travel and ask them for their help.  About 20 minutes later, we got a text from Kobina (area travel person) with the confirmation number.  We went back up to the counter and they finally let him through.  Praying that he would make his flight.  He would be traveling for 36 hours.  He would arrive in Tonga on Friday.

Wayne and I then left to go back to the area office to get the other 16 passports and money.  We were going to go to the temple, but the Clements were too tired.  And we had to go to the MTC to get some books which was in the city of Tema, at least 45 minutes away.  And of course we got lost!!!!
Finally found the MTC, got the books and headed back to Accra to spend the night.  We had to pick up the 6 missionaries coming in from Provo Wednesday morning at 8:00 am.   On our way back from Tema, we were in the right lane coming up to a 3 wheeled small truck.  When Wayne went to pass, a car in the left lane sped up and almost hit us.  Wayne had to stop really hard in order to not hit the 3 wheeler in front of us.  I don't know how he managed to stop.  It was inches between us and the 3 wheeler.  There must have been angels watching over us because if we had hit him, he would have flipped and surely been killed.

Okay, Wednesday morning, we got up and had a little bite to eat and headed for the airport.  We got a text from the Mission President telling us the flight had been postponed and wouldn't be in until 9:30 am.  So we went shopping.  Got to the airport at 9:15 am and found out that they now wouldn't be in until 1:45 in the afternoon.  What a bummer, especially for the missionaries.  Elder Clements got a text message from another missionary in Takoradi and told him that one of the Elders from the Ghana MTC left a package there.  Well, we didn't have anything else to do.  So back out to Tema.  We ate lunch at KFC and then went to the airport.  Two missionaries that were leaving to go to Nigeria came up to us and asked if we couldn't give them 10 Cidis so that they could wrap their suitcase in like Saran wrap.  We only had a 20 so told them to buy a sandwich or something.  Finally, we saw some missionaries coming our of the terminal, but it was not our group.  These nine missionaries were going to Kumasi and of course, they had missed their flight and NO ONE was there to meet them.  After about 45 minutes, someone came up and said he would take care of them.  But they were all hungry, so we gave them 380 Cidis so they could buy some food.  While our six missionaries got nothing.  (Can you tell I was a little upset)
Well, we started on our way back to Cape Coast about 3:30 pm.  And arrived at 7:30 pm.  Everyone was exhausted.

Thursday morning, we got up at 4:30 am to get ready to go back to Accra with the 16 other missionaries leaving.  This time we had Elder and Sister Sorensen with us.  They had a temple time of 12:30, so we had to hurry.  And 4 of those missionaries had to be at the airport by 3:00 pm to make sure they got their flights.  Here's the missionaries that were leaving.  Good bunch of elders and sisters.

Elders Biney, Bobobi, Antwi, Lagaiti, Tohouri, Mabibi, Machingamidze and Reyes.

And here is everyone

And of course we had to get a picture of our wonderful Office elders and AP.

Here I am with Elder Sorensen trying to tell him everything he would need to do, because we would be at the airport with missionaries.

We didn't leave the office with the bus and Sorensen's.  We had a few things to do before we left.

We did get to Accra in time to see the missionaries before they went into the temple.  And here they are on the temple steps.

We got Elders Lagaiti and Tohouri to the airport at about 3:30 pm.  Wayne dropped me off with those two and then went back to pick up two more Elders.  I left E. Tohouri at his airline and told him hat I would be back in a minute.  Then took E. Lagaiti to his check in and waited to make sure he got through.  Soon he was waving me over to the check-in.  The person was telling me that he needed a Visa to fly to Fiji.  Well, I guess I was really tired, because I told her that our church travel people do thousands of tickets everyday and they would have told us if we needed a Visa.  She said she would go check and be right back.  She took his passport and we lost site of her.  I ran back over to E. Tohouri and he was just getting done.  I told him to stay with me and we went back over to  E. Lagaiti.  Finally she came back and said that he could go through to weigh his luggage.  No Visa needed.  When all was said and done, they had about 30 mins. to get up to their gates.  I told them to run.  About 5:00, Wayne showed up with the next two missionaries.  He dropped them off and went to park the car.  They were both flying to Kumasi.  E. Akudago got through with no problem, but E. Antwi waved me over to him.  The airline person was telling us there was no such flight.  We had to go over to the sales counter.  I didn't understand how our travel people could get a ticket for a flight that didn't exist!!!!  Anyway, we got him on the same flight with E. Akudago, but had to pay 330.00 cidis.  Wayne and I had to use our personal credit card for that one, because we were all out of cash.  So now we had to wait for the other missionaries that had gone to get KFC.  They arrived about 6:30.  All 5 missionaries leaving at 8:45 got through with no problem except Sister Namutebi.  Her luggage was over weight.  They made her rearrange the clothing and she ended up carrying about 5 dresses on the plane with her.  So we had 3 more to get through for the night.  Elder Reyes and Magopolo got through, but Sister Ziqubu had a lot of trouble.  Her ticket from the church said she flew out on the 27th of October, but in the computer at the airlines it said the 27th of September.  I was on the phone again with Kobina.  I tried 3 times to get him.  He told us to sit tight and he would see what happened.  We would have paid for her flight, but it would have cost us 800 cidis.  After an hour or more, Kobina finally texted us a confirmation number.  We got up to weigh her bags and both of them were over-weight.  They made us go buy her a plastic bag and then wrap it after she had packed it.  There was another 20 cidis.  I couldn't believe how many shoes and purses she had in her bag.  So we finally left the airport at 10:15 and I was starved.  We went and got a bite to eat and then went to the hotel.  On Friday, we were just getting ready to leave when Sister Ruskin called and said her flight had been cancelled that morning.  I again called Kobina and he told me to have her stay at the airport for the next flight, which was at 2:30 pm.  and if she didn't get on that one, he would take care of her and her arrangements.  We started home and got to Cape Coast about 2:00 in the afternoon.  When we came into the office, I logged on to finish up a few things and my computer didn't work.  I just started to cry.  I was tired and didn't need to have one more thing go wrong.  I called the are office IT guy and connected him remotely.  I think everyone got home okay.  

Because the sisters had stayed at our apartment on Wednesday night, I had to wash all of the sheet on Saturday.  It took 12 batches of wash.  All day. 

We left sometime in the afternoon to get some fruit and vegetables and this is what we found on the steps of our house.

Yep, it'a a scorpion.  It's about 7 - 8 inches long.

We love and miss you all.

Week of 17 October 2016

It's going to be a beautiful day today!  No rain clouds in the sky and a beautiful blue.

It rained on the the 17th, 20th and 21st.  And when it rains here, it really comes down!

Our new office Elder is Elder Hepworth.  Of course they always try to goof off, also.

When wee came to the office on Tuesday, as we drove out of our drive way, there was a line of army ants making their way across the road.  This are the ants that form a line of defense for the smaller ants to crawl through.  It was very interesting to watch.  And of course we ran over quite a few, but they just went back to the original line filling in the holes where the dead ants laid.

We have been working like crazy to make sure everything is ready for the President and transfers.

On Friday the President has all the new trainers come into the Mission home and trains them for their new assignments.  So all of the sisters in our mission are now trainers.  These missionaries are doing a wonderful work.

Saturday was our transfer party.  Somehow they talked me into making dinner for them.  But I really didn't mind.  We had a chicken casserole, some rolls and cinnamon pull-a-parts.  Elders get really crazy when they all get together.  We just keep reminded ourselves that they are kids.

The zone leaders make the transfer calls after they ate.

So Wayne got to teach on Sunday.  All the men and women met together and of course, we talked about marriage again.  Our young Elder's quorum president did some translating.  It went well.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it because there was a lot of discussion and laughing going on.  We didn't know what they were laughing at, but it was good.  

So we start our busy week on Monday.

Love and miss you all.

Week of 10 October 2016

This week we finished up getting the money prepared for the Elders and Sisters that get "travel" money within their areas and all the paperwork for the packets.  We are now ready for transfers.
En Elder Snow came to visit on Tuesday.  He is a Seventy and is over Church History.  He went to the Ola Chapel (place where the land was dedicated for missionary work) and Baptism Beach.

We got a new Office Elder on Monday.  He is Elder Hepworth.  Elder Johnson is leaving on the 26th for his new assignment.

It rained again and the road was very muddy.  We are looking forward to the dry season, I think.  During that time the winds blow from the Sahara Desert and brings all kind of sand and heat.  It is called Harmattan.

Didn't take any pictures this week, didn't do anything exciting.  So we decided to show some food that we eat.

Here is green pepper (usually the size of a tennis ball), tomato (don't know if this is a Roma, but they are small also), bananas (about 3 to 4 inches long) and a grapefruit.  The oranges and grapefruit never turn yellow

Here's our staple for lunch.  I make 2 loaves of bread every weekend.

And here is our milk powder and a bag of sugar.  The sugar is very course and it never cooks into anything.  So cookies and cakes crunch when you bite into them.

They asked Wayne to teach next Sunday in Priesthood.  Someone will have to translate into Fante for him.  Our 1st counselor in the bishopric just left our ward and is attending another ward that speaks English.  He tried to change it here, but nobody wants to speak English.  It was one of the very first wards in Ghana.  Hard to change their ways.

So have a good week.  We love you and miss you all.

Week of 3 October 2016

We had one easy week this week.  I have started putting the "Akwaaba" packets together for the 21 missionaries we will be receiving on the 26th and the "Safe Journey" packets for the 17 Elders and Sisters going home.

We did have MLC on Tuesday and while the Zone Leaders, APs and President Stevenson were meeting, Wayne and I took the chance to walk on the ocean beach and get to Baptism Beach.  This is the beach where they were doing baptisms even before the missionaries came.  Of course they all had to be done again, but thousands were done because they all believed in the gospel.

It was a beautiful day but still hot and humid.

We got a picture of a fishing boat up close.  This is one that the people make out of a tree.

There are palm trees up and down the coast

So we went back for lunch.  Here is a picture of the chicken and rice we eat all the time.  The little packets are water.  They call them sachets.  

The red sauce is very spicy.  Burn the tongue and make you sweat kind of spicy.

And a picture of the Ola Chapel.

  

So I was cleaning the curtains again and guess what dropped on the floor.  Yep, more baby squirrels.  This time I got a picture of them.  They all were making little chirping noises.  I was afraid the mother would come and attack me.  So we got rid of them quick.  But here's all three of them.

We had another baptism on Saturday.  There were three people baptized.  

Elder Johnson on the left.  Then Mercy, Sylvester and Elder Simpson.

And Mercy's daughter Chikka in front.  Elder Johnson has a "Kinte" tie on.  It is the native material of Ghana.  We tell them to smile, but you can see what we get.

It rained again most of the day Saturday and all day Sunday.  And the power went out for about an hour and a half.  It got mighty warm in our house.  But we survived.

That was our week.  We miss you and love you all. 

Week of 26 September 2016

It was a rainy and very humid week this past week.  And when the sun does come out, it is horrible.  You start to sweat the minute you go out the door.  And yet these people work and play all day long in it.  Maybe we will get used to it also.

We have a school up near us and we heard that the parents were pulling their children out because of the road.  It was constantly muddy and the kids couldn't walk anywhere without getting their shoes coated with mud.  So when we came home on Tuesday, this is what we found.

It was piles of blocks of cement, tiles, pipes, logs, dirty diapers, clothing.  They must have gone to the dump and brought it over so that the mud holes could be filled up.

People from up in the area got out one day and shoveled all of this mess in the mud holes.  Wayne and I would  have helped but I'm sure we would have died of heat exhaustion.  The elders were out helping on Saturday.  And we supplied some water and told everyone thank you for their hard work.  They were very appreciative of the water.  So they are hoping the cars and trucks will smash everything down and make it a smooth road.

This is what it looked like when they were done with one of the pile of trash.

Here's our little lizard that joins us every morning for breakfast.  

 The President and Sis Stevenson were gone all week interviewing the missionaries.  So we received a call from Brother Kofie Bolley (Vehicle Coordinator) that told us we would be receiving a brand new Tro for our mission.  And it would be coming Friday.  The old Tro (van) was in bad shape and it was a stick, so most of the Elders had a hard time driving it.  Here is Elder Garry, hugging our old Tro.

And here is the brand new one.   Everyone wanted to be the first one to drive it, but Wayne said no one was going to drive it until the President got back.  

It is a very nice tro.  

So the Elders had to take the small car and when they went to start it, the battery was dead and also this is what they found underneath the hood.

 We were all jumping around try to kill it. And finally did.  

We had a baptism on Saturday.  Beautiful family and one special little 8 yr. old.  When she came up out of the water she started crying and hugged her daddy.  It was awesome!

Conference was wonderful.  We got to see four sessions live and the Priesthood session was recorded.  We had the four missionaries from our compound join us both Saturday and Sunday.  I went through 4 loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, 4 chicken breasts and a whole package of noodles and lot of cheese.  I made cinnamon rolls for them also.  They sure can eat.  

Anyway, the week was good.  We survived and all is well.  We love you and miss you all!

Week of 19 September 2016

Here is our picture of Elder Stevenson and his wife with us.







Also, here is a picture of the bird that knocks on our windows during the morning.

It was a very quiet week for us this week.  We both were able to catch up on some work that was neglected last week.  It rained so hard on Tuesday, we thought we were going to be swept away.

There was a huge puddle on the driveway at the mission office.  

And our road up to the house was awful.  And it was so humid! Yuck!

Elder Holman's parents came to pick him up and stayed most of the week with us.  It was fun to have them and to be able to talk and be understood.  They left on Thursday morning and would not arrive in Utah until Friday night late.  They flew through Istanbul.

Elder Holman

Friday morning, Wayne went onto the bathroom and found a scorpion.  I think we are through with the animals.  REALLY!  And we had two huge black spiders one of the nights the Holmans were with us.

I made some cupcakes for a luncheon that President and Sister Stevenson had for all of the Stake Presidents in the Ghana Cape Coast Mission.  Hopefully they tasted good.

Saturday, we went down to the city.  We heard some singing and a band playing, so we waited for them to come to us.  It was some people from a church group singing and praising the Lord.  Everyone was dancing and singing.

We were invited to have goat fufu on Saturday but left the office before it was ready. So the office elders got to eat it. I wasn't too heart broken, but know I will probably be eating it some time.  

It rained so hard on Sunday, too.  We couldn't hear the Stake High Councilman speaking it was so loud.  

Just got done listening to the Women's Conference.  Very, very good.  Sister Oscarson talked about a talk given by Elder Stevenson called - "Rise Up, Oh Men of God".  That song is our mission song.  We sing it at every MLC, District meetings, Zone conferences, and the last night the missionaries are here.  We replace the word "men" with "servants."

Can't wait for conference.  We will be able to watch the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions live, but all the others will be watched after they are over.

We love all of you. And miss you. 

Week of 12 September 2016

Wow! What a week!  On Monday we were trying to get everything ready for transfers and our trip to Accra.  About 12:30 the APs came into the office and told us the President wanted us over in his house.  When we went outside there were a lot of people just hanging around outside and three new cars that weren't there when we came to work.  There are no windows we can look out to the front in our office.  When we got over to the house, one of the gentleman outside opened the door for us and we were face to face with Elder Stephenson and his wife.  Bishop Davies was there also.  He had gone to Sierra Leone and Nigeria and came by Cape Coast to see the castle.  What a pleasant surprise.

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.

Well that's all.  We are very glad to be here and among these wonderful people.  Next week will be a whole lot better.

                                                      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.