Ghana Gazette

As we receive our missionaries, one group is bilingual - English and French then the alternate group is strictly English. As a result, we monitor ahead to be certain that we enough missionaries to provide companions for each missionary in their own language. With this group of 28, it became obvious pretty early that we would be having just one french sister (she's right in the middle on the front row) and no one to be her companion for the 16 days she was here. She comes from Lubumbashi, in the DRCongo, and we wrote the missionary department wondering what best to do - option one was wait until another french sister was coming, but we have no record of another one coming until next year - option two, just have her report directly to her mission president and miss the MTC and temple experience. Well, the Area Presidency in Johannesburg left the decision to me, and considering the options, we could just imagine the disappointment the sister would feel, not being able to come and weighed that against the frustration that not having anyone with whom to speak french would bring, and decided to have her come anyway and assign her with two english speaking sisters which would take a little pressure off the english speakers as there would be two of them to attempt to communicate with. Well, the Lord prepares the way, for completely unknown to us until the moment she checked in, Sister Sandison (seated to the immediate right(as you look at the picture) of Sister Nkulu) is a french major at university and speaks perfect french as well as perfect english - so the threesome worked out marvelously - one french, one english, one bilingual - the Lord prepares the way.
This group has 13 headed to French speaking missions (DRCongo and Ivory Coast) and 15 going to Ghana and Nigeria. They come from Nigeria, Ghana, Uganada, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and the D R Congo (KInshasa and Lubumbashi). The group is highlighted by having 7 sisters - the most we have had at one time here in the MTC. It may just be our imagination, but it seems the noise level is just a little higher with this group - not certain if that is caused by the Elders trying to get the attention of the sisters, or whether it is the French in competition with the English, or whether we just have 28 that speak at a higher level and pitch than those we've had before. We love them all and see great potential in the group.

This is our assembly room / chapel. It is designed to hold about 100 people if we sit them in pretty tight rows. We've had groups as large as 80 meet with us in what we can 'Mini-MTC' - which means youth groups will come in and we'll give them a tour and then explain to them our program at the MTC and outline to them a few things they can do to get ready to come as full time missionaries when they are of age. This particular group came from the Abobo STake from the Ivory Coast - 170 sweet souls - willing to be crowded, and anxious and attentive to garner what we had prepared for them. Obviously they weren't all youth - many of the leaders of wards and stakes were in attendance and what a thrilling experience it was to have such a great group attend our MTC.

In reviewing the pictures set aside for the Blog, we came to the realization that we had not posted two visitors that were with us for three days during the month of July (18 - 20) - They were from the left Brother Steve Allen - executive secretary of the Church MIssionary Committee and Brother Mark Lusvardi - managing director of the Church Visitor Centers. They were simply a delight to have here - and they provided us with some very valuable insights including the first of the DVD training discs that the church has been working on to accompany the manuel Preach My Gospel. Brother Lusvardi will always remember his quest to find an electric pencil sharpner that will work here in Africa and we will always reverently remember Brother Allen's direction to improve the menu in the cafeteria - we have been trying, but as of today (Oct. 9) the wheels are still turning (sort of a poor metaphor)!!

This is small vegetable market in the middle of Community 1 here in Tema. It is nothing short of hectic and almost terrifying to get down to it, so we don't visit too often. The traffic is so thick and "fender to fender" - I was going to say "bumper to bumper" but that is not really as big a challenge as cars moving into you from the sides quietly squeezing into the lanes (bad word as there aren't really any marked - but generally speaking they are quite polite and courteous and willing to give as well as receive. The vegetables you see are carrots (really not too edible), peppers, cucumbers, onions, yams, etc. Middle of fruit season there are a lot of watermelons, and all year round there are pineapples - but they are sold at a fruit stand and not a vegetable stand.
This is probably the staff of life - COCA COLA delivery truck. They only have about four flavors of pop here - coke, sprite, fanta, and pineapple. This truck was blocking a main highway going up to the dam backing to unload a semi full of pop at a small pop stand at the edge of the road - the red you see on the truck and on the top of the stand are cases of pop - primarily coke. Traffic was quite content to wait for the truck to back in and unload its prize treasure.

It has been an interesting little tradition we have here in the MTC to celebrate a missionary's birthday if it occurs while they (he or she) is here in the MTC. This is Sister Anyin whose birthday (I won't say which one) fell on the 4th of July - so instead of just the traditional happy birthday song with a second verse of "how old are you now, how old are you now......etc" we also wound up with a few Americans singing their national anthem (holiday you know) and then coercing the Canadiens to sing their's because it was only three day earlier. It is surprising how often the missionary will comment that this is the first time in their lives that anyone has acknowleged or celebrated their birthday - it has brought a tear or two not only to the eyes of the missionary, but also to the eyes of the Nielson's as well to see how much such a little thing means to them - truly does make for a Happy Birthday.

This is Elder Mintah (Alfred), his wife Rebecca and their two children Christabel and her newly born (four days old) Brother - Alfred JR. Elder Mintah was one of our Congo Missionaries who lives in Tesshie which is about 20 minutes from the MTC. He is the one who does all the scripture bag sewing, and some ties, and some back packs, does a little upholstery and one who followed his mission president's advise to go home, find a young lady (in this case a returned missionary) and begin a family.

This is Elder Kouassi - one of our missionaries from the Congo from the Ivory Coast. His wife is Lydia and their two children. We bumped into Elder Kouassi at the temple - he had come with a large group that had come to do Baptisms and other ordinances and he was able to come out and spend part of a day with us here at the mission home. Brought with him news of the some of the other missionaries in the Ivory Coast and seems to be doing very well.





So that gives us four mission grand kids that we have personally met and fallen in love with. Needless to say they won't replace the ones we have at home, but Grandma held the Mintah baby all during Sunday School today and seems all the better for the experience.

Two weeks late but here they are - the most at one time that we've had at the MTC, since we've been here. The last group the Ritchies received had three more than this group, but for us, it was a big, wonderful, busy group and they all were English speakers so that eliminated one of the challenges for us. In the group are: From United States: Elder Erickson (Idaho), Elder Faber (Utah), Elder Maestas (Idaho), Elder Brady (Utah), and Elder Booren (Oregon). From New Zealand, Elder Iosia - Another Elder from Ethiopia, Elder Mekonen who was converted by Elder Megerssa who was in the last group. Two from South Africa (Elder Hongwane, and Elder Mogotsi), one from Kenya - Elder Mbithi. Two from Sierra Leone,Elder Pessima and Elder Bangura. Five from Ghana and 19 from Nigeria rounded out this great group. The last evening after we had finished our farewell devotional and were enjoying a special treat in the cafeteria, all the groups sang their national anthems - of course some were very loud (19 singing the Nigerian one) some were very soft (1 singing the Kenyan or the New Zealand) - but all seemed so proud of where they are from and the traditions associated with the anthems they sang.

What a joyous morning - well, part of it was - we got up early to try all our machines to see if we could load pictures - no! We removed our Logitech camera to see if that was the problem - no! We removed "live messenger" - no! We were depressed - yes!!!! Then I noticed each time I tried to down load a picture, the blocker sign came on - and even though we had (supposedly) told the program to allow popups on this one program, it must have been blocking them anyway - so in loading the Internet I keyed on the blocker ICON - and in small print at the bottom it said (press control to allow pop up on certain links - hurrah, this was a "certain" link and we've got pictures again. To those who are patient, thank you, to those we've lost forever - we regret - to parents waiting a month to see a picture of their Elder or Daughter - voila!!!
This group was highlighted by only one Elder from outside Africa - Elder Hannis from England. How well he fit in with the group and how very much they appreciated him. I believe you can spot him in the photo. It was our largest group of Congolese that we've had -9 of them from Kinshasa, Brazzaville, Kananga,, and Lubumbashi. Also highlighting this group was our first missionary from Ethiopia - Elder Megerssa - what fine young man. His conversion story is a good one - they don't have full time missionaries in Ethiopia so the branch missionaries were the ones who converted them. Their door opener was "Would you like to go to America?" - He says that that really interested his father, but once they went to the meeting with the missionaries the spirit took over, and going to America became a minor matter of little or no importance. His family is now a strong element in the church at Addis Abba. Other countries represented in this group are: South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe. We had to recruit one extra sister to come and be a companion with the only English speaking sister - Sister Mensah from the Tema 2 ward - she is preparing for a mission and we expect to see her here again during our stay at the MTC.