Here is our family for the Christmas Season - they arrived on December 11 - brave souls leaving home to come and serve in the mission field and spending their first Christmas in the Ghana MTC with President and Sister Nielson - I'm not sure the blue tie and red skirts were particularly intended to add to the festive season, but they do color up the picture nicely. After asking Elder Mullaney (back row middle) to step down one step and found he really had already done that (he is our tallest elder in this group from Hawaii) we took the picture. The group consists of two Americans (Elder Mullaney and Elder Hansen from Utah), we have one Samoan (Elder Schwenke) standing next to Pres. Nielson on the back row and one South African (Elder Ngwenga) standing to the side anda between the two American Elders. There are two Elders from Uganda, and the balance including the five sisters all come from either Nigeria or Ghana. They have been well mothered by our new caterer, and have seen a few exciting moments when the non-locals try some of the Ghanaian dishes for the first time. We are grateful to have them as our family for Christmas 2007.
Meet Soeur Kargbo...this was a very happy reunion..as she was one of our missionaries in the DR Congo . We had received word that she was coming from Sierra Leone with a group to the temple. They travel 5 days to reach Accra and spend three days in the temple and then travel 5 days to return. We took our MTC missionaries into Accra for the program and the "lighting" of the temple grounds for Christmas...you can see some of the lights in the background. It was beautiful. The Ghana symphony orchestra provided all the music and the Stake choir and a Stake childrens choir sang Christmas songs in English and in Twi. It was a wonderful day...and the Christmas Season is officially underway.
Four Sisters and 12 Elders - but with one catch - only one of the missionaries was going to a French Speaking mission - all the others were English bound. We foresaw the problem two months ago, but any changes or juggling were left to the last week and we just couldn't see telling the missionary he had to wait 6 more weeks to come - so we did our best!. He is the Elder in front of President Nielson - Elder Logbo from the Ivory Coast. We didn't know what we could do about a companion, but again, one showed up - one of the English bound missionaries spent a little time in the Ivory Coast and knew a bit of conversational french - so for the first week, Elder Logbo had a one on one teacher with our French instructor - and bunked and ate and studied with his partially French speaking companion - and we got him to the temple twice and sent him back to the Ivory Coast for his practical experience at the hands of President Ounleu. It was hard to see him leave without the full MTC experience, but I feel it was the best for him. The other 15 hail from various corners of the world - there is one American from Virginia who will fit in really well here in Africa, one South African, five from Sierra Leone, three from Ghana and five from Nigeria - All but three will be serving their missions in Nigeria. Small groups we get to learn names and faces much better than the larger groups. A nice break for us.
Here is our family for the Christmas Season - they arrived on December 11 - brave souls leaving home to come and serve in the mission field and spending their first Christmas in the Ghana MTC with President and Sister Nielson - I'm not sure the blue tie and red skirts were particularly intended to add to the festive season, but they do color up the picture nicely. After asking Elder Mullaney (back row middle) to step down one step and found he really had already done that (he is our tallest elder in this group from Hawaii) we took the picture. The group consists of two Americans (Elder Mullaney and Elder Hansen from Utah), we have one Samoan (Elder Schwenke) standing next to Pres. Nielson on the back row and one South African (Elder Ngwenga) standing to the side anda between the two American Elders. There are two Elders from Uganda, and the balance including the five sisters all come from either Nigeria or Ghana. They have been well mothered by our new caterer, and have seen a few exciting moments when the non-locals try some of the Ghanaian dishes for the first time. We are grateful to have them as our family for Christmas 2007.
Meet Soeur Kargbo...this was a very happy reunion..as she was one of our missionaries in the DR Congo . We had received word that she was coming from Sierra Leone with a group to the temple. They travel 5 days to reach Accra and spend three days in the temple and then travel 5 days to return. We took our MTC missionaries into Accra for the program and the "lighting" of the temple grounds for Christmas...you can see some of the lights in the background. It was beautiful. The Ghana symphony orchestra provided all the music and the Stake choir and a Stake childrens choir sang Christmas songs in English and in Twi. It was a wonderful day...and the Christmas Season is officially underway.
Four Sisters and 12 Elders - but with one catch - only one of the missionaries was going to a French Speaking mission - all the others were English bound. We foresaw the problem two months ago, but any changes or juggling were left to the last week and we just couldn't see telling the missionary he had to wait 6 more weeks to come - so we did our best!. He is the Elder in front of President Nielson - Elder Logbo from the Ivory Coast. We didn't know what we could do about a companion, but again, one showed up - one of the English bound missionaries spent a little time in the Ivory Coast and knew a bit of conversational french - so for the first week, Elder Logbo had a one on one teacher with our French instructor - and bunked and ate and studied with his partially French speaking companion - and we got him to the temple twice and sent him back to the Ivory Coast for his practical experience at the hands of President Ounleu. It was hard to see him leave without the full MTC experience, but I feel it was the best for him. The other 15 hail from various corners of the world - there is one American from Virginia who will fit in really well here in Africa, one South African, five from Sierra Leone, three from Ghana and five from Nigeria - All but three will be serving their missions in Nigeria. Small groups we get to learn names and faces much better than the larger groups. A nice break for us.