Monday, May 28, 2007

 

OUR MAY 25 GROUP

This is our latest group of missionaries - 22 is quite a relief from the 35 we just had - maybe we'll be able to call them by their names without reading their badges like we do with the bigger groups. Special feature of this group are two Samoans and one New Zealander - Elders Ross, Tuvaifale and Elder Havelu respectively. The rest come from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana. We had the kitchen holding breakfast for our Nigerian group when we got word that because they waited and ate breakfast at the hotel where they stayed, they missed their 7 AM flight and so they had to wait for the 7 PM flight to come - this threw our schedule into a small degree of disaster, but as usual we got by. Only two sisters in this group - both from Ghana, and I fear after a couple of days of observation we may have to monitor the interaction between them and the Elders - seems to be they are a bit smitten to be noticed and the Elders are noticeably "smitting" them. Anyway just one of the small challenges of an MTC program. They are a really nice group of missionaries...of course we haven't had the medical lecture and injections yet...that sometimes shows another side of everyone.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

 

They arrived on May 4, 2007 - Sort of !!!!!!!!

We had to wait an extra week to publish the picture of this group of missionaries because we had all sorts of woes getting them here - happily none of them were serious, just aggravating. It is a group of 35 - our second largest group - and they are wonderful missionaries. They represent 10 different countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, IVory Coast, LIberia, D.R. Congo, Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, South Africa and are a great group of missionaries. 15 of them speak french and 20 of them speak English. We are sending one of them (a sister) back to Madagascar to serve her mission (in french). Air Kenya had some plane problems - the flight from Niarobi with all our Congolese on was 6 hours late - then the same plane was six hours late bringing our Sierra Leone missionaries in (2 AM in the morning). Nigerians missed the early flight came in on the afternoon - our Zimbabwe missionary had visa problems - didn't get here until late Wednesday night - anyway - such is life in Africa when you have to depend on airlines..... but we are enjoying them. Didn't get anything going uintil 8:30 AM on Saturday instead of 2:00 PM Friday as scheduled - we many have to review the entire program if flights become so undependable.

Monday, May 14, 2007

 

Mothers Day....

This is the official Mothers Day photo....A new dress for Sister Nielson...made from beautiful African print. It was a waterless Sunday morning once more!!! Noone is quite sure what the problem is...President Nielson maintains we have extremely religious water pumps...they do not want to work on Sunday... There was an early morning knock at the door...as one of the kitchen porters delivered a gift fo the mission Mom from the kitchen staff.
Here are the Sisters that were here to be the Mothers Day daughters... they sang Love at Home and gave great hugs all 'round. They are wonderful, compatible girls...and we love them. They are the Mothers of the future ...and we pay tribute to them. We have daughters and daughter in laws at home that we love...but no group pictures to display...

Thursday, May 10, 2007

 

Our Two Day Holiday

Located down by Cape Coast is the little town of Elimina where we went when Wayne was here last June. On the other side of the little town is a resort known as Coconut Grove - so before this large group of 35 descended on us, we decided we would take the one sister who was going to the Cape Coast Mission down in our car and stay for a couple of nights just to unwind and listen to the waves. So after a slow trip (each town is posted at 50 KM/hour and last trip I got in trouble at a traffic check for going too fast, so I was very careful to stay within the speed limit all the way - needless to say we saw a lot of tail lights in this trip. This first picture is taken in front of a "blooming bush" - I don't know its name, I'm not particularly in love with it, but Mom (Sister Nielson) figured we'd better prove with some evidence that I am still alive because I don't write many letters - so you all can see I am still alive and really quite happy standing in front of this "blooming bush".
This is the main centre of the resort - in the picture you can see the swimming pool, the dining area , a couple of the eating shelters (or drinking shelters) and the number of coconut trees they have. Each morning there are several coconuts sitting under the trees - I'm not sure their insurance covers getting hit on the head with one - definitely a possibility. The rooms are scattered around the central area in little bungalow type cabins. We didn't eat any regular meals here, we had brought a few it items to nibble on - they provided a satisfactory buffet breakfast and the one night we drove down to Takoradi with President and Sister Dill of the Cape Coast mission to eat at Captain Hooks - we both had steaks and they were quite nice. It is about an hour drive both ways, but an interesting city - several of our churches are there - the work is going very well. Stake and wards - not branches and districts

The reason we chose this resort is that there is a lovely beach - which runs for miles down the ocean and we wanted to walk up and down. First evening we walked down by the native village and back, but declined to return the next day - the natives use the beach to relieve themselves and we had to watch carefully where we stepped - after listening to Dr. Merrill and Dr. Thueson talk about unsanitary beaches and all the things you can catch, we kept our walks to the beach in front of the resort - the breakers and waves were wonderful and I think we achieved our purpose in getting away.

 

Golf - Coconut Grove Style

We decided we'd try and get away for a couple of days (see next blog) and the hotel we stayed at had a golf course. Since my clubs were half way around the world, I didn't golf, nor did anyone else - the course actually is probably one of the better ones even though there is no irrigation or much in the way of mowing machines (machetes probably). I did think a couple of pictures might be interesting. Above is one of the greens with a tree that is planted right in the middle of it - it also drops papaya fruit which are about the size of a plum - and the tree branches shade almost all of the green to you would almost have to run any approach shot up and under the branches. Being that we are right on the ocean, the sand trap has real beach sand in it.
Hole number three or four (hard to tell unless walk around, it highlighted by a water hazard which is also the watering hole for the local vultures - while they aren't quite as large as the desert variety, they are still very ugly looking and I'm not certain I'd want to particularly try and play through them - they are just a little larger than a good sized turkey, but ugly as sin. You can tell by the "greenness" of the green that they don't get a lot of rain during the non rainy season.

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