No Gobble in Ho

We are trying desperately to find a fowl (as they call our feathered friends) bigger than a chicken for Thanksgiving dinner. We did see some peacocks at a hotel in the area, but I think snagging one of them for dinner might be looked upon as unacceptable. We are not sure how a peacock would taste, anyway. But before you feel too sorry for us, we have a couples conference and Thanksgiving dinner down in Accra. We are in charge of bringing the olives and butter. Kind of a heavy assignment seeing as it is hard to find black olives. We have seen pickles at a few stores, mostly in Accra. So we will see what I come up with. We are not sure where they are finding a turkey, but we will see. This does bring us to the topic of our blessings of which there are many. Of course one of our greatest blessing is being able to be serving in Ghana. We realize that many of you who receive our blog are not members of our church and may not know what in the world we are doing here. So we will try to explain how this all works and why we are here.

I am sure many of you are familiar with our young men and women who you may have seen in your neighborhoods. There are 80,000 such young people who choose to go at their own expense, take a break from school, jobs, etc. to serve for 18 months to 2 years. They apply to go and then the church sends them wherever they are needed. We refer to that as a “mission call”. Old peopleJ such as ourselves often desire to serve a mission. For us, we feel like we have so many blessings that we need to in some way to show our gratitude to our Heavenly Father. One of the ways we can do this is to serve a mission. So we also “apply” and the church sends us where they need us. There are many assignments given to senior couples who serve missions. Some help with training young single adults, some serve in visitor centers, others are in humanitarian assignments, education, family history and even medical assignments and several others. We serve in a member leadership support role where we help those who are new members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints learn how to teach each other, organize and lead branches of the church and various groups of youth, women and men within the church. Because the rate of growth of the Church  is so great in West Africa, there is a lot of training to be done.  We currently are in this remote township of Ho and every day brings new opportunities to learn and teach.  We have found that we learn more from these people than we have taught because of the kindness, humility and great faith in our Heavenly Father.  This is a Christian country in general and we love being able to be involved in their daily lives. The underlying purpose is to share with them the message of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the blessings it can bring no matter where you live.  Hopefully, that may give a glimpse of what we are doing and why.We have had a wide variety of experiences again form visiting a sweet man name Kofi 

who lives in the small village of Ve-Kolenu 

to climbing the imposing mountain near us named  with the younger missionaries serving in our town. That venture reminded us that we are no longer 20 or 30 or even 40 years old.  The view from the top was amazing and the path to get there was a stiff test for the regular morning exercise program we have been doing. We invite all to come join us for the next ascent. You can tell from the posterior view that the descent was a little slippery in places.  We also met some new friends along the way like “milli”.

Speaking of friends, we were blessed to share time with some dear ones.  Larry and Shirley Gibson were traveling in the Africa West Area doing Young Men’s training and we caught up with them in Accra for a brief visit.  Then a week later, we were able to trap David Anderson for lunch while he was helping to locate land for meeting houses in this West Africa Area.  He and wife Beverly (Cindy’s old {oops, longtime} friend from Laconia High School) work for the Church and live in Paris, France.

We have had the privilege of meeting Joshua Wodadze and join the elders in teaching him the Gospel.  We are amazed how quickly he has come to understand and recognize the truths of the doctrine of Christ.  We have come to know that Heavenly Father has prepared many people to receive His word. It certainly has strengthened our commitment to follow the Savior

We have also come to appreciate much of the culture form the gifted Kente weavers

.

, to a new meaning for “sharing the road.” The names on the shops somehow seem familiar and their transportation brings a chuckle as we drive. The countryside is gorgeous and the skies often dramatic.  We also find ourselves repeating the phrase “so cute” about 100 times a day when we see these little ones.

Well, as we wrap this up we must again share our gratitude for the many blessings we continually receive.  We are so thankful for marvelous family members who support is with their prayers, emails, letters and phone calls.Not to forget the traditionalTexas cakemade at  home.It is what keeps us going day to day.  We are so thankful for such good friends at home and new ones here who brighten our lives with their amazing smiles and gentle nature. We are thankful for good health especially in light of our ventures into the roadside food shops for banku and light soup, fufu, rice and chicken and loaves of bread from the street hawkers.  We are thankful for the reliable food like Vivian’s bread and egg when we need a fast late night dinner. And most of all we are grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His Gospel and the blessing we have to share that with the children of Heavenly Father in Ghana. We hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving wherever you are.