What do we do...

Hi there,

I thought I would write about some of the things we are doing. No photo's. What we do most days is that we leave home mid-morning, at the latest, quite often earlier, arrive home about supper time, and we go and visit, visit, visit....  The people are either Investigators, so we are teaching them about the Restored church of Jesus Christ, or they are already members of the church. Some of the people we work with, their knowledge of the Gospel is still pretty limited, so we sometimes re-teach them. We need to see people individually to help them fulfil their callings and understand their responsibilities. We are always trying to re-activate members.

We are trying to encourage all of our members at the moment to acquire a Temple Recommend (and use it, haha). We will take 4 youth to the temple to do Baptisms for the Dead on Friday this week. (we can squeeze 4 in the truck, they are all little!! - No restrictions here). They are on vacation at the moment. These are all new members and they have not been to the temple before, so they are pretty excited. This includes our twins, they keep asking when can they go to the Temple, how nice for us to see their enthusiasm...Then in 2 weeks time we hope to have all of the Tafo youth and a few leaders go down to Accra again and we will all participate.

We have had the opportunity to take prospective missionaries and members we have been working with to the temple to do their Endowment and usually take the ones from our District to the MTC in Tema as they are preparing to leave on their missions.

The Koforidua District has also started running a slightly revised Literacy program, so we have been quite involved with that...attending training, talking to teachers and the students, and explaining the commitment level required. Louise also has been teaching English to a few members one-on-one.We have shown the Restoration of the Gospel DVD to all our groups and hope they have benefited from that. We have taught Temple Preparation classes in the chapel and also individually at their homes. We are working at trying to get all the groups Branch status, that will help the District - the Presidency in particular.

It has only been this year that 2 of the 3 groups have started doing the 3 hour block, they still do not have all callings filled. They do not understand totally yet all the Auxillaries that the church usually run...So usually I take Primary - we have only just started getting enough children to run this program. I had 14 at Maase last Sunday, a translator for 1/2hr then on my own...a little tricky as the little ones do not understand English, and even the older ones are not used to Primary. Some are member's children, but quite often the numbers are made up of investigators or grandchildren of a member. I see different faces every time I go, good I guess, a bit hard to remember their names.... Sometimes I take the YW class and Elder Brown will take the YM class. Elder Brown is also on the District Council so that allows him to ordain and participate in other duties as needed.

We go to Accra on average about once a fortnight (average travel time is 2 hours one way depending on traffic) for meetings sometimes or if we need to go to the Mission Home. There we collect the mail for our district and Missionaries and distribute it. We go to the Distribution Centre (located right next to the Temple) to buy supplies for the groups, missionaries or members, as it is difficult for them to get there by themselves.We transport Missionaries and/or their luggage on transfer day and sometimes run them around for appointments or medical issues. We do quite a bit of running people around as nobody has their own vehicle here. We also do most of our shopping in Accra, that is where we can buy canned products and other items of a similar nature that we eat at home. Most people here eat the local food which is Banku, Fufu or Kenkey. We have tried small, small, as they say here. That is hard work to prepare all those dishes.

I make lots of banana bread now, probably every P-Day, they go to members or to celebrate Baptisms or for Missionary's Birthdays. People give us produce from their farms, they give us lots of bananas. Elder Brown is becoming a farmer himself...we were given corn to plant and people have given us Okro seeds and Elder Brown has planted pumpkin seeds and pineapple tops. So we will see what comes of it. The harvest will all come together, but that is ok, as we will give most of it away. Lots of people we know struggle to know where their next meal is coming from. We have been out to one of the Member's farm and helped him with transportation of his crops and also Elder Brown and the missionaries have been helping with some fairly heavy manual labour as they are helping one of our recent converts build a home.

A couple of times we have had visits from some of the Senior Couples from Accra. They have come to Koforidua for a day trip. We have shown them the Cocoa Research Institute, Koforidua Bead Market, Boti and Akaa Falls, Umbrella Rock and the 3 headed Palm Tree. There is not too much more around here. Although it is a nice drive up the mountain to get here. When we have to stay overnight in Accra for some reason, we sometimes go for a meal at a restaurant with the other couples, that is always most welcome!

So we do this and whatever else is required... We are happy to be here (not loving the weather), but we love being able to serve the people and we have made eternal friendships.