7 Weeks Today

The Heavens opened again today whilst we were at Maase. 2 of the Elders got drenched. We had to wait it out at the Chapel, as the rain was too heavy to leave. The roads become a quagmire...

Talking of Rain and Mud, last Monday, P-Day, President Heid invited us to play golf. Rob and I aren't golfers by any means, but we went along and had some fun. The course was beautiful,although a bit waterlogged. I think it may have been the best one the Heid's have played on since being in Ghana. It's a little (well big actually) Oasis, kinda in the middle of nowhere. It's in Tafo in the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG). The men are all off playing separately. President Heid is our Mission President. Elder Curtis is the Area President for Africa West, Brother Slater is the legal Counsel for West Africa. We all played, some better than others,( not mentioning any names!!)

Sister Curtis, Sister Heid, Sister Brown and Sister Slater

Sister Heid Teeing Off

Our Caddies, Quite good players too!!

Gardens at Golf Course

Another day at Boti Falls with different Missionaries.
There was more water this time.

Umbrella Rock again, side-on shot, Rob on right.

Akaa Falls, just down the road from Boti Falls.

2 weeks later...

Well life is starting to get busier as we are meeting new people and teaching. We are planning on teaching an English class to some of the members in the Koforidua Branch. We are all prepared to go, we just need some names from the Branch President. Also we plan to teach Temple Preparation classes to members on Saturday afternoons, with 2 of our small groups at Tafo and Maase. We have planned a temple day for them on the 4th October, along with members from Osiem. For some it will be a big sacrifice of time and money to travel. Even though it is only a couple of hours away, not everyone can afford the trip. The Branch will probably subsidise some of it.

Driving takes a big chunk out of our day wherever we go. We leave mid-morning, or sometimes very early morning, 6am!  and don't come back until about 6pm, most days.

Some photo's:

This is the first day the Missionaries took us shopping, But, don't be fooled...there are only a few places like this in Accra, this is the Accra Mall. I think this shopping centre has only been here 4 years.

Elder Brown with Elder Fausett, one of the Office Elders

Now this is something you don't see coming down the Street everyday!!!

This is a shop I think, the wall in the forefront is the church building. I could've got a better shot, it was coming straight at us in the car, but by then the road would have been blocked off to get in the church carpark, so I had to sacrifice to get to church on time (haha). Actually I have missed so many great photo opportunites, I have started keeping my phone next to me in the car, because by the time I get the phone out of my bag, the opportunity has gone.

Atsu (pronounced Achoo) picking Avocados from one of our trees.

Not the best shot of Atsu, with the branch nearly chopping of his head. He is a member of the church and lives not far from us, he sells the avocados and that helps him earn some money. He very kindly washes our car for us. We had him and his friend Lawrence over for a meal in return.They are both wonderful young men and they plan to serve missions in the near future. They are very strong YSA and we feel humbled by them.

OUR FIRST BAPTISMAL SERVICE WE HAVE ATTENDED HERE.

This is the font at the back of the church building at MAMFE. Elder Nash (left) baptised these 3 people, 2 of them are 17yr olds.

ROB'S FIRST HAIRCUT IN AFRICA!

Waiting with nervous apprehension......and then we changed Barber's shop. Oh Oh...

We taught Naomi and 4 other girls from the ALL SHALL PASS BEAUTY SALON, and then Rob asked her to cut his hair. She said yes, but it is very different cutting Whites hair and blokes, so she changed her mind. We didn't realise what was going on at first and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to a neighbouring shop, she decided to ask a fellow from the barbers shop to step in and do it.
What do you think???

Rob with new haircut, Naomi and the newly recruited  Barber!!

Run out of room, more to follow, in another post.

First week in September

Wow, time is flying, already been here for one month!! We are getting familiar with the roads and the way things work here. I might have to do a few posts, I can only post so many photos in one hit.

Last Monday, P Day for the missionaries, we took 4 of them from the Effiduase area up to Boti Falls and Umbrella Rock. The going got a bit steep down to the Rock, so me and Elder Brown drove around whilst the missionaries hiked it...The falls were really impressive, a lot of mist and a lot of water!!

 

Me with a few of the locals, the kids like having their picture taken with the OBRUNI (white man/woman)

On Thursday, on our way back from Tafo and visiting people, the rain came down again, and this is what the roads looked like...a river!

On Tuesday we drove down to Accra. When we go, we visit the temple and go to the Mission Office and pick up supplies for Missionaries in our area, we have 26 in the Koforidua area, and we shop!! We can't buy everything we need in Koforidua, so we food shop in Accra where they have better supermarkets... always a bit of a nightmare, traffic wise. More fog - we thought we were in Melbourne on the way down. It takes us about 2 hours to get there, and this time it took us about an hour to get out of the city on the way home, then when we hit the mountain road, the traffic clears.

This is the road at 7.30am, it does clear though, this is because we are in the mountains...

The areas we are visiting are mainly rural and so we have been seeing lots of different produce...

This is Plantain, not Bananas, they need to be cooked...

Am I the only one who thought pineapples grew on trees?

Coconuts, I think they are different from the ones in Australia.

Ginger

Sugarcane

                                               AND NOW FOR SOME LIVESTOCK!!

This is a pretty common sight in the country,
 usually goats, chickens and dogs...

       

Check out the 2 colours on these goats,
 this was leaving the city of Accra.

This is a photo at church today...We visited the group at OSIEM...This is the place where they meet.It is 1 room in a school, very basic.  I took a photo before all the members arrived. Today was a good day with 20 of us in total! We still felt the spirit and we were able to bear testimony to the fact that the church is the same all over the world, it doesn't matter in what circumstances we meet. We felt very humbled to be there. The people are all so friendly and welcoming and happy...There were 5 children, they don't have primary, we took them outside and taught them 3 songs from the Primary hymnbook and asked them what they knew about Jesus, and that was our primary lesson. Only 2 of the older boys were really good in their English, so we spoke to them and asked them to encourage the younger ones to join in. By the end of class, we had a half dozen ring-ins, when the children outside saw us, they came over to see what we were doing. We had a good day, they enjoyed singing the song 'Do as I'm Doing', with all the actions...Next time we will go prepared to do more with them.

We are starting to get to know some members and they are taking us around visiting. We have had the opportunity to meet some investigators with the missionaries and we sit in on lessons. The people in Ghana are very religious. They all believe in God. The problem here is there are so many churches, introduced by man, basically anyone can form their own church, and they make up their own doctrine. As I'm sitting at the computer I can hear the one over the road doing a bit of chanting etc. our windows are always open and so the sound carries...maybe one day we'll go over and see what's going on!!

Love to everybody, hope you all have a good week...

Photo shoot

Store selling American Groceries

This was one of the first places the Missionaries showed us in Accra. There weren't any Aussie products there. Milo is here in Ghana, and Cadbury chocolate if you know where to look..I did manage to find the same dry shampoo I use at home, made in NSW, that I buy at home at a place called Koala's..how apt.. that was an exciting day...quite ironic as a lot of their stuff is also American.

At the MTC with our cook, Margaret

Margaret was always very friendly and kept food back for us to make sure there was some left after the missionaries ate!! The food was delicious - thank you Margaret and staff. Margaret has worked and lived in London for a period of time.

Our 2 teachers at the MTC, Bro Taki and Bro Boateng

Both of these 2 brothers we got to know pretty well. Thank you so much for helping us. You were great!!

This is Matilda: the sister we delivered the mission call to. She was so excited!...we were glad to share in her excitement.

This is what is found inside the cocoa pod...the beans are fermented for 7 days and then dried. Ghana is the 2nd largest exporter of Cocoa.

A walk through the bush to visit members.

Umbrella and a Cardi - who would've thought...

President Dube's arrival

This is the Missionaries serving from the Koforidua, Ho and Kpong Districts. We had a special conference with President Dube from the Africa West Presidency. All the Elders scrubbed up well!! The meeting was held at Kpong chapel...It took us 2 3/4 hours to get there from Koforidua, but only 1  1/2 hours to get back!! We got a little lost on the way...

Waiting...

Voila! Finished product...

AT THE CAR WASH...

Settling in...

We are starting to know our way around. We have been assigned to a district named Koforidua. It is a 2 hour drive from Accra, up in the mountains. A very pretty drive up some winding roads. The area is a bit cooler than Accra and less busy. On Saturday we were able to do some service at the local hospital, which was tidying up the gardens...with a machete, Rob gave it a go, I didn't last long, I was scared I was going to chop my leg off! and giving blood. After that we visited with the missionaries in the area and shopped at the markets, we saw fried bats on the menu, sorry no photo...and bought some local supplies.

On Sunday we attended the branch up here, a picture of the Koforidua chapel is below. Not many people drive, there were only about half a dozen cars in the car park. The Relief Society meeting was a bit different, as some of it was in Twi, the local language, the shoe was on the other foot now for me, with not being able to understand their language. Even though we all speak English, sometimes we don't think the African people are! It's quite different to the way we speak it.

This is our Branch President with his 2 counselors

Things are a little different here with the electricity being on a meter, gas from a bottle, water being filtered, we are still working on getting the internet connection to our address, we are kinda in the bush, as they call it here. Literally up a dirt track, you have to have a 4WD, although the taxis do come up there, don't ask me how...the roads are very heavily potholed.

A couple of photos coming back down the mountain! That is Accra spread out down below.

These cows appeared out of nowhere.

Last week we went to the temple in Accra with all the English speaking missionaries.

Ghana Temple