24-30 October 2016

As we start this week, we have a picture of a road
near the MTC that has thousands of cars driving over
it each day.  These pot holes have been here for
months.

Elder Gohi is the third missionary that was sealed
to his parents last week.  Paula and I were the proxies
for his parents.

Our second debut of our musical number to the next group of departing missionaries.

Again, our missionaries erupted in applause at the end!
We're thinking of taking our act on the road.

We had a couple of free days this week, so we spent
one day driving about 2 hours to a children's
rescue center. Ghana Make A Difference was started
by a couple from Boise who recognized the need for
this kind of facility and took action to make it happen.

They work through the government social services
to identify at risk children; abused, abandoned,
homeless or victims of human trafficking. There
are a lot of children unknowingly sold into slave labor
by families unable to care for them. They are promised
a good life for the child and then the child disappears
into slave labor. 

Stacy Hoffman or her husband are here every
other month. The man with her is the manager,
Richard, and he's a gem.

The facility is on 5 acres donated by the government.
They have an option on 5 acres more.

The library.  The children attend a government
school about 150 yards away.

This is Kofi. He was found on the streets
and brought to the shelter. The only
English he knows is, "Give me money
for food." He's had a lot of freedom and
so he is a constant runaway risk. He's
becoming better as he understands he
will be fed. His right leg is shorter that the left from an injury suffered from being dragged under a car.  He's a candidate for
surgery from an orthopedic group that will be here next month.

The boys bedroom.

Each child has a cubby hole for their personal
things. Note the scriptures. They take them to a
local LDS Branch. When they are reunited with
their family, that's the thing they miss most - the
Church.

The kitchen stove - outside the kitchen.  It's too hot to cook inside the kitchen.

Preparing lunch. This is a corn meal
kind of like polenta.

On the grounds is a building built by a group out of Provo, for
handicapped children.

Two girls in the home.

They are trying to improve their self sufficiency.

These are okra plants.

Very, very, very hot peppers.

A young man came to Ghana and planted fruit
trees for his Eagle project.  They have papaya
guava, mango, coconut and more I can't name.

They have over 1000 chickens that they raise for eggs.
This is another step to self sufficiency. They hired
Liberian refugees as labor for the chickens and as nannies
with the children.

The foreman for the chickens, on the right, is
Liberian.  President Hill, the previous Accra
West Mission President is at BYU and arranged
for a class in poultry care to be taught in Accra.
The foreman was able to attend and as we asked
questions, it's obvious he knows exactly what's
going on, down to the exact number of chickens.
We asked, "how do you know how many chickens
you have?"  He said, "We count them."

Part of today's egg harvest.

 

As we drove back to Accra, I'm continually amazed
at the variety of things carried on hawkers heads.

More.

We stopped at Florence's baskets and this little
goat, about the size of a large cat walked by.

We stopped at Labadi Beach club for lunch and
some pool time. Actually a little nap time.

For two nights the only missionaries in the MTC
were our 6 English speaking missionaries, learning
French. Three of them are Americans, so the
Brubakers took them to KFC.  They loved it. The
two elders closest to the camera had to have their rice.
The other person is Brother Taki, the teacher.  This
was his second time to KFC. Paula asked Sister Quaye
if she liked KFC.  She told Paula yes.  Paula asked her
if she had been to KFC before. She said, "No. We never go out
to eat."

Paula imitating the missionaries getting
shots.

Taking this picture today about killed me.  The sun was so hot and so bright that we could barely keep our eyes open.  The hot weather is definitely back.

17-23 October 2016

We were able to witness this sealing - I had met this Filipino girl last March in the temple who works in Dubai, and she was back to get married to her Ghanaian fiance.  Lots of our missionaries were also able to come in for it and see a live sealing, which they loved and had never seen.  She acted so happy to see me again and was giving me big hugs.  She had no family here for her wedding, so his Bishop had asked a senior couple to be her surrogate parents for the wedding.  It was really sweet and they loved doing it.

These ladies come to support a group called Ghana Make
A Difference - they brought us several suitcases of clothes
for our missionaries.  

The lady in charge is the blonde in black and white.  They loaded up our car with donations.  They do a wonderful work here.

The elder by Loel is from DR Congo and was sealed to his
parents this week, who had both passed away.  His companion
 is from Madagascar and has been a great help in translating for us.

This English speaking elder from Liberia, was sealed to his parents this week, too.  We were able to be proxy for his parents.  Loel spends hours and hours working with these missionaries on their family names and then organizes the temple days, making sure all the ordinances happen as we take 50 missionaries to the temple.  

Street hawkers walking in between the lanes of traffic - very
scary when motorcycles also speed in between the lanes, just
missing some of the street hawkers. This is typical afternoon
traffic leaving Accra.

This is the old sewing machine that is used at the Kente weavers in Tema.
We think of this as old, but that's the way of life here. Use everything as
long as possible and keep repairing it as long as possible. When it's
compared to the weaving looms, that are made from scrap metal and
tree branches, it looks modern.

This is our typical place we sit in the chapel for all the meetings -
off to the side and close to the front and by the
light switches so Loel can turn them on and off for
slide presentations.

The sister in red is from Kenya and she and I
bonded in the temple when she took out her
endowments.  I was able to help her.  

She came to me a few days after the temple and asked if she
could give me some fabric from Kenya.  I said maybe you
brought it so you could have some clothes made.  She said, "No
Sister Tibbitts, I brought it to give to someone I love."  I got
tears in my eyes and we gave each other hugs.

Elders unloading suitcases full of donations people have
sent for our missionaries.  It's wonderful.

The short elder shared his story with me as I
typed it at Pres Brubaker's request.  We were
both crying as he has had such a hard life.  But
he was so positive as he spoke of all of his
blessings and how he knows the Lord will
take care of him.  I love this part of my
calling as it's so fascinating to hear these
missionaries' stories.  

These four sisters came to me and told me that in a few days it
would be one of their birthdays and asked if I could bring
them something "sweet from the outside."  I brought them
some gummy bears and Swedish Fish  from home.  You would have thought I had
given them Sees candy or something!  One said, "We prayed
this morning that you would remember to bring us candy!
Our prayers were answered!"  I told them it had to be
our secret as I couldn't supply candy for the whole MTC.

Aba and I had a fun afternoon shopping at a
mall, getting frozen yogurt, and buying
tomatoes so I could make salsa for a tailgate
party we had one night with the Brubakers,
watching BYU lose, unfortunately.  Loel
made hummus and pita chips along with my
salsa, and I made banana cupcakes.  Sis.
Brubaker made yummy eggplant slices
fried in bread crumbs.  Fun night.

I gave this dress to the sister from Kenya
as she had given me the cloth.  She wore it the
next day and appeared very happy with it.

We spoke in Sacrament meeting again this week.
We can re-cycle our talks as there's always a
new group of missionaries here.  We spoke on
love and compassion; particularly with
companions and investigators.

10-16 October 2016

On our last break, we set up a potluck dinner night in Accra at the apt. complex where lots of senior couples live.  Here we all are - we had such a nice evening and then we spent the night with one couple and the Brubakers spent it with another couple in the same complex.  They have very large three bedroom, two bath apts, with a nice pool, too!  We had a great time.  Dr. Anderson is the tall one on the left - he's planted a huge garden and often brings us fresh basil and vegetables, which we love.  The man next to Loel is here on a humanitarian mission digging wells!  Fascinating.

We now have our own number
we sing at our farewell devotional.
The Brubakers adapted a hymn with
words that related to the MTC
and what the missionaries have learned.  It was
a huge hit!  The applause was
deafening.  You would have
thought we were famous singers.

This is Sahoui, one of our favorite teachers.  He's learning
English and he's a voracious learner.  He
loves to talk to us so he can learn new words.
I taught him the word "bagel", which he had
never heard of so I toasted him one with
cream cheese - he loved it.  He later gave us
some very sad news that his mother had died;
very suddenly.  He's French speaking from Benin.

We had a bunch of purses made from some Kente cloth we had purchased.  Aren't they colorful?

We've been spending a lot of time at the temple recently!

Angel Moroni was especially nice against
the sky today.

We like this Turkish restaurant we've been to after the temple, for lunch.  Pres Brubaker took this picture and sent it to us with the caption, "A couple of turkeys."

A basket weaver we found in Tema.
When you see the conditions they work in
and  consider the beautiful end product,
it's kind of amazing.

He had woven these hats.

We had attended the Friday night sealings session
that many senior couples go to and then went out
to dinner with some afterwards.  These are the
women.  They're all from New Zealand or Australia
so I was surrounded by cool accents. 

Here are the men.  We spent the night with friends in Accra and then took two of the New Zealander couples to several craft places around Accra.  The Woods are the couple serving way up north who we got to know when they were at the MTC 6 months ago.  We love them.  Their friends were visiting from New Zealand.

This is our favorite basket place - her name is
Florence.  Rosely is a senior missionary serving
with her husband as Executive Secretaries for
the Area presidency.  They live in Australia now but
she was born in New Zealand.

This cute little girl was at the Florence's
basket shop.

Look at the colors of these baskets!  We grabbed
some of her fans to use while shopping for baskets.
It's getting hotter here - no more cool weather.

Again. Look at the end product and consider the
conditions they are made in.

Rosely took us to another basket shop and I
bought these two cute ones.

They sell everything on the street - ironing boards,
brooms,  laundry baskets, etc.

It's a virtual housewares store on the side of the
road. Dustpans displayed in a tree.

This is a furniture store - the sign even says it.
Right on the street.

We attended a stake cultural festival where each of the 11 wards put on a 10 min. skit representing one of the regions of Ghana.  It was really colorful with singing, dancing, drums, costumes, food, etc.

A drummer at the festival.

James, our pharmacy rep and Aba's
husband, was in one of the productions.
He's a counselor in the bishopric of a new ward.

This is Patrick, our MTC manager, and a
bishop of the winning ward.  The cheering,
yelling, dancing and celebrating was
hilarious to watch when they won first
place (they always win!)  You would have
thought they had won the World Cup.

Everyone always treats us like royalty
here.  They invited all the senior couples
back for a special reception and this is
the little plate of food they gave us.  A
meat pie, a piece of fried chicken, a
cupcake and a little donut, not very sweet,
and fresh watermelon or pineapple juice.

Sister Spackman and her husband work in the temple for their mission.  They come out periodically to the MTC to help with family history.  She's a great friend.  This is a new
blouse I bought at a fabric shop that was already made and fit great.  I didn't even have
to find a seamstress to make it for me!

Loel and I are both English speaking partners for two of our teachers.  We really enjoy it.  We meet for 30 mins once a week.  This past week Brother Zolo and I were discussing questions the lesson asked about how we gained our testimonies.  I was able to share the story of when I was at BYU and Dad came to visit and we attended a devotional together where Elder Loren C. Dunn, the speaker, answered all my questions and concerns.  Dad encouraged me to write him a letter, thanking him, which I did, and he wrote me back.  He said the thing he was most impressed with was the relationship I had with my father.  I was sharing this story with Brother Zolo, and got a little emotional.  He was touched and thanked me.  I realized that he has no father, his died when he was 2, and so the examples we can be to these teachers as we share our stories is more than just being their English speaking partners.