Dec. 29, 2019 Happy New Year 2020

“You cannot be a Christian during the day and a pagan at night. It Doesn’t Work!”  With that quote from our district president at a branch conference today, I will share some of our Christian activities of the days and nights of this week.

Solomons, the office couple and fellow Canadians, joined us Monday afternoon for a delightful  meal, conversation, and game playing.  Elder Solomon has sung bass with the SPEBSQSA and his wife writes songs and has a couple on Spotify.  We played two games of Sequence and they would like to have a canvas just like ours.  Thanks Pudge!  The zone leaders popped in to talk to parents because we wouldn’t be here on the 24th.

We were all out the door by 7:30 the next morning for a 5 1/2 hour drive to the Baie des Sirènes (Bay of Mermaids) on the coast where we would spend Christmas Eve with the other missionary couple, the Tanners. It was a glorious sunny day, blue skies, crashing waves and  great pizza.  As the sun set we were entertained by two bonfires, a harmonica player and native dancers and Père Noel bringing gifts to the children from a fishing boat.  It didn’t feel like Christmas but it was relaxing.

Tom and I were first up on Christmas morning. He went for a dip in the bay and I took pictures  of the sunrise.   

Spectacularly beautiful and peaceful. For breakfast we gobbled pain au chocolat, crêpes, tropical fruit, omelettes, and fresh squeezed juice and then headed back to the beach. The two hi-lites of my day followed. 





We released baby leatherback turtles onto the sand - they were 2 hours old hatchlings - and watched them make their way into the water which they needed to do by themselves.   

It was fascinating to watch them. They inspired 3 or 4 appropriate Sacrament meeting talks. Then the 3 sister missionaries bobbed all the way across the bay and back.  The water was never over our waists except when the big waves came up to our necks. The bottom was all sand and the water was warm and very clear. This was really fun! It reminded me a bit of home.

 







We drove back to San Pedro for Christmas dinner at a little cafe overlooking the ocean. Our menu was a little different from Canada but delicious - chicken and fish kabobs, tossed salad and frites.

We watched the children swimming and were surprised to see two Musllm children, completely draped in black from head to foot, out in the water as well.  It was a lovely day. We exchanged pictures and prepared for our drive home the next day.

We gave our friends paperback copies of the “Les Saints”.  Most know nothing about the history of the church.  Bro. Balo Bi was baptized last spring and was recently called as the Elders Quorum President.  Within 5 minutes of receiving his gift, he was meticulously making a cover for it out of some plastic wrap. If only most of us valued a book the way he does. 

Today we attended two branch conferences in Godoua and Saioua.  Attendance was high and it was really wonderful to see so many of our newly married and newly baptized friends along with many with whom we have worked during the past 11 months.  We were very grateful for the branch presidents and their faculty conducting the meetings.  Elder Indombe had organized a youth choir for the conference in Saioua and they sang with great gusto!   

It was a great finish to this year when we have seen so much individual and group progress.

Dec. 22, 2019 Joyeux Noel!

We set up our Nativity this week. We purchased it in Accra on our other mission and brought it here with us from America.  If you look carefully, it is hand carved and all the faces capture  distinct personalities. Baby Jesus looks like he is in a little bathtub with his head sticking out.  The shepherd is accompanied by two sheep and a goat [typical of those found on almost every street even in Daloa]. Some nativities in Côte D’Ivoire are carved with hippos, rhinos, giraffes or other wild animals but we prefer the authenticity of ours even though the angel has wings.

We had an illuminating and humbling experience this week in our first literacy class experience.  We are the first to have the student booklet in French for the Church literacy program and there are five sisters in the Niakia group who have been invited to participate.  The goal is to enable them to read the scriptures and write.  In our first attempt, only 1 sister came (the others were involved in funerals), so we delayed it a week.  On Friday we tried again.  The same sister came - Brigitte.  She is middle aged and really wants to learn to write and read.  So we proceeded with our class of one [this was not the humbling part].

We learned that she understands most spoken French but is shy about speaking it, preferring her native Bété.  She has never written anything and needed to learn how to hold a pencil.  She has never drawn anything and made a few spirals on the page which was to be a picture of our class. The group president was with us, who speaks Bété, French, and English.  We worked with our student to help her recognize, pronounce, and write 4 letters and a couple of words made from those letters.  The manual includes pictographs to help identify the sounds of the letters.  Her biggest struggle was to copy the written letters - in retrospect not a surprise.  We were delighted when she could recognize and write an O. We hope she will follow up with practice at home (with help there from a family member) and we’ll see what happens next time. She is the first adult Sue has met who has never put a pencil to paper.

Today was Christmas Sunday everywhere.  We attended in Zakaria.  We had a short Sacrament Meeting where Luke 2 was read, and we sang two Christmas cantiques for the first time, The First Noel and Silent Night. After the closing prayer, we showed on our small laptop the new Church nativity video, which our little congregation would otherwise not see.  We had a short explanation of what to watch for and a discussion afterward.  There was keen interest, as you can see in the photos.  We are finding that many know little about the life of Christ. Afterward the Zone Leaders handed out whistles and some candy in their Santa hats.

One of Sue’s favorite Christmas presents from this year will be the look on a workman’s face who came to replace the glass on our coffee table.  After we had paid him, we surprised him  with a jar of our roasted peanuts and said “Merci”. The smile in his eyes and on his face she will never forget.

We will conclude with some words of our son Ben and his favorite scripture. He said we are easily “distracted by the cultural trappings of Christmas. Christ came not to provide fleeting comforts or entertainments but to ‘swallow up death in victory and wipe away the tears from all faces, to heal the broken-hearted and bind up their wounds’.”

A Harmattan sunset

Remember the joy we feel in our lives is not dependent on the circumstances of our lives but rather the focus of our lives. [Russel M Nelson] May we focus on the One who swallowed up death, and has the power to wipe away all tears, heal the broken-hearted and bind up their wounds.  Merry Christmas!

Dec. 15, 2019

We had a wonderful surprise this week while talking with our latest group's leaders: the leader and his wife and his first counselor are all going to the Accra Temple in January for the first time.  Then today in the branch conferences in Issia 1st and 2nd Branches, the district president discussed plans to participate in a temple trip in April.  There are two happenings that accelerate the work going on in our mission.  The first is to have members go to the temple for the first time to be endowed and sealed.   The second is having young men and women serve a full time mission and then return to their home ward or branch.  Both of these tend to be life-changing experiences which bring greater understanding of God’s plan for His children and greater commitment to service.

Perhaps we have mentioned this before: it takes about 15 hours of travel in a bus to get to the temple in Accra.  They stay for three days in the patron accommodations, doing as many ordinances as they can, and then jump on the bus to return home.  The overall cost per person quoted in our meetings today was 42,000 CFA.  That’s about $71 dollars per person.  It doesn’t sound like much, but for most of the members in the units where we work it is a lot. 

We greatly enjoyed the double branch conference today (2 separate conferences, not combined).  It is wonderful to have a district presidency who go to training with the Area leaders and then pass that training on to the members.  When there was no district these pioneering members often felt like orphans - blazing trails without much feedback of how they were doing.  Now there is a sense of belonging in a larger family than just the branch and having leaders who care about their progress collectively and individually.  There are still many organizational struggles but we can see the growth.  Three months ago the second branch was created in a division.  Our combined attendance today, which was average for the past month, was almost double the attendance prior to the division.

Tuesday and Wednesday this past week was our Christmas Zone Conference combined with the Man Zone.  It was nice to catch up with some of the missionaries we first met when we arrived and see how they have grown in confidence and ability.  There were sports the first afternoon, and teaching the next morning.  We watched again the church Christmas video and its powerful portrayal of the birth of the Savior, sang carols, and gave out presents, some sent by well-intentioned families from the US (it costs more to ship “stuff” than it does for the actual stuff).  Elders received ties, sisters received pillow slips, all received the new History of the Church in French.  The printed General Conference talks were distributed also.  It really did feel like a celebration!

Sr. S. wrapping presents at the mission home

A few Christmas decorations in the mission home

Christmas season in Côte d’Ivoire is quite different - not much in the way of decorations or music except in church.  The weather has changed to the dry season and it is less humid in the morning but with more heat during the day.  We listen to lots of Christmas music when we are at home thanks to the internet.  It is always wonderful to reflect on the earthly beginnings of the Savior of the world and marvel at His condescension and love for all of God’s children, and to contemplate how the grand plan of happiness is working in the lives of so many.  I have said this before - when you are a missionary, every day is Christmas!

Ground fog at 75F - closest thing to a frosty morning

 

Dec. 8, 2019

Two things have happened in the last few days which propelled us to evaluate our time and what we are doing with it.  We called a dear friend, our former Bishop and Stake  President, to wish him a happy 77th birthday.  We spent most of the time talking to his wife, who related that he has dementia and doesn’t talk much any more. She also said he falls  and cannot get up by himself.  We remember him as a brilliant PHD, articulate, passionate about his work and family, an athlete, a warm and engaging leader. He gave my last 3 children their Patriarchal blessings.  As my calf-roping-at-82 brother would say “Growing old is not for the cowardly”.

On Friday, we heard that another dear friend, Bill Dresser, had died. How we loved him for his generosity, his sense of humor, his knowledge of community affairs, his public service, and his delight whenever we parked in his driveway and showed up on his doorstep. Our sympathy  goes our to his grieving wife who is the same age as I am.

Tom and I have been good at doing what we wanted to as well as what we needed to.  I remember Kathleen Harris’ definition which shifted my paradigm: “Maturity is learning to love what has to be done.”  We learned a great lesson from my mother and father who were both school teachers and had big plans for after they retired.  Unfortunately, my mom died of cancer when she was 56 and so did the dreams.  We decided we would do what we could, when we could, with our focus on making marvelous memories both with our children and without them.  It was rarely about what we had [stuff] but about experiences and memories that we could cherish and take with us.

So Dec. 2019, here we are in the primitive villages of Cote D’Ivoire trying to strengthen those who have never seen a chapel, or been to any meeting where it mattered what you wore, or seen General Conference by satellite, or heard the hymns on an organ, let alone been to a  church dance or girls camp.  But despite the ever-strewn garbage, the deplorable roads, the power and water cut occasionally, the bugs, and the heat, we feel comfortable here.   Although there are differences in color, customs, and country, we share something more significant - the love of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and His doctrine of: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost and  Enduring to the End. We are teaching them how to plan and organize and they are teaching us about the simplicity of faith and what it means to adore. So do we want to be here?  We would not change this experience for any other because we know this is where the Lord needs us to be. 

An afternoon nap among the roots

Listening to the discussion

Generations: L-R wife, aunt, daughter and granddaughter, mother, and husband

Preparing to make palm oil

 

Dec 1, 2019

What a week we have had!  Tuesday we were back in our new group in Zakaria.  We shared some of the training on conducting meetings that we were taught in District Conference and taught hymns to the chorister. There is one hymn book in the group and no instrument, except voice.  Today the Group Pres. said he shared the training this week with the ward counselor in Orly [ a ward in town] who said, "Where did you get That from?"  He said it was from me, but I reminded him that our authority for doing things this way is the 1st Presidency.  If they do it, we follow.  When they change, we follow.

Wednesday we accompanied the Br. Pdts. from Saioua and Godoua north about 10 km from Niakia to Douoboua, where they had been asked to visit by a church group who had lost their pastor.  We taught 8 adults a first discussion and invited them to send someone to our meetings in Saioua.  We were well received but most likely we were just planting seeds again.  Transportation is a major issue.  The best part was teaching with those two returned missionary branch presidents.  One is a gifted teacher because he knows what the people are thinking.  The other is enthusiastic and translates most things into Bété.

Kids love having their picture taken!

Adults in Louoboua

We celebrated a Thanksgiving meal Thursday with our Zone Leaders and District leaders.  Meat loaf, baked potatoes, veggies, and banana cake, pumpkin bars, and caramel popcorn.  Not typical but we all enjoyed it.  One Elder spoke with family by video for the first time since he has been here (18 months).   

Friday was marriage day in Saioua.  Three couples were happily married in the late morning followed by a nice fish and rice "lunch" at the branch building after.  We had been asked to serve as witnesses for this couple.[the Treys] 

Helping the groom get ready

The bride at the coiffeuse

The married couple exiting the Sous-prefecture

We helped the Zone Leaders get to the baptismal interviews there and in Issia, arriving home at 7:15pm - not our favorite time because the roads are treacherous after dark, but it was good to get the work done.

We returned yesterday afternoon for the baptisms (2 of the newly married couples and a child).  I had a sweet experience as a witness just standing by the font.  It felt like a sacred place to me, perhaps for the first time, and I recalled how Alma's group felt about the waters of, the forest of, and the place of Mormon because it was there that they came to know their Redeemer.  

We attended meetings in Zakaria today and enjoyed getting to know the group better.  There were about 35 in attendance, split between adults and children.  The leaders need time, encouragement, and reassurance that they are doing the right things.  They rely a bit too much on the elders for teaching lessons but we can help them overcome that dependence.  Our next discussion is to be on preparing to give talks and teach lessons.

Transfers are this week and we will be sad to see some of our very effective young missionaries go elsewhere.  They will continue to “go about doing good” in their next assignments.  

Our Zone Leaders: Elders Allsop and Newell

Our brother-in-law Bill McKay received his unexpected final transfer this week at the young age of 66.  We cannot really comfort those who morn - we can only morn with them - but the Holy Ghost can and we pray for that strength to be with all who suffer the loss of loved ones,  especially our sister Karen. May she feel of our love for her.

I am reminded of the great death speech of King Théoden after his victorious battle against the forces of evil in LOTR.  “My body is broken; you have to let me go.  I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed.”