Feb. 23, 2020

Our best news is that Sue’s ankle is healing well.  She has kept it elevated most of this week, which is very boring, but because of that the swelling and bruising is much improved compared to a week ago.  She is able to limp around quite well but can’t be up walking for very long. She did lead the singing in Sacrament Meeting today and did most of Primary while sitting down.

We heard on good authority that the Zoukougbeu branch was to be divided today.  We were very blessed to know the two couples and four singles who were in our temple preparation classes.

We held only one class this week, in Godoua but really enjoyed those interactions. It is transfer week for the young elders and sisters.  We are losing one of our zone leaders, Elder Allsop, who will become a trainer for an arriving missionary.  We found out this morning that he will be working in Godoua and Niakia so that is a great blessing for us.  Elder Ndombe, our tall musician missionary, is being moved to Man.

We have hit the six week mark for temperatures over 100 but the weather is starting to change.  We see more clouds and there was a small rainfall not far away.  The mornings are more humid and warm.  March is a transitional month between the dry and the wet seasons.  It is interesting to us that the trees that lost their leaves have now sprouted a new growth of bright green, despite the lack of rain.

We were devastated by the news that our niece passed away suddenly at the age of 50, leaving her husband and three sons and parents and siblings to mourn.  Here is a part of her obituary:  “Our sweet daughter Aimee Kristine Corbett passed away at her home in Severn MD on 17 February, 2020, in accordance with her Patriarchal Blessing that she would “live as long as your life is desirable”. She will long be remembered as a loving wife, mother, daughter and friend, as a faithful Latter-day Saint, and a charitable person.”   We are grateful for our witness of a loving and merciful Heavenly Father.

Feb 16, 2020 A Valentine's Day Celebration

What an activity we had this week in Godoua!  Valentine's Day is celebrated here, and the branch decided several weeks ago to put on a program and meal on the 14th to honor the couples who have been married in the last 3 months.  The whole village was invited.

The organizers of the event, with grandkids.

It was held in the open air pavilion in the center of the village, with an additional tent set up to accommodate others.  It was to start at 9 and it started “promptly” at about 10:30.  That’s typical African time.  Things start when people get there.  The second photo is of several of the married couples as they began to gather.  Many of the women had sewn dresses out of the same fabric so you could tell who was married on the same day.  You can see three of them in the movie.  They had their hair (or their wigs) styled with flowers or beads in them and looked pretty fancy!  By the time we started there were at least 100 people present.

Starting to gather...

I spoke first to introduce the church and why we were there.  The two branch presidents followed and spoke about why marriage is important and what blessings it brings.  Civil marriage is not the norm for most couples who live in the villages.  Unfortunately most of their remarks were in Bété so we only got bits and pieces.  That was followed by an open period for questions.  At the end, some gifts were given to the married couples. 

The first speaker

 That was followed by what appeared to be a spontaneous a cappella song by a sister with each of the married women joining the song and dancing in front of the pavilion, with a lot of clapping going on.  Check out the video.  It was very fun, but what I like best is right at the end of the video you have a mother joining the dance with her baby.  I don’t know if coordination in dancing comes through genes or is learned, but in either case I give the mother credit!

Finally a buffet meal with lots of rice and “sauce” was served next-door on tables set up in the courtyard under a canopy.  The sauce was very spicy.  We had to get a missionary team to the city 45 minutes away to conduct a baptismal interview so we couldn’t stay longer, but it was very fun.  It seemed like a great success in getting the church introduced to the community.

Unfortunately, the day before, Sr. Spackman sprained her ankle while stepping down into a vendor’s stall to pay for some lettuce.  We were able to get ice on it fairly quickly but she is “hors de combat” for days or weeks.  She managed to put up with the bouncy ride to the activity the next day but we will be staying home for a while with the foot elevated. 

Sunday Feb 9, 2020

We had another delightful literacy class with our three star pupils.  Part of each lesson [“this is my family“ was the theme this week] is having them draw a picture.  It gives them practice with pencil manipulation.  Each included a mom and a dad.  It is illuminating what you can learn about perceptions from pictures.  One of the mom pictures had few recognizable characteristics except for breasts and a belly button and some shoes.  These ladies are supportive of each other and told us this week that we should never go home.

The three temple preparation classes are highlights of our week.  We use a lot of Church media on the laptop to show videos and images.  These help our students visualize what it may be like.  We had members come to the Accra temple who had never used a flush toilet or seen an elevator let alone a place like the Celestial Room. To know what to expect is very helpful to them. The manual is somewhat outdated when you compare it to what is available on the Church web site and what Pres. Nelson has said in General Conference.  We are so grateful for the updates.  We have come to love those who are preparing to go.  For a few they still have to get married first…  

This is a short note that we are sending out early. We will be traveling Sunday afternoon to the mission home and staying overnight.  It is time for another oil change on the truck and we should be home again Monday evening.    We are putting about 700 km on the truck every week.  Very tiring!

Admiring his slingshot for keeping the birds away from the rice

One of the medium size trees - about 50 feet high

These are the helpers taking chairs back for storage after our meeting in the open air pavilion

Happy Groundhog Day!

It’s Groundhog Day - but that doesn’t mean anything here.  Sometimes on the road we pass a young man holding up a dead rodent by the tail to show that it is for sale.  If there were groundhogs here they would be eaten.  We are in the late middle of the dry season.  Winter and summer don’t have any meaning.  All the leaves are falling off the evia trees and the blossoms are gone from the majestic African tulip trees.  It occasionally gets down to 70F in the early morning but usually it is about 75F.  It has been between 100 and 106F for the last 21 days.  We haven’t had any rain for over a month.  Everything is dusty. Today we saw a large group of boys dipping in a stream to cool off.

This masa (bus) is not stopped by the side of the road. It is traveling to town with a young man on the top and one hanging on the side and the back door is open.  That’s pretty typical. You  do not have to pay if you are riding outside.

The road to Issia recently had some bad holes repaired, and now they are scraping the shoulders with a front-end loader to clear off the tough bushes and overhanging trees.  It has changed the character of the road significantly.  On the unscraped portion, the bushes grow 10 to 20 feet high and create a narrow two-lane track.  When they are gone the road opens up and is barely recognizable, except that the holes are still there.  Now we have the added option of dodging them by going onto both shoulders (we are supposed to drive on the right but actually the whole road is used).

We continue our temple preparation classes and are getting to know those members better.  We also are 4 weeks into our literacy class. We have three women who attend and each is making progress. We have determined that one needs glasses and probably has dyslexia. When she tries to copy a letter from the alphabet it is always backwards or upside-down. After looking dyslexia up online, we no longer teach her letters but help her memorize words. She can recognize ‘I am’ and ‘I can’ in French.  She was so excited and so were we, to be able to give her some heartfelt encouragement. We have decided that the course in English may not translate well because some of the easy words in English are longer or require a phrase in French. Very difficult for something that is supposed to be simple.

Here is one of our favorite couples that was married and baptized a couple of months ago.  Notice the casually draped left hand of the soeur.

Our great news of the week was the creation last Sunday of a new branch in Zakaria, now part of the Daloa Stake.  This is a milestone for that small group of dear people that we have been training for the last 6 weeks.

This is a picture of the congregation in Godoua at the end of testimony meeting today. We had 67 in attendance, at least half outside. Notice the unfinished walls and dirt floors.  There is no electricity and no bathroom.

What we feel like doing by Sunday afternoon: