Monday, 1 January 2018

November 6 to December 18, 2017








This is the last entry into our blog about our mission to Ghana.  It was  a great experience that we have cherished since we arrived home to Kelowna in December, 2017.  It is now Feb, 2021 and we are going to have the blog published in book form so that we and others can  read of our experiences.  The lasting memories are:


- Seeing and feeling the light of the gospel in the young missionaries lives which was contagious. 
 
- We enjoyed visiting their apartments to take out items that needed replaced or to repair broken beds
   and to help them to overcome various ailments.  Meg was a great Mission Nurse!

- Serving the kind, helpful and jovial people of Ghana..

- Buying coconuts for all the people at the driving range and giving out Books of Mormon.

 - The many outings and meals that we enjoyed with our fellow senior missionaries who were all most
  exemplary of what the gospel is in real life.  They all had a special spirit about them.






Amsterdam airport with some missionaries we returned home with.


One of the many vehicles that had religious sayings.   A very 
God believing people.


Our first Mission President David Heid who was a wonderful man.






An example of a going home devotional - not ours.











Elder and Sister Webster.  Elder Webster served as the Executive Secretary to the Area Presidency and was a good source of information.  They later returned to serve as Mission President in the Ghana Kumasi Mission.

Gilbert's wife and daughter.



The following pictures  are random final photos of the people, street scenes and animals we saw on our safari to South Africa.











We stayed in some wonderful accommodations!



Victoria Falls with Kevin, Linda, Carol, Les and Mikyla.









Dinner on a the Zambezi.  We saw a lot of hippos in the river.


























Back to reality.  Buying a car for Meg in Kelowna.












Sunday, 5 November 2017

October 2 to November 5


We went to Counter Burger for dinner with the Haglunds and Glanfields to listen to the Jazz trio afterwards.
I thought the above picture was a Ghana version of Dumb and Dumber!




We went to church in Aflao, which was real crowded because it was held in the sitting room of the missionaries apartment.   Afterwards drove to this empty lot which was for sale and could be used as a site to build a chapel some day.

The Aflao missionary apartment has very cold water so it was decided to put in a hot water heater to give them hot water showers.  We were quite impressed with it until we heard a week later that it short circuited and blew up!  It is going to be replaced with a more conventional hot water tank.

We spent two nights at the Aborigines Resort near Aflao which is located on a very large beach.   There were a lot of Ghanain canoes on the beach that are used for fishing and we watched as the nets were brought in.

The nets are set off shore and are pulled in using long ropes.  There were some sardines caught along with herring and a lot of jelly fish.






We were made honorary fishermen by having this wet smelly net draped over our shoulders.






Although the Aborigines Resort had real hard beds and poor food 
 there was a nice pool and plenty of flowers.








In the nearby town was the remains of a slave fort that we toured.


I think this is the remains of an old oven.

These stones were used to grind corn into flour.  Apparently they have a collection of blue whale bones such as the vertebrae which I am holding.


These scales were used to weigh the slaves that were held in rooms before loading onto ships.  Prior to taking the slaves to the ships they were starved for two days so that they would be too weak to run away.


The women were made to take baths in these basins while the officers watched.  Then they would choose which ones should be brought to their quarters.

This was our tour guide.





While travelling from Aborigines to Aflao to church we saw some idyllic beach scenes.




All of the Canadian senior missionaries got together and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving complete with pie.
A lot of work has been done to the apartment where we used to live including a new tile covered parking pad.



An unfortunate thing happened to Bubba's hut.   A limb from the overhanging mango tree broke off and hit his hut causing a lot of damage.


A couple of Saturdays ago we had lunch at the Hillbury resort which is about 40 min. north of Accra.










The Hillbury Resort is in the town of Aburi which is also the location of a large number of wood carvers that had shops to display their wares.  We bought some animal carvings.


At the dedication of the new Mission Training Centre, Meg met this other senior missionary who had served in the same mission at the same time that Meg did before she was married -what a coincidence!  This is the third missionary that Meg has met in Ghana that served in the London South Mission when she did.


We attended a concert of a Ghana choir who were celebrating their 10th anniversary.

At the bank where I pay for the cable TV and use the ATM I noticed this sign hung on the wall.




We have installed washing machines in 5 apartments that are working well and we would like to install some more.  We might try the model shown above which is cheaper than the other ones that were bought.

Meg commissioned the carver across the street from our apartment to make a zebra but when we picked it up we were surprised to find that is looked like a cross between a giraffe and a zebra -
a ziraffe?  Our daughter Vanessa loves it!

The other day we met this man and his dancing puppet outside the mission home.  He was very entertaining.