Sunday, April 24, 2016

Mission Tour 2016


Elder and Sister Terence Vinson


We enjoyed having Elder and Sister Vinson with us for part of the week for our annual mission tour. Elder Vinson is a member of the Seventy and is First Counselor in the Africa West Area Presidency. We met with all the missionaries in two combined zone conferences.


Western Region




Central Region

We received wonderful instruction from Elder and Sister Vinson.


Sister Vinson gave us a visual demonstration of the impact one missionary had on her family when he responded to a prompting to return to her aunt's home after she had already told them she was not interested in their message.



Hundreds of people have now been blessed by the Gospel in her family in just three generations.

We visited two missionary apartments during the week and joined in companionship study.  






The missionaries really enjoyed meeting the Vinsons.  


I had the opportunity this week to set apart three new missionaries from our Mission Branches.


All three will serve in Nigerian missions.



Two come from the Kissi Branch and one from Mankessim 1st Branch.

The mission tour ended on Thursday.  On Friday, we held our Finish Strong Seminar for the missionaries going home in June and August.


We ate something I hadn't had before -- snapper covered in "palava sauce" and boiled yams (cassava).





You grab a chunk of the cassava with your fingers then dip it in the palava.  It was tasty.


Seeking inspiration to finish strong from Doctrine and Covenants 88:81-87.  You could look it up.


Signing the Finish Strong Shirt





Alas, the Hanlons go home in August, but WE HAVE THREE NEW COUPLES COMING BEFORE THEY LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday, President Fokuo asked me to provide training for the bishops in the Assin Foso Stake.


President Fokuo and I have a great relationship.


He feeds us very well.


It is hard not to smile when you see fat Talapia swimming in fufu.

On Sunday, I got up at 4 a.m. and drove out to Nkroful.  I picked up President Adjei in Mpintsin.  We enjoyed meeting with the branch and spent some time with the branch president discussing opportunities to expand the Church to surrounding communities.  We were also able to participate in a baptismal service in the afternoon.




On the way home from Nkroful, I stopped in Mpintsin to drop off President Adjei and got a picture of two of our missionaries in Priesthood Meeting.




Sister Stevenson attended the Nkanfoa Ward and taught the Primary.



























Giant Snails -- It's what's for dinner.



We have had snails once with fufu.  It is an interesting texture.  The man selling them on the street said 20 GHS for one (US$ 5) or 10 GHS to take a picture.  We gave him 10.  I'm not sure if that is the white man rate being quoted because it seemed a little steep to me.


Sunday, April 17, 2016

Packing on the KMs.




Ye Elders of Axim.

This week, we continued our missionary interviews in the Western Region and met with approximately 70 missionaries in the Tarkwa, Takoradi and Mpintsin Zones.  We did not get pictures of everyone, for which I am truly sorry.  








President, we have a question.











On one of the days, we left Takoradi and drove an hour to Agona to see two missionaries, then on to Tarkwa (two hours, with traffic) to see eight missionaries, then back down to Agona to make the cut-off to Axim (2.5 hours) to see six missionaries, then further northwest for 35 minutes to Nkroful to see four missionaries.  From Nkroful, it was about a 2.5 hour drive back to Takoradi.  

We saw some pretty country and clicked over the 116,000 km mark on the odometer.  






It was a beautiful day from beginning to end.