Our trip to Techiman and other things

Frances planted corn in the vacant lot by the mission home.  He takes really good care of the mission home and the grounds.  It always looks clean and nice.  They raise a lot of corn here.  It is field corn that they dry and grind to use for flour for some of their dishes and they steam or roast it to sell and eat.  We find it quite tough so we haven't been able to eat it.

Frances's children helping with the corn

We traveled to Techiman with Cooper to take supplies to the missionaries and check on potential apartments.  It was market day in one of the villages we drove through.  It was the day the corn, yam and plaintain trucks came and all the people come to get their stuff to sell.  These are just a few pictures of what it was like driving through.  The traffic was bad and it took a long time to get through.

The Techiman elders killed a goat and roasted it.  I guess it was really good.  They saved a bone for a souvenir.  These are some more random pictures of Techiman and a couple of the apartments.

One of the Techiman apt/chapels

Eating lunch-Elder Keifala and Elder Allen

Elder Slade and Billy's bone.

Elder Slade, Elder Ward and Elder Hopkins

Cocoa tree with pods(salad, right?)

We attended church at the Boukrom branch.  They had a baptism that Sunday.  We love visiting these wards and branches.  It is so fun associating with the members, investigators and the missionaries.

Elder Yawtey and Elder Bradley

Elder Helgesen and Elder Bradley

Elder Bradley, Elder Helgesen and Elder Riddle

Brother Kay makes kente scripture bags

Trying to get caught up

We attended church in Daban on Sunday.  The chapel is located close to the mission home.  These are a few pictures of the elders and members there.

Assistants to the President- Elder Crump from Malad, Id and Elder Evbuomwan from Nigeria

Frances-works at the mission home

Elder Sagers from Oakley,  Id. and Elder Stentzel from Murray, Ut.

  The roads to the apartments are really bad.  The pictures don't show how bad they are but we took a picture of the road coming from one of the sister companionships apartments.  In June the elders moved out and the sisters moved in.  We took the sisters up there and as we are bouncing, shaking, winding and weaving our way up the road, one of the sisters shrieked,  "Elder Reiss, where are you taking us?"   It was quite funny, but once we got there they were pleased because the apt. is pretty nice.

 We went to Sunyani this week.  Here are some random pictures of the area and the drive up there.

Corn

Selling cane rats along the road

Haven't seen too many turkeys around

Trying to get a picture of the speed bumps in the villages

6 months +

We are approaching  7 months now and I am having a difficult keeping up with the blog because time is going very quickly especially when we look back and not ahead.    The sister missionaries that live in the apartment behind us taught 2 of their investigators at our apartment.  They asked Elder Reiss to baptize them.

 One of our sister missionaries got very sick and had to spend some time in the hospital.  She eventually had to return to her home in Kenya for medical help.  It has been reported that they found out what the problem is and she is being treated.  She has a great desire to serve a mission so hopefully that will be possible in time.  We were visiting her at the hospital on a Sunday and her companions and some of the elders in her district also came to see her.

 In June we had 6 elders depart.  Elder Succo left a day early so this is a picture of the 5 their last night here.  Here are  a few of the incoming missionaries getting all their paperwork in order before heading out on their adventure in Ghana.

This district meeting was held on the grass under a tree.  When we got there the missionaries couldn't get into the building because spraying for bugs or something, so they held their meeting outside.

 We got a package from home.  This is me enjoying some peanut M & M's.

 When we arrived here in Ghana in January the weather was very hot and dry and everything was covered with red dust.  The lawns at the chapels and at the few places where there is grass, it was dry and crunchy.  We are in the rainy, cool season now so everything is green and lush and the weather is cool. It is cloudy most of the time, but we don't mind. The sun is still very warm when it comes out so we are enjoying the relief from the heat.  There has been a time or two that I couldn't have used my sweater, but I haven't gotten it out yet.  This is a picture of the lawn at the UST chapel.  The earlier pictures that I have posted of the chapels show the brown lawns.

 The snails here are huge.  This is a picture of a small one.

 We attended church one Sunday in Agona-Asamang.  Afterward we stopped by the Elder's apartment to pick something up and there was a cow herder in front of the apartment with his herd.  The cows are very tame.  We gave this member a ride to his home.  He wanted us to meet his father.  We took a picture of them and the children that were there wanted their picture taken also.

 They sell a lot of fabric in this little village on our way home.

 There were 4 elders that went home at the July transfer.  One of them left early in the morning so we didn't get a picture of him, but this is picture of the other 3.