Friday, August 9, 2013

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


Thursday, August 8, 2013

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.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

June

The mission is growing rapidly.  A new area was opened up in Techiman.  It is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from here.  Elder Reiss has been up there a few times with Cooper looking at apartments.  We now have 8 elders serving there.  They had 9 baptisms last Sunday and more scheduled for the coming weeks.
Techiman

Techiman Medical Center

Street going into Techiman 



Bicycles are popular




Watermelons
One session of zone conference was held at Techiman.  Sunyani, Tamale and Techiman attended.  These are some pictures of the conference.





We are picking up the food from the caterer for the conference.  We had chicken and rice.  What a surprise.  At least it was chicken and it was good. Elder Hopkins ordered the food and Sister Elmer, the area dr.'s wife wanted to see a little of Techiman so she went with us.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

May Highlights

We have fallen into a routine now, so we mainly have just a few highlights and special things that we have done.  The first part of May was transfers.  We had 8 missionaries go home and 13 come in.  It was a very busy 2 days.  We did a lot of traveling and shuffling missionaries.  We got to take a group to the airport and see them off.  It is such an exciting time for them.  Then we went back to the airport to pick-up the new ones coming in.  It is fun to see their enthusiasm and their reaction as they arrive.
Waiting to go to the airport


Missionaries going home
We went to Tamale for the first time since the new area was opened up.  It is about a 5 hour drive.  There are 8 elders up there.  I'd heard that it was hotter there because it was closer to the Sahara.  I envisioned desert and camels and elephants.  So as we are driving I kept watching for the desert.  It really isn't that close to the Sahara.  The terrain is much flatter and the trees are much shorter, more like bushes.  It was somewhat warmer.  The streets are wide and it seemed cleaner.  There are no tro-tros just a few taxis and a million motor scooters.  We didn't get a very good picture of the motor scooters, but EVERYONE including the women in their dresses with babies on their backs ride motor scooters.  There are also a lot of bicycles.  No camels or elephants.   As far as missionary work there, it is a challenge.  It is predominately Muslim and a lot people go to Tamale to work, but are not there permanately.  We stayed in a pretty nice hotel.  We were glad to get back to Kumasi.


Not sure the what river this is


Petroleum bulk plant


Lots of these interesting little thatched-roof huts

Termite hill





Kind of a scary plant

Our room