Missions are GREAT!!

The Ghana Temple is so beautiful.  It's amazing to finally stand in front of it.  It's a dream come true to be close to such a  peaceful, spiritual place.  We just walk across the small parking lot to be at the Temple vs. driving 3-6 hours through D.C. traffic.  The inside has dark African wood columns and African motif stain glass windows.  The building in the background is the West Africa Area office where our offices are located.
We spend a few days here and rest of the days out in other areas of Ghana.  We are waiting for additional visas to begin traveling to visit the other 6 countries in our mission.

 

We attended church our first Sunday at the Newtown Ward.  The members all greeted us with smiles.  The Ghanaian people are happy and welcoming to everyone. You haven't heard a hymn sung until you've heard an African choir sing, wow!   They also all sing along with the prelude music.  They just love being together. 

There were over 15 people in the investigator class.  The questions are interesting.  One person asked if the Koran was scripture, Never heard that at home, but there's a large Muslim population here. They also had 3 priesthood ordinations and 5 baptisms after church. The pictures are the neighborhood around the building. 

Elder and Sister Elmer were with us. She teaches the Young Women class and English.  The men speak English, but many of the local women do not.  It's a concern, because it limits their ability to get a job or to interact outside their local areas.

 Our first training meeting with members from the southern Ghana area.  Many of the members traveled hours to come.  They were so grateful and excited to be there.  Can you find Elder Watson in the picture?

 

 Lunch after the meeting.  That's Pat's new friend, Rebecca.  She laughs all the time.  Believe it -- We ate cow feet and liked them!!  We also liked the fofo, fermented corn meal, but the fish soup with whole fish, heads, insides and all, wasn't our favorite.

 Have to wash all our dishes and food in Clorox water.  Takes a lot of time to prepare every day, because you have to eat breakfast so we can take malaria pills, need to pack lunches and have had to go back to cooking every night (only drawback of a mission!).

Elder David A Bednar, of the Quorum of 12 Apostles, visited us last week.  Over 2000 members attended on this night.  He had the first 4 rows reserved and after the hall filled, he told all those standing in the back to come fill those seats. We also had a meeting with him with 300 younger missionaries and about 20 other senior couples. 

He told us the Atonement of Christ is for everyone. We do all we can, but we can never do enough.  The Savior does all the rest for us.  When Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on the water to Christ he first said, "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee.." As soon as Peter heard Christ say, "Come", he was out of that boat onto the water and into the storm.  Losing focus and confidence he began to sink.  The cool thing is that IMMEDIATELY Christ reached out and lifted him up.  That's also when He is there for us, immediately.

Better close, need to be up at ..., well, let's just say it's early!  Love to all, and most especially to our wonderful family.

We've ARRIVED!



We had an amazing 2 weeks in Utah.  Our 1st week was at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT and was one of the most memorable weeks of our lives.  It was intense with much studying and learning, but also full of excitement and joy.  You can't help but enjoy being with over 2000 smiling young missionaries along with our 100 senior couples, who are preparing to go all over the world to serve.  Can't deny that the "all you can eat at every meal, didn't have to cook or clean up" dining hall was also memorable.  The younger missionaries even let us cut in line and carried our trays, can't beat that.

 

                                              Elder and Sister Watson at MTC World Map

We are so grateful to our dear friends, Kerry and Teresa Adams, for housing us for our 2nd week of training in SLC.  They took care of us and filled us full of our "last" favorite foods.

We had a great surprise when our son Ted was able to fit in a business trip to SLC to visit with us one more time.  It was wonderful to be with him.  Ted now holds the bragging rights as the first child to visit us on our mission.

                                                             Bragging rights for Ted
We left SLC at 11:00 am, Monday, Jan 20 and arrived in Accra, Ghana at 11:30 am, Tuesday, Jan 21.  We feel like we lost a day in our lives, but we'll get it back in July 2015.  We walked off the air conditioned plane into our new climate.  We were worried about the heat, but turns out it's just like VA in July, but for 12 months.  We'll have 2 seasons, dry and wet, with a little dust season in between. 

After 1.5 hours in customs we were picked up by the Fitzgeralds, a missionary couple.  They took us to our apartment, which is in a small, very safe complex about 3 miles from the Ghana Temple and our offices.  There are 5 other couples in our complex, and they all have made us feel so welcomed.  They had dinner waiting for us when we arrived.

                                                               Love our Apartment

The Elmers took us grocery shopping on our 2nd day. We went to 4 different stores, because you can't get everything at one store, and you can't even find the same things at the same store the next day.  The food looks familiar just in different languages.  Some food is very expensive,  Ed won't be eating Ben & Jerry's for a while at $21 per pint.  Fruit is plentiful, delicious, and sold in stands along the roads.  Pineapples are only 50 cents.

                                                             Recognize anything?

The other couples drove us around for the first 3 days to get acquainted with the area.  On Friday we ventured out in our own car.  The city traffic is like NYC times 100.  Plus there are street sellers walking between the lanes of traffic at every intersection.  Ed thinks it's fun, but I just grip tight to the map and navigate.  I'm glad he's enjoying himself!

We celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary on Jan 31st.  We went to dinner at Pinocchio's (fun place because we could get real milkshakes!) with the Elmers, Bullocks, Smiths, and Walls.  The Stokers were visiting Nigeria.

One special thing this week was a visit from Elder David Bednar of the Quorum of 12 Apostles.  We were able to attend 2 meetings with him, one with 2000 members and the other with 300 missionaries.  What an amazing time.

The people of Ghana are just as wonderful as we'd imagined they'd be.  They are very poor but are happy and welcoming and always smiling. 

We are having a wonderful time and are so thrilled to have this privilege and blessing in our lives.  As the scriptures say in Mark 9:5, "It is good for us to be here."