It is not unusual to see a tro-tro (which is a common method for people to travel here) crammed with a lot of people inside and baggage on top but if you look really carefully in this picture there are a couple of GOATS on top of this tro-tro!  This is the first time that we have seen this, but I am sure it won't be the last!  Crazy huh?

 How would you like to stay at this "executive hotel" I think that it might be quite the experience.  Sometimes the people here get a little bit mixed up in the spelling of words......lol!

Here is a great picture of Elder Garrison on MLC (mission leader council) day working with the sister trainer leaders on their subsistence.  As you can see he is quite outnumbered!  It is such a joy to work with these young missionaries as they serve here.

See that little orange pill?  It is the doxycycline pill that we are supposed to take every day to prevent Malaria. I have to thank my excellent companion for making sure that I take mine everyday, because if it were up to me, I most likely would NOT take it, but he is fanatic about making sure that I take it and I appreciate him so much so helping me remember! I am NOT good at taking pills regularly. 

I snapped this picture of Elder Utley and Elder Jones pointing to the area that they were headed after transfers last week.  They traveled to the far north part of our mission called Bolgatonga.  If you can see where the red area is in the yellow part of the map, that is Kumasi.  It is about 539 kilometers to Bolga and the roads are not that great here...  The area of this mission is huge.....it covers an area as big as Utah.  So our mission president and his wife put in a lot of  hours driving to cover the mission.  

I think we have President Kunz hooked on pickle ball!  He has been coming quite regularly to play with us on Saturday mornings.....he is wicked at the kitchen line  and is getting better every week that he plays!

Seeing clothes hanging out on a clothes line or across a fence or even laying on the ground or on rocks is very common here.  Most people do not have washing machines and definitely do not have dryers.  They have to wash their clothes by hand and then rinse them out and hang them to dry.  It can be pretty tricky during the rainy season to get it dry before it rains again....let alone the high humidity.  As senior couples we do have washers and dryers.....and we appreciate that so much!

On Tuesdays if Elder Garrison isn't too swamped with money and finance issues, we try to go to District Council.  

 This last Tuesday we were treated to a great lesson taught by Elder Riggs.  He taught about the 4 loves of a mission:  1.  Love your companion 2.  Love the people. 3. Love your mission president 4. Love the Savior.  He did such a great job teaching this lesson and generating a great discussion.  We are so glad that we could go.  

This is a picture of the district:  Elder Fitzgerald, Elder Penrose, Sister Shingirai, Sister Yula, Sister Okumah-Boyd, Sister Ngabola, Elder Kampanga and Elder Riggs.  It is such a joy to interact with these dedicated and diligent young missionaries!

The highlight of the week was definitely being able to watch all 5 sessions of General Conference.  Even though it didn't start here until 4pm and then 8pm, it was well worth the wait!  Both Saturday and Sunday we watched with the President and Sister Kunz and the Moomeys, the office elders and the assistants to the president came on Sunday.  We had great dinners that were a community effort both days, so we were fed both physically and spiritually.  It is hard to pick a favorite talk and we will definitely have to go back and read and study them in the next few weeks.  But I did especially love the poem that President Nelson quoted in his last talk:

It reminds me of just how important the time that we have NOW is what matters.  As we seem to continue to get older despite our desire to stay young, we am ever aware of the importance of doing now what is important and helpful.  We  hope and pray that we use this time in Ghana to grow closer to Heavenly Father and to serve the missionaries and people here.  We will never get this time back.....but hopefully we will have no regrets about the time we spent here and will continue to use our time for things that matter most. 

This box of passports from Ghana, Botswana, Liberia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, DRC, Cort de' Ivoire, South Africa and USA to name most,  presents quite  the head ache for me sometimes.  Just keeping track of where they are and what permits they have obtained takes up so much time.  I have spreadsheets, check lists and I write myself notes and anything I can to keep it all straight.  The problem is that this is not all our passports, many of them are kept in Accra because of immigration, so when missionaries travel, I need to make sure where the passport is, so that if it is in Accra that  someone from church travel meets them at the airport to pass it over. As you can imagine, with this system mix ups are bound to happen and they do, I assure you! 

This week was especially full of mishaps:  one of our Elders got to the airport with NO identification (I think I forget that they need to be reminded of EVERYTHING), then another Elder was traveling to home to Brazil and he got to Accra and the airline that he was traveling on would NOT accept the lab that his Covid test was done at in Kumasi, so we had to have someone from Accra pick him up and get another Covid test.  Then to top that off the church did a church-wide technical reset where they changed the log-in process and we have literally been on hold for hours  with "global support" (or maybe we should call it global red tape) trying to get things to work the way they did before it happened.  We still do not have that all figured out.  BUT.....in it all we have seen miracles happen and somehow things work out and we are able to do what we need to do to support the work here.  We are so grateful that we can see the hand of the Lord in this great work and that we can interact with such wonderful people.

Thanks for all the love and support we feel from friends and family.  Stay strong and steadfast.

Love,

The Garrisons