On our drive to Obuasi on Palm  Sunday we encountered a parade of church-goers celebrating Palm Sunday.  The people were dressed in their best and were carrying palm branches.  We honked and waved and they all waved at us.  Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter where Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  The people waved palms and put down their coats for him, as if he were royalty.  Hard to believe that just days later, He was crucified on a cross on Calvary.  But 3 days later He rose from the dead and overcame death.  We are so thankful for Jesus Christ and for the life that He lived and the fact that he gave His life so that we could live again, if we would just follow Him and obey His commandments. 

This is a picture of our primary kids coloring.  Each week when we teach them, we sing songs with them and talk about a Bible Story and then we always have a coloring sheet.  They LOVE to color and they are so good about sharing the colors of crayons.    You can see from this picture that the room is really just cement floors and cement walls, there is no fan in it , so it can get quite warm(sweltering) in there.  On Sunday we had 16 children.  We LOVE the children here in Africa.  They are just so happy with whatever they are offered and they are always very considerate and respectful.

After class I told the children that I wanted to take a picture of all of them that were dressed in African clothes.....I LOVE the bright patterns in the clothes that they wear.  Elder Garrison there is sporting an African tie too......aren't they just so cute?

Every six weeks we have zone conference.  There are 8 zones in our mission, so some of the zones are combined.  The President & Sister Kunz of course attend and direct and teach at all 5 of the conferences, but we just attend one each transfer.  Usually, we just sit and ENJOY ! But this time,  we had to  had the honor of doing a 30 minute presentation.  Elder Garrison told about the Spiritually Defining Memories of his conversion to the gospel and I told the story of Parker Strong, a missionary from Utah that served in Ghana in 2013.  He started wondering what he was doing in Ghana and if he really was where the Lord needed him?  Then one day, he saw a little boy wearing a Junior Jazz Jersey and it turned out it was his from when we was 10 years old.  His mom had given it to DI and it found it's way to him in Ghana.  He knew then, that the Lord was certainly aware of him and that he was exactly where he should be serving.  We used Elder Anderson's talk called "Spiritually Defining Memories" as the basis for the presentation and admonished the missionaries to write these experiences down, and share them with others.  These are the memories that they will cherish and that will shape their testimonies of Jesus Christ. 

President and Sister Kunz did a review of all the topics that they have covered this year in Zone Conferences, and actually gave the missionaries a quiz.  It was a great review, and as you can see, they really are great at teaching us to be better missionaries.  

On Saturday, we hit up the pool at the Golden Tulip with the Moomeys.  It just felt so good to swim and be out in the sun for a few hours.  The pool there is very big and nice.  It was our Easter gift to ourselves! The hamburger that Elder Garrison got for lunch that day was the best one that he has had to date here in Ghana. We will definitely be back to the Golden Tulip!

Belinda, Florence and Grace.  They are three of the girls at church that greet us every week.  We look forward to seeing them.  You see Grace is carrying my purse and a bag that I needed to give to the Elders.  They wait for us and come running to the car to greet us.....just love these girls.  

This is a picture that is displayed at the chapel that we attend in Obuasi.  I have seen this painting for a few years, but as I looked at it today, it just really spoke to my spirit. It is a painting by Liz Lemon Swindle and is called "The Worth of Souls".  It shows Christ holding a little black baby.  To me, it is symbolic of His love for all of his children.  Truly, He doesn't care what color our skin is, or where we live, or what we do for a living or what we look like.  He simply loves us because we are literally His children.  If we could all just remember this when dealing with others, there would be so much less division and hatred in the world.  He is the Way.......

This is Hannah.  She cooks at the mission office and also does all the cleaning.  She is just the sweestest person you will ever want to meet.  She has four young children and is the Relief Society President in her ward here.  She was recently making Banku.  Banku is a cooked slightly fermented mixture of corn-dough and cassava-dough made into single serving balls, it is served with soup, okra stew or a pepper sauce with fish.  I have yet to taste banku, but the elders love it.  I did taste a little bit while she was making it, and it has a distinctive SOUR taste.  Hannah says that if it is not sour, then it is not good banku!  It is hard work to make it....I told her that no wonder the Ghanaian women have such great arms!  

Life is zipping right along here.  We just hit our 6 month mark.  Hard to believe that we have been here 1/3 of our mission already.  We certainly feel blessed to be able to be here and serve in this mission.  We see the hand of the Lord in so many of the little details every single day.  Thanks for all your prayers and good thoughts for us. Stay strong and steadfast!

Love,

The Garrisons