This is a picture of one of our last District Meetings with these Elders:  (Front row) Elder Skyles (he is taking my place, us, Elder Amoah (one of the mission assistants).  Back row: Elder Anderson (office elder), Elder Motuliki, Elder Williams(office elder) Elder Harnois (mission assistant) and Elder Panton (he is taking Elder Garrisons place)  (Elder Beck was taking the picture).  We will miss these wonderful elders so much.  They really are a great group!
 

This is Prince and Mabel.  They are independent contractors that do various projects for the church buildings in Kumasi.  We met them right when we came to Kumasi and they were always so kind and friendly.  We will miss them too!

This picture was taken the last Friday night that we (us, the Kunzes and the Moomeys) all went to our favorite place to eat (and one of the only choices we had...) Piri Piri.  We met every Friday night at 5:30pm and had dinner together and played some rousing games of Farkle.  It sure did give us something to look forward to each week!

This is from the Saturday before we left....our last pickle ball morning.  I have to admit that starting off our P-days this way on most Saturdays has been something that I always looked forward to with the Moomeys and President Kunz.  Of course, I would have liked to play more but I can do that soon.....just hoping that "my girls" won't kill me too bad since they have been playing multiple times a week while I have been gone!

On Sunday we attended our last Sunday in the Obuasi District.  President Tabi and his counselors had a little "meeting" after church that day and asked us what we had observed and what needed improvement etc., after we told me our thoughts, he said, "Ok, now don't be so nice and tell us what REALLY needs to happen".  I tell you, the people here are just so humble and teachable....I will miss them all.

On the Monday evening before we left the Lovelands came to take over the Moomey's positions in the mission.  The Kunzes took us all out to dinner at the Nobel House and we ate way too much!  We are glad that the Lovelands made it safely.  

After dinner, we went over to the Kunzes and they gave us our "African scarfs". They have our names on them and the years that we served and the name of the mission.  They are quite the tradition in the African missions! 

Here we are with our scarfs on...

This is Elder Skyles and Elder Panton...they are now officially in charge of the office.  We have worked with them for the past three weeks and boy did they pick things up FAST!  I have to remind myself that they are YOUNG and that they are digital natives!  I think that they learn about computers in the pre-existence really.  We feel great about leaving the work up to them....they will do great!

Elder Skyles is always cold in the office.....that is what happens to them after being here for a while....they are out in the hot weather day in and day out and being in the air conditioned office has been hard on them!  

We turned the keys over to them on Thursday before leaving and said our good-byes.....they will do great!

The first picture is us with the Wildings in Jerusalem and the next picture is Nicole Kohler, Sister Moomey, Suzanne and I taking a break from walking....so great to have the Moomeys and the Kohlers along with us.  

After flying almost 16 hours, we arrived in San Francisco and were greeted by Bob and Jackie and La and Max.....it was just the best to hug them again and be together:

Since being home, it seems like we have been on a dead run!  On Thursday we got to see La play in her last regular season softball game:

The next day we drove to LA to witness the baptism of Mike's son Trent.  He actually postponed his baptism so that we could be there, which was so special to us.  Joye and Chloe met us there:

It was a fun weekend there with them...lots of Pickle Ball involved on the court in their back yard!  The next day we left early with Joye and Chloe for Disneyland.  We missed her graduation, so we were celebrating that and her coming up mission to the Reno Nevada Mission. 

From there we headed up north to be home for a day before traveling to Reno.  We took Chloe to see her mission and attended a dinner with Bob on Saturday night that his company has each year. 

So now we are HOME......and oh it is good to be HOME.  Sometimes the whole being on a mission in Ghana seems like it was a dream.  It wasn't even a month ago that we were there, but the memories fade fast.  We are thankful that we could serve there with President and Sister Kunz and the other Senior Missionaries and the young elders.....such good people! There are so many memories that we will cherish:  the people, the humble circumstances that they live in, the children, the incredible faith that they have.  We will miss  the simple life there and the way that we could focus on what really matters.  Hopefully we can do better here because of those experiences.  Again, thanks to all our friends and family for your love and support.  It was an incredible journey.....until next blog.......

Love,

The Garrisons