The Work of the Mission

There are so many things about serving a mission that make it all worthwhile.  We had a great visit with Elder Ellis, of the 70 and a counselor in the South East Africa Area, and his wife KK.  They visited all four zones in the mission in a week and it was a busy week.  I know, because I was the one who was asked to put together the schedule with various versions before they picked one.  I then made all the hotel reservations and plane flights.  It was a very busy time for me as well, but the time sure flew by quickly.  I really like being just the right amount of busy--not so busy as to be under too much stress, but not so slow that I am bored.


This was the night Josephine Phiri opened her mission call.  We took it out to her home with the elders.  She was so excited to be called to serve in the Ghana West Mission.  Her mother, who is not a member of the church, is very excited for her and is very supportive of Josephine giving 18 months of her life to teach teh gospel.
 
Some of our wonderful missionaries at the Mission Leadership Council Meeting.  Sister Bingham, Sister Thueson, Sister Arok, and I think Elder Majekodunmi and Elder Kobyana on the side.


Baptisms in Matero Ward. To demonstrate how Africa time works and how we experienced a tender mercy, I’m going to tell you how one of our Saturdays this month went.  Primary children from each ward were selected to form a choir to sing for stake conference.  I was playing the piano for them.  They said the practice would be Saturday morning at 10 for one hour.  Great, that would work because I was scheduled to play the piano for a wedding at 1:30.  Well, the practice didn’t even get started until 11 and I finally left at 1:15 when they finally decided to practice in the chapel.  I got to the wedding at 1:45 and there were about 6 people there.  It didn’t get started until about 2:30 and went until about 3:45.  I was supposed to be across town to a baptism where I was providing the music and also giving a talk on baptism..  The traffic wasn’t too bad that day.  We got to the church about 4:30 and started the baptism with only one of the 5 baptism candidates there.  Just as the program was over and we were going outside to the baptismal font, the mother and 3 children who were supposed to be baptized walked in.  They had walked for the last hour to get to the church and just couldn’t make it in time.  The baby is about 3 months old and he was carried the whole way on the back of his tiny mother!  Anyway, the 4 of them quickly dressed and were able to be baptized.  Had we not had all the delays and the baptism would have gone off as planned, they would likely have missed the entire thing.  As it was, they were able to receive this sacred ordinance.  I was so impatient and annoyed at all the delays, when I should have just realized I don’t see the big picture and if I but just have faith, things generally work out just fine.  I’m a slow learner about patience I guess.

 
The sisters had no water for their baptism.  NO PROBLEM!  They filled and loaded all these heavy bottles of water to fill the font!  GIRL POWER!

I made an ice cream chocolate cake for President Kupu's birthday.   The Assistants and Zone Leaders were happy to help celebrate it with us and have cake too!