It's a Small World after all...

                                                                                                                                                                 July 22-3, 2016

It’s a small world after all…Elder Baker picked us up at the hotel and drove us to the Church offices about 9 AM.  We met with the Baker’s to visit and to talk about our trip, and in the end they invited us to stay with them on our return trip for one night at the end of our travels.  They are from Idaho and have 13 children and 69 grandchildren!  Doesn’t that blow your mind?  It sure does mine!  I can barely keep up with 28 grandchildren! 

After visiting with them, we spent a little bit of time with John Buah and found that he had the same mind as we did about the work in Liberia and Sierra Leone.  One big surprise was seeing Elder & Sister Nay who arrived two months ago.  We met them when we were in charge of Mongolia and got to travel there!

    

Then, after sending my first letter we received a quick reply from Elder & Sister Herr.  We first met 10 years ago in Kenya when we were all serving our first full-time missions.  Herr’s went on to serve one mission after another in such places as Russia, various countries in Africa, and Australia—I have lost track.  They are now serving in a town not too far from Accra, so they will meet up with us when we return from our travels in 3 weeks.  This is why I feel once again, the small world that we have in the church!  It was a great day!

We had lunch at the office for only $2.50—they hire local ladies to fix a lunch.  It was not only good but you could have as much as you wanted and could pick from a variety of dishes. 

While at lunch we ran into the former Area Welfare Manager, Daniel Yirenya!  He is now an Area 70 and helps with building maintenance.  He told us all about our former Project Manager, Mustapha Turay that used to work and live in Sierra Leone.  We had heard that he went to Nigeria, which was true, but sold everything he owned in Sierra Leone (which was considerable) and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah!  This was a surprise!  We are glad to know where he ended up.  We have no doubt that he is doing things with the former E/S Petersen that used to serve here.

 

We get to relax before our travels this afternoon and this evening, but tomorrow the real work begins.  There is another change here that was obvious—because of all the terrorist activities across the world, there is security here at the hotel.  When you come in they might frisk you, or at least go through your backpack and you go through a detector.  They didn’t frisk us though or even go through our backpacks--they presumed we didn’t look like terrorists being old and having our Church badges on!  It is nice to know that they are protecting visitors coming and staying in their country; after all, a nice hotel would be the one that is targeted.  

Saturday, July 23:

I thought I was all straightened out—not so much—took a long nap, ate dinner, went to sleep at 10 PM, woke up at 1 AM, never to return to slumber—ugh!  We said a fond farewell to our nice digs, and checked out. The price was reasonable for here—some hotels are $200-$250 a night plus the taxes.  We felt pretty good about the bill, all things considered.  We hitched a ride on the hotel van and went to the airport.  The Accra airport coming in is really nice, but leaving they have made very few improvements.  We had a decent lunch on Kenya Air and the plane worked just fine despite the shabby seats that they have let deteriorate.  But then, who wouldn’t rather have a good engine, and we did.  We left late but arrived on time and Jim and I changed to the bulkhead, which was not totally filled up.

The covered plank to the boat was open and wind blew the rain in; it was a very long way to get to the boat.

We arrived at the Lungi Airport and quickly got through customs and right after collected our luggage from a much smaller plane then the last one.  We arrived to find the guy that we were told was to pick us up--a tall, handsome and confident young man that they use for this sort of thing.  He had our tickets purchased for our boat ride across the large bay.  We were not sitting a minute when we left on the bus to take us to the water’s edge. The very long plank had a cover over it, which was good since it was raining lightly—we are after all in the rainy season.  The cover though didn’t do much good since the wind was blowing the rain sideways so we got a bit damp.  This boat was newer and wider than the previous ones they had before, which was a good thing because the sea was very rough.  The waves hit the boat sideways, which pitched us up and down and sideways all at the same time  We’d come crashing down out of a wave, slamming hard, the kind of thing that might either make you seasick or give you back problems.  It was a rollicking good time!  No problem: we had our trusty and large, one-size-fits-all orange life jackets to save us in case of a spill.

A rollicking ride across the water—quite fun!

E/S Carley showed up in P-day clothes and badges so we’d recognize them, and brought us to the mission office and home.  This facility was in the making the last time we were here, so it was nice to see it all completed.  The office is below and the mission president is above, along with, I think two other couples in their own apartments.  We delivered lots of cash and some other requested things to the mission president.  They were happy to get them!  E/S Carley gave the mission president and his wife rave reviews.  Their name is Clawson.  The office couple’s name is Miner.

We were very anxious to see our new digs, a hotel we’ve never stayed in before.  On the outside it was anything but impressive, but our room is lovely.  It is newly remodeled so it is better-looking than the other one here in Freetown.  It is the “New Brookfields Hotel”.  No, that is not a typo.  It is like the Palm Spring Hotel in Liberia—not Palm Springs like one would think.  We had a nice dinner in the restaurant attached to the hotel, and were longing for sleep, but trying to stay up late enough to sleep through the night.  They gave us one of the extra mission trucks to drive for our trip.

A very nice room and a comfortable bed!

On the plane ride over here we met a group of young adult guys from Sierra Leone who got scholarships to study in China and have been away from home for 4 years!  They were so excited to go home, but they got some good degrees while there.  We also met a lady that had just been to training to help others become more self-reliant, a fairly new program that the church is now using in struggling areas of the world.  She was on the plane with us also.  She used to be a missionary but has now secured a paying job—55 sought the job, 5 got it.  She is thrilled, and it sounded like she was quite knowledgeable; we talked a lot about self-reliance concerning wells.

One of the most successful men in this area is called Sardoh.  Several months ago his tire blew on the highway and he rolled the car and now is a quadriplegic. He just got back from Accra for specialized medical treatment, but while gone Elder Carley has been handling his business affairs.  Sardoh often built buildings or homes and then rented them to the church for services or homes for missionary couples.   Elder Carley had some connections to some therapeutic equipment for rehab, so at the end of the month his daughter is bringing it with her and there is a therapist here to help him do some rehab, so they are quite hopeful that things will improve for him.

That’s all for now!

Love from Freetown, Sierra Leone