Sunday & Monday, April 19
& 20, 2015
On Sunday Dever’s picked us up at
8:30 and took us to a closer building, one the church has built. We had a nice meeting. One man from the Stake
preached a good sermon and covered many subjects. A woman and a young man spoke earlier, giving
great talks. The Africans can preach,
any of them, very well. Also a new Sister
missionary gave her testimony who had just been assigned to their Branch. She is from Ghana, her companion from
Nigeria.
At church the little boy above sat in front of us. He wouldn’t smile,
but he was not afraid of us. And the
little girl below—they always know how to pose for the camera-- no
matter how young.
Afterwards we ate
lunch at the hotel, and talked about the places we’d been so that we could turn
in a trip report to John Buah, the Area Welfare Manager and based in Accra, and
also our new boss in SLC (they changed our boss, again). The next morning they picked us up to take us
to the airport. We bid a fond farewell
to the Dever’s and the Golden Bean Hotel (sigh).
Our plane was late,
but it is a short 30-minute flight, so not a big deal. While waiting in the lounge for our plane to
arive I began to read my book. It was
one I had borrowed from my sister-in-law, Nancy Haslam. It is called “The Lincoln Hypothesis” by
Timothy Ballard. He is a Mormon, works
for the CIA and has captured many a slave trader in Operation Underground
Railroad, a private organization ‘dedicated to the physical extraction and
liberation of children who have been kidnapped, trafficked and exploited
throughout the world’. He also studies
history and decided with years of research a possible connection between Joseph
Smith, the Book of Mormon, and Abraham Lincoln, who we as Mormons think a lot
of because of his stance to abolish slavery.
The father off these
two little girls is a policeman in Ghana.
He is leaving soon to go to Kenya to train policemen there. He said he would be there for one year.
Because of the book, the Ghanaian
man sitting behind me asked what I was reading.
I showed him the cover and then he told me that he had a friend named
Eric from Utah that was an Elder in the Mormon Church and had shared our
beliefs with him. The gentleman said
that he had lived and taught tennis in the East, primarily in Boston, for a
number of years and had citizenship in the U.S.
Two years ago he came back to Ghana to start his church (presumed it was
his own because I had never heard of it before). He also had to do business because he had to
earn money and that was why he was going to Accra. He lives in Kumasi. He has since married and their first baby is
on the way. We had a fine conversation. I am so interested in this book since I had
just watched a show on the Discovery channel about all the miracles that
happened that helped us win the Revolutionary War that gave us our freedoms. Much of this is written about in this
book.
After our flight we saw our
driver from the Novotel there to pick us up, but we had to wait in the van for
others to arrive. One man got in the van
that was from Iran, there for a summit meeting.
Apparently Ghana is now in the oil and gas business, and this man knew
all about off-shore drilling and platforms.
He has lived in the UK for many years.
We still had to wait for one more man and it turned out that he was from
Kenya. Then we had plenty to talk about with
him too. He was born in the Machakos
area where we had drilled wells long ago during our full-time mission. He was with a bank and lived in Nairobi and was
in Accra for a conference also. We got
stuck in traffic, but the company was interesting. I never think I want to write in my journal,
and then I find something that I find interesting to write about that I don’t
want to forget. We feel privileged to
meet so many people in our travels from all walks of life.
Back at the Novotel we wrote e-mails
about our reports that we wrote yesterday evening. There is lots of paperwork in our very near
future.
Love, from the Novotel
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