District Conference

Since the last post we have traveled to Cape Coast to have a multi zone conference and see the Area Doctor.  He visits the mission twice a year to see the Elders and Sisters and check on any concern they may have.  We were to drink more water and that water will help cure most ills.  We have water filters in all of the apartments that gives us good pure water.  The Elders also are given a filter bottle that will
make any water safe to drink.

This weekend we had District Conference, it included a priesthood training as well as a training for the auxiliary's.  Sister Ivie taught the primary presidents and they had a wonderful time.  In the afternoon we had the adults meet and be taught by the Mission President.  The District is working hard on being able to be a Stake in the near future.  The Sunday Morning meeting we had a goal of 1400 to attend.  The report said we had 1800+,  they were in the foyer, the large meeting rooms and all around the outside of the building.  There had to be several hundred invesgator because the membership of the District is only 2100.  They came by bus loads, TroTros, and cabs,.  There were about a dozen cars in the parking lot.

The Trotro's

Definitely one of the nicest bus around

This is Grace Wallace, she is one of Sister Ivie's piano students and the wife of the 2nd Councilor in the District Presidency

Sister Ivie in one of her new African Dress's

 We had a service project this last Monday in Winnaba.  The sign pointing the way to the chapel had been damaged.  The Elders brought their machete's and cleared the weeds and overgrowth.

We were able to get moved to the front of the other signs and presentable.  

We were asked to talk in District Conference about family history and encourage the members to become involved Family Search.  It turns out that the amount of families submitting names to the Temple is now a reportable item on the Quarterly Reports for every unit in the Church, and it is one of the key indicators that is being looked at for the District to be made into a Stake.  

So we were concerned about just how it needs to be done in Africa and just how hard is it to accomplish.  We decided we needed to go to Accra and get some additional information.  So Thursday we ventured off to the City on our own.  We made it to the Area Office and back with very little course correction. (Short for we only got a little lost).  While we in the finance office to pay our car rental, we met the Area Director of Family Search, and he invited us down to his office on the first floor.  So we went to the first floor and was wandering around trying to find his office when we saw the office for the perpetual education fund.  We poked our heads in and met the Senior Missionary Couple that was in charge, Elder and Sister Cannon.  Turns out that Elder Cannon is the son of the original missionary couple that came to Ghana in 1978 and baptized the large group of people that Billy Johnson had been nurturing for over 13 years, waiting for the Church to send missionaries.  Also in the office was one of the original converts that was baptized that day by Elder Cannon's father.  They shared pictures of that special day and shared his feelings of all that took place. He was number fourteen.

Well we found out that the first floor is the one above the ground level.  Go figure, so we finally found our Family Search Director.  He was so helpful and totally filled with stories about family search in Africa.  His predecessors from America believed it was not possible to do family history because of the lack of records.  But Brother Bonsu (native African) had a different vision.  Today West Africa leads the Church in the percentage of members submitting names to the Temple.  He began his family history shortly after joining the Church.  He now has sixteen generation back.  It appears the ancestors of these good people want to be found and are doing miracles to make it happen.  We left his office totally excited to go back to our district and help teach these good people how to do family search.  It is harder because there are not a lot of records, but there is a way, but you have to started.  We in America really do not have an excuse for not doing our genealogy.