As we finished up our last full day of interviews on Wednesday, I forgot to give the four elders who live in Juaso their locally printed copies of Preach of My Gospel, second edition. We had 200 of the manuals printed to use with the mission until we receive the official printed versions from Church Headquarters sometime in the 4th quarter. Our desire was to get them out to all of the missionaries beginning July 1st so we could begin studying it together. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite make it, but hopefully by Tuesday at District Council, everyone will have them in hand and we will start on our scheduled study plan, going through the 13 chapters over the next 13 weeks.

If you are wondering what that has to do with Atwedie (pronounced something like this sounds: A-tchwree-dee-ay), let me explain. Atwedie is a small village about 30 minutes east of Konongo. We decided to attend church there on Sunday so we could get the Preach My Gospel manuals to Elder Driscoll and Elder Stephen as well as Elder Alger and Elder Kangana (the latter companionship works in Juaso). Both companionships live in the same apartment. Since we didn’t want these four elders to be the only missionaries in the mission without the new version of Preach of My Gospel, we decided to attend church in Atwedie. It was such a treat to do so! The building where they meet is extremely humble. The floor is either dirt or cement with dirt on top, or just rocks. It is hard to tell. There is no sound system and while we were there, the power was off. But the people were amazing! It was fast and testimony Sunday. According to the missionaries, about half the people in attendance were non-members. Nearly all of the meeting was in Twi (local language). Afterwards, we traveled to the Stake Center in Konongo, and 8 were baptized. It was such a wonderful day. On our way to Konongo, we stopped at the branch in Juaso and delivered the new Preach My Gospel manuals to Elder Alger and Elder Kangana. At the baptism, Sister Moyo and Sister Lomboto who serve in the Freetown ward, had two people baptized as well. Such a great day all around!

Two more things I should mention about the Konongo Stake. First, we happened upon a Gospel Literacy class in progress. Because of our work in Sierra Leone, we love this program and were so happy to see it functioning in the Freetown Ward. Second, The Church has been working on an addition to the stake center for over a year now. It has been very slow in coming, but recently it appears the work has picked up again. This addition is much needed as during stake conferences only half of the stake can attend inside. With all of the construction going on, the place was a bit of mess, but a small price to pay for better facilities. Here is a panoramic shot of the addition. It will more than double the current size of the chapel area.

I will now go back to Monday. Monday morning we played basketball again. Not quite as long as we played the week before. I was grateful as my knees recovered much quicker.

Monday afternoon, I met with Aaron Allotey, our facilities manager for the southern part of the mission. We have such a great need to get things done that I am grateful to have time with him each month to talk through the status of those needs. The Church is growing in the Kumasi Mission and to be honest the Facilities & Real Estate teams are having a hard time keeping up with the growth. One of the big issues we have is the difficultly in purchasing land. We want clear title and that is not often easy to come by. And so the result is often delays upon delays.

On Tuesday, we attended the Daban district council where Elder C. Beck is the district leader. I interviewed two of the missionaries before the meeting and the remaining 6 after the meeting. Elder and Sister Pack joined the meeting as well. It was a great meeting and Elder Beck is doing a wonderful job as the district leader.

Wednesday we made the Nkawkaw, Juaso, Konongo drive to interview the remainder of the missionaries in the Konongo Zone. I was able to interview the zone leaders (Elder Sehi and Elder Bryant) the night before at the Mission Office as they were here for an exchange with the Assistants. That gave me a bit more time in the schedule (which I always tend to struggle with keeping). I included the picture of the Juaso Elders above. Here are the two pictures we took in Nkawkaw and Low Cost (Konongo)

Wednesday night I also held our bi-weekly mission presidency meeting. I would be lost without these good brethren to move the work along in the Districts. We will create two new branches this month and make the trip to Wa for a branch conference. Plenty of things happening!

Thursday I spent the day working on transfers. Now that the interviews were done, it was time to start figuring out what the mission needs to look like as we lose 14 and bring in 9. It was a good day, and I felt like I made good progress on figuring out what the Lord would have me do. Turns out we continued to make changes up until this morning (Monday, July 3rd) and I think we finally have it right. I actually spent much of today calling the 40 missionaries whose leadership assignment will either start, end, or change. What a wonderful group of missionaries we have who rally to the call to serve wherever we need them. This transfer will impact 77 missionaries of the 192 in the mission including the 14 who will complete their service.

On Friday, we held our Couples Mission Council. We try to meet every transfer on a 90 minute zoom call with our couples. Here is the agenda we followed on Friday.

• Opening Prayer: Sister Goodrich
• Spiritual Thought: Elder Pack
• State of the Mission: Kunz’s
  – Two more couples coming:  The Ray’s and the Samuelson’s.
• Preach My Gospel, Edition 2
• Personal insights from your recent scripture study
• Senior Couples perspective on the mission
• Council Topics:
  • What are we doing to increase the number of callings in the branches?  (Follow-up item)
  • Successes with Self-Reliance and Gospel Literacy.
  • Apartment Inspections
  • Brief Testimonies: Elder & Sister Steinmetz
• Closing Prayer: Elder Goodrich

How grateful we are for these amazing senior couples who have put their lives on hold for 12-18 months to come and serve the people of Ghana – and in a very direct way they are serving us and the 192 missionaries in the Ghana Kumasi Mission as well. The Steinmetz’s will be leaving next week and taking a big part of us with them. They have been wonderful in Tamale and have left a legacy that will not soon be forgotten composed of music, literacy, leadership, counseling, encouragement, and love.

The week before transfers is always the transition from moving 100 mph down to a crawl as we pause to regroup, refocus, and plan for the upcoming transfers, MLC, and Zone Conferences. We are grateful for the steady rhythm of the transfer cycle and the opportunity to be fully engaged, gathering Israel one last time, Together in Ghana.