Last week was our long week away from Kumasi. We traveled to Sunyani on Tuesday, had the Sunyani/Techiman zone conference on Wednesday, arose early on Thursday and drove to Techiman for interviews and then drove on to Tamale. On Friday we had zone conference, and then stayed the weekend for the Tamale District conference. All total we did 50 interviews, two zone conferences, and four sessions of district conference in 7 days. Our zone conferences start at 9:00 am and finish at 4 pm. Long days, but so very rewarding. Here are pictures of 48 of the 50 missionaries we interviewed (I somehow managed to neglect taking a picture of Elder Christensen and Elder Tikonavuloa).

Now, to the title of this post. The title references the Radach Hotel and Conference center where we once again held the Tamale District Conference. I looked up the word “Radach”, hoping to learn that it was a word that means something like “over and over again” or “never quite complete” or perhaps, “next year”. But alas, it is simply a surname among the Muslim community. The Tamale District Center is now officially over one year past due of its original completion date. This means that the last three district conferences should have been held in that new facility, but due to delays and cost overruns, it remains incomplete to this day. This has continued to push us to the Radach.

At this conference, Elder Tony Kaku, one of our Area Seventies presided. It was especially sweet for him and the district president, Isaac Martey, as Elder Kaku was President Martey’s mission president in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. President Martey served as one of his Assistants. Sweet indeed.

Topics for the conference included: Missionary and Family History Coordination Meetings; Daily Scripture Study; Repentance; Love of God; Ministering; Following Righteousness; Mental Health and the role of Gospel Living; Family Councils; Spiritual Preparation; Focusing on Jesus Christ. For this conference we did something we have never done before, we brought about 150 people from Bolgatanga to the conference in two completely full buses. The only problem was that they left at 8:00 am instead of 7:00 am, arriving midway through the general session. Because we had scheduled the adult session on Sunday instead of Saturday, the trip to Tamale was well worth their efforts. We had 300 in attendance at the Sunday general session and 153 at the adult session that started about 25 minutes after the first one ended. We also had 13 men sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, more than in the last 12 months in total – this shows progress! During the Adult Session, President Fiagbedzi took the ~60 youth into another room and showed them the video from President Nelson and then had the youth bear testimony for the duration of the time allotted to the Adult Session. The reports from the youth meeting were outstanding. This meeting was part of the Worldwide Day of Testimony. Somehow we completely missed that this meeting was to be held. If it had not been for Elder Kaku, we would have missed it altogether. None of our other Districts were aware of it either. Usually something like this would have come from the formal communication channels, but we can only find it on the Church News. We need to pay more attention!

The good news in Tamale is that the Facilities Group in Accra has found a new contractor to come in and finish up the District Center. They are working on it now and the progress in just one week is impressive. We fully expect to be there for the Spring District Conference scheduled May 3-4, 2024.

As mentioned last week, now that we have completed the zone conferences, I wanted to include the files that support the key instruction given at this round of zone conferences (for posterity – 😊). Here is the agenda with links on the discussions repeatedly shared at each conference.

• Birthdays
• Health & Safety – Elder & Sister Loveland
• Vision Refresh – The Holy Ghost
• Instruction from Sister Training Leaders (Zone Leaders in Tamale)
• Testimonies of departing missionaries
• Instruction from Sister Kunz (A Fulness of Joy)
• One Minute Drills
• Lunch
• Assistants Instruction (Finders Keepers)
• Instruction from President Kunz (A Soft Heart)

As these zone conferences followed the same format as the ones I discussed last week, I will only add a few pictures from both of the conferences with brief explanations on each picture.

I normally don’t post the “fun” pictures that we take at each conference after the formal combined zone picture, but I will today. The reason is that the Zone Leaders (I think it was from them) purchased 9 “Gatsby beaners” that they quickly gave out before the picture was taken. We then took a separate picture of all those who wore them.

Right after the conference ended, we jumped in the car and drove to Techiman. We arrived about 6:45 pm. The last 30 minutes or so were in the dark, and that was simply not very fun. With limited street lighting we missed our turn to the couples apartment where we stayed and then had to maneuver our way back. We managed to arrive and then get a good night of sleep and woke up around at 5:00 am this morning and returned to Kumasi. Unfortunately we hit the morning traffic once we came to Suame and it ended up taking us 3.5 hours to get home – about an hour longer than it usually takes.

Back to last Monday. I played some basketball in the morning and then in the afternoon, we received in Elder Montecillo from the Philippines. For some reason all of the Africa World Airlines flights from Accra to Kumasi had been cancelled. We were worried we might not get him before we left the next morning. Our “quick on their feet” travel team in Accra (Eric and Daniel), managed to get him on a Passion Air flight that arrived just before 3 pm. Because his visa was delayed, he attended the Philippine’s MTC and came to us off-transfer. We knew he was coming and had Elder Kierstead work in a trio for a couple of weeks until he arrived. They will be serving in Daddease outside of Effiduase in the University Stake.

A couple of other items I will mention. On Tuesday eveing, two of our sisters got into a Pragya (motorized tricycle taxi) on their way to an exchange with their Sister Training Leaders. The driver and the other male passenger conspired to steal their bags containing their phones, money, and identification cards. The senior companion was not going to allow it to happen. She fended them off, jumped from a moving vehicle, and then grabbed her companion and pulled her out as well. It is a miracle that those two sisters were not seriously injured. We are grateful for two zone leaders who answered our call to go over and give them a blessing and get bandages and wraps from the pharmacy to protect their wounds. The last thing we wanted was for these sisters to go back out late in the evening to go to the hospital. The next morning our mission driver took them to a nearby hospital where their wounds were again cleaned and bandaged. We are so grateful that they were not hurt more seriously. And we were also grateful to have the Loveland’s with us to consult on the needed actions. We even called Elder Samuelson and he was able to help diagnose the immediate need. Also on the morning of our zone conference in Sunyani, one of our sisters fainted in the washroom and was taken by neighbors and her companion to the hospital. So grateful for Elder and Sister Loveland who stayed with her the entire time and managed to bring her back to the conference around 2 pm. All three of these sisters are doing well now. We love our sisters and are always trying to make sure they are healthy and safe. When we do run into trouble, the entire mission (if called upon) will jump to their aid. That was our experience this week.

Going to the north is always a busy week for us. It is even more so when we have a district conference tacked onto the end. We are so grateful for the progress we see in each of the 168 missionaries the Lord has entrusted to us. These young men and young women really do want to be even more consecrated disciples of Jesus Christ. We see it in their comments in zone conferences, the improvement we are witnessing in the righteous use of technology, and in the 1:1 interviews we have with them. We still have much further that we can all go when it comes to fulfilling our purpose and it is something we are all still working on. We continue to be filled with gratitude for the privilege of serving Together in Ghana as we work to gather Israel, one last time.