This week we had an experience we have never had before. We traveled to Abuja, Nigeria for the Mission Leader Seminar held by the Area Presidency holds twice a year. Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria and has been since December 1991 when it was moved from Lagos in an effort to spur economic development as Abuja is centrally located in the country. The city was started in the 1980’s and was a master planned effort with architects from America and Japan participating in the design and layout. It is quite an amazing city and certainly the best African city we have visited. An up-to-date airport, an impressive system of roads/freeways, and modern buildings all make Abuja the fastest growing city in Africa and one of the fastest in the world. Between 2000 and 2010, it ranked #1 as the fasted growing city in the world and still boasts a growth rate of 35% annually. From what we could see as we flew in, there is plenty of room for growth in the surrounding countryside. This past July a new mission was formed in Abuja with President Dennis Ocansey and his wife (from Ghana) serving as mission leaders.

But alas, we are getting ahead of ourselves just a bit. We traveled back from Techiman on Monday morning following our zone conferences in the North. We stayed Sunday night at the empty couples apartment on our way home from Tamale as it was dark by the time we made it to Techiman. We had been gone 6 full days by the time we returned and were grateful to be home again. LaDawn washed our clothes and we prepared to head out the next morning to Accra. While our flight to Abuja from Accra was not until Wednesday morning, we couldn’t get a flight early enough from Kumasi to make the connection, so we went on Tuesday. That allowed us an opportunity to attend a temple session with President and Sister Morgan from the Cape Coast Mission. Following our temple session, the Morgan’s took us to Pomona, an Italian Restaurant that rivals any American Restaurant we have visited. Filet Mignon, mashed potatoes, an incredible dessert with vanilla ice cream and cream puffs smothered in a milk chocolate sauce. Wow! We have not eaten anything like that since our arrival in Africa. First the temple and then a wonderful dinner. What an amazing way to start our Mission Leader Seminar week.

Okay, back to Abuja. From the airport, we had three vans take the 10 couples who were on the same flight to the hotel. (Area Presidency + Executive Secretary; Director of Temporal Affairs – DTA (Flint Mensah); MTC President and wife; 4 Mission Leader companionships from Ghana; Sierra Leone Mission Leaders. The Mission Leader Seminar was held at the Fraser Suites. This was a very nice hotel and we had a huge room with a good sized living area and a nice bedroom. The food was good and the staff were outstanding. It had a beautiful swimming pool and excellent Gym. It was in a gated compound with numerous security staff.

The seminar itself was excellent. It is so wonderful to be with the Area Presidency and the other 20 mission leaders in the Africa West Area. It is like coming to an oasis where living water flows freely. Here are some high level bullet points of the topics covered during the two days.

• Teach to build faith in Jesus Christ – Elder and Sister Kyungu. Quoted President Oaks, “If we teach by the spirit then we can teach anyone, anywhere in the world regardless of how well educated they are.” He also quoted Elder Bednar, “Teaching it is not telling, it is showing how it is to be done.” Elder Kyungu also emphasized that the lessons in Preach My Gospel have an order. As we teach that order (Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4), the Spirit will be poured out more abundantly upon the missionaries and those they teach. He was quick to add that adhering to the order does not mean we cannot teach principles from the other lessons when the Spirit dictates, but that we quickly return back to the order of the lessons.
• A Purpose Centered Mission Culture – Elder & Sister Klebingat. Our missionary purpose is central to the work that we do. We discussed the ways we can know if our mission culture is purpose centered: Key Indicators, Mission Leadership Council, Interviews, Missionary letters, Exchanges, Level of obedience. They then spoke about a 4 box matrix that Elder Nash introduced at the Mission Leader Seminary last June. Spiritual Strength vs. Skill. What we need are spiritually strong missionaries with high skills. “Key indicators focus us on tracking the progress of God’s children.” We must not confuse the missionaries’ needs with their wants. Encouraged us to have a Mission Training Plan (this is something we know we need to do).
• Preach My Gospel – Elder & Sister Nielsen. There are no “How’s” or “What’s” in the titles of the chapters in this newest edition. Much more principle based. We need to be in PMG every day as a mission. Integrity is on the mind of President Nelson a lot these days. We need to do more to teach integrity to the missionaries. He quoted Alma 5:57 “And now I say unto you, all you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things; and behold, their names shall be blotted out, that the names of the wicked shall not be numbered among the names of the righteous, that the word of God may be fulfilled, which saith: The names of the wicked shall not be mingled with the names of my people;“
• In the afternoon we had breakout sessions through which we rotated. The first was on making the Sabbath Day a delight. The second was on living and teaching servant leadership. The third was holding missionary coordination meetings.
• On Friday morning, Elder Nielsen gave an overview of the things that are happening in the Africa West Area. Of special note is the effort to help returned missionaries get educated through BYU Pathways Connect and the impact of the gathering places that are rolling out to every stake and every district in the Area by the end of 2024. There is an additional effort being made the Church Education department to help bring remote jobs to West Africa to provide opportunities for these returned missionaries who earn a degree and qualify themselves for the work. “We need to teach the missionaries how to be students of learning”.
• Elder & Sister Klebingat then spoke about convert retention and the importance of helping those we teach make and keep commitments so that they will be prepared to make and keep covenants. The retention rate after four years needs to be improved. He quoted a number of scriptures that provide examples of things we need to teach the missionaries. Alma 32:15 – teaching true repentance. Alma 22:12 – making sure those we start teaching are truly serious about the message. Alma 21:23 – Daily contact with those who are progressing. Alma 21:12 – the need to leave hard-hearted people alone until they are prepared to hear the message.
• We then had another series of three breakout sessions, rotating with members of the Area Presidency. 1) Our ministry as a couple. 2) Goals and Accountability. 3) Finding through planning: Right time, Right place, Right activity will lead us to those who are prepared.

Following the breakout sessions, we had a discussion about the perilous times in which we live and the importance of having our mission emergency plans up-to-date and tested. Something else we need to work on.

On Thursday afternoon after ending the last session, we made a trip to the Abuja Central Mosque. This is a huge building and from the outside quite stunning. We were given a tour guide to walk us through and were invited to take whatever pictures we wanted. The tour guide was Habib and because of the size of our group, it was difficult to hear everything that he said. Here are some pictures.

There is a symbol in Islam called the Khatim (consists of overlapping squares). It is everywhere inside the mosque and is displayed dominantly on the doors leading into the mosque. The light fixtures all carry this symbol. We found a website that explains 12 Islamic symbols. Here is what is said about the Khatim. “Drawn exactly like the Rub el Hizb, but without the small circle within the two squares, the Khatim symbol is known as the seal of the Prophet Muhammad. The term is generally interpreted to affirm the status of the Prophet Muhammad as the last real prophet of Islam and that there will be no other true prophet after him. This “finality” of Islam is a cornerstone to the Muslim faith and is also a part of the Shahada.” The Rub el Hizb symbol is closely related in geometry, but includes a small circle in the middle of the squares (see photo below). It was interesting that when standing directly under one of the fixtures, this symbol could be seen. Here is the explanation of the Rub el Hizb symbol from the same website: “The meaning of the Rub el Hizb symbol is that it marks the endings of passages in the Quran. The “Rub” part of the symbol means quarter or one-fourth while “Hizb” means a party or a group. The logic behind this is that the Quran is divided into 60 equally long portions, or Hizbs, and each Hizb is further divided into four Rubs.”

On Friday afternoon, we made another field trip, this one to the Discovery Museum. The largest “all-digital” museum in Nigeria. While it was interesting to learn the history of Nigeria, the digital part left us “wanting”. Museums are cool because of the history within its walls and the artifacts that support that history. While there were a few artifacts from the past (and present), there were not many. Our tour guide was Sarah and she did a great job explaining each of the exhibits. Here are some pictures:

On Friday evening after returning from the Museum, all of the Africa West Area Seventy joined us for dinner and a short presentation by Flint Mensah (Director of Temporal Affairs) on the Church’s decision to help young prospective missionaries in West Africa purchase passports and medicals where financial challenges make it difficult for a worthy young person to serve. This will be done based on need and follows self-reliance principles already in place for fast offering assistance. It is expected that this initiative will sharply increase the number of missionaries serving from the West African countries.

At the end of the evening, we all gathered for a group photo. The lighting was terrible (pink lights) so we turned it into a black and white photo to make it more palatable. On Saturday, the Area Presidency took a picture with the Area Seventy and earlier on Friday, there was a women’s meeting where a picture was snapped. All of these are below:

Saturday morning we left for the airport at 10 am along with the other couples headed to Ghana. Our flight left at 1 pm, arriving in Accra at 1:45 pm (we gained an hour). Unfortunately our flight to Kumasi was delayed 45 minutes, increasing our layover to just over 3 hours. We made it back to Kumasi right before 6 pm. Alex Cobbina met us at the airport with our car (he took it in for service in our absence) and we were home by about 6:40 pm after dropping Alex at the Mission Office to pick up his car and drive home. We were tired by the time we went to bed and both of us slept well – happy to be back in our own bed.

On Sunday, we attended Church in the Obuasi 3rd branch. This is where Sister Clarke and Sister Rakotojoelina serve. Afterwards we drove to the District Center where I attended to some priesthood matters. We finished up around 2:20 pm and made our way back home. LaDawn was so wonderful about waiting for me. After returning home, I finished writing the weekly letter (Lift Up Your Heads) and then met with our Assistants from 7:00 – 9:30 pm talking about how we can implement the instruction presented at the Mission Leader Seminar.

I need to add one other event. On Monday evening, before leaving the next day for the MLS, I set apart Dennis Opoku. Dennis is from the Dwumoh Branch in the Techiman District and was called to the Accra Mission. While he worked tirelessly to get his passport before he turned 26 years of age, the passport office in Sunyani ran out of pamphlets. In order to allow him to serve, I received permission from the Area to submit his papers and mention what happened to the passport. This allowed him to receive a mission call to serve inside Ghana before his 26th birthday. We are grateful he will have an opportunity to serve.

We are grateful for these semi-annual get togethers with the Area Presidency and the other Mission Leaders. We value having new experiences and visiting places we have not previously been. It is refreshing to have a break from time to time from the rigors of mission leader work, but make no mistake, we love what we do and are thrilled to be back in Kumasi gathering Israel one last time, Together in Ghana.