In 1971, the band Three Dog Night released a hit single titled, Family of Man. Back in those days, I was a fan and later even attended a concert at the Idaho State University Minidome in Pocatello, Idaho on March 28, 1977 (which also happened to be my parents 24th wedding anniversary!). I don’t remember if they sang this song that night, but for whatever reason, when we met with the visitors to the Konongo Stake Conference on Sunday, the title of the song was what came to mind. We had 9 distinguished guests from both the Muslim community (4) and a traditional village chief and elders (5). We loved being with them and found them to be genuinely good people who care much about doing good. The secretary to the Imam (the man in yellow below) was the man who did most of the talking. He is filled with light and it is obvious that he loves the Church and his Muslim faith. The community that we felt with these men was an evidence to us that we are ALL children of God and have a great responsibility to help each other. While the words to the song are not all that relative to this meeting, there is a small couplet n the lyrics that I think fits well: “Whatever are we coming to? Yes, it’s so hard. With so little time and so much to do.” The picture below was taken after the general session on Sunday and afterwards we returned home. As the group was breaking up, everyone was shaking hands. When LaDawn reached out to shake the Imam’s hand, he raised his hand inside of his sleeve and shook her hand without touching her skin. We later found this statement on islamqa.info. “It is not permissible for a man who believes in Allaah and His Messenger to put his hand in the hand of a women who is not permissible for him or who is not one of his mahrams (family members). Whoever does that has wronged himself (i.e., sinned). “ Oops.

Attending the Konongo Stake Conference is always a treat for us. It became a stake shortly after we arrived and we have attended the majority of their conferences since (we always go unless we have an assigned District Conference the same weekend). The program was a bit oversubscribed (happened last time as well), but it was still good. LaDawn and I spoke for a combined 10 minutes. She spoke on leaving our nets (the world) straightway and following Jesus Christ. I spoke on the importance of discovering the joy of daily repentance. Elder Bassey is a new Area Seventy who lives in Nigeria. He was previously the mission president of the Port Harcourt Mission and we know him from our Mission Leader Seminars. He was bold in his Christ-centered talk focusing on “Think Celestial”. President Oppong (stake president) was the first speaker and he talked about the temple and the importance of holding a current temple recommend.

The Konongo Stake Center has been under construction for over 18 months as they have been expanding it to accommodate a full stake instead of a district. Sunday was the first time we have been able to use the new portion of the building, even though it is still incomplete. Maybe next year!

This was our transfer week and so it was very busy for us. On Tuesday, we said goodbye to 19 remarkable missionaries who have served faithfully in the Ghana Kumasi Mission. They came into the Mission Office around 3:00 pm and the Loveland’s did a presentation on Self-Reliance and then we had dinner together at 5:30 pm. Afterwards, we played some Preach My Gospel jeopardy. Deserving special recognition for earning points for their team were Elder Welch and Elder Thompson. We had a wonderful evening!

Wednesday was spent preparing for Mission Leadership Council on Friday. One of the items I prepared was the Vision Refresh. This time it was on Baptism. This is always a highlight for me as we explore together questions from 7 scriptures. These are the questions we asked and then discussed on Friday afternoon.

• Why is the first fruit of repentance baptism and not something like joy?  How is it that baptism comes by faith unto the fulfilling of the commandments?  Why is it the fulfilling of the commandments that brings a remission of sins ?
• What does it mean to receive the Spirit of Christ unto a remission of our sins?
• Why can a remission of sins only be received by baptism by immersion?
• Why does a remission of sins bring peace to the land?
• 1 Nephi 11 – the word baptized is used 13 times. The word believe 5 times. Repent appears 4 times. The Holy Ghost 6.  Why is baptism emphasized so much over these other aspects of the doctrine of Christ?
• What does it mean that by the water we keep the commandment?
• How is it that humbling himself before the Father and being obedient to Him fulfilled all righteousness?

I also spent time on Wednesday pulling together the numbers for the transfer while LaDawn reviewed and recorded all of the phone records into her Google Sheet.

On Thursday, we received in 19 missionaries from the Missionary Training Center. They came filled with faith, anticipation, and eagerness for the infield work to begin. We were up early to pick them up from the airport at 7:00 am. We met with them briefly for a few minutes and then drove back to the mission office and began the orientation process. This is where we talk about the Mission Vision, the schedule, health, subsistence, and everything else included in our welcome (Akwaaba) booklet. This is another strong group of missionaries with a desire to be faithful in their service. We are grateful to have them!

At the train the trainer on Friday morning (we started at 8 am), we spent most of the time reviewing the new 12 week new missionary training program that we just finalized. We know that it will need some tweaking, but we didn’t want to lose the opportunity to test this new training plan with this latest group of arriving missionaries. So far the feedback has been wonderful. Thanks to the Office Elders and Assistants who provided insights and ideas for the 12 weeks. Also a shout out to President Chris Morgan of the Cape Coast Mission who gave me a copy of what they were doing. This is their format with our content. We are grateful he shared it with us.

After going over the new training program, the Assistants did a shortened version of becoming a “Finder of the Elect”. We traveled over to the transfer grounds arriving around 11:00 am. By noon, everyone was gone. We stopped at KFC and purchased some chicken strips and fries (Kyempe) and then drove to the Mission Home for a few minutes and were back at the Office by 12:50 pm for the start of MLC.

At 1 pm, we began our “every 6 week” face-to-face Mission Leadership Council. Here is the agenda.

The Assistants provided instruction titled “The Lord’s Goal Keeper”. The subject was “Planning and Goal Setting”, and they included some role plays in their instruction. It was absolutely excellent and feedback about the value of the instruction has been encouraging.

Elder Mba and Elder Baldwin also explained the new 12 week training program that we introduced to the new missionaries who came in on Thursday (see above). We discussed the agenda items for our Monday night MLC meeting to bring the new members of the Council up to speed and also discussed what we call Accountability around the goals and successes of the mission. Since we had recently updated the Toolbox, we reviewed that as well. As always, we talked about “The Perfect Exchange” and then did One Minute Drills before having a delicious meal prepared by Hannah our Mission Cook. We finished up Friday night around 7 pm.

Transfer weeks are always demanding and so by the time we finished up on Friday night we were definitely worn out. Saturday we spent all day at the mission home with a short errand run to Opoku Trading and China Mall. We went to Opoku to find some Skippy Peanut Butter (there was only one jar left). The military was having a memorial service for seven service members who had passed away over some recent period of time making access to the store a bit more challenging since they were using the road for the service. The good news is the store did not have many customers. We drove to China Mall afterwards to pick up some items for our upcoming zone conferences. LaDawn did some cleaning and laundry and I worked on missionary letters and my weekly letter to the missionaries. This week, with his permission, I adapted a talked that our son-in-law Brian Conley delivered at the Saturday night session of the Tomball Stake Conference. I titled it “The Sacrament“. Thanks Brian!

After returning home from the Konongo Zone Conference on Sunday, the Assistants came for our regularly scheduled Sunday night meeting. We spoke about the topics for District Councils thru the end of the year as well as our Monday night MLC virtual meeting. We spent the bulk of our time talking about developing a 6 month training program for the entire mission built on the same foundation as the new 12 week training for new missionaries, but with content that was both deeper and broader. On Monday morning at basketball, I asked the office elders if they would take a stab at pulling something together like they did for the 12 week program. By the first of February, we will have trained over 60 new missionaries with the new program and along with that, their trainers. This means that half of the mission will be familiar with the content and it only makes sense to then move to something that is aligned, but provides deeper, richer, content. It too will be built upon Preach My Gospel and our Mission Toolkit. We hope to roll it out at the first of the year. We know that when the entire mission is focused on studying the same gospel topics and improving the same skills, we have greater unity among the missionaries.

This next week will be filled with interviews and preparation for the next round of zone conferences. The transfer will be only 5 weeks long due to the blackout dates for missionary travel around Christmas. The December transfer will then go 7 weeks to get back on schedule. We absolutely love this work. We love the missionaries. We especially love the message of salvation they bring about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who gave His life that we might live. We are grateful to be in His service as we gather Israel one last time, Together in Ghana.