This post covers the week of December 25-31, 2023

On Sunday, we chose to attend the Bourkram Ward in the Dichemso Stake. This is the ward where Sister Moemai and Sister Mwedzi serve. It was a great meeting, much of it in English. LaDawn and I were both invited to share our testimonies. Elder and Sister Kirk who will serve in Bibiani, but have been waiting for their International Driver’s Licenses to arrive, came along with us. Elder Kirk was also invited to bear testimony. During the second hour, we were pleased to see that a member of the bishopric reviewed the Area Vision (formerly Plan) with the members of the ward. The Vision is a way to provide some direction to the stakes, districts, missions on that which is most important from the perspective or our Area Presidency. One of the reason’s we wanted to attend the ward was because of a woman named Ama Serwaa. Sister Serwaa claims to be 114 years old, but it is unclear if that is accurate. To us, it looks like she is in her 90’s, but her baptism record was recorded with a birth year of 1909. One hundred years ago in Ghana, few good records were kept, and so often people do not know when they were born. But her age question notwithstanding, she is a miracle. Let me explain.

On Sunday October 15th, I received a voice message from then Sister Uwamahoro and Sister Moemai who were serving in the ward at the time. Here is the essence of their message as best as I could record it. “President so we told you about this woman, this old grandma – we call her grandma. We prayed and we fasted about her, about how to find a way to bring her to church because for 12 years she did not go to church because she had an accident that made her not to walk at all.  When we visited her every time she said, “Please I want to go to church, I want to go to church.” So, we continued to pray, me and my companion, we continued to have faith in the Lord that everything would work out.  So today before we left our apartment we prayed and we fasted and we prayed unto the Lord that He would help us find a way to bring grandma to church. We talked to Bishop and then we were able to convince one of the members to help us bring her. When we came, we carried her into the church because she doesn’t walk because her legs are weary. She doesn’t walk by herself. So, after the sacrament meeting, she just stood up and went to the pulpit and said that after partaking of the sacrament she can now stand and walk. People were shocked, they were amazed; they were surprised by this. So now grandma she can walk by herself like really fast, so it is a miracle. Like we can see that we are now having a chance to baptize her by her great faith. This has strengthened me that this is His work, and it is divine and so grateful. I just can’t believe it president so that’s why we were so surprised – even now the church members now are just talking to the woman, and they keep thanking us for having so much great faith.”

Sister Serwaa is pictured below. In the group picture, she is the woman standing directly in front of LaDawn and me. She is an incredibly lovely woman who doesn’t even know us, but just wanted to hug us both. This sister is filled with light and love. I am confident she has “entertained angels unawares” (see Hebrews 13:2).

The other significant event of the week was the finalization of a 26 week mission improvement / study plan for the missionaries who are not in training. A couple of months ago, we rolled out the 12 week training program, and we have had such good feedback, that we felt we needed to do something similar for the rest of the mission. With some great help and inspiration from the Office Elders (Elder Bryant and Elder Ramiadamanana) coupled with insights and ideas from the Assistants (Elder Mba and Elder Baldwin), we were able to finalize and roll out this program to the entire mission. I spent significant hours on it as well, including almost the entire day Saturday. The Office Elders, Assistants, and I met on Friday night and identified a few things we needed to work on, most of which I did on Saturday. We will see how it goes. This program has two main purposes: 1) Develop Faith in Jesus Christ. 2) Increase our competencies as missionaries.

We also put together a District Council calendar from now until July. The instruction for the District Councils are are focused on the topical guide subjects under Jesus Christ and links into the weekly study topics of the mission. That is displayed below. We are confident that as the missionaries put their effort into the improvement / study plan and then reinforce it in the District Councils, that great things will happen in the lives of the missionaries and those they contact and teach.

Monday was Christmas and in many ways very much like another day. Elder Kirk, and I took the opportunity to go play a round of golf. It was a good day. We were back home by 9:45 am.

All of the senior couples except the Ray’s (they arose early and headed back to Tamale) gathered with us at the Mission Home for a Christmas morning breakfast of crepes, French toast casserole, and some fresh fruit. Elder Pack was stuck at the office because it was subsistence Monday but his wife and the Loveland’s took him a plate of food after the fact. We had our weekly virtual MLC meeting in the evening where we spoke mostly about the service that they and their missionaries rendered earlier that evening. We asked the missionaries not to proselyte on Monday evening, but rather to find opportunities to serve. We loved hearing the stories of caroling, serving food, washing dishes, and many more. A wonderful way to celebrate the Lord’s birth.

I need to mention one other thing about Christmas Day. Two of our former DR Congo missionaries are now serving in the DR Congo MTC as teachers. Elder Diakulayi and Elder Bingabinga. Both were great missionaries and set an example for others. Elder Bingabinga came with only 6 months left on his mission and quickly adapted to the mission culture and became a great missionary, learning English in a few short months. It was so fun speaking to both of these wonderful alumni of the Ghana Kumasi Mission.

The rest of the week was primarily focused on interviews. Tuesday we had left open because we had originally thought that we would take the Kirk’s to Bibiani, but since they did not yet have their international drivers licenses, we decided against it. It did provide an extra day to prepare for the upcoming zone conferences. It was also our 45th anniversary, so we celebrated by going to Noble House for a wonderful Chinese meal. It was excellent. Afterwards, we stopped in the lobby for some Pinocchio’s gelato. Unfortunately, they did not have my favorite (Accra) which is a chocolate with chocolate bits. I had a flavor called “Kinder” which was filled with ice crystals. Not so great. How grateful we are for 45 years together – stretching to eternity!

On Wednesday, we drove to the Dichemso Stake Center and did 10 interviews. On Thursday we were at the Atafoa Ward and then Suame Stake Center for 16 interviews in total. On Friday, we traveled to Asuoyeboa for 6 interviews. It was a good week of interviews.

The last post of 2023. How the time has flown by. We are grateful for this call to serve. Next week our replacements will be announcement and we will begin the last six months of this amazing experience as we gather Israel one last time, Together in Ghana!