Busy, busy, busy...

We love being here in Ghana and are thankful that each day brings new opportunities to work alongside the wonderful people here in Western Africa. A quote from Elder Dickson, who served as the area president here, best sums up what we've learned from them; "they have little of what matters least and a lot of what matters most." We feel humbled and blessed to be amongst these great people and are grateful for their examples of love, service and a dedication to living Christ-like lives. The pictures we take and share on our blog can never fully convey the whole story or depth of what we're experiencing, but we hope you enjoy seeing a little bit of everyday life for a senior missionary couple. Here's some of what we've been up to these last two weeks:

Donne, wearing the #3 jersey, was one of the first people we met here in Ho. His mother moved away three
years ago and Donne and his sister have been working together to raise their family. We've been driving
Donne and his father out to the village where their mother lives in order to provide them with some family time.
 What a blessing to have seen them reunite all together back in Ho this week! In the picture
above, Donne is teaching a Family Home Evening lesson to his whole family outside their home. 

The church held an All-Africa Service Day where members throughout the continent spent the
day serving in their local communities.  In Ho, over 100 people from the Ho 1 and Ho 2 branches
worked together to help fix one of the worst roads in the city. What hard workers!

Working with 5 branches and 14 missionaries in our zone means we're blessed to be able to attend a number of baptisms each week. These wonderful, life-changing events are filled with the most peaceful spirit. The elders use either a portable font that can travel between locations while some of the buildings have outdoor fonts like this one.

We spent three days at the District Youth Camp with 61 amazing young women and young men from our area. We rented a facility at St. Paul's Senior High School where the kids were called on a "mini" mission. This year's theme was "Embark" which is taken from a scripture in the Doctrine & Covenants 4:2 - "Oh ye that embark in the service of your God, see that ye do so with all your heart, might, mind and strength." What a great goal for us all. Truly amazing kids.

We were also asked to speak at another youth camp, this time in front of 500 junior high students.
We talked about finding hope and happiness through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that the
decisions they make today will determine their destinies down the road. They gave us a "Yevu" cheer at the end! 

We've been holding missionary firesides throughout our area where the members invite their family and friends to join us for an evening of fun, facts and food. We've been showing a video about the church pioneers here in Ghana, sharing a message about reaching out to those in need and feasting on local foods like banku with stew, jollof rice and malt drinks. 

One of our favorite activities is when we get to go with the missionaries on their teaching appointments. The spirit is always strong as the testify of God's plan of salvation to humble and happy families here in Ghana. We trekked through a village to meet with Anthony and Elizabeth and their young son Miracle (she was told that she'd never have children, hence the little boy's descriptive name). 

Speaking of missionaries, here's our favorite. The one on the left is our son and youngest child Elder Bodine, who is currently serving his mission in Cuernavaca, Mexico. We miss him tremendously but we wouldn't want him to be any other place. We absolutely love having this shared experience and to see his joy in serving others. 

While traveling up north this week we saw a sign for a local restaurant that we hadn't seen before, so we decided to give it a try. Even at under $3 a bowl, we decided to head home and snack on our crackers and cheese (we think the rabbits here are so skinny that they only come with one "B"). Let us know if you want us to order you something!