Arrived in Africa

After saying goodbye to our family in SLC, it took 16 hours of flying and a long layover in Amsterdam, but we arrived at the Ghana airport late Thursday night.

After providing our travel papers and proof that we already had our yellow fever shots, we ran the gauntlet of "new friends" that wanted to help us with our luggage in exchange for "a gift from our heart." The MTC sent a number of vans to collect the missionaries as we met up wtih 6 elders and 1 sister who were also traveling to Africa.

It was late at night (and not too hot) when we finally arrived at our destination where we were met by the MTC president and his staff, who had a snack for everyone of eggs and bananas!

We will spend a full week at the Ghana MTC with 96 other missionaries who are serving in Nigeria, Congo, Madagascar, Benin, and the Ivory Coast. The spirit of this dedicated building and being immersed in daily missionary work has made this an already amazing and life-changing experience.

Our days have been filled with teaching, training, 3-square meals and day (and a late night snack) and lots of singing! The Africans are the best and most fervent singers we've ever been around and their enthusiasm is contagious. More than half of them are native French speakers, so our singing sounds quite angelic. The other senior couples at the MTC and in Ghana have stopped by to introduce themselves and we've enjoyed lunch with President and Sister Robison (MTC President) twice already and they've been so accommodating and helpful. Everyone here has been so welcoming and excited to have us and we couldn't be more happy about our decision to serve in Africa.

In January of 2015, after a lot of lengthy discussion and heartfelt prayers, Sarah and I decided to start working to submit our mission papers as a senior couple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons. Most of the world is familiar with the young men and women who are called to serve as missionaries of the LDS Church and, once a couples children have all moved out of the house, "older" couples can also do the same.

After working to get all of our day-to-day affairs in place and convincing our children that we'd actually come back, we received our call to serve in the Ghana Accra Mission starting on May 27, 2015. This blog will provide updates of daily life as a missionary couple in Africa and inspirational stories about the people we meet.