It has been two months since we left our beloved Ghana and I am finally getting around to writing the June and final blog. Though we only spent 3 weeks of June in Ghana, the time we did spend was probably some of the busiest we ever experienced. When we left Ghana, we also spent a couple of glorious weeks in England and Scotland. The time in England was basically a Heber C. Kimball memorial tour. We hired a LDS tour guide, Peter Fagg, and asked him to focus particularly on my great, great grandfather, who was Heber C. The time in Scotland was spent with my dear sister and her husband who are serving a mission in Oban, Scotland. We invited our oldest daughter, Melinda, to join us on the tour.
When we arrived home, I believed I would have more time to complete the blog. However, spending time with family and having two cataract surgeries has shown me the shortsightedness of my thinking. (By-the-way, I now have 20/20 vision without the aid of any corrective lenses.) Though it has been some time since we have been home, I still wanted to recapture our final days in Ghana on our blog.
Monday June 1, 2015 was Family Home Evening with the other senior missionaries and also our "going away party". Each senior couple who serve in Ghana receive a Kente cloth with the months of service embroidered on the cloth. Elder Curtis, the President of the Africa West Area, came to the Family Home Evening to express gratitude for our service and present us with our Kente cloth.
Family Home Evening after the presentation of our Kente cloth.
James Ewudzie, who had become a good friend, was also at the Family Home Evening. He was the fourth person baptized in the country of Ghana in 1978. The other three have all passed on. When we would meet Bro. Ewudzie, he would often mention some positive event in the church and then add, "It is because the church is true". He is a wonderful and faithful man.
We spent that week in our office mostly finishing up and finalizing our assignments. Though the Area Presidency tried, no one was ever found to replace us. Thus, our assignments were divided up. Elder and Sister Ridges took our Young Single Adult assignment, Bro. and Sister Ounleu from Ivory Coast took our "For Strength of Youth" assignment, Sister Terry and Elder and Sister Heckel were doing the Literacy assignment, and no one took our Young Men Young Women assignment, which made my heart ache a bit because training in the youth programs is so needed.
That week we also decided to take a picture of Elder Dube who was the member of the Area Presidency who we reported our stewardship to.
His assignment had been changed and he was moving to Salt Lake and thus also leaving Ghana shortly after we were leaving. He was such a joy to work with. Most times when we visited with him he acted like he had all the time in the world to spend with us. Often he would tell us stories about when he worked in Seminary and Institute, or when he was a mission president in Zimbabwe. One of my favorite stories was when he told his conversion story to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not surprisingly, it involved the greatest missionary the Church has ever known...the Book of Mormon. He was, and still is, an inspiring and faithful man.
Thursday night I took some fried rice to a missionary discussion with Stephanie, the girl we met while visiting a Young Women's class. She had wanted to be baptized but the missionaries were concerned she was rushing it before she was ready. Her "home situation" was a bit difficult and the missionaries were worried there would be no follow through and she would shortly become less active. The missionaries had finished the discussion by the time we arrived, but wanted to continue teaching her. I felt Stephanie was not excited to continue so I suggested that Stephanie teach us what she had learned. So, Stephanie taught the lesson and did a fine job even asking questions and using scriptures. I don't know if she ever got baptized. The last time I heard from her was when she called us in the airport as we were about to leave Ghana. She still expressed a desire to get baptized.
Thursday night was a big rain storm and many homes were flooded and lives were also lost. One of the homes that flooded was our friend's home Larry and Doris Kitson-Mills. Saturday we felt impressed to call them to see how they were doing. Though they said they were fine, we decided to take them some food and check out their situation. When we saw their mud-caked home and clothing, we offered to take some things home and wash it at our apartment in a washing machine. Doris was washing all the clothing by hand in a bucket. They agreed to let us take some things, but the items they were most concerned about were their temple clothing. I told them I would take their clothing and bring them back all clean so they could attend the temple again. Larry said, "Yes, and that is exactly what we will do".
Doris and Larry trying to clean up their mud-caked home.
There is a story I want to relate regarding the flooding of their home and the sweetness of that couple. A few weeks earlier, Doris had taken me to her seamstress to make me a dress. She and Larry had picked out and bought some beautiful fabric and wanted to have an African dress made for me. We went to Doris' seamstress where I picked out the style I wanted. I was measured and the seamstress told us she would let us know when it was finished. (The seamstresses in Ghana use no patterns) While we were at their home with most everything covered in mud, Doris said, "So many things got ruined, but guess what...I saved your dress"! She then proudly brought out a plastic bag with the jacket and skirt that had been made for me, carefully wrapped inside.
The 2nd week of June was also filled with several exciting events. Thursday, Boatema Baidoo, the daughter of the manager of the apartments in the Ancillary Building where we lived, asked us to accompany her to the temple when she received her endowments. We had gotten very close with all of Brother and Sister Baidoo's children and had even gone to the temple with their previous two children. Thus, we were pleased and honored to be asked to be part of Boatema's special day.
Boatema and her mother in front of the Accra, Ghana Temple
To celebrate the event, we took them out to lunch afterwards.
Friday was the first Young Single Adult multistake activity for the year. It took place in the Cape Coast Coordinating Council. For several months previously, we had been advising the leaders of this three day and two night event. Though we still felt there were lessons of delegation to be learned, the local leaders were almost totally involved with the planning and carrying out of the activity. We truly were, just advisors. Elder Dube told us at the very beginning of our mission that our assignment was to prepare the local leaders to do activities on their own and not be dependent on the abrunis (white people).
Some of the adult leaders of the multistake activity
Elder Call joined the Young Single Adults for a volley-ball game at the multistake conference in Winneba, Ghana.
Saturday we had the joy of witnessing the sealing of Stephen and Bridgette Ghartey to one another and to their 4 year old son, Alan. The year before, they had been married according to the Ghana tradition. At that time, we mentioned to them that we wanted to attend their sealing in the temple before we went home the following year. They graciously fulfilled our desire and were sealed the week before we left. 
Of course, we had to celebrate with lunch after the sealing.
The third, and final week in Ghana, began with our farewell address at the Area Devotional Meeting on Monday morning. It was one of the more difficult things we have done to try and express our parting words to a people we had so grown to love. 
Giving our closing remarks at the Area Devotional
That night we had our final Family Home Evening and dinner with Ernest and Sarah Gympoh and their son Anson. Sarah's sister Mary also came later.
Our "children" Ernest and Sarah Gympoh and our "grandson" Anson.
During the week we were able to help Ernest and Sarah move into their "new" home. We borrowed a truck from the Area and with Elder Call's excellent packing skills, we were able to move almost all of their belongings in two trips from their one room apartment to a two bedroom home that Ernest's brother, Collins, had helped refurbish and enlarge.
The new home with Ernest, Sarah, Anson, Elder Call, Mary and Collins.
I wanted to include in our blog a couple of pictures of the secretaries at the Area Office that were so helpful to us. Sometimes our computer skills were not as proficient as we would have liked. But we always had efficient secretaries to help us.
Esther, the legal secretary, who was also willing to help us when our office was next to the Legal Department. I would tell her that her mother must have known she would be as beautiful as Queen Esther in the Bible, so she gave her the same name.
Dinah and Wendy. They were actually the secretaries to the Area Presidency, but when we got moved to the office next to the Area Presidency, they helped us with our computer questions as the need arose.
The final few days in Ghana were spent with a culminating event we had "worked" on for many, many months. Rebecca Mensah was the receptionist at the Area Office. We had become very close to Rebecca and had even been through a couple of failed romances with her. After some time, we noticed a young man, Matthew Lamptey, "hanging" around the reception area and talking with Rebecca. She told us she was not interested in him...AT ALL...but as we took the time to get to know him, we became more and more impressed with him. In fact, we became so impressed that we encouraged Rebecca to "give him a chance". Well, to make a long story short, they decided to get married. However, they had a problem. Matthew was still in school, and did not have a full time job, and thus he had no money to pay the bride price that Rebecca's mother was insisting be paid. Some days we would come to the office and Rebecca would be very discouraged. She tried to tell her mother that she wanted to get married, but Matthew did not have money for the bride price and her mother would get angry at her and insist it must be paid. We told Rebecca we would pray for her mother's heart to be softened. Under Matthew's inspiration, Rebecca and Matthew also decided to visit the mother, which was a 5 hour drive, and thus quite a sacrifice. I also told Rebecca I would speak with her mother. To make another long story short, one day we came to the office and Rebecca told us a miracle had happened. Her mother called her and told her that Matthew could just give what he could and her mother would also explain the situation to the other relatives. It truly was a miracle.
In order that Elder Call and I be included in all the wedding celebrations, Rebecca and Matthew scheduled the wedding to take place during our final weekend in Ghana. As mentioned before, it was a great culmination to our mission. Weddings in Ghana have three parts. The traditional wedding, the civil ceremony, and then the Temple sealing. Friday was the traditional wedding and civil ceremony, and Saturday was the Temple sealing. We left Ghana on Sunday.
The traditional wedding held at Rebecca's Aunt's home.
The civil ceremony that was held at an LDS chapel. Elder Call and I both spoke at the civil ceremony.
After the civil ceremony. Doing the "African pose".
It is hard to express the gratitude Elder Call and I have for the opportunity of serving a mission in Ghana. Our love for the Ghanaian people is strong, but we feel even more importantly, our love for one another and for the goodness of God has grown beyond any expectation. The only way we know to repay Him is to continue to serve in His Kingdom...until we can serve no longer.
This is God's true Church on the earth today. God, Jesus Christ, is at its head and it will continue to grow "as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth."
Until the "next blog"...Love Elder and Sister Call
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