A Phone Call From Ghana

The phone rang this morning about 8:50 am. It was an Elder Smith asking me how I was doing. Steve hadn't returned from the gym and so Elder Smith began asking all these questions. Turns out he did not know if we had received our call and whether we had accepted. He was trying to discover all of this through his questions without just saying it. Elder Smith was calling us from Ghana. He is the current Executive Secretary to President Snow of the Africa West Area. Elder Smith and his wife have served for one year in this calling and has been informed that he is going to be called as a Mission President. The First Presidency wanted him to return home and spend some time with his family before moving on to this new assignment..so he was pretty anxious to find out if indeed we were coming! (great to know that going home is a reality for him) I was just excited to be able to talk to someone in the field - I had a whole list of questions! A bit later his wife called, so by the time I had talked to both of them I had all my questions answered.

We will be living in the apartments next to the temple, The apartments have air conditioning, high speed internet, a television, and a king side bed!! Well the bed alone made my day - I was dreading trying to sleep in a queen size bed. All our sheets and towels are supplied --we are just steps away from the area offices and the temple. I just felt the blessings being poured upon us. I am so excited to go! We are assigned to wards outside our area on Sunday - and that will be good because that is where we will get to interact with the saints of Africa. I found that a dress can be made for about $20 (I just buy the material and have a dressmaker come to measure me and sew it up - they use a lot of cotton batiks and linens) - so I do not need to worry about clothes. All the sister missionaries wear sandals and NO nylons - HURRAY! The temperatures range from 85-100 with 90% humidity - but we live and work in air conditioning - so most of the time we live in comfort. We will have a car and they will issue us cell phones.

There are 8 missionary couples that work in the offices and temple and they regularly do things together - like get together for dinner and go to the temple. Steve and I will be in the office almost all of the time - he will not be traveling much and we will be working together reviewing missionary applications from the elders in Africa. I'm sure there are other duties - but that was specifically mentioned.

We just have to pinch ourselves (but not the left arm please! - I had 5 shots yesterday - Steve, 4) every now and then - we feel so blessed to have been called on such a wonderful assignment. We are working all day everyday to try to get everything ready. We were told by Elder Smith that we would need a visa - the question was more like: "Do you have your visas?" "Visas, what visas?" No one had mentioned a visa to us. After we hung up we called the Missionary Travel Office who told us they had mailed us our papers yesterday. So we spent all day getting those things which we needed for our visa - an international drivers license for both of us, 24 passport pictures each, our driving record from the DMV and tomorrow we will pick up our Police Record from the Police Department.

Each day seems to be like that! We knock off a few things off our list and we end up adding almost as many tasks as we completed. I have yet to put Christmas away or unpack my bags from when I returned from Utah. Soon things will calm down....at least I hope!