The Ranks are Thining and I Take on More Work

his week we say goodbye to two more missionary couples: The Hills running the Security department and the Bordon's who have been running Family History for about 3 years! It's hard to see them go, yet we know they have put their time in and their families are anxious to see them again. With no new couples coming until March we are down to only 3 Area Senior Missionary Couples and 2 Senior Missionary Temple couples. When we first came there were about 10 senior missionary couples. And strangest of all we are the next in line to leave!

Well it seemed only natural that I should volunteer my non-existant spare time to helping out with family history. After all I'd spent 8 1/2 years teaching the members in our ward! And one Primary Sacrament Meeting presentation when the children began singin "Family History I am Doing it" I acted like a Ghanain and just started singing it along with them to my astonishment and my daughter's embarasment! So, it seemed a natural fit. Blindly this week, I went into the family history couple and volunteered to be trained. Soon I began to prepare names for actual members. Wow! Is Ghanain family history a challenge!!

We thought patronimics was hard in the Scandinavian countries - let me tell you that was a piece of cake compared to Ghanaian family history. Children in Ghana are given any name - given AND surname - the parents have a liking for. Each child is given a different given name AND A DIFFERENT SURNAME. In one family you will have four children all with different surnames. There is no rhyme or reason for the choices and definitely no recognition for grouping. You must know who the person is - are they your cousin? your auntie? your grandma? your second cousin once removed? All family history here is gathered from the older people in the villages - they know who is who. There are no records kept. Birthdates are rarely remembered - it was "He was born the year of the flood"....or the year of the Election...etc. However you can easily recognize which day of the week a person was born on because it is part of their given name. Kofi for instance means born on Friday. Amma means born on Saturday. Funerals are big in Ghana and so it is more likely that they remember the year the person died.

Well as you can see this work is really FUN or Frustrating!