Joy in the Spiritual World

Last week, the saints of Cocody Stake in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire came in busses to spend a week in the temple. This year is the 30th anniversary of missionaries coming to West Africa and the revelation of the Priesthood to all worthy males. To honor and celebrate the occaision, the saints in Cocody set a goal to bring "Joy to the Spiritual World". They spent the last 6 months collecting their family history records. Family history specialists divided the stake into two sections. There were two laptop computers in the stake. Each family was visited and information was collected and imputed in New Family Search. They printed their Family Ordinance Request forms, placed them in a box, and tied them up with a bow to deliver to the temple when they arrived.

In the scriptures we learn "For except a man be born of the water and the spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." (John 3:5). The gospel has been in Africa for only a short time - 30 years. So many have died without ever hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To give all men the equal opportunity for eternal life, we do baptisms in the temple for the dead and thus we answer the question presented in 1st Corinthians 9:15.

Elijah said he would "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children lest the whole earth would be cursed." Why? The earth was created for man to live upon, that he might have an opportunity to choose to follow Christ and gain Eternal Life. Without the ordinances of the temple, God's purpose of bringing to pass the immortality and Eternal Life of man would be frustrated. Elijah restored the keys of temple work when he appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland temple on April 3, 1836.

As ordinance cards were printed to allow the work to be done, stacks and piles were filling the counters in the temple office. Over 4500 names were presented. The saints attended the temple all day long for 4 days. In that time they acted as a proxy for their ancestors. Youth over the age of 12 were being baptised for the grandmothers and grandfathers. In all the saints in Cocody did over 6,000 ordinances for their ancestors, giving their ancestors a chance to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught to them in the spirit world. Certainly the saints in Abidjan brought great joy to the spiritual world during the week of March 16th.

Things Sacred

The world is loosing its beauty. Little anymore is sacred. Families once were sacred and revered. Today they are ridiculed. In our children's cartoons, mothers and fathers are talked-back-to and made to feel "out of touch". Weekly programs on TV deal with affairs between co-workers, neighbors, friends, all with the a focus on physical gratification, without addressing the pain and consequences of such behavior. A relationship between a husband and wife is filmed for all to see in living color and on a 20 ft screen. This relationship is sacred in the eyes of God. It is the means of bringing his spirit children to the earth. It is the beautiful gift given to bind a husband to his wife emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. We are now continually pressured by the world to believe less and less in God's defintion of a family as a husband and a wife, accept relationships which are contrary to the Laws of God.

Values such as honesty were at one time valued and man's word was sacred and trusted. Today our politicians lie to gain power, students cheat on exams, and newspapers twist facts to endoctrinate us on their hidden agendas. Just to believe you should live God's commandments is laughable to much of the world and labeled out of step with progress. His commandments are no longer sacred in many people's minds.

God was once a sacred subject. Today His name is profaned daily. His existance is questioned. And yet God is what gives us our life, and any desires we may have to be good and loving people. He is the giver of love. The world is turning away from him and so love, true love, is vanishing before our eyes. And Isaiah's prophecy that in the last days the "love of man would wax cold" is becoming a reality.

In the lives of faithful Latter-Day-Saints the temple is the apex of sacredness. It is literally the House of the Lord to us. We enter to make serious covenants with Jesus Christ to live his commandments. It is a House of prayer for us. In the temple we can take time to pour out our heart in silent prayer to our Heavenly Father. It is a place where we are baptised for our ancestors that they too may enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a House of Learning where we are taught more about the purpose of life. It is a place where we are given an opportunity to be sealed or to our spouse and our children forever, meaning our marriage will last through eternity.

Not everyone may enter the temple. In order to be worthy to enter you must obey God's commandments. Without purity of people Christ's spirit cannot dwell in the temple. I share this video with you to help you understand my love for the temple and why we treat it as sacred. Unfortunately "the world" has decided to attempt to remove the sacredness of the temple. Fortunately there are a people, sons and daughters of God, who will forever have reverence for things sacred.

Our Weekend Adventure - Part 1

Friday, March 6th, was a holiday in Ghana - Independence Day. The offices were closed and so a group of senior missionaries decided to take a two day vacation and see some sites in Ghana.

Our first stop was the Baboon reserve in Shai territory. We paid a guide 30 cedis to take all ten of us on a 1 hour tour of the reserve. We saw baboons, and antelope and then we hiked to a cave where the Shai hid their women and children in the 1800's while they had sacrificial ceremony's. We asked if they sacrifice people. "Well not our own!" was the answer. The British came in in 1892 and shut the practice down because the Shai were not paying their taxes.

The Baboons were at the entrance - they have about 4 tribes of baboons in the reserve. They had taken over the tracktors that were out of commission because no one had the tires and parts to repair them. The baboons loved them - they climbed in and out and through every part of them. They also liked swinging in the limbs of the trees.
We drove with the guide in our car through the reserve where we saw many antelope. They seemed quite at home on the Savannah.
Good thing they were protected because the Ghanains would most likely kill them for food if they could! Past the Savanagh we came to the tall trees.

These trees grouped in threes were where the Shai would do their sacrifices. They hid their women and children in the cave which we climbed up into. If anyone attempted to come after them, they threw rocks down on them. The cave protected their families quite well.

For the Sister Missionaries a Stop at the Bead Factory is a Must

How could we possibly drive by Kpong without taking a left turn and traveling up the road to Cedi Beads? After all we had two couples who had never been there. Cedi Beads is well known in Ghana for being one of the premier places of creating hand-made beads. When you wind down the rutted dirt road you finally come to the factory.

It's all outdoors. Cedi, himself, demonstrated how the beads are made. It's very fascinating and deserves a blog entry of its own. Basically they crush glass bottles, sift the glass into a fine powder, pour it into molds, bake the beads in termite clay ovens, polish them with water and sand, and then string them into necklasses and bracelets.

Cedi takes his beads all over the world and makes a good living.First timers and old timers love to look and buy the beautiful beads in his store.

The Volta Dam

The last place we visited on Friday was the Volta Dam. The Volta lake is the largest man made lake in the world. It covers about 2/3rds of the length of the country.
The dam appeared to be an earth filled dam. The dam generates 70% of the electricity for Ghana. So Ghana depends on rain. No rain, no electricity. The dam was funded by the United States. Jackie Kennedy came to Ghana to dedicate the dam in 1966.
We thought of what a challenge it would have been to come to Ghana almost 50 years ago.

Want a Banana!

An hour out of HoHoe we stopped at the Tafi Monkey Sanctuary. Here we walked into the forest while our guide called the monkeys with kind of a squeeky sound he made with his lips. The monkeys came in all directions. We pulled our bananas out and held on tight while they would come down the limbs of the trees, pull down the sides of the banana, break off a piece and run back up into the tree tops. If you didn't hold on tight they would just rip the banana out of your hand and take it up the tree to peel in peace. In the movie you can hear the guide in the background making that squeeky noise. Monkeys like green bananas. Our bananas had turned yellow in the hot car. It was a holiday weekend and these monkeys just were not that hungry. Too many visitors the day before.Some were not even interested.Others would take the banana and spit the piece out onto the ground - but then the small timid monkeys would jump down on the ground and pick up the pieces and run back up the trees to savour their treasure.

The Road to Wli

The road to our last destination wound through villages and then a long dirt road. We stopped along the road at an Evangelical Church to have lunch.
Sister Sidwell said she prepared a little lunch and hoped that it would be to our liking. Coolers were opened, the table was covered with a cloth, and container after container was opened. Three salads, ham, homemade rolls, tuna, guacamole, baked beans, peanut butter, cookies, cupcakes, drinks,and 5 types of chips were unvieled. A little lunch....it was a feast that could have fed an entire village!
We loved it. We were hungry and it was a nice break. We told stories and shared thoughts and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Ghana.