November 2014 - Update

We are still super busy as we welcomed in a large number of missionaries.  The intake days were exhausting, but we got it done and they are settling into the MTC routine.  We have missionaries from all over the world, but mostly Africa.  We have representatives from Benin, Botswana, Congo, DR Congo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Philippines, Samoa, South Africa, Togo, Tonga, Uganda, United Kingdom, USA, Zambia,

What a wonderful time to be here in Africa as the Gospel spreads across the continent.  There are wonderful true stories of the early pioneers in Africa and as time goes on we will share some of those histories.  The Lord is truly hastening the work here.  We did not realize what a big continent this is, until we saw this picture.

  Africa map

  

    It seems that we just get through the training and other things to get our missionaries prepared, and off they go and we start over again.  Gerald is very busy with all the technical needs, family history, temple preparation, etc. etc.  I continue to help out with their medical needs.  They really enjoy coming to visit us on immunization days.  That’s our friend Doctor Hill, doing what he does best.

We were asked to get a little group together to sing at the devotional on a Sunday evening.  We had attended the French sacrament meeting that morning, and I noticed how enthusiastic they sang “Secret Prayer”.  So, when I was asked to find a number for the devotional, I asked the pianist to get his district to sing while he played the piano.  Gerald and I did the first verse in English, and then they joined in for the rest of the verses in French.  When we were done, the congregation broke out in enthusiastic applause (a cultural thing).  They sure make it fun to serve here.

Sister Robison and I, along with two other senior missionary sisters, took a morning off and went to a very well-known open air market in Accra.  It was quite an experience.  There are so many people all walking around and squeezing around each other.  Some of these folks have heavy stacks of goods balanced on their heads.  I tried really hard to stay out of their way as we hurried up and down the streets looking in the booths.  We all came out OK, but I did get hit with someone’s elbow to my head.  It wasn’t bad, but could have been.  We were mostly looking for the beautiful dyed material they have here, so that we could make or have made (in my case) clothes. 

Also, we found a couple of ladies who sell blouses really cheap, so we stopped there and got some. While I was standing by the street and the other ladies were shopping, a young fellow around 12 years old, came up to me and looked me in the face and said, “Salt Lake City, Utah” and then smiled.  I looked surprised at him and said, “Are you a member of the Church?  He said yes, both he and his twin brother, who also came up to say Hi.  I asked him if he was planning on a mission, and they both said yes.  Who would have thought that we would meet some members among such a crowd.  What fun!

So, since November is Gerald’s birthday month and it is also Sister Robison’s, we decided to go to one of the hotels that has a really nice buffet.  We don’t eat out often, but this was a special occasion.  A number of our senior couples came too.  Sister Hill is next to me.  She helps us out when her husband, our mission doctor, comes to the MTC.  My plate is full of one taste of each of the neat desserts that I wanted to try.  It’s amazing how fast one bite can fill up one plate J

A happy birthday week for our dear Sister Robison.  She deserves it!

The Elder at the far right of this picture, reminds us of Noah with some of his expressions.  Both Gerald and I noticed it separately.  Maybe he’s a long lost relative or maybe we are just homesick.

Thanksgiving Celebration:

Since November is our Thanksgiving holiday month, we did celebrate it here with the other senior couples.  We had a nice potluck dinner with turkey, no less, and all the trimmings at one of the mission homes.

To help our USA missionaries not to feel homesick, our wonderful cafeteria manager Margaret, set a beautiful table with tablecloths, bubbling soda and some of their favorite dishes.  For the Americans, she served them mashed potatoes and chicken and served the Africans some of their favorite dishes.  It was neat to see how excited they were.

An African Thanksgiving feast.

Manager Margaret and her grateful friend

Thanksgiving is nice!

This is the tall and the small of it.  And the in-between.

Our Friend Patrick

This is Patrick Appianti, who is the chief technology specialist, office manager and supervisor of teachers for  the MTC, with his new statue of Joseph Smith.  He has been immensely helpful to us.

This is Patrick's son with his favorite grandma.

On one of our errand days, Patrick took a side trip so that we could see the beautiful coast line and warm ocean.

GHANA Temple Trip

On my birthday (November 18), we decided to go with the missionaries to the Ghana Temple. 

  Ishmael Assan is washing the van in preparation for the temple trip.

The elder who is on the far side of the van seat is Elder Broadhead.  In talking with him, we discovered that he is the great-grandson of Dakin K. Broadhead who was a counselor to our Pasadena Stake President, Howard W. Hunter when I became active in the Church.  Not only do I remember President Hunter who helped me come back to the church, but I also remember President Broadhead and the other counselor Richard S. Summerhays.

We love this view of the Angel Moroni at the Accra Temple.

And she is an angel also.

This is a nice place to spend my birthday morning. 

My Lorna and her Ghanaian hat.

Closing photos of some departing missionaries:

The American missionaries still love Pizza and hamburgers. Notice the background gentleman; almost everyone has a cell phone and/or a tablet.

This is the end of November.

October, 2014 Malmrose MTC

We have settled in to our routine here in the MTC.  We are kept very busy with our responsibilities.  We have seen several groups of missionaries come, get trained, and then leave for the mission field.  Our 6 week missionaries are learning a language, either French or English, so we get to know them better because they are here longer.  We are coming up on the time when they will be done with their training and ready and anxious to get out and get to work.

Along with our multiple duties to keep our missionaries happy and healthy, we get to attend many of their devotionals.  It isn’t unusual to be asked to come up and share our testimonies with them.  Sometimes, we sing to them.  At one of the devotionals, we sang a duet in French and when we were done, they broke out in loud applause that filled the room.  Now that’s a first for us at a Sunday meeting.  They are very enthusiastic in many ways and sing with gusto always. 

We were at the temple with our missionaries the other day, and we were waiting outside in the garden area for the others to come out.  Some of our missionaries came out to wait too, so they came over and said Hi to us.  One Elder shook my hand and then held it and looked into my eyes and said, “All of the missionaries really, really love you Sister Malmrose.”  I thought that was sweet.  I think they like to have someone they can talk with when they don’t feel well or are a bit homesick.  And that’s part of my calling.  Sometimes I get a little impatient, but when things like that happen, it makes it all worthwhile.

We have not minded the weather so far.  It is warm and humid, but not too bad.  They tell us that it will be warming up and should be quite hot by Christmas.  It is a bit weird to have the sun come up every day at 6 AM and set at 6 PM regularly.

So far, we have had good food and probably too much of it.  The sweet lady who runs the cafeteria here, often sends us up leftovers during the day.  We either eat it as it comes, or I make it into something else.  The people here are very kind and generous.  We don’t eat out often and are careful where, but occasionally we do go out and have pizza or something like that.  Fortunately, they have very good ice cream at the restaurants, so that makes Gerald very happy.

Here are a couple of pictures of several of our groups on devotional days when an area authority comes and meets the missionaries and gives them encouragement for the challenges ahead.  They always do a great job.

This is a picture of what they call the “man dress” that many of the natives wear around here.  It is comfortable to wear around the house, but they don’t wear them out in public.  Pres. Robison and Gerald are really getting into the African theme.  Ghana does have a Muslim population, so we do see women dressed with the head scarves, etc., but not too often.  One of our Relief Society counselors is a convert from the Islamic faith.

Another wonderful trip to the temple in Accra.

The end of the day at the temple.
The black elder on my right is rather interesting.  I was surprised when I started talking with him and he didn’t have an accent.  I said, “Where are you from Elder?” and he answered “Provo, Utah.  Ever heard of it?”  We do a lot of mix and match of cultures here.

Time flies by quickly for those who are here less than two weeks.  Before very long, they are ready to say goodbye to us and be out in the mission field putting their training into practice.

We usually have about 20% sisters in our groups.  They are quite the ladies, and we come to love them.

This Sister Olivarius is from Martinique going to Madagascar. She has a sweet personality as you can see by her smile.  She is a good friend of Yva Jean-de-Dieu who we knew well on our earlier mission in the French West Indies. 

Our Elders aren’t too bad either, even though most of them are a little tall.  Sometimes I feel like I am in a forest of tall trees.  Nevertheless, they are super nice young men, and we enjoy them greatly, even they are white “ebrunies”.

On the property of the MTC, is a ward building, so we get to see members from the wards coming and going from time to time.  It is neat to see them all dressed up in their Sunday best and coming as families should, to attend their meetings. 

We also have missionaries from the Ghana mission, who serve in those wards and on “P” day they will come and borrow the basketballs or soccer balls and play some sports.  The other day I looked out the window while I was doing dishes and saw them sitting around on the little wall around the soccer field, playing a guitar and singing, just for fun.  Well, I couldn’t resist;  so I went and got Gerald, and we went over and sang with them.  They handed me the guitar and were surprised that I could play it.  So, we gave them a duet and had a lot of fun being with them.  They are from the U.S., Pacific Islands, and Africa.  It’s fun to see how they get along so well.

Soon, we are sending another group off into the real world.  We hope we have done our job to help them be prepared in every way.  They have many challenges ahead, but we have faith in them.

The night before they leave the MTC, we always have a farewell get-together and just enjoy each other.  They often sing their favorite songs.  This missionary was great at playing the hymns, but he also could play honky-tonk and other fun piano tunes for us to sing along with.  What fun!

The stake that our MTC is in had a youth conference recently, and we were so glad to see such nice young folks attend in great numbers.  Boy, do they love to sing and dance too.  Must be part of the culture. I'm sure some of these are our future missionaries.

This is Dr. Kissi, who is an early pioneer in Africa for the Church.  He does the medical exams for those who serve in Ghana, so we get to see him regularly.  We were able to get a copy of the book that he wrote that gives the history of how the Church has developed and grown over the years.  We'll bring home a copy.  It is really interesting to see how much these people of faith went through in the early stages.  It must be gratifying for them to see the tremendous growth taking place now.

All in all, we work tirelessly, day in and day out, and never take a break.

Well,  almost never.

September at the Ghana MTC

It’s time for an update on our mission so far.  Our initial adjustment is pretty well done and we are getting into the life here quite comfortably.  The weather is still rather nice.  It occasionally rains, the sky is often overcast and the temperature isn’t too hot,.. yet.  We understand that will change with the dry season.  They tell us that it will be very warm around Christmas and January.  We’ll let you know when that happens.  We probably won’t have a white Christmas, in more ways than one J

We have been healthy, except for one week when we, along with others here, had a stomach virus of some sort.  It wasn’t too bad, and we got over it quickly.  We can’t really slow down much, because of the numbers of missionaries that need to be trained and into the mission field on time.  We are in the middle of the largest number of missionaries we have had here at one time.  We have over 90 missionaries.  Their intake day was wild with missionaries coming on and off all day and night.  But…we survived and they are all being trained now. Some are here for less than 2 weeks, while those learning a language are here for 6 weeks.  

Here are some interesting stats about MTCs around the world.

September departure preparation:
As the missionaries come to the end of their stay with us, they hold a going away party during their evening snack time.  We try to go down to say our goodbyes.  It is a casual but fun evening and includes a lot of hugging and singing.  This group includes missionaries from all over Africa, France and the United States.  But, we are all united in the family of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Elder Malmrose and a few of his closest friends.  They are very shy, as you can see.

If we start to take a picture of a few of the missionaries, all of a sudden there are dozens more joining in.  Here is President Robison drowning in a sea of love.

These are pictures of a few of our “Elders”  at  the farewell just before they leave the next day or so.

September 9 Departure.  

This is the day their vans pulled out to take them to their mission fields all over Africa. Goodbye until we meet again.

September 24 temple trip:
 Preparation for a clean head before coming to the temple.

At the temple. 

   One of the joys of our mission is being able to go with these young folks to the temple in Accra.  This missionary was able to do some of the work for his family and he asked us to be proxy for his parents, so that he could be sealed to them.  After that, we called him “son”.

Now and again, we have to remind our friends, to get their long hair cut.

Gerald found a big bug on our office window:

The bug is not as beautiful as our flowers.

September 27 - Visit to Doctor

Our mission doctor Dr. Hill and his wife, come to the MTC regularly.  They give several lectures on health issues to encourage the missionaries to take good care of themselves.  These are some of the slides they show when they encourage them to take their meds.  They also give the immunizations that are required here.  They don’t much like to get their “shots”, but they all manage to get through it.  One of my main responsibilities is to set up those shot clinics ahead of time, so that it can be taken care of efficiently.

Elder Chibuisi eyelid injury:  On one occasion, after the doctor was done with his visit and had left the building, this Elder was injured playing “football”.  Fortunately, the doctor and his wife were only a few minutes from the MTC and he could come back and get the patient and take him back to his office, an hour away.  He was able to stitch up the cut and it turned out very well, much better than if we had to take him to a local hospital, I would guess.  There are no coincidences.

September 29 Departure.  
Preparing to “graduate” into the mission field. The three sisters in the front are from Madagascar and are super sweet gals.

They are all happy to be moving on and going to work for the Lord. What great experiences lie ahead for these young folks.