Month: May 2020

Another exciting thing was happening at the stake center today–a big delivery was made.   While we were there, a big truck pulled up from a supply company and men were unloading cases of soap, gel and napkin/tissues for drying hands into a back classroom for temporary storing.

We met Br Priva Koffi, who is the self reliance specialist for this area, working with temporal affairs. This request originated here with brother Koffi and the Public Affairs group, and was sent to LDS Charities, who paid for the supplies.

The church is working with 2 suppliers.  Today’s brought hand washing supplies. The other is bringing masks, shields, thermometers and gloves for the health workers. These supplies will be given to the Cote d’Ivoire Ministry of Health to be distributed to health care professionals in the Abidjan area. In addition to this project, we’re trying to secure more masks for more of the country.

It was exciting to see these things happening today at the stake center. These supplies are a wonderful good-will gesture and a kindness from the church to our local government.  Every little bit helps.

During our District Meeting this morning we heard and saw lots of activity going on around us.  There were work crews everywhere in the building and outside.  The grass had been cut and manicured.  New plants have been added.  The grounds are looking great.  I’ve been so impressed at how the maintenance crews have continued to beautify and maintain the buildings during these last few weeks.  Every week the buildings are cleaned, even while we are not meeting here regularly.

One of the crews working today was a painting crew.  They were inside and out, brushes and rollers in hand.

Outside they were painting the iron fencing around the church.

Another crew inside was working in the ceilings, putting in some new lighting.

The chapel:

There were stacks of this lighting throughout the building.

At the same time, work continues full steam ahead on the temple!

We understand that this maintenance work is happening at all of the stake centers in our mission area.  All is a testament to me that this great and marvelous work is rolling forward, throughout the whole earth, like a stone cut without hands from the mountain.

Look what came today!!  The smartphones are here.  They will be given out in MLC on the 29th, and to everyone else after that.  These are exciting times!  All of the missionaries will continue to be trained on how to use them and how to be safe using them.

This morning we took Elders Muyuwa and Blehi to visit a family in their area.   The husband is a counselor in their ward Bishopric.  He and his wife and their 6 children live here, along with some others who the missionaries teaching right now.

Elder Blehi (in the red shirt) is from Abidjan and has been called to the Lagos Nigeria Mission, but is relocated here for now. He did an online MTC experience with a group from the Ivory Coast at a stake center where and they were taught about missionary work and taught English.  Elder Muyuwa is his trainer.  They work hard.  Today they came on their P-Day to offer some service working in the garden in the back of this compound.

We enjoyed meeting the family.  Lots was going on.  Everyone had jobs to do–with the food preparation, the water, the laundry and the dishes.  We had a huge thunderstorm last night, so today was especially hot and humid, feeling like 100 degrees outside.

Imagine managing in a cooking area like this.  These women are my heroes.  They are survivors and they work miracles keeping their beautiful families going strong.

This good sister (above) is being taught right now by the Elders.

Today they were preparing soup made from what looked like beef bones and skin, a sauce to serve with rice, yams, dried fish and some pounded plantain.

Meet beautiful Sister Bailly.  She is the mother of 6 and she is serving as the Relief Society President in the Riviera 1 Ward.

Water duty, filling containers:

What a delight to look in on this family this morning.  I left feeling happy to have been there and grateful for my blessings.

We’ve had a good weekend.  I needed a rest.  On Thursday I ate some bad coconut and it just about turned my insides out.  I stayed home Friday after being up all night long,  retching.  Things improved a bit by today and we enjoyed a wonderful  Sabbath with these good missionaries coming this morning for Sacrament Meeting.

Today we watched and listened to Elder Uchtdorf’s talk from General Conference.  He said, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is structured to provide opportunities to practice the fundamentals of discipleship. Through our participation in the Church, we learn to recognize and act on the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We develop the disposition of reaching out in compassion and kindness to others.  This is an effort of a lifetime, and it requires practice.”

He shared this invitation, “We invite all of God’s children throughout the world to join us in this great endeavor. Come and see! Even during this challenging time of COVID-19, meet with us online. Meet with our missionaries online. Find out for yourself what this Church is all about! When this difficult time has passed, meet with us in our homes and in our worship places!

We invite you to come and help! Come and serve with us, ministering to God’s children, following in the footsteps of the Savior, and making this world a better place.

Come and belong! You will make us stronger. And you will become better, kinder, and happier as well. Your faith will deepen and grow more resilient—more capable of withstanding the turbulences and unexpected trials of life.”

We received this cute picture today from our son and his wife in Missouri.  These are our grandkids.  We love them and we miss them.  Clark is 3.  He can point right to where we are on a globe.   He also knows we love Jesus.  That’s pretty great for a 3-year-old!

The week after MLC, the Zones meet and the Zone Leaders share what they learned in their special MLC training.  Today we met with the Cocody Zone.  This is the biggest meeting we’ve attended in several weeks.  We were 26.  We spread out and wore our masks and we were taught about using safeguards with technology.

In the coming weeks, the mission will provide a smartphone for every companionship.  We will have many training meetings between now and then as the missionaries learn how to effectively use smartphones in appropriate ways to bless their missionary work.

We talked about our key indicators and how the work is going (slowly) and ways we can improve during these interesting times.

The rest of this long meeting was spent talking about safeguards.

The Cocody Zone is one of the largest zones in the mission.  Some of the zones have be turned into districts (they are so small now).  Aboisso has 4 missionaries right now.  Agboville has 6 missionaries and Adzope has 8 missionaries right now.  They will be zones again when more missionaries arrive.

Here is our Cocody Zone:

Sundays are the best.  We enjoyed the company of 4 Elders and 4 Sisters today for our sacrament meeting.  Their first priority is always to meet with the members and their recent converts, but sometimes we get them here, and we enjoy that.

The Assistants shared with the others their thoughts on obedience and faith from last week’s MLC.  We had a nice discussion.  It’s so good to be here.

Toes and tracting bags:

Happy Mother’s Day to all!