September 2021 – Page 3 – Our Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan East and Bamako, Mali Mission

Visiting Esther, Desire and Judith’s Home

Today we also visited the Nable family to share a few things with them and to wish them well. Esther, Desire and Judith are stalwart Pioneers in our Bamako Branch and we learn from their example every week. They are wonderful faithful kids and they have a great family.

The family lives in this compound.

What a Very Beautiful Family!

Esther and her dad and sister walked us out to the main road as we left.

Esther’s school is close to their home. I will miss the family so much. I will miss the hugs from the children every week. I’ll miss pretty much everything about them.

Visiting Emmanuel and Sylvanie’s Family

Emmanuel and Sylvanie’s family came to Mali from Cameroon. They have recently joined the church and they have been a marvelous addition to our pioneer group of Saints. We love this family, oh how we love them! They live about a 30 min walk down the road from the church in this apartment building.

This is the view from their place.

We showed the kids the SnapChats we got today of our very blonde and blue-eyed grandkids!

Uriel with his new little toy

Dada, Promesse, Emmanuel, Uriel, Vanessa, Olivier, Sylvanie, Lidvine

Interesting things in the neighborhood

We have stepped into our last week in Bamako. It’s a little sad to walk some of these streets and neighborhoods for the last time. How do you memorize people and places and sights and smells?? I will have these photos to remind me of this place that I love. These are the good people we’ve lived among for the last 2 years.

The women above washing dishes live right by the church. This is the place where they do laundry and dishes. It’s a lot of work.

We took Nourou to get a passport this week so he can attend a meeting in Accra as our National Communications Director. This cute girl was sitting in front of me. My first thought: Octopus hair! Then I thought tarantulas.

Keeping the rain out:

A gas station for motorcycles:

Juice oranges for sale:

A sunglasses shop under a palm:

The streets we walk:

Carpet cleaners:

Man washing before prayers:

There aren’t sidewalks here. There ARE lots of places you don’t want to step into, so you have to be careful.

This photo was a mis-take, but it shows where we step!

Filling his tank:

Grilled corn for sale:

These cute girls were digging through the rubbish for fabric scraps. I’ve been known to do that on many occasions.

Papayas for sale. The bucket becomes the table to hold the headpan when she sets it down, or it can be a chair when she needs to sit a bit.

A neat and tidy shoe store:

A toy store:

Beautiful girl in blue:

Neighbors by the church:

The mender boy is in the neighborhood again today:

Taking Care of Last Things

This morning early we went to meet with some important people at the public health department. We have 3,000 N-95 Covid masks from LDS Charities to donate. We’ve been working on finding a place for them for many weeks. Today we finally found the match and we’ll be able to deliver them before we go. They will go to the lab workers and technicians who work with the Covid testing. We’re happy they need them and can use them.

Then we went back to the church. First we checked on the progress of the re-painting of the church signs. Back to almost square one there, but it’s progress.

Then we had our last District Meeting with our 2 Bamako Elders. We had a great meeting and shared our final testimonies with them. We will miss being here with them.