Our Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan East and Bamako, Mali Mission

This morning we attended our first Abidjan West Mission office staff meeting.  They hold these meetings every Monday at 9:30 and they review the upcoming week and coordinate their activities and schedules.  It was a great meeting, well organized and everyone played a part.

Sis Lewis greeted the 8 office Elders with hot pancakes to thank them for coming on their P-day.  I think this was something new for most of them!

Each Elder reported on their stewardship and plans for the week.

We talked about the upcoming departures, COVID testing, and an arriving missionary.  We also talked about emergency plans in case things get tense during the upcoming elections here.  Each apartment will be receiving a box of food to be kept in case of an emergency.

This is a great group of missionaries and we are excited to get to know each of them better.

We will miss the Lewises when they leave on the 13th.  They are great mission leaders.

Here are the emergency food boxes with a list of their contents:

Each box contains a 5 kg sack of rice, a bottle of oil, a container of tomato paste, beef paste, 2 cans of peas, 10 packages of spaghetti noodles and 5 cans of sardines.

 

We learned a fun story tonight from the other Lewises.  His Executive Secretary in the West Mission Presidency is a man named Br. Yai.  He’s Ivorian and joined the church here as a young man.  He had an impression to move to Nigeria so he did.  He found a place to live with someone who had a view of the Aba Temple spire from their home.  He was drawn to it.  He went to the temple (as a new member) and volunteered to work there.  He was put to work on the grounds.

In the next 3 years or so, he worked his way up to being noticed and apprenticed by the head temple engineer, who oversaw all of the temple maintenance.  He learned everything about the temple.  After a year, he was endowed and he also became a temple worker.  One day he met a young lady in the temple.  She spoke French and he learned she’d served a mission in the Ivory Coast.  They fell in love and married and how have a child.

He felt compelled to move back to the Ivory Coast.  They came.  Then a temple was announced here.  One day he went to the temple site and volunteered to help.  He told them what he could do.  He was hired to help as a consultant, overseer-type worker.  He makes sure things are happening as they should.

Pres Lewis is always asking him about the progress and what’s happening at the temple.  Last week in their Presidency meeting, he asked and Br. Yai told him he was excited that they are starting to plaster the rooms in the temple now.  But, he said, they weren’t doing a very good job.  He said that at the end of the day, it wasn’t as perfect as it needed to be.  Br Yai sleeps in a trailer on the temple site.  In the morning he went to inspect the plaster job and he found it was done perfectly.  He truly believes angels come in the night to fix what they aren’t able to do perfectly themselves.

He also told Pres Lewis that the animals know the temple site is a sacred place.  A mother dog came and has had puppies under the trailer and a pair of pigeons built a nest there.  He said they know it’s a safe and sacred place because animals know those things. He is convinced there are angels working with them and around them.

This is the new Distribution Center:

 

Today we traveled to N’dotre to visit our branch there.   We have 6 Districts and 3 independent Branches in our Abidjan East Mission.  The Blankro Branch in N’dotre is part of the Agboville District.  President Sossou is a member of this branch.

Here is where the Blankro Branch meets.

When we arrived, these members were waiting, sitting reverently, listening to hymns.  All of the COVID rules were followed perfectly, with a young man at the door welcoming us and checking our temperatures.  Everyone used hand sanitizer and wore a mask.  The chairs were safely spaced to keep everyone safe.  What a beautiful group of Saints!

Here is our faithful Branch Presidency in N’dotre:

And here they are with our Mission Presidency:

One of our fairly recently returned missionaries, Sr Blesson, lives in N’dotre now.  She was the first speaker and did a beautiful job.  Then we heard from Elder Lewis, Sis Bendixsen and Pres Bendixsen.  I enjoyed the meeting very much and the peaceful feeling here.  Oh, it’s good to meet again, together at last!

After the meeting, there was lots of visiting and catching up to do.

After our sacrament meeting, everyone was invited to return home to continue their Sabbath worship and study with their families.

Heading home–

Here is a cassava patch near the branch building.

I am grateful to be in a place like this with friends like these.  It makes me feel happy and whole.  Happy Sabbath!