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

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!

What a great Saturday morning!  We headed over to the Cocody Stake Center to help with the distribution of the CHICKENS!!

This morning 500 more chickens were delivered for distribution here.  Three hundred of the chickens went to our Ivory Coast Abidjan East missionaries.  We are so grateful.  The other two hundred went to local members.  More chickens will be delivered on Monday.

You can learn more about the fundraiser that is helping to provide the means to purchase the chickens to bless lives here.  If you are able, please chip in a bit.  The cost of a chicken in the markets here is between $4 and $5.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-feed-families-in-the-ivory-coast?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&fbclid=IwAR0o9jS9UuEQgXNl35r5_yS-gol8HwXzkrthI7tS1DhI_ssK28MpHgC1tZ4

The chickens were put in sacks, 5 or 10 to a sack.  Each missionary apartment received 10 chickens.  Members from the stake also came to receive this aid which was organized by our local bishops and priesthood leaders.  These are great men.

These leaders know their members and love them.  This will be a great blessing to so many.

Throughout the morning, members and ward leaders came to pick up chickens to help deliver them to others.

With many helping, the 20 coolers were soon emptied and the chickens were bagged.

Some of our missionaries came by to help and to pick up their chickens.

Cleaning up afterwards:

Our mission helpers spent the afternoon delivering chicken to the missionaries who lived farther out.

We had 3 delivery trucks full of chicken!

By evening, the missionaries had received their gift.  Thank you to all who have helped and who continue to help with this project.  It’s not over yet.  There are so many with needs here.  Please take a look at the description in the Go Fund Me link if you’d like to learn more.

 

 

When the first fears of the COVID pandemic struck, extra supplies of rice were purchased and held at the mission office for the missionaries.  When restrictions were put on travel and meetings, we had no easy way to get the rice to the companionships.  Yesterday after the MLC, we sent rice home with those Zone Leaders for their districts.  Today we tried to deliver the rest to the companionships here in Abidjan.  Each companionship is receiving 5 kilos of rice to help get them through these trying times.

John, Fr. Oro and Eveque Mel–our office staff helping with the distribution.

 

We have another big project happening this weekend:  CHICKENS!  These local priesthood leaders came to the stake center this afternoon, anticipating a delivery of chickens for the members (and missionaries) here.  Things were a little behind schedule, so we all came back to receive the chickens in the morning.

Today was our second MLC here at the Mission Office.  We had the rest of the mission leadership come for training–3 more Zone Leader companionships.  The training was the same as yesterday for this group.

Reporting key indicators for their zone:

We slipped out before lunch to run to the store to buy sandwiches for lunch.

Here is a sample schedule for missionary work during these COVID times and suggestions about ways to use the smart phone technology we will soon have here.

Much of the afternoon training and discussion was about using smart phones.

A closer look at the schedule:

Everyone also received a laminated copy of the new Proclamation:

What a great day!  It’s a bit of a challenge to gather these days, but we’re figuring it out.  Once we have smart phones, it will be a lot easier to communicate and have virtual meetings.  We’re excited for that.

This morning we had our first of 2 MLCs here at the Mission Office.  We used to have 9 Zones, but the ones farthest away are emptied of missionaries right now.  Other zones are down to just a few missionaries.  We currently have 6 sets of Zone Leaders and 2 companionships of Sister Training Leaders.  Instead of one large MLC, we’ve divided them into 2 groups for our meetings this week (because of COVID).  Our total number of missionaries right now is 103.

The Assistants gave great trainings on obedience and faith and Pres and Sis Binene spoke to us about how to navigate during these COVID times with so many restraints and how to work effectively with members.

Pres Binene encouraged the Zone Leaders to be good leaders and watch out for everyone in their districts.  The 3 biggest challenges, he said, for missionaries are pride, selfishness and disobedience.

While Sis Binene did her training, we slipped out to go pick up sandwiches for everyone from the deli at the near by supermarket.  This is the handwashing station outside the store:

Here are some of our faithful mission leaders:

Here are a few of the things going on today here at the office.  Bro Brou Bah, our Family History specialist was teaching the APs a few family history tips:

The Mission Presidency had a meeting today.  Here is Bro Brou Bah, who popped in on the photo, along with Pres Sossou, Pres Lewis and Eveque Mel in front:

Soeurs dropping by for some help after they were robbed at knife point this afternoon:

A look at our mission office bathroom:

John continues to sort, organize and clean out the mission records:

He is emptying the cupboards of the old records to make room for the more recent ones.

The piles to be shredded are growing:

Dr Do, our Mission Doctor, dropped by today:

The work here continues.  There is not much change in the world around us.  People continue to be out and about.  Many wear face masks–maybe as many as 30%.  Public transport continues.  Some shops are closed and many are feeling hardship of less work, interrupted income, and travel restrictions in and out of Abidjan.  That’s the worst effect of the COVID-19 pandemic here–people are getting hungry.