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

Here is our weekly temple progress report.   Work on the temple continues during these crazy times.  There are lots of workers and this week they brought in truckloads of dirt/sand.  There is some big equipment moving it around. It’s piled up against the tin walls keeping us out, spilling out underneath.

The workers smile and wave at us when we watch them.  There is a good spirit here.

This morning we met with our District in Cocody for our weekly meeting.  We continue to practice social distancing in small groups.  It’s hard to sing with a mask on and it’s hard to hear and understand everything said, but we get along as well as we can.

Key indicators looked better this week.  Everyone is finding opportunities to teach, although it’s challenging to be out and about in these COVID times.

Soeur Adangniso taught a great lesson on effective personal study from PMG chapter 2.

We always have good discussions and there is lots of participation.

I admire and honor these young missionaries.  They are here willingly, doing hard things.  It’s not easy, it’s not comfortable, it’s not sure.  They have faith and desires to serve.  They testify and they lift me.  It’s good to be with them.

We live now in the financial secretary’s office, which is in the mission office.  We have this nice place with a window, a small fridge and A/C.  Here’s a pic of our office after we found a ladder:

Before the ladder, John just climbed the mountain of rice in the corner to get to the cupboards and storage areas above that haven’t seen the light of day in years.  We found all sorts of things up there, including about 24 pillows and towels and hand water pumps and filters and thermos bottles and paper supplies.

This office has also been full to the brim with financial records dating back to 2011.  We’ve learned that we only need to keep 3 years of records behind the current year, so everything from 2017 forward.  Today we started pulling the old stuff out.

Here is the pile of records that will need to be destroyed.  We’ve ordered a shredder to help with that job.  This will give us a little breathing room in our office to organize the records we’ll be keeping.  Bit by bit, we are getting organized here as we prepare for an upcoming audit and the arrival of a new Mission President in July.

We received these photos this morning from the Elders in Bamako.  Three  of our dear friends were baptized there this morning.  We are so happy for them and sad we could not be there.  These children have been attending church faithfully for months, waiting for an opportunity to be baptized.  Today was the day!

I might add here that our 4 Bamako Elders (from Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and the Ivory Coast) are still there, isolated from the rest of the mission.  They have not been able to leave the country to return to their home countries because of closed borders.

Sundays are peaceful and pleasant here.  Today these 4 missionaries joined us for the sacrament and a testimony meeting.  We are grateful to be serving here with them.

Here’s a look at our beautiful missionaries, who still carry on after so many have left.  These are our heroes.  Pres Binene meets with every missionary every transfer.

We have 6 missionaries, like Soeur Sala, who have served longer than their 18 months or 2 years, but the borders to their home countries are closed, so they stay on, helping here.

 

This afternoon I got to visit with Fr. Oro, who looks after our missionary apartments.  He’s a Pathway student right now and every week we get to visit for 30 minutes in English about what he’s learning.

Our wonderful missionary heroes!

Today all of the Pacific Island missionaries serving in the Ivory Coast were transferred to the Abidjan West Mission under Pres. Daniel Lewis’s care.  This includes our 5 Tahitians and the 11 serving in the Yamoussoukro Mission.  This will make it much easier to keep track of things when the time comes for a flight out.  We are still keeping our fingers crossed.  Our 5 Elders will continue to live in the AP’s old apartment here in our mission.

The 5 Elders pictured above dropped by from next door this morning.  They are part of this group of Elders hoping for a flight out soon.

The other important thing that happened this evening was our first training meeting with Salt Lake to prepare the way for our missionaries to receive smartphones.   This will be a huge blessing to the missionaries here.  The mission will provide one smartphone for each companionship and the missionaries will be instructed on how to transfer their paper lives to digital.  They will also be taught how to keep themselves safeguarded with this new tool to teach and communicate with others.