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

Temple Progress and District Meeting in Cocody

Here’s a look at our Abidjan Temple today. It continues to grow towards heaven. Sweet is the peace the gospel brings.

This is looking out of the back doors of the stake center:

It just Feels Good to be inside a church building every now and again.

The buildings are maintained, even when they are not being used.

Here are a few pics from our District Meeting today. Today we had one Ivorian Sister, two Congolese Sisters and one from Madagascar. The Elders are Congolese, Ivorian, Tahitan and we are American. What a nice melting pot we make!

Rumors are flying

We’re hearing that the church is trying to negotiate another charter flight to take missionaries out of West Africa. The destination is Australia, one step closer to the Pacific Islands. We have 5 Haitian (French Polynesian) Elders serving in our mission. Getting them to Australia would put them one step closer to home.

We are sad when missionaries leave us but happy when they can be closer to their families. This week the 5 Elders will be brought in to Abidjan to be closer to the airport, should the flight materialize.

China has come to Abidjan!

We took an outing today–just down the street–to visit a new store that has opened. It’s called China Mall. We’ve been watching this huge store being built since we arrived. It has recently opened for business and today we went to take a look. We were looking for some office supplies.

When we stepped inside, I was Amazed! The store seemed to go on forever–it was huge! The store workers are still unloading boxes and boxes of goods, but the shelves were full and we were excited at what we found. Office supplies, household supplies, dishes, tools, appliances, home decor–just about anything you’d need! Come take a look.

Kitchen tools.

There were boxes everywhere waiting to be unpacked.

Dishes. Great prices.

Office supplies

Games and toys

Oh, the tools. Rows and rows of tools. It was like a builder’s paradise.

Fake plants and flowers

I have never seen so many locks in one place before!

I smiled when I saw African drums made in China, coming back to sell to Africans!

There weren’t many customers in the store. The floor is marked with social distancing tape in anticipation of more coming. There just aren’t many people out and about these days. This is a hard time to be opening such a big grand store, it felt like China has arrived in our neighborhood.

Our Sabbath Day

We are really enjoying our Sabbath worship here in our apartment. Today the Sisters and the APs joined us. We shared 2 more conference talks with them–Elder Causse about the Book of Mormon and Pres Nelson’s final remarks. It was so nice to hear their testimonies and feelings about the gospel.

This afternoon I made a big batch of frozen yogurt. The Bamako Elders gave me this recipe and it’s Good!

Tonight we had our first taste. YUM!!

Celebrating in Bamako!

Today we missing being with our Bamako friends to celebrate the marriage of Valerie and Biggo. We are so happy for them and their beautiful family. The gospel makes good families stronger. We love them so much.

Elder Oulai Completes his Mission!

This afternoon Elder Oulai came to the office from his sector. He has completed his 2 year mission. We haven’t had a “regular” departure in a long time. Because of the lock down around Abidjan, he had to find a way to come into town without being stopped. He got a ride with a truck driver who has a permit to go outside of Abidjan to deliver water to our missionaries and he rode back with that driver in civilian dress so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself. Everything went smoothly.

Elder Oulai’s family lives here in the Abidjan area, about 45 minutes away. Tonight he was happily reunited with them. Elder Oulai was one of the first 4 Elders who was sent to Bamako. He is part of our Bamako history and we are grateful for his service. We wish him well.

Today at the Office

This morning when we got to the office, Bro. Brou Baah was teaching a friend family history and that made me happy.

Pres Binene is always hard at work.

This is how our trash is collected. Note the Easter basket.

And we have new face masks, made by a street vendor outside of Cap Sud shopping mall. I am so happy.

Our Ethiopian Sister Returns Home

Today our Abidjan East Mission lost a bright shining star. Soeur Beyene has returned to her home in Ethiopia. We learned of a flight from Abidjan to Addis Ababa yesterday and today we spent the morning at the airport procuring a ticket for her. We are sad to see her go, but happy to return her to her parents there.

Pres and Sis Binene

Soeur Beyene speaks English beautifully, as well as the language on the Ethiopian Air sign–called Amharic. Amharic is the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic. There are 25 million speakers, mostly in Ethiopia. Soeur Beyene showed me how the letters in their alphabet work. There area bout 260 letters! The language sounds fluid and beautiful. Here are a few of the letters and how they combine with the vowels.

Ethiopa has 83 different languages and up to 200 different dialects!

Soeur Beyene’s parents joined the church 17 years ago in Ethiopia. They were taught by missionaries there. Her father has been a Branch President for the last 10 years. Right now there is a District in Ethiopia with 4 Branches. They are part of the Uganda Mission, but soon a new Mission will be opened in Ethiopia.

Before coming on her mission to Cote d’Ivoire, Soeur helped teach the missionaries serving in Ethiopia to read and write the local Amharic language. She has a gift for languages. Her French is beautiful and she’s only been here 6 months. I asked if she had ever done any translating and she quietly told me that before coming on her mission she was employed by the Church as an interpreter for visiting Authorities to Ethiopia. She also worked as a translator for the Church, translating the Liahona magazines into Amharic.

Soeur Beyene has been accepted to go to school at BYU-I after she completes her missionary service. For now, she will return home, be in strict isolation and quarantine for 14 days, then report to the Mission President in Uganda to learn about her next assignment. We are sad to see her go. She has been such a bright light here.

The airport was empty today. This flight came from Addis Ababa, and returned there again late tonight. There were only a handful of people here flying out.

We enjoyed some Burger King food while we spent the day waiting.

The flight finally departed this afternoon. Here is our send-off for Sis Beyene. We wish her well and send her with our love.

Putting on the Masks

Today is the first time we’ve actually put on some masks here. We are trying to stay out of busy or crowded places where lots of people congregate. Our lives this week have been spent at the office, in our car and at our apartment. John is working day and night on the mission finances and paperwork.

I found a way to convince him that we needed to go to a grocery store for a few more provisions. I tried a new chocolate chip cookie recipe from my friends in Ghana that works well with the ingredients here. I told John I could make a batch of cookies for him each week if only I had some more of the granulated brown sugar we can find here and a few chocolate bars for the cookies (not for him to just eat). He was all over that! Today we ventured out to the Leader Price grocery store near the office.

This morning as we drove into town, the streets were almost empty. We wondered if we had missed a directive about staying in, or quarantining. When we got to the office we learned that the day after Easter is a holiday here and everyone stays home. It was a good day to go to a grocery store–very few people were there and we were able to pick up a few things we needed.

I was able to gather the things on my list while John studied the chocolate bars.

Here’s the good recipe:

This afternoon we had a nice visit with Pres and Sister Lewis of the Abidjan West Mission. They have decided not to leave their mission home and office anymore. The government here is suggesting that people over age 60 stay home now. John is pretending we are young and no one will notice us.

Here’s a picture of the transfer board in the West Mission. The missionaries at the bottom are those who have gone home. Each row is a different nationality, with the Americans being at the bottom. Their numbers are even smaller than ours.

Here is a great map of Abidjan they have on the wall in their office:

Our mission offices are in the middle of the sort-of-island in the peninsula in the middle of this map.

Easter Sunday

2020-4-12 Easter Sunday (2)

Today is Easter Sunday. The Sisters called us this morning to let us know they were going to have sacrament meeting with a new member instead of coming here, so it was just the two of us. We had our own beautiful sacred sacrament meeting on this very special day.

I am so grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and for his gift to us. My heart is full after a peaceful week of general conference and then a special day of fasting and prayer on Good Friday. I know He is mindful of us and He is with us here. We feel His love. There is a great deal of turmoil in the world right now, but He has overcome the world and He will show us through these troubled times.

This evening we watched and listened to our Favorite musical production, Lamb of God by Rob Gardner. It’s been a perfect day.