Market Place (payless shoes

More FromGhana

   Well, it has been a long time in between blogs. 

We had so much trouble with the blog that we
started doing e-mails which works out OK, but
it does not give one the opportunity to go back
and see all that has been posted.  We thought
that we would try and do both the blog and
 e-mails and see if we can cover more of our
 mission for you.
     This picture is of one of the baptisims that we attended.  This one is at Axim which is about 1 1/4 hours away.  The Elders had prepared 3 candidates for baptism.  The font is outside, which is how many of the Branches and Wards have them.  It is really great to see these people embrace the gospel. They are truely wonderful
people and most of them stay very strong and dedicated to the Lord's work.     
    The next picture is of our next door neighbors, who are fairly well to do, doing their wash.  Probably 85% of Ghanaians do their wash this way.  They are always clean and neat and on Sunday's, their shirts and things are pressed and very nice.  Their white's are always very white.  We are spoiled as we have a washer and dryer which helps us because it takes so much time to do the wash this way.  Most of the Elders do their wash this way on their "P" day, although some of the Americans have their families send them money so they can buy a small washing machine and they take it with them each time they are transfered.
     We have been extremely busy these last couple of weeks, helping to get 2 new apartments ready, going to Cape Coast several times, and going to Accra several time, once for new missionaries and once for Elder Bybee to play at the Temple Presidency's Christmas devotional.  We have also made many trips to all of the Branches and to the various missionary apartments.  We have logged about 2500 km on our truck in the last 14 days. We have been on the Mission for 5 months now, but the time has gone by so fast that it doesn't seem like we have been gone that long.  We love the work, the missionaries and the people.  It is truely a blessing to be here.  We miss our family and friends, but have little time to dwell on that.  We are thankful to have Skype and E-mail to stay in contact with people back home.  We love all of you and mention you in our prayers.    Elder and Sister Bybee       

THREE MONTH MARK - Well, it has been three months since we entered the MTC.         The time has really flown.  We have been          extremely busy, so our blog has suffered.  It        takes so long to download the pictures that it       takes us several hours to do the blog,and it seens we do not have the time,or are too tied to get it   done, SORRY.  We are having a great mission   with so many experiences and wonderful things  happening.  We have been to all of the Branches in our area for Suinday meetings (5) and have been to many of the Distract meetings with the Missionaries.  We have been to Accra to pick up new Missionaries and we go again on the 15 of  Oct. to meet 11 new Missionaries that are            arriving.  We have 3 that will be going home, so that will give us 107 Missionaries in our mission.  We went with the Asay's one Saturday to a members home.  Her name              is Alice.  They help her make bread each              Saturday.  That is how she makes her living.        This is her making the bread loafs. She make     50 to 60 loafs (large and small) and then sells      them or trades them for other goods.  These are some of the children in her village that come to see the Brunies (white people).  They sang,danced and did several games.  Elder Asay read to them out of a large reader that their daughter had sent to them.  We have been to many

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baptisms. The missionaries we have in our

mission are very strong, powerful, missionaries who are doing a wonderful job of growing the

gospel.  We went to Accra to take our vehicle (which was an Area vehicle) back so it could be
given to Elder and Sister Haws. who are from Hooper, and are assistant auditors for the West
Africa Missions.  We picked up our new truck which is a Nisson Navara.  It is really nice, and
works out better for us to go the the Branches and to haul things we need for them. The last
picture is of a herd of goats walking up the road that goes to our home (the one at the front
of the picture). Goats, chickens, and dogs are everywhere. They have free range of any area they
choose.  That helps them get fattened up so they are ready for someone's dinner when needed.  We will call this good for this blog, but will try to get another one out soon. Elder and Siser Bybee    
    


                           

WE PASSED THE TWO MONTH MARK
We have been on the Mission for over 9 weeks.  The time really flies when you are having fun (or doing the Lord's work).  Our internet service has been off and on, our electricity has been off and on, and our schedule has been full, so the blog has been pushed back several times and this one will be very short.  We have been helping to get apartments ready for the new missionaries, going to Accra to get the new missionaries (16), and helping get the apartments supplied with the things that they were still lacking.  In between, we attend Branch meetings, baptisims and various other duties.  We attended two baptisms about two weeks ago on two seperate nights.  The baptisms were to start at 6 pm.  At 6 pm, the power went off, both nights, so the baptisms were held with the glow of a rechargable light.  Also, because they were held in the same building, they just leave the water in the font for the next baptism.  Welcome to West Africa.  These are one of the groups that got baptized.    

We have the responsibility of doing the apartments inspections for our area now.  We took the checklist around to all the apartments so they know exactly what we will be liiking for.  If they only fail on 1 or less defects, they will get a prize.  They are kind of excited about that.  One of the places we go to is Nkroful,which is about 1 hr. 45 min. away, so we let them know in advance that when we brought the list, that we would be inspecting their apartment.  They passed with a perfect score, so they got their prizes.  This is a picture Sister Bybee took on our way back from Nkroful.    

Like I said, this blog will be short, so we will sign off for now.  May the Good Lord bless each of you as He is blessing us.  We love our mission and love doing the work.  We miss all of you, but will see you befor we relize where the time went.  Love Sister and Elder Bybee

Week Five

Well, we have been on our mission for five weeks
 already.  The time is really going by fast.  So much
 happens, we will not be able to cover it all, but we will give you a glimps of things.  Our internet has not been working very well, so we have not been able to skype our families and we are slow at getting this blogout.  These are the Sister
Missionaries that serve in our area.  They are
really great Missionaries. They all live in one apartment.



We have been with the Zone leaders out to the Branches (4) that we will be helping with and they are really humble members, but strong Branches.  They meet in rented buildings,some of which are not in the very best of shape, but they really embrace the gospel and love the church and the missionaries.  This is a picture of us at one of the Branches.  The baptismal fonts have been built outside.  They are filled with water from the city system, so it is not heated, but the candidates do not mind.





This is a home in one of the villages that we visited.  As you can see, they are very humble circumstances, but the people are happy and still feel like they are blessed by our Heavenly Father.  There are about 30 to 40 members that have been meeting as a group there because they are so far away from a Branch building  They have applied to become a Branch and the Area Presidency has OK'd it, now it just has to be approved by Church Headquarters.  



These are some of the village children.  They are so very cute.  They followed us around as we walked through the village and saw the building where they meet for church.  The members meet in an elementry school building, so they sit at the wooden desks that the children use.  Sister Bybee and I have now purchased a bag with treats that we will carry with us to the villages so we can give the children something when we are there.  The children love to shake our hands and love white people. We took their pictures and then showed them the camera with the picture on it and they were very thrilled.  



We had the privilage of helping take 8 missionaries to Accra to go to the Temple and then to send them on their way home as they had served their time. This is them eating at the Mission Home on the night before they left.  They are eating Fufu and rice balls in ground nut soup with chicken.  They eat it with their fingers.  We tried it also.  I liked it, but Sister Bybee was not quite as fond of it as I was.


Jayda had told us that one of her friends that plays basketball with her on her traveling team was coming to Ghana with her family to pick up her brother who serving.  We were not familiar with the name and found out that he was serving in the Accra Mission.  When we came out of the temple, the family was there and we got to meet them and talk with them.  It is a small small world. 





 

       Sister Bybee and I really enjoyed going to the Temple with the Elders and Sister.  It is a beautiful Temple.  While we were in Accra, we stay at the MTC there and we got to do a little bit of shopping. So our last couple of weeks have been full, but we have really enjoyed our experiences. Until later, Love Elder and Sister Bybee      

We will give the blog another go to see if we can get it to upload the pictures any faster.  This is on the road into town from our apartment.  There are lots of little shops like this all along the road. See the mother with the baby wrapped to her back.  They do this until they are about 3 years old.  Sometimes the mother carries something on her head as well.  The driving in Ghana is very unorganized.  They just honk and go.  They have very few stop signs (which they ignore) and very few lights.  They have round-a-bouts which get extremely congested.  You could say that the entire area is one big market place, because there are small shops and stands and people selling things everywhere, but there is a main market circle in the center of Takoradi.  It is about 4 SLC blocks in size.  It is packed with every kind of food and item that is for sale in this city, you just have to hunt for it, and then buy it because the item or the shop may not be there the next time.  This is one of the shop owners little girl.  She sits in a basket on the floor while her mother tends the shop.
We met the Zone Leader's in Takoradi on Sat. morning so we could meet the Elders and Sisters in their zone and then go out so several of the Branches.  When we got the the Chapel Hills meeting house, we discovered that our tail lights had been stolen during the night.  The truck has an alarm, but it did not go off.  We spent the day getting new tail lights sent from Accra, so we were unable to do much driving, so we did not get out to the Branches. We went to church on Sunday at one of the Takoradi wards.  They did not have an organist, so I asked if they would like me to play and they said yes.  It was a great experience.  The meetings were great, but they do parts of their meetings in Fonte (which is their native language) so we miss parts.  After meeting, some of the youth in the Ward talked to us about learning to play, so we are going to set up a time when we can start to teach them the keyboard.  The Church has a great program for those who are willing to learn music.  There were 5 or 6 that were interested.  Today was the Elders and Sisters from both Zones (24) joint "P" day, so they held an activity over at the stake center.  We met the missionaries (22) there and took them lunch that we had made.  We had a great visit with them and I think they enjoyed lunch, of chicken salad sandwiches, potato chips, cookies and drinks.  Some of them had not had potato chips since they left the states and others from Africa had not had potato chips or chicken salad sandwiches.                 

                                                                         This is a picture of Daniel (and wife) and the twins (and mother) that were baptized last week. (it would not download to the blog last time), and the ZL's from Secondi.  That about takes care of our activities for the week.  We still have a few leaks to be fixed and a couple of other things in the apartment that have to be done, but we are making progress.  Like we said before, Ghana works on a very layed back time schedule, and a very non-modern process of fixing things.  Till later, Elder and Sister Bybee         

Hello from Ghana!  We are still learning how to use our blog, and the internet service in Ghana is very slow, so we will have to see how this goes.  This picture is Pres. and Sister Shulz and us at the Mission Home in Cape Coast.  We were there for four days waiting for our apartment to get finished.  Now we are in Takorida, and are getting settled in.  They are still coming to do a few things on our apartment, such as plumbing leaks, kitchen cabinets, door adjustments and a few other things.  It is a slow process, this country moves at a much slower pace than we do in America, but it will all get done.  We attended church on Sunday and it was really great.  The members are very strong and have great testimonies.  We went with the zone leaders to the district meeting on Monday.  What a wonder group of missionaries, 10 in attendance and one pair was sick.  We have done a little bit of shoppiong, but we have a lot more to do.  The market places are jam packed with people selling and little shops.  The food is very different and it will take some getting used to, but we will do it.  On Tuesday, we went to a baptism for 3 people, a man who was about 40, and a pair of twin boys age 9.  We are meeting the zone leaders for the other zone on Sat. and they will take us to see two of the other branches.  Sunday we will attend one of those branches.  We are going to met the other district and those Elders and sisters, (12) on Monday.  We will stay busy once we really get settled and get into the swing of things.  More later.  Elder and SisterBybee