Temple Trips!

Saturday May 23, 2015

I finally was able to go to the temple this week, not just once but twice! Thursday was another clinic day with St. Thomas. I got to see some more surgeries which are always awesome to observe. I love the doctors at the clinic, Dr. Gyasi, Dr. Ela, and Dr. Elom. They all remembered who I was and glad that I knew what I was doing so I could train some of the others in the group. Everyone else hadn’t been to the clinic yet. They did a lot of surgeries that day, around 30. I only shadowed about a third of those. After that Mary Ellen and I switched with Annie and Richard so they could observe the rest and left to tray and make it to the last session at the temple. We made it with about 30 minutes to spare. The temple grounds are beautiful! The church has a stake centre on one side and apartment buildings on the other for senior couples and members traveling from far away to stay at. There were only 2 others in the session when I got there, a total of 12 ended up showing (most were temple workers). So naturally who do they pick to be the witness couple? Mary Ellen and I. It was my first time and I can say that I was very attentive throughout the whole session haha. Mary Ellen actually did the endowment for one of Sister Hill’s names! I met some amazing members at the temple. I love how no matter where you are from you immediately have this strong bond with other members especially at the temple.

The temple Thursday night.

Friday was a really short day with St. Thomas. We saw maybe 40 patients. We got home around 4pm and chilled until the crystal group got home. Then some of us went out for chinese. Saturday was our temple and beach day. We went and did baptisms in the morning, and Annie and Gavin did a session in french. Gavin served his mission in Paris and Annie took it in school. We met a few senior couples outside the temple. The first ones we talked to knew the Hills very well and was able to call them for me. I talked to sister Hill on the phone (I told her that I was your nephew Toni). She was pleasantly surprised to here that I was in Ghana haha. I hope I will have time to go and stop by there place to visit. They don’t live on the temple grounds but they live close by. The temple was very busy. All the members come in from all over on saturdays, They were really accommodating with us, it was great. To speed things up they had us do the confirmations right next to the font dripping wet haha. 

After the temple we took a taxi to Bojo beach for the rest of the day. It is supposedly the nicest beach near Accra. By Ghana standards it was pretty nice but I found the water worse then when we went in Elmena. It was very salty and it just felt really dirty. I only swam for maybe 45 min. The beach was pretty sketchy too haha. There were rusty bottle caps, broken glass, and other garbage strewed everywhere. But nonetheless it was fun. It ended up raining pretty hard on us at the end of the day. What was cool about Bojo beach is that we had to take a boat ride across the canal to the beach from the hotel. The boats that they have in Ghana are all hand carved. I have seen many boats being chiseled on the beaches here. They use them mainly as fishing boats. We stayed and at dinner at the hotel as we dried off. Then we got a taxi ride back to the Telecentre. It is the beginning of the rainy season here so we get flash rain storms nearly every day. And when it rains here it doesn't ever sprinkle. It pours!  

Taking the boat across the short canal to the beach.

Sunday May 24, 2015

Arnold came to church! He works on the St. Thomas crew! We had been inviting him for about 2 weeks and then he shows up after sacrament meeting! We caught hime talking to the mission president out in the hall. We were all very excited to see him. He seems very interested in the gospel. Tapping into the missionary side of me feels so good. I spent a good amount of time talking to him along with the mission president about the Book of mormon and some other questions he had. He had been asking for a book of mormon for the past week so we got him one and he seemed excited to finally get one. The missionary work in general here is flourishing. There has not been a week where there hasn’t been a baptism. In 4 weeks we have witnessed 6 confirmations! Its amazing to see people so receptive here. I hope that Arnold reads the Book of Mormon. I am with crystal thus next week so I wont be able to talk to him but the others will definitely help answer any questions he has.