The New Legon Building

Our update today includes a couple more pictures of our journey to the ward that we have been assigned to help. The New Legon meetinghouse is 20 Km northeast from where we live. Traffic today was light so we made it in 45 minutes. Much of the time we are traveling on narrow paved roads with frequent speed bumps in populated areas so we average 15 kph. Most side roads are not paved.

We are constantly passing “two men and a truck”, as we Obrunies call them, and you never know what will be on what amounts to a flat bed on four wheels and pulled/pushed by two men. Sometime the loads are huge. One shows coconuts which are sold for their water. They use machetes to whack off the top and sell to passers-by.

The next series of pictures will be of the New Legon meetinghouse which is quite new and considered quite nice. This is very notable as other congregations outside the big city will be in rented or almost shack-like buildings typical of the area.

This is the approach to the meetinghouse. It is gated to protect against vandalism and theft. The parking lot is small because most people come by taxi, trotro or walk.

The building off to the right in the background is a pod and serves as the Relief Society room.

There are four entrances to the chapel with wood benches for pews. For cooling the windows have louvers and fans are mounted in the ceilings. Mostly all they need are the skylights for lighting however there are neon lights running the length of the chapel for night time.

In the front of the building on the far side of the chapel is the sacrament table and the room where the Priests prepare the sacrament. The Bishopric and speakers have a bench that they are seated on and the organ is a keyboard on the near side in the picture. Last week the floor was cement and we thought that was how if would be. But tile was installed during the week. Evidently there are still some final touches in progress.

The next series of pictures show you additional pods used for Sunday School classes and Aaronic Priesthood Quorum meetings. The picture below on the right is where the Teachers and Deacons meet.

The African people readily accept the pure doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When they speak you can feel the strength of their testimonies. We are assigned to help them with administration of the church programs because it is very new to them. Over half the members of this ward have been members a year or less.

A final note for this week is that there is a Cholera outbreak in the country. Thank goodness for all those immunizations we took before coming!