Ground Breaking

The Area Presidency returned from General Conference Thursday and Friday, April 7th and 8th. We picked Elder and Sister Sitati up at the Airport Thursday and then Elder and Sister Cardon and Elder Dickson Friday morning. With things getting back to normal our “vacation” came to an end.

But before that happened we had to get to the bank to get some more Cedis (Ghana dollars). Even though the missionary pamphlet we got when we received our call suggested that bank debit cards and credit cards would be helpful, in Ghana that is not the case. Even travelers checks are of very little value. What is interesting is a personal check is about the only thing from the States that is of value. Since Ghana is a cash society; the other forms of banking are not honored here. If you don’t have Cedis then you are out of luck. So every few months we go to a branch of a Ghanaian bank and write them a check which they cash and give us Cedis. In order to keep the number of trips to the bank down and get the best deal on the exchange we write a fairly large check each time. The picture below is the result of our last visit to the back. The Cedis are in 50 and 20 denominations.

Monday there was a ground breaking ceremony for the construction of an apartment complex for the Area Presidency. Currently they live in leased housing that is about 5 Km away from the temple complex. This new complex will be next door to the temple complex. Once the apartments are completed, the plan calls for building a new MTC to replace the current MTC which is in Tema about 30 km away.

Stephaney took the picture of the shovels and the Area Presidency on the top right. The next few pictures are of the AWA choir, the Area Presidency visiting with the contractors representing the company who won the contract, Stephaney and me, and the Africa West Area Presidency.

The next few pictures are of the ground breaking – the Area Presidency, their wives, the contractors, other Area employees and you guessed it – yours truly.

The last couple of pictures are of the Public Affairs couple (Pages, who are from Kamas) and Sister Breillatt (Temple Matron), Sister Empey (Assistant Temple Matron) and Sister Brown. Bro and Sister Brown help with the PEF program of the Church here in the Africa West Area. They are from Gunnison and will be returning home this July.

Editor’s note: We will be travelling next week, so no post until the week after Easter. Stay tuned to see where we are going for the week!