Historic Moment

This past week we have enjoyed having members from the Cocody Stake, Cote d’Ivoire here attending the temple.  They came by bus and spent the week attending the temple. Friday was their scheduled return date but due to political unrest in Cote d’Ivoire they were not able to return until Monday.  While unfortunate it could be seen as a blessing in disguise. This is conference weekend and we were looking forward to watching conference live even though we are six (6) hours ahead. In visiting with the Stake Presidency Friday, they expressed a desire to view conference live.  We had planned to make viewing of General Conference live in English but most of them speak French.  I spoke with Bro Davis, the ICS manager, and we decided to see if we could set up a separate room for these saints so they could view and listen to conference in their own language.  The Stake President told me that this was an historic moment as the saints from Cote d’Ivoire had never seen conference live.

The following pictures, taken during the song break,  are of the members from the Ivory Coast who were watching Sunday morning’s session. Gordon set up the French and English equipment and made sure it was working during all sessions.  The men behind Gordon are the Stake President (the shorter one, who will become the Cote d’Ivoire mission pres. in June ) and one of his counselors.

Thanks to the recent network upgrade in the Africa West Area we were able to view four sessions of conference on some nice large screens in both French and English.  In addition, we participated in testing a new device the Church has begun to roll out to remote areas of the church.  The Roku HD Player allows you to stream programming to a television. Through the Church’s Mormon Channel we were able to enjoy General Conference in high quality. It has some other nice features that you can read about on the Internet. Saturday morning’s session had a few problems but once Salt Lake work out the issues the other sessions went beautifully. 

These next three pictures are some of the Senior Couples who are serving in the Africa West Area with us.  Pictured are the Ghana Accra Temple President and 1st counselor and their wives. Stephaney is in the left picture visiting with Sister Kathy Brown from Gunnison. They are PEF missionaries.   Another couple which are in their 80’s are on their 6th mission, now temple missionaries. The couples in the back of the third picture are the Public Affairs couple from Kamas, Utah and the Family History couple on their 4th mission to Africa.  All are dedicated, wonderful people.

When the Lord showers us with advances in medicine, science and technology He does so to accomplish His purposes.  The rest of mankind and the world benefit from these marvelous blessings.