Malaria round two

It’s been two weeks since the Area Presidency have been gone.  Elder Dickson and Elder Cardon on home leave and Elder Sitati on travel. We thought it might be quite a bit slower with them out of the office but we have been quite busy following up on old business and doing what we could to get a jump on things while they are away.  So it has pretty much been business as usual. Last Sunday Stephaney wasn’t feeling that well so she stayed home from church and I just went to the local ward that meets in the Stake Center next to the Temple.  We decided that she had enough of the signs of malaria that we started her on the malaria pills. We understand that if you treat it within the first 24 hours of the symptoms that you do a lot better. It takes some time to get back to full steam so she took it easy this past week.  Household duties don’t slow down so I try to chip in a bit more. Dishwashing duties are a bit more manual without a automatic dishwasher.  The rinse water in the blue bowl has bleach in it so I have to be careful not to splash it on my clothes – the reason for the apron.  The bottom left picture shows a great Presto microwave popcorn maker we found in the apartment.

   

Toward the end of the week Stephaney did try to spend some time in the office.  When new wards/branches are created we have to create maps of the unit boundaries for Salt Lake.  Stephaney is the pro doing this. She uses Google Maps Pro to create these boundaries.  This last Thursday we were working on some maps when Prosper, an employee in the building, came by to see us.  He decided to get a picture or two.

 

The picture below is an image of an area in the Africa West Area that was being divided and it shows what is eventually sent to Salt Lake in support of the recommendation to make a new church unit. This picture is a fairly high picture but Stephaney usually has to zoom in very close to make sure the boundaries being drawn follow natural and logical boundaries like roads, rivers, forests, and that they don’t split a street or go through a building. These two areas combined were one unit and they wanted to divide it so that the members did not have so far to travel to attend church. Most people do not have cars so they must walk or take a tro-tro or taxi to get to church.  It can take a hour or so plus it is expensive to pay for a tro-tro or taxi to get their family to church. 

We also saw 6 new mission presidents begin their missions.  Five were changing out with prior mission presidents and one was a newly create mission – Benin Cotonou. Only one mission remained unaffected and one was split creating the Benin Cotonou mission.

While the climate and temperature is pretty constant year around here in Ghana, July has actually been the most pleasant of the months we have been here.  We have actually had a nice breeze much of the time and the temperature has been milder almost cool.  It has really been an enjoyable time of year.  With the Temple also closed now for two weeks for general maintenance and cleaning it will be even more quite.  We hope to get a short trip in during the next two weeks to Cape Coast.  If that happens we should have some very interesting pictures to share with you.  Until next time ….