= Sunday, District President Davies (who is also a counselor to President Morgan) visited our branch and emphasized that we cannot have joy when we do not serve. The Sunday School President was not there; so, President Davies tapped us to lead a discussion of Alma 30 and 31 in which an Antichrist taught that there was no life after death and no Christ. The predictable result for those who followed him was much sin, including whoredoms. The result for him was being struck dumb and eventually being trampled to death.
= It was to our great relief that District President Davies will contact the temple for those who will attend the temple for the first time, make reservations for them, and help with paperwork for the Area to provide financial support for their first-time travel in October. We had been concerned that we would be pressed into trying to do these things at the last minute.
= Monday, The truck didn’t shift out of 4-wheel drive: the problem we had turned it in for last week. Still, Steph got us to the office by 0845 and I contacted the vehicle vendor after the weekly 0900 meeting. An Elder next door had hung clothes to dry in our back yard, saw water spitting out of our pump, and sent a video, which I forwarded to Brother Bright. I began putting consecutive numbers in bicycles to be repaired to avoid confusion with repair estimates and to track their future condition.
= The truck was picked up for evaluation. The Barilleaus dropped us off at our house. The money prepaid to our old electric meter had finally been posted to the new meter: almost a two-month process. Workers tried to fix the pump connection but failed. Our home router had run out of Internet; so, we worked and studied by hotspotting from our phones. I established a WhatsApp connection with our middle daughter, Michelle!
= Tuesday, President Morgan had told us to take breaks when they come; we did that today. More work was done on the pump. Our truck was returned without changes; the vendor had seen the problem when he picked it up but not since.
= Wednesday, the overhead polytank had overflowed, driving ants to create a highway about three inches wide with ridges on both sides! Half were moving in one direction, half in another. As I switched valve positions for the polytank and photographed the ants, they found me. I had to wash ants out of my washcloth when I showered.
= President Morgan had me come with him to measure a police barricade to determine how much reflective tape would be needed for a mission-wide service project of making these barriers visible at night: almost 1500 meters to handle 130 barriers.
= Thursday, not only was the router not providing Internet, but Steph’s phone didn’t have an Internet connection either. Office Elders shifted some of her calling value to Internet value so she could resume using WhatsApp. Donning a used t-shirt, I arranged books and used clothing in the left cargo container at the mission office.
= In the evening, we ate at the Barilleaus: a low-key going-away for the Binghams.
= Friday, water was working again. Elders loaded two bicycles into the back of our truck. We had forgotten to put the food in the truck. So it was that when police at a checkpoint said they wanted food, we were able to say that we had none. We delivered three months of pills to an Elder in Paramu. It took us about an hour and a half to then travel what would have been a 45-minute distance to Nuamakrom if the road had been better. I tried to hold my phone in a fixed position on the dashboard while I took a video selfie to show the motion; doing that was much worse than letting the truck and your body rock separately as we normally do.
= I had failed to tell the Elders we were bringing bicycles this afternoon, and they were now working beyond cell range. But we spotted a chapel whose passenger gate was open, we used the restroom there, and the Branch President locked up the bicycles in the chapel's utility building. We returned via the road through Hemang: a little better. We phoned in an order for pizza from Lemon Lounge and brought that home.
= Saturday, I did laundry and eventually drove by myself to get bread and eggs. Steph prepped her hair and was ready for dinner at the Morgans with Bishop Kobina Annan Arkoful, his wife Rebecca, and the Barilleaus. This had originally been planned to include the Binghams, but they had traveled early to Accra so they could go to the temple before departing Ghana. Sister Rebecca cooks for the Morgans when they entertain but seldom eats with the group being fed; Having her and her husband there was a treat for us. Home, we found that water was spurting from a pump connection again.
Water overflowing from our polytank displaced these ants, who were flowing in both directions (!), creating a highway about three inches wide with ridges on both sides.
The people in the truck rock side to side... I held the camera in one place for this video. That made the result worse than just letting all of your body go with the flow. Moving from a photo in the default "Photos" app to a video instead of selecting the video through File Manager causes "Photos" to give you a trim option. After you trim it as desired, clideo.com can shrink the .mov file by a factor of about ten into a .mp4 file and download it to your Google drive as I have done here.
The natural way to carry things
Wide load
Missionaries...
These photos will be tougher to come by in the future; because, the mission has moved from a mission Facebook presence to WhatsApp accounts for each Branch. We will see fewer of them, and fewer photos will have broad consent for posting.
No comments:
Post a Comment