Koforidua

These are just a few photos we've taken as we gotten to Koforidua. I was going to put on more, but my laptop battery is run down . Just short explanations here today. This is where we dump out garbage. It gets recycled quickly.
This is the town of Medina that we crawl through before we hit the mountains and come to our area.
This is Brother Twum-Baah who is showing us his cocoa trees and the cocoa beans. Chocolate anyone?
These little guys run all over our yard. So far we've only had to remove two of them from our house.
This is a typical store here. We go from one to another to buy our fruits, eggs and such. We've learned we can just roll down the window and they'll come to our car.
The Tafo branch had a baptism on Saturday. These are our four new great members.
This is the Primary room at the Tafo chapel (school.) The children don't have much here, but listen carefully to the lessons.
Elder Opoku was going home and some of the branch people were telling him good-bye. He has been a great asset to the mission. He leaves tomorrow to go home to Nigeria. He is on the front left side.

Happy Birthday

For the grandchildren who thought Grandpa might have to go without a birthday cake this year, we wanted to assure them all is well. I think the candle is a piece of chocolate, but that was fine with him. (He also found Snickers bars the other day in the store, so I think he will survive.)

We invited Princess Asie and her daughter, Fumi, to have dinner with us. It was good to see them both again. Princess even had the piano player do a special "Happy Birthday" number to celebrate. Our waiter told us he was the first counselor in a bishopric here in Accra. The church is well liked and respected here.

Princess Asie and Elder Reynolds catching up on news and laughing about old times together.

The birthday boy doesn't look as happy as he should considering the great meal he has just eaten.

This is all well and fun, but we can't wait to get into our house and get doing what we came here to do. Love to all!

Golden Tulip Hotel

This is just to let you know there are very nice places here in Accra. This is the Golden Tulip Hotel where we went to have dinner on Max's birthday. We ate outside by the pool. I took other photos, but this blogger account is not working well today. I'll try again later.

Grandpa

Even though we would like to be up in Koforidua in our house, we have enjoyed walking outside our building every morning and seeing the Ghana Accra Temple in our compound. It is such a beautiful building.

This is typical of the streets in Accra. It is always crowded and entertaining. We enjoy watching the hawkers selling their wares, but we don't buy.

It seems this is what you thought we would be living in when we got to Ghana. Max could even gather his own eggs and get some feathers to tie fishing flies.

Maybe you will all stop worrying about us when you realize this is where we will be living when the house is finished and furnished in a couple of days. It is very nice and sits up on a hill where we can see the beauty all around. You'll notice the angels on the gate. I'm not sure if they were already there before the church rented the house, but I suppose so.

So this is our house. (I took the photo through the hole in the wall, so it doesn't show all of it.) We will be living in the part you can see. The part on the right will just be closed off until someone really buys it and finishes the other two bedrooms. We will have a huge living room and dining room (great room), a big kitchen, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a laundry room and even a garage. That will be nice to get into a car that hasn't sat in the sun all day. You notice we said we have two bedrooms with very nice beds, so how about coming for a visit?

Long-Time Friends

Today was a great day for Max.
We learned two special friends were in the area and we spent some time with them on Saturday morning. They are the Marcovs (Alan and Joyce). They were teenagers of a special branch president back in Welland, Ontario when Max was on his mission.
Alan's wife volunteers at the MTC and Alan is a District President for the Italian missionaries. We ran into his wife on Wednesday and she set up this meeting. Joyce lives in Salt Lake and drove down to Orem today. It was fun to talk about old times.
We had gone to their parent's home in Canada several times when we lived in Michigan. Their parents were wonderful people! It is so touching to find that people you knew years ago are still strong in the gospel and doing so many good things in the world. I hope these are the kinds of reunions we'll have in heaven someday.
Photo: Alan Marcov, his sister, Joyce and Elder Max

I think we passed!

We just wanted to be sure you know where we are going!
No time for fishing or Battlefield. This is serious stuff.
The new elders coming in on Wednesday. And they did get their dork dots.
Our MTC district
The traditional thing to do when you come to the MTC.
The flowers are beautiful this time of year.
More beautiful flowers and a handsome elder.
I'll try to write more on the blog when we actually get to Ghana and have some experiences we want to share. The MTC has been a great learning experience. We think every church member should come for a week even if they never serve a mission. It will make them a better member.
Love to all!

On Our Way

We have been staying with Doug and Taunie for the last three days. The girls were happy to have us finally come and spend the night at their house.


We were set apart on Sunday, September 16th by President John Henry of the Roy Utah Central Stake. We were pleased to have Brother Swain, Bishop Mendoza and Brother Schuenman join with us. (President Henry is on the right.)

Two days to go

Yesterday we turned off the water in our house and closed everything up. We will go to our ward tomorrow and then leave for the MTC on Monday morning. We will be there for a week and then fly to Ghana the following Monday. We will be happy to be on our way and finally doing what we've planned for so long to do.