Tuesday, November 26th

We stayed up late Friday night (22nd) so we could be on facetime when our grandson, Logan, opened his mission call.  He is excited to be going to the Australia, Brisbane mission.  My dad and his 2 brothers served in Australia many years ago.  We are happy for him.

 

Sunday I got a calling in our ward (La Ward).  The Bishop ask us into his office just before the meeting started and ask Jim if I would accept a calling as 2nd counsellor in the Young Women's organization.  He didn't even look at me.   Jim suggested he should ask me, which he did, and of course I said I would.   That is actually the first time I have worked in Ward Young Womens.  I was a counsellor in the Stake YW once many years ago (with Pat Palmer and Cheryl Mathison).   I attended teh YW class - there were 12 of them there.  They stay together in one class.   At the end of the class the teacher ask if they bathed each morning and night and if they washed their panties.   They all said that they do. 

The President and 1st counselor are nice girls (single - 33 and 27 yrs. old).  They are both working and in school and wishing for a 'good' man to come into their lives.  I will teach next week.  Hope it goes well.

 

Last week we went to visit a hospital that has requested help from us.   With our phone GPS and stopping and asking a lot of people we finally found the place.  We decided that they don't need our help as they don't really cater to the poor, but more to the paying patients.  It was a nice facility (private hospital).  They had ask us for a transformer but they have already bought it themselves and also wanted an eye clinic but have changed their mind on that and used the room for a different purpose now.   She ask what we could help them with and we explained that we like to help those that cater to the poorest of the poor. 

On our way home we stopped at a Department store called 'Game' and bought ourselves a hammer to crack open coconuts and we stopped at Shoprite and bought a few groceries (mostly fruit and vegetables).  We did try a red sweet potato but it wasn't that good.  We found butternut squash though and we like that.

 

We are planning a humanitarian couple's seminar here in Accra in the middle of December.  We will bring in the couples that serve in Sierra Leone and Liberia (our Nigeria couple finished their mission and have gone home -- they are debating about whether to replace them or not.  They are quite limited as to travel and such since it is not alway safe.)  We do desperately need a replacement couple for Liberia though - any takers??  They have lots of good projects going on there. 

 

We are spending most of our time in the office doing paperwork and still figuring out our responsibilites.  Tomorrow we leave for a 3 day tour of the Ghana projects.  We are looking forward to that and seeing what is happening on the ground.  It will give us a better idea.  We will be staying in Cape Coast and venturing out from there to see the different areas where our water projects and others are.

 

We have started swimming in the mornings at about 6 a.m. or earlier.  We do lengths for about 30 - 45 minutes. 

 

All is well!   Send us emails -- we love to hear from family and friends!!

 

Love, Elder & Sister Bullock/mom & dad/Nancy & Jim

 

 

 

Bats in the sky

We saw, what we thought were birds, flying toward the ocean.  There were thousands of them flying the same direction for about an hour or so.  We found out they are BIG bats and they fly out at dusk and back in the early morning.  I guess they go out to hunt for food at night.   It's kind of creepy but they don't seem to come down here (unless we just don't know it yet). 

Locally grown sweet potatoes

When I think of things I will write about them since otherwise I forget.

 

When we went grocery shopping a few days ago I found a orange sweet potato like we are accustom to.  They were very small but I took two and had the girl weigh and price them.  Wow!  They were very expensive.  She told me I should buy the local sweet potatoes because they are much cheaper.  She showed them to me and picked out a couple of medium sized ones.  The price was much much better so we decided to try them.  They are a brown-creamy color on the outside (not pretty to look at) and look much like a potato when peeled.   Last night Jim peeled them, cut them up and we boiled them.  We were surprised to find that they taste pretty much like the sweet potatoes we are used to.   We will buy them again and try baking them next time.  They weren't easy to peel.  We cooked up some mince (ground beef) with taco seasoning I brought from home and I made some guacamole -- we topped it with some leaf lettuce and that was our supper.  It was pretty good.    :)

 

 

 

Tuesday, Nov. 19th

It doesn't look like we will be going to Sierra Leone and Liberia in December, as we had hoped.  We cannot get a visa to Sierra Leone until we have our permanent resident visa for Ghana.  We could go to Liberia but decided to wait so that the travel department can get started on our Ghana visas.  They can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.  So we are pretty much grounded to Ghana until then.

There is lots to do here though.  Next week we will take a 3 day tour of the projects in Ghana.  We will go with Bro. Buah, our superior, and the site monitor, who knows where to go.  We will be gone two nights.  I'm sure it will prove to be very interesting.

Today we sent in a cheque requisition for a project LDS Charities is involved with on an on-going basis.  This will be the second time.   It is a project where surgeons will perform corrective  plastic surgeries on people with severe deformities.  So on Dec. 5th - 15 they will do 26 surgeries.  Our part is to pay for the food for the Doctors and staff and for the patients for the 10 days.   We will take a day trip one of the days and visit the hospital and some patients.    We have seen some pictures and it wants to make cry for these poor people.  I'm so glad we can be part of helping them  have a better life. 

That's our report for today!  Greetings to all our friends and loved ones!

Interesting Termite hill

Dutch Fort we found on Couple's excursion

Our first view of the Atlantic Ocean and watching kids catch clams in the Bay

Monday, November 18th

We spent most of our last week in the office going over files and projects.  There are certainly a lot of good projects on the go.   The missionary couple in Nigeria is leaving to go home in a couple of days and we have no replacement for them yet.  Any volunteers??    There is a couple called to replace E/S Burns in Sierra Leone in the new year and so we are grateful for that.   Also the couple in Liberia will go home  in a few short months and there is no replacement yet for them.    We plan to go to Sierra Leone and Liberia in a month or so to meet the couples and to look at their projects so we can get a better idea of see them for ourselves.  The Travel department will start working on Visas for us.    We understand that Liberia is the poorest country in the world and Sierra Leone a close second.  I am afraid we will see poverty like we have not seen before.    There have been 6 civil wars in Liberia in the past 17 years and they have pretty much destroyed any infrastructure, dams, etc.   There is much to do there to make sure people have clean water to drink and other things to help them.    They grow food to sustain themselves but there is no work.  The couple there get electricity about 2 hours a day.   The couple in Sierra Leone are doing some interesting water projects.  I will write more about them another time.

Friday afternoon we went to the temple which is a 30 second walk from the Area offices where we work.  It was beautiful, quiet and so clean.  There is some beautiful woodwork there and some really beautiful wood furniture.  We enjoyed the peace that is found there.

Saturday we went on an excursion with some other couples.  There were 18 of us  and we drove in 4 vehicles.  We went with the Kradolfers.  The plan was to go 2 1/2 hours away to a Celebration where there would be a Parade of Chiefs, however; we never did find it.  We may have missed it by a week or so.  :)   That didn't ruin our fun though.  Kradolfers like to just get in their car and drive to new places and see things they have never seen before.  We found an old Dutch fort that was built in 1790 and walked through it.  It was right beside the ocean and so we ate our lunches sitting on the granite rock on the shore.   As we drove we also saw many people fishing in the bay (that was shallow for a long way out).  We saw some really interesting things.  It was a good outing.   When we got home Jim and I went for a swim in the pool here at our apartment complex.  It is the first time we have been swimming for years and it felt good.  The pool is big enough to swim some lengths. 

This week Bro. Buah is back and tomorrow we will do some serious training and planning.  He is off to Nigeria again on Thursday though. 

There are also several Church real estate people here for a few days - from France, Britain and Salt Lake.  They are looking for properties to buy for the Church to build chapels on.  The Church is growing fast here, with Sierra Leone being the fastest.  In the West Africa Area we have 240+ Wards and 296 Branches.  There are 30 Stakes and I am not sure how many Districts.   They used to get an update monthly on new units but now it is changing so fast that they get them weekly so they can keep on top of things.   It is amazing.   We feel fortunate to be a part of all this. 

Love to all,  Elder & Sister Bullock

Just wanted to share this about E/S Dalton

This morning we ran into a senior missionary, Elder Dalton - from Provo,Utah (his wife was at the Distribution store).  They serve about 3 to 4 hours from here and come in to Accra every 6 weeks or so.  They are alone out there looking after a District and 5 Branches.   They eat fruit and vegetables and rice and she does some baking - bread, banana bread, cake.   They don't eat meat as the only available is bush meat.   Not surprising, he says they have lost weight since being here. They stock up on a few things when they come to Accra.    The nearest place to them to buy fuel for their vehicle is an hour away from them.   They have electricity some of the time.  He says they do probably live in the nicest place in the community but he didn't say what it was like. 

The impressive thing about them is that they are back to the same place for their second misson.  They went home for 45 days and were coming back for 1 year and the day before they left to come back one of the members of the Seventy called and ask if they would stay for 23 months again.  He consulted with his wife and they agreed, and then had to phone their kids and tell them.  They are 'good' people!!     They are doing a marvelous work there. 

 

 

Monday

Hi mom,

The man over us, Bro. Buah, was in today but he leaves for a week.  He spent a fair bit of time with us explaining some things and giving us things to read over and projects to get familiar with.  Starting to realize how big this responsibility is and how much we need to learn.  We will be busy!   When Bro. Buah gets back we will go on a 2 day tour of some current projects in Ghana so that we can see them for ourselves and get a grasp of what is going on.  Projects in Ghana are our responsibility to see through and do more as we go along.  We will also be doing the ones in Benin and Togo and Ivory Coast.  The budget there isn't too large though. 

We approved 2 projects today, one in Sierra Leone and one in Ghana. 

Saturday night we went out for supper with the Findlays (from Kelowna), humanitarian specialists for wheelchair and immunization projects.  They are here for a couple of weeks (Ghana, Togo, Benin, Liberia) working on projects and then they go home.   We had a supper meeting with the partner to help with the wheelchair project here.  He is the head of the physiotherapy dept at a hospital.  A good guy who seems as though he will make sure the project works as it should.

Sunday we went to our assigned ward.  It is called La (pronounced law) Ward.  They meet in a house and it was full and hot (no A.C.) but there there fans.  I was doing okay until I had a hot flash or two.  The people were great.  The Church is more established here than Malawi and they seem to be doing well.  There were 3 confirmations and 3 baby blessings.   The Church building is near the ocean but we didn't go to see it yet. 

We are slowly finding our way around a little -- at least to the office, grocery shopping and to Church.  The temple is in the same complex as the Area offices where we work.  The couples try and go every Friday after work -- but not last Friday as the electricity had gone off and the generators were down too.  :(

We are doing fine.  Thank goodness for air conditioning though. 

Time for bed and I need to send this before we lose internet.  O yeah - mom, you are right - the pineapples here are really good! 
                                
 Love you,  Mom/dad, Nancy/Jim,  Elder & Sister Bullock

Bullocks and Kradolfers (Kimberley's mission president)

It was a surprise to learn that we will work with Bro. Kradolfer who is over Temporal Affairs here in Ghana.  Such a nice couple! 

Welcome to Ghana

Don't you love this sign?   There was a policeman standing near it at the airport and I ask if I could take a picture.

Winter in Alberta

This is what we left in Alberta.  I will have to take some warm pictures from here.  It is hot and humid.

We have arrived!

Hi all,

Just a quick note to let you know that we have arrived in Ghana.  The flights were good, just tiring and I didn't sleep well last night so hopefully tonight will be better.

Our apartment is nice - the bed a little firm, but we will get used to it.

Kim -- Pres. Kradofer just is in our office to meet us, right now as I am writing this.  (He was Kimberley's mission president in Arizona and we are now working with him).

Ghana kind of seems like the other parts of Africa that we have been in.

Mom -- we have already met someone from Nigeria that remembers you well.  I cannot remember the person you said you wanted us to look for if we got the chance.  Write and tell me.   Anyway, we met Charles Ajeigbe who was a young missionary in Lagos.   He is now the head of a dept. here (computers, phones, etc. - I think).  He is a very nice man.

It is hot (but not too hot) and humid.   We went and exchanged money this morning and then to the grocery stores with another couple.  We live just below the Area doctor and his wife so we should be well taken care of if we have an issues.

Must run.  There is a potluck dinner with the couples (for us) tonight.  There are 8 couples plus the area presidency.   Haven't had a chance to say hello to Elder Dube yet - may see him just now as we head down from our office.

Love you,  Mom and dad/Nancy & Jim