Weeks 65, 66, and 67
We started Week 65 on Monday by helping our branch Relief Society president, Linda Zormelo, with her family history. She had somehow gotten a copy of "The Life and Times of Godfred Nyavo Zormelo." This is her great, great grandfather. She was able to extract several names of relatives from this document. The challenge was determining the dates and places of birth and/or death. The other challenge was getting them all connected correctly in FamilySearch to Linda's family tree. Nevertheless, this is considerably more information than most everyone else has that we help.
We went to Asamankese on Tuesday to join in the Asamankese district council meeting.
Elder Bishop in front, then Elders Browne and Simbhon, and
Elders Manakofua, Mpangala, and Otin in the back.
Our Wednesday apartment inspection day was pretty light with only two apartments, and they were both in Kasoa which is just a little over an hour away. After these, we drove a half hour more towards
Accra to the West Hill Mall to do some shopping.
Elders Nakatuzayako and Martin at Kasoa 3
Sisters Malama, Naigaga, Marufu, and Bibomba at Galilea
We met with a young man named Jeremiah from the Dabanyin Branch on Thursday to help him recover his Church account. He is trying to complete his mission application and could not get into his Church account. After about 45 minutes on the phone with the Church's Global Service Center in Salt Lake City, we were finally able to get things straightened around for him to have an account he could access.
We then met Sisters Najjuka and Tu'angalu in Akotsi. Sampson is a new convert of a few months ago and has a shoe making shop in Akotsi. We met the sisters at Sampson's shop, visited with him for a little bit, and encouraged him to come to Church on Sunday. We then went to visit another fairly new convert, Precious, and do a new member discussion with her and invite her to Church for Easter Sunday.
On the right, front to back: Sisters Tu'angalu and Najjuka, Precious,
and then her little sister and brother
We then drove to Ojobi and visited Martha and her daughters, Vivian and Claudia. Vivian and Claudia are fairly new converts. We showed them the Church's Easter video, visited with them, and invited them to Church for Easter Sunday.
Martha and her family and neighbors watching the Church's Easter video.
Sister Judd has had Helena Sam, a member in our branch, very busy the last several months making dresses for our daughters and granddaughters. So on Friday morning, we went to Helena's house to pick up some finished dresses and give her material to make more dresses.
Friday (April 18) afternoon, we met President Francis and Sister Abigail Adjei-Fio (our former branch president and his wife). We went to where they are building a new house. As we were visiting with them about how they are able to it with their economic situation, it came out that they had been doing okay and making progress until January. Then, President Adjei-Fio's father's back started in intense pain. He is 68 years old. He could no longer work. The hospital costs and costs for testing to find out what is happening was $17,000 (US dollars), and he does not have insurance. Without working and no insurance, he has no way to pay for the medical cost and no longer has any income to provide for his and his wife's needs. President Adjei-Fio is the oldest child and the only son. So, he has the responsibility to pay the medical bills and to provide for his mother and father's living costs. The house building is now at a standstill. They were hoping to be finished and move in before the rent comes due for another year where they are currently living. (Rent in Ghana is paid up front for the whole year.) They now have to pay for another year's rent and hope that they can work through the costs and be ready to finish the house and move in a year from now.
President and Sister Adjei-Fio and us at their home under construction
During several months last year, we went with the missionaries to teach a young lady in her early 20's named Martha. She knew the truthfulness of what she was taught, but a commitment at the other church she was attending kept her from coming to our church. In September, she moved to Secondi (near Cape Coast) to start nursing and midwifery school. We received a call from her saying that she was back on school break. We made plans to visit her on Saturday morning and had a short but pleasant visit. We helped her download the Gospel Library app on her phone and showed her how to access the various resources in the app that might be of interest to her. Hopefully, she will continue to show interest in learning about the church and gospel and will one day desire to be make those baptismal covenants with Jesus Christ.
When we left visiting with Martha, we drove past a school and saw these painted on the wall of the school building.
After visiting with Martha, we went to see Nevis and Alexandra who live near to Martha. Nevis and Alexandra were baptized about nine months ago.
Alexandra's son Kobi having his bath. Alexandra doing her laundry.
Visiting with Nevis and showing her the Church's Easter video.
We went with Sisters Tavita and Nipepe on Saturday afternoon. We helped them teach Rockson and Helena. Rockson has A LOT of questions. We had some very good discussions in answering his questions. They were invited to attend Church on Sunday morning, and they came!
Sister Nipepe, Rockson, Helena, and Sister Tavita.
Sisters Nipepe and Tu'angalu, Austin (performed baptism), Emmanuel, Joseph,
Sisters Najjuka and Tavita, Bertina, and President Visu (elders quorum president, in front)
On the way home from church with the Sisters riding with us, Sister Nipepe said that it was her "birthday."
It was two years ago that day (April 20, 2023) that she was baptized. She began serving her mission one year after her baptism on April 23, 2024. She has been on her mission as long as she was a member before her mission. Sister Najjuka is the same. We do not know the dates, but she was only a member for one year before beginning her mission. Such faith and willingness to serve the Lord and share His gospel truths with others!
Sister Nipepe on her 2 year anniversary of being baptized.
When we were with President and Sister Adjei-Fio at their home under construction, we invited them to dinner at our place. So, we had an enjoyable time visiting with them over Sunday dinner.
Easter afternoon (our time)g was also when Alora (Sara's daughter) talked in her Sacrament Meeting in North Carolina. She recently returned from her mission in the Utah Provo Mission, Spanish speaking. We were able to connect through her ward Zoom broadcast to listen to her give a wonderful talk.
To start Week 66, we drove to Accra on Monday morning for a senior couples staff meeting with President and Sister Jacobsen. On the way to the mission office, we went by the Welfare and Self Reliance office in Accra and picked up some Gospel Literacy books. We were going to go to the fabric store for more material, but it was closed since Monday was a holiday. The nice thing about the holiday was that there was no traffic at all where we were at in Accra. We had been wanting to get a picture of us in front of the "I Love Accra", but the traffic and congestion was always terrible. So, it ended up being the perfect time for the picture we wanted!
Tuesday was district council in Buduburam.
Elders Mbuyi, Braide, Munyui, Donahoo, Osio, Stephens, Wharekura, and Sauiluma
Wednesday was apartment inspection day in the Swedru Zone. One of the things we do during apartment inspections is to engrave an identification number on the bikes the elders are using.
Elders Navarro and Kalubi engraving ID numbers on their bikes
Elders Navarro and Kalubi at the Brakwa apartment
Elder Kalubi is an amazing and talented piano player. Usually, missionaries will have a portable keyboard they take with them if they want to practice playing the piano. Sister Judd asked him where his piano is at since she did not see a portable keyboard. He pointed to their bookcase where a small black bag was setting. It was a rolled up piano keyboard! He unrolled it and played a song for us.
Elders Watkins and Mbala at the Asikuma apartment
Elders Norwood and Gbedema at the Kuntenase apartment
We met with the elders quorum president, Isaac Visu, on Thursday (April 24) morning to help him recover his Church account. When we got to Ghana, only an email could be used as the communication from the Church system to recover a password or user ID. However, very few in Ghana have a smartphone or a way to get an email even if they have an email address. So, we would have to call the Church Global Support Center all the time to recover a Church account for a member. Now the Church has added the capacity to have a Ghanaian phone number and even a WhatsApp number in the member's profile for recovering accounts. This has made helping the members so much easier and more efficient. We had tried to help President Visu with his Church account one other time several months go when it was only emails and gave up because when we tried to call Global Support, they were not working because it was Thanksgiving Day in the US. Luckily, this time, it was a "piece of cake" to recover President Visu's account!
David and his son, Sister Najjuka, Austin (member who was with us), and Sister Tu'angalo.
The part of the structure you can see behind is the cook shed where they go to get out of the rain.
When David was being taught, the missionaries gave him a Book of Mormon in Twi (which he can't read). They also gave him a children's "Book of Mormon Stories" picture book. As we were visiting with David, Elder Judd had the idea to see if he could help David learn some of the stories in the Book of Mormon by looking at the pictures in the picture book.
Trying to help David learn Book of Mormon stories from pictures.
The structure behind is his house with no roof.
The general session on Sunday morning was also inspiring. One of the speakers was a young boy about 13 years of age. He had notes he glanced at once in a while. Otherwise he just talked about and taught gospel principles and doctrine with knowledge and power of someone twice his age and experience. He talked for about 15 minutes.
Sister Judd started not feeling well on Tuesday. She was pretty sick but went anyway on Wednesday for apartment inspections. By Thursday (May 1), she needed to rest all day. So, we did not go with Sisters Najjuka and Tu'angalu on Thursday afternoon like we had planned to do. It was also important for her to rest and get feeling better because we had a temple appointment to do sealings on Friday, May 2nd.
Following the Sunday session of conference we had President and Sister Jacobsen, Elder and Sister Bertha, and Elder and Sister Kaaen at our house for Sunday dinner. It was delightful to visit and have them in our home.
Then, at 5:00 p.m. Ghana time, we were able to listen to Autumn (Allison's daughter) talk in her Sacrament meeting in Colorado over Zoom. She had just returned from serving her mission in the California Sacramento Mission, Spanish speaking. Her talk was wonderful.
On Monday (April 28) afternoon of Week 67 we spent about one and a half hours with Bella talking and teaching about the temple and helping her prepare to receive her temple endowment. We will meet with her two more time in the next couple of weeks to continue with her preparation.
President Adjei-Fio of the Dabanyin Branch had asked us if we would help him with a "youth conference" for his 35 young men and 15 young women. So, Monday evening we picked him up from his work at Kaaf University and drove him to Ghana Make a Difference and met with him, his counselor in the branch presidency, and the branch young women president and her counselor. Out of that we ended up with an assignment to spend an hour during the youth conference and talk to the youth about families.
Tuesday was Winneba district council.
Elders Phetha, Shook, Ngbangandembo, Tshuma, Wood, Nzundu, Yobana, and Vailea (kneeling)
For apartment inspections on Wednesday, we went back to the Swedru Zone.
Elders Karenzi and Mutombo at the Nyakrom apartment
Elders Mamouna and Marchant at the Duakwa apartment
Elders Laulu and Rondon engraving the ID on their bikes and with us.
We will skip over Friday for now and go to Sunday. Sunday was a full day. We first went to Buduburam to pick up Brother Seglah (Winneba Stake Gospel Literacy specialist) and headed to Dabanyin for Church. On the way, Brother Seglah saw a co-worker on the side of the road trying to catch a Tro-tro to go to work. We stopped and gave him a ride to Acotsi Junction. When we stopped to let him out, Abigail Adjei-Fio came to the truck. We had not seen her before then. She had been unsuccessfully waiting for a Tro-tro to go to Dabanyin for Church. President Adjei-Fio had to work, and she had the keys to get into the Church building. It was a "tender mercy of the Lord" that we had stopped to help Brother Seglah's co-worker with a ride or we would not have seen Abigail!
At Dabanyin, two new Gospel Literacy classes were starting that day. There ended up being two learners in the ABC class that Brother Andoh taught. And, there were six learners in the Book 4 class which Sister Judd facilitated.
Sister Judd facilitating the Book 4 class. Brother Andoh teaching the ABC class.
From Dabanyin, we went to our Awutu Breku Branch to teach the last temple preparation lesson to the three young adults who are preparing to serve missions. We also ended up with new assignments from the branch president to teach temple preparation to Morgan and Rose (older married couple) and to Jennifer (single mother).
Brother and Sister Aldous were the senior couple who served in Awutu Breku before us. They came back to Ghana for a visit. So, we had them come to dinner on Sunday afternoon and had an enjoyable visit with them. And finally, we met with Sisters Nipepe, Tavita, Tu'angalu, and Najjuka at 6:00 pm to discuss how they might improve their weekly planning to be more productive (an assignment from President Jacobsen).
And now for Friday, May 2nd. It was a fantastic day! It was our 50th wedding anniversary! We went to the temple to perform proxy sealings. During the session we were overcome by the Spirit as we realized that 50 years ago, we could have never imagined that it would even be possible for us to be in a temple in Ghana, Africa participating in sealing ordinances for members of our family, Chinese, and African families with faithful African members of the Church. As we contemplate what the Lord has done in the "space of not many years" we can only look to the future with faith and anticipation to the marvelous events foretold before the Lord’s Second Coming! As President Nelson said in October conference, "My dear brothers and sisters, do you see what is happening right before our eyes? I pray that we will not miss the majesty of this moment! The Lord is indeed hastening His work." The Lord’s promises are sure! As we go forth and "labor ye in my vineyard for the last time"(D&C 43:28) and "treasure these things up in (our) hearts…"(D&C 43:34), we will have the peace we need to face whatever lies ahead for us individually and as a Church.
Outside the temple. We enjoyed lunch at a nice restaurant.
God is good!! We are so very blessed! The Savior, Jesus Christ, lives!!
Love,
Sister and Elder Judd
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