Keeping Up with Yesterday

If procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday, then what do you call the art of keeping up with last month? It seems like that pretty much sums up our month. We have been running. Our 'to do' list  keeps getting longer, but we keep chipping away. We are looking at a little reprieve this coming week and I am at least hoping to get caught up on my computer work before the end of the month.

It seems like we are moving, moving, moving, but sitting here now I'm having a hard time remembering too many things that we actually accomplished. We have had a lot of health concerns with our missionaries this last month. Several missionaries were in the hospital this month--mostly stomach infections and resulting dehydration. We had a couple with appendicitis that needed surgery. Last week, I sent two home, one from the MTC with a deep abscess in his right thigh--it needs surgery to drain it, and a senior couple with heart problems that we are ill equipped to handle here in West Africa. These take a lot of effort in a short amount of time. Both needed to go home quickly.

We spent a wonderful week in Lagos at the beginning of the month and while we didn't see much of Lagos itself, we saw tons of missionaries. This is a great group. They seem to be having a ton of trouble with stomach issues, and we went to teach them about staying healthy. We found a lot of curious kitchen habits--like leaving food (rice and chicken etc) sitting on the counter for days at a time. They just cook a big batch of rice and beans or whatever and then leave it out on the counter and eat on it whenever  they needed. We found some using the fridge to store dirty dishes because the cold 'kills the germs'. So we hit kitchen habits pretty hard.

Teaching in Lagos

Checking on the Missionaries

We love the Missionaries

Hanging out with the Sisters

The Mission Compound in Lagos

With President and Sister Karkari and one of the AP's

We had about an hour each day (different zones each day) to teach, and then we just hung out in the office the rest of the day and the missionaries would each drop in and visit with us about health concerns. We saw most of the missionaries individually and loved this time visiting with them. We talked about everything from malaria, to acne, to headaches, dry skin, stomach issues, hair loss, yeast infections, and some that just wanted to know they were healthy.

Lagos itself is a huge city. We were not allowed to go out of the compound--its not necessarily a safe place for white people--especially at night. Essentially we went from the airport to the mission home/church compound, and back. We stay from Monday to Friday. Lagos looks like Accra except for tons more motor bicycles and tick-ticks (like the rickshaws in Ethiopia, but yellow instead of blue). We saw no white people, except at the airport and one office couple that stays on the mission compound. One evening we heard a popping noise from outside that we were informed was machine gun fire, but not to worry because it was quite far away. But just to be safe, we were not to sit in front of an open window at night.

One of the general authorities had quite an experience in Lagos a few months ago, while he was up reorganizing a stake. Some armed men with masks broke into the church and shot up the place with machine guns looking for "the white preacher". Luckily he was in a back room and was not found. Needless to say a bit of a scary place. We did not leave the compound, so the usual things we do--like touring hospitals etc did not happen. We actually felt very safe the whole time.

The best part for us, was just seeing the missionaries.

We travelled one Sunday out to find a child 'Andy Fiifi' to check on a health issue. So we spent a Sunday on the road. We went to church in Oda--way out in no-where Ghana (a distant part of the Accra mission), but found the people just delightful, and the church building in excellent shape--it was the cleanest and best kept building in Ghana that we have seen outside of the temple. To be honest it felt and looked a bit like home. We stopped in Nswam on the way home to check on toes and ears in one of the companionships.

Andy 'Fiifi'

Checking Toes in Nswam

We continue to do well, even though we are busy. We went to the temple just yesterday for the first time in a couple of weeks and I caught thinking of all our blessings. I forget how blessed we have been. The people here in Africa are being blessed--it truly is their time. The windows of heaven are indeed open in this part of the world.

We still love the MTC

I feel less homesick these days, I guess that comes with being lost in the work. Perhaps we will make it!

We miss our kids and family!

...Elder and Sister Fife