Ghana 101

Dear Ones:

The Mission Training Center experience in Provo was intense, somewhat frustrating (too much to absorb in not enough time) but spiritually rewarding. The mission experience in Ghana so far
has been interesting and rewarding although somewhat frustrating at times as well. More on that in a moment. When we left Provo there was snow on the ground. What a contrast Ghana is to that. There are two seasons here... hot and hotter. The hot is the rainy season. It is just ending. We have gone through two good rains. The rain was warm! The dry season is about to begin. We have been told that it is still humid, just not as much, and that it contains hot dusty winds blowing in from the Sahara.

Happy belated Thanksgiving. I assume your day was a tad more traditional than ours was. We had chicken kabobs on the beach at a resort nearby. Beautiful atmosphere but not a trace of a turkey. Fact is, I haven't seen one, dead or alive, since we arrived. Even if there was one, the people do not observe our holiday. Their big holiday this time of year is Farmer's Day, and that is tomorrow. Everything will be closed down.

Perhaps you know that Cape Coast enjoys the dubious distinction of being the location for the beginning of the slave trade to the Americas. There are two castles here built by the Portuguese
and which housed the slaves in the basements. They have been designated international monuments by ENESCO. The Fanti tribe was instrumental in procuring the slaves for the Portuguese and then for the Dutch. That tribe is the dominant group here now. The treatment of the slaves was so brutal that more of them died here than arrived in the New World on the slave ships.

Ghana is the most stable of all countries in West Africa and, thus, the safest. After arriving we learned some specifics about why our mission was changed from an assignment in Nigeria. Whites have been threatend and robbed in recent months and four of our missionaries, a senior couple and two young elders, were kidnapped and ransomed. Needless to say, we are grateful to not be assigned there.

The people here are sweet and humble. There are no or at least minimal racial feelings towards Whites. They do think we are all rich, however, and by their standards we are. The two guards at the Mission Home work alternating twelve hour shifts six days a week and get paid about $60. a month each. The street merchants do not hesitate to quote higher prices to us as soon as they see that we are White but often can be talked down. The people do not steal from each other but they will steal from us if they get a chance, and they do not hesitate to ask us for money. There is a small middle class, even smaller wealthy, with the large majority being dirt poor.

Few people own cars. They either walk or ride sub compact four door taxi cabs or "trotro"s (three to five bench seat mini vans). There is almost no mass transit. The government for some reason has shut down most of its rail traffic. Traffic on the roads is intense. Most are two lane roads, but this does not overly concern the motorists who will make additional lanes for themselves whenever possible. You have to be careful making left hand turns because a car behind you may make one inside your left as you start to make yours. For the most part, the drivers are friendly maniacs. With a smile on their face they will cut in front of you if given an inch or less, leaving only two options, either let them in or run into them. They honk their horns a lot but I have yet to see an angry face or an obscene jesture.

The really interesting roads are the unpaved ones cutting through the jungle. Karma and I will be traveling on these quite a bit in our new four wheel drive, diesel powered Ford Ranger pickup truck. It is a four door model with air conditioning (the most important feature) and has a shell on the back. Traveling in the bush is challenging, not only because of the roads but because there are almost no road signs to guide you. Small villages dot the landscape along with coconut, palm. pineapple, popo (papaya), banana, and plantain trees and several other tropical trees and bushes. Cocoa beans are a major industry.

Their are no public toilets in the villages and few in the larger cities. People, especially men, just let it hang out wherever they happen to be. Karma, of course, is not real comfortable with that, so we look for the best restaurants that we can find.

The LDS church is thriving here but not without some difficulty, that being adequate leadership to sustain the growing membership. The problem comes from (1) small pockets of members in outlying areas where there are no stake or district organizations to provide a needed umbrella of support and (2) branches which are uncomfortably distant from stake or district leadership. The Area Presidency has decided to reduce the geographical areas of some of the stakes and districts to a more manageable size and in a few cases to cut off branches from their mother units. Neither baptisms nor proselyting activities are taking place in any location where there is not a ward or branch within a maximum of thirty minutes walking distance. This leaves some dozen or more isolated groups of members that we know of in our mission area, some as far as five hours away from our home in Cape Coast. Karma and I are currently in the process of identifying and confirming the locations of these groups.

Our mission has become in effect a stake organization for these isolated groups and they will collectively be called the Ghana Cape Coast Mission Branch. This puts the mission president in a unique position of being in effect a stake president and a mission president at the same time. He has been working this all out as we go since we arrived. The way it is shaking out is that Karma and I will have supervisory responsibility for these groups, which translates into a fair amount of travel through the jungle, keeping track of the branches and groups which are not otherwise assigned to stakes or districts, and helping to meet their needs. We will also do some teaching and proselyting in these areas, although we will not be knocking on doors like the young missionaries do. It will be more a matter of assisting the local branch and group leaders as needed, particularly with inactives and part member families.

The history of the LDS church here is quite interesting. There are some Protestant ministers teaching our doctrine from the Book of Mormon. Some have left their churches and joined ours. Others continue to teach their flocks from the Book of Mormon without benefit of any association with the Church.

I taught "I Am A Child of God" to the congregation in a Pentacostal church last Sunday. They were very receptive and learned it quickly. Our mission president gave the sermon and two of our young missionaries taught the Sunday School lesson. The minister wishes to be baptized into our faith but is concerned about leaving his flock. He has told them about his desires and is trying to bring them along with him. The one negative about our attending his church meeting was that we failed to join the congregation in dancing during the "praise" portion of their services, and it
offended them. The dancing and indeed a large portion of the minister's remarks to the congregation were accompanied by two modestly accomplished solo singers, a really poor keyboard player and two percussionists only slightly better who performed underneath the minister most of the time. Making things even more interesting, if that is the right word, was the cacaphony coming from the church next door which included brass instruments and loud speakers.

If the minister joins our church it will not be the first time such a thing has happened here. The attempts are not always successful, however. Recently a female minister attempted to bring her congregation into the Church but changed her mind when she learned that she could not be their Bishop.

Even before the Church announced in 1977 that all worthy males regardless of race could hold the Priesthood and before any of our missionaries entered the country, a group of ministers, unknown to each other, came across Books of Mormon, were converted to the gospel taught therein and petitioned Church authorities in Salt Lake for visits of missionaries, additional copies of the Book of Mormon, and for baptism.

Karma and I had a really interesting experience about two hours into the jungle where we went to find a group of Church members that we had been informed were holding unauthorized services there. Our arrival interrupted a political rally conducted by a political leader of the federal government (big federal elections next Sunday... potentially dangerous depending upon who does or does not win). The politician asked someone who we were and then invited us to join her on the stand, or that which constituted a sort of stand in this jungle village. Seated perpendicular to us was the tribal chief, the queen mother, and some other dignitaries of the tribe. We were introduced to everyone by the political leader. Then we were asked to stand and walk down the line of tribal authorities introducing ourselves as we went. Then those same people got up and walked over to us and introduced themselves to us. After the rally we were invited to go to the chief's house where we introduced ourselves again and told him why we were visiting his village. The queen mother suggested we should build a chapel so that the people would have a nice place to meet. She said we would get more people interested in the Church that way.

Karma asked if she could take their pictures, and they responded like little kids, giggling and so on. We were truly treated like visiting royals. It was fun.

Way more than enough for now.

With love,

Elder Turner