Tanner reminds me when I haven’t written a post in a while, so I think it may be best to do shorter posts and pictures than try to condense a whole month into a novel.

It’s hard to believe it’s Christmas with the heat, humidity, and very few public decorations that we are used to, but our missionaries are doing great work, not only teaching but serving others and their communities. Two of our missionaries, Elder Cocco and Elder Tolman, decided to help raise funds for a well for drinking water, working with Africa Heartwood Project. (If interested you can contribute.) Way to go elders!

Lots of good things happening, but sadly, the poverty is so high that burglary and theft is a huge problem in this country. We are building a new church in Cotton Tree because the members have outgrown their rented space, but some thieves broke in and did some major damage. The thieves pried the heavy metal bars off of a window, stealing the toilets, the air conditioners, the light switches, outlet plugs, and even pulling the wiring from the walls and the ceilings. The wiring will be costly to fix as they will have to break open the cement walls to replace it. I wish this were an isolated event, but if you don’t watch and guard your things here constantly, they will disappear. 

This month we needed to change out some of the missionaries in the Southeast. The only airplane company we know of that flies to that region won’t transport us. It’s run by a Christian organization that doesn’t like our faith or had bad experiences with members. I’ve tried to meet with them to understand their concerns, but they refuse to talk to me. So we have to travel to the Southeast by ground. The roads to Harper and Pleebo are still quite muddy even though we are in dry season. The four missionaries we sent with our driver made it 15 hours in the car the first day for a long and bumpy ride to Zwedru. Seriously, you need to take Dramamine. Then they heard they wouldn’t be able to make the rest of the journey by car, so they wrapped their luggage and hired some drivers to take them the last 8 hours by motorbike. Here are some shots of the roads – if you can call them roads. They made it safely there and changed places with the other missionaries who are now coming up to the Monrovia area. (I’ll be going there in January so I’m hoping it’s a bit better.)

Nancy and I had a nice dinner with some of the stake presidents and their wives to celebrate Christmas. These are quite remarkable leaders. They shared with us their story when they went to the Ghana temple 13 years ago. Flights weren’t an option as they are today, so they went by bus, taking them three weeks for the trip. Often, they had to cut their own road through the brush, or the bus would get stuck in the mud. While the men would dig it out, the women would go ahead to the next village to find and prepare food. Hearing the dedication of these people, it’s not surprising they are the strong leaders today. Such remarkable people!