The Lord loves all of his Children!

 This week we traveled out to a village called Beposo.  There is a Senior High School out there that benefitted from having bathrooms built.  I am constantly amazed how these schools are not equipped with bathrooms.  The current bathrooms consisted of a pit that the students would just squat and do their business.  There was no privacy and no dignity.  The girls facility didn't even have a roof, so chances are you would get wet if it was the rainy season.  Most Senior High schools are boarding schools, so the students live there too.  

This is the current bathroom, it is a pit with a roof.

The church built this facility for them

Notice that it is not a seat to sit on.  Some of the people here have never had a toilet seat to sit on and so they end up breaking them because they try to stand on it.  This style of toilet is easier for the people at the school to maintain.

I am constantly amazed by how much the Lord loves and teaches his children.  He wants them to have their dignity and privacy.  He wants them to be comfortable.  He wants them to be able to take care of the blessings he gives them.  He wants them to be grateful.  I have really grown to love the wisdom of the Lord's humanitarian program.  I have a testimony that he knows each one of us.  Even if we are a high school student in a small village in Rural Ghana.  He finds us where we are.

We travel to a small village called Domfete and meet with a self-reliance group that we dearly love out there.  This group has finished the "Emotional Resilience" and "Personal Finance" classes.  The facilitator's name is Andrews.  He was feeling kind of frustrated that people were not showing up as much as they were.  We suggested that he take a little break and start again with "Starting a Small Business" Class. A lot of the people here depend on selling at the markets.  I think there will be more interest.

We also have the unique experience to teach what we call "Institute".  This is a scripture study class for Young Adults.  Last week we had a student ask us why the church with held the priesthood to people of African decent for so many years.  We had a very interesting discussion about American History and how Prophets are Seers and how they can foresee things we may not be able to foresee.  We bore testimony that the Lord has His timing and He does all things in wisdom and order.  I bore my testimony that God loves all of his children.  He sent us to Africa to teach them this.  There was a very powerful spirit that came over the room. We bore testimony of the priesthood and of temples and how Heavenly Father has prepared Ghana for the Priesthood and Temples and he wants them to have all of these blessings.  We also told them that it is okay to ask these questions, but that they must go to the correct source.  We guided them to the "Topics and Questions" section of the Gospel Library.  We also encouraged them to study the event in the Doctrine and Covenants that talks about the revelation on the priesthood in 1978 given to Spencer W Kimball.  We also invited them to pray and get their own confirmation that this was from Heavenly Father and to find out how much he loves them.  We know that if you ask with a sincere heart, in faith, you will receive an answer to your prayers and we told them that they do not have to take our words for it.  We bore witness that this was a great blessing given to them.  This was an amazing powerful experience that I will never forget. 

This is our institute class

There is also another thing the Church does here that I thought was so great!  Before missionaries leave to go home from this mission back to their home developing countries, they get signed up with Pathways and they get their own laptop.  This is so wonderful.  Those of you who don't know, Pathways is a program in which they can take BYU-Idaho credits on line for a price that is reduced and what they can afford.  I love how the Lord provides a way for them and they just need to do their part.  It's so great!

We have many projects to check and write up this week.  I have also been continuing teaching piano.  I have added 2 new students.  Elder Karinan from the Philipines and Sister Manyunga from Zimbabwe.  They both expressed interest so I told them that if they are willing to give up some "Preperation day" time I would teach them piano while they are in the Sunyani Zone.

I want to give Richie Saunder's a shout out!  He spent a significant amount of time hanging out at our house playing with Tom when they were young.  I am proud to say that he is as great of a person as he is a basketball player.  He always has been such a great young man.  It was so heart warming to see him on the TV in the sweet 16.  He is now our claim to fame!  We love you Richie and are so proud of you and your accomplishments!

We hope you all have a great week!