The entrance into the mission home apartment compound. Nice of whoever, to put our initials on the gates!! (can you see the "m" and "g"?)

For some reason the internet is working really well today, so I am taking advantage of posting a few pictures. One never knows when one may get another chance to upload pictures. This is a picture of our water filter system. All our drinking water is filtered thru these three white canisters. We just changed the No. 1 filter - the old one is all brown ! and the new one is nice and clean and white. We will be drinking rain water mostly for the next few months as we have a water collection system on the roof which catches the rain water and fills our tanks. It is then pumped up to the top tank and gravity brings it into the building. The mission supplies all the missionary apartments with this system and replacement filters. The elders are in charge of making sure they change them when they are supposed to. We just received a new shipment of filters and systems for all the new elders we will be getting this summer.

Very foggy today; then rainy; now overcast again. Rainy season has begun (I think). this is the road beside our compound - called Ibrahim Drive. It is only paved for our compound and the next one; then it is dirt road for a few blocks, then stops.

Never know what we are going to find when we go out to the generator room!!! this little chick lost it's mom. We looked all over for her, but could not find her. I asked Solomon if he wanted to take this little thing home, but he said she would die without her mom; so we put her down again and hope something bigger didn't eat her before she found her way home.

Happy Birthday to Elder Patterson on May 26th. He had a birthday pie!! we made the graham cracker crust with "digestives" (Pres. Moody knows what those are) and the cream cheese filling with "Laughing Cow" cheese instead of cream cheese (which Pres. Moody does not like by the way). It was very good - surprised us!! Happy Birthday, Elder Hubby!!

Elders: Allred, Asafo-Adjei, Smoot, Grabau and Visser's head (lunch on Memorial Day). The Elders had hiked from the mission office compound to Leceister Peak and then to the mission home for lunch.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY USA!!! THANKS TO ALL THE MOMS AND DADS, SONS AND DAUGHTERS, HUSBANDS AND WIVES WHO HAVE PROTECTED YOU AND FOUGHT FOR YOU OVER THE YEARS. We will always remember you and thank you. We celebrated with a traditional Memorial Day meal with the Elders. They loved it!!!(Elders Akwah, Hickey, Patterson, Priddis, and Allred and the back of Elder Visser's head)

Unexpected company for breakfast two days in a row. He now has breakfast, lunch and dinner outside!

Elder Patterson taking a break for a moment as he makes sure the baptismal font is filled for the baptisms today. He has to pump water from the well into a tank , then from the first tank up to a second tank so the water will flow down into the font. It is a two day process as he can only pump so much water at a time from the well.

Elder Norton and Elder Assumang as they were walking around the mission office building to go check on their baptism candidate and set up for the baptism today

Our "office Elders" Elder Allred and Elder Hickey - they work so hard and do so many things:they help us in the office when they are not out looking for apartments for the new missionaries that are coming (24 in September); or running errands; or out to proselyte and teach. They are so busy all the time. Good thing they are young! They are a lot of fun to be around, too.

Our little family of monkeys are back!! We were very quiet and tried to get a good picture, but they were hopping all over the place. We will have to watch for them more and try to get a picture of the whole family together. We think the momma has had some more babies! The white things in the picture are food containers from the lunches at Zone meeting on Thursday. The Elders made a trail of them from the driveway to their apartment hoping to get the monkeys to come closer to the apartment.

We have had a very busy week with Five elders going home from this mission; Eight elders coming to this mission and Two missionaries leaving to go on their mission in Ghana from this District. In this picture Pres Roggia is with Elder Ndlovu and Elder Ogoloma going home to Zimbabwe and Nigeria; and Elder Beckwith to Austraila.

Elder Lancaster and Elder Tippets getting ready to board the "water taxi" for the ride across the inlet to Lungi and the airport. Elder Lancaster going home to St. George; and Elder Tippets flying to Denver.

A new group of Elders arrived Tuesday evening from the Ghana MTC: Elders: Donkor, Dyngee, Akwah, Boakye; Pres and Sis Roggia; Purcell, Amworlor, Rochester and Addo.

This is James Abdul Sesay prior to leaving Freetown to fly to Accra, Ghana and the MTC for his mission to Ghana Cape Coast. James worked in the ERC (Employment Resource Center) office in the Belliar Park chapel next door to the mission office. We got to know him quite well and know that he will make an excellent missionary.

These girls performed a dance for the entertainment part of the YSA District cultural event. see pictures below

Elder and Sister Neves, Elder Patterson and I were asked to be the judges for the Fashon Show portion of the District's Young Single Adult Cultural Evening. Elder Neves just took pictures and didn't do any judging!!! Sister Neves and I stuck it out for the whole 5 hours. Elder Patterson did really well until the last 1/2 hour. There was entertainment and food before the "Fashion Show". There were 4 categories: Office, Casual, Cultural and Evening.

Each Branch also was to have an entry in the cultural division / or "Africana" dress. This is the 1st place award to the Kissy 2 Branch. the girls would come out and do their runway walk around the open area and their branch would cheer for them and getting really loud and animated for their representative. of course there was a lot of music playing as well!

2nd Place cultural dress to Lumley Branch.

3rd Place in the Africana cultural dress for women goes to the Hill Station Branch. The girls all did such an outstanding job, we wanted to give them all FIRST PLACE recognition. Great job girls!!

The Hill Station Branch received 2nd Place in the Men's division of Aricana dress.

Kissy 3 Branch participant received 1st Place award for Africana cultural dress for men

This is Elder Patterson laughing at Sister Patterson! I was trying to take a self-picture of us as judges for the fashion show!

Rock Quary - how would you like to do this every day for your life's work? we see these hard working people every day on our way to the office and back to the mission home.