Not IF…..But WHEN…...

HAPPY CROSSOVER 2015 

L to R - Elders Ridenour, Snyder, Cartwright

To celebrate New Year's Eve, 

we had 3 of our missionaries over for treats and to watch the dvd "17 Miracles".

It was a pretty low key evening UNTIL…….

….a mouse ran through the gap at the bottom of our front door and into the kitchen.

I jumped up in my chair and the Elders went to work trying to catch it.

Question: How many Elders does it take to catch a mouse?

Answer: More than we had!

Luckily, the mouse ran back out the way he came in.

(I now have a towel shoved under my door to plug up the opening.)

Now for the "Not IF….But WHEN" part -

We were told when we first got to Ghana that it's 'not IF, but WHEN' you will be involved in a car accident.  The driving here is crazy and we are grateful everyday when we arrive home safely.

On Friday we made what we thought was going to be a quick trip into Accra to buy groceries.  As we were driving down Independence Avenue - a main street in Accra - we were suddenly hit from behind by this Tro-Tro (taxi bus) who then went on to hit us a second time, scraping all along the passenger side of our truck.  Seems his brakes had failed, so he used our truck to help him stop and to keep him from hitting the 'hawkers' that were selling on the street.  He was trying to jump the curb hoping that would slow him down, but we were in his way.

It tore holes in both of the tires on the passenger side.

Ripped the outside mirror off and

as you can see here, did quite a bit of damage to the body of the truck.

 What you can also see is that he hit all along the side of the truck, even taking the outside mirror off, BUT did not touch the door where I was sitting.  We know we were blessed that no one was injured in either vehicle.

As we were standing on the side of the road with the police and Tro-Tro driver, I see a young man walk up to me in a white shirt and tie and dark pants.  At first I think he is a missionary but then I notice he has no name tag on.  The young man puts his arm around me and says, "Sister Berrett, I am Michael and I am Kofi's assistant and I will take care of you."  (Kofi is in charge of all the mission vehicles.)  Michael had been on his way to the post office when he saw us and stopped to help.  We were so grateful to have someone there to help us know what to do.

So how many tender mercies is that?

The mission had planned to rent us a car until our truck could be fixed.  BUT, we found out that if you rent a car, you also have to rent a driver and provide a place for him to stay!!  So…..we'll be driving Elder and Sister Keele's truck for a few days.  :)

Elder Berrett grabbed his camera and went out front of our apartment to take a picture of this man walking his goat.

As he watched, a taxi pulled up, they put the goat in the trunk, and off they went.  We've seen some pretty interesting things being driven around in a taxi.  This last week, we saw a refrigerator sticking out of the trunk of one.  Where there's a will, there's a way….especially if you can get a taxi.

Today our Branch President, President Quansah was not feeling well.  He thinks he has Malaria.  So some members of the Branch went and picked the leaves from a Nem tree.  They washed the leaves and then….

began to break the leaves up by rubbing them between their palms.  They then added water and….

gave some to President Quansah to drink.  He drank 2 large glasses.  

He said he did feel some better after drinking it.  

Today after church, the missionaries had 5 baptisms.  

L to R - Elder Snyder, Mascot, Elder Cartwright, and Terizerh.

This was Elder Cartwright's first baptism on mission.

L to R - Brother Hedzro (a friend of Richard's), Richard, Grace, Amelia, Elders Obasogie and Uwadi

Elder Ridenour baptized Richard, Grace, and Amelia

Everyone stayed after church to watch the baptisms.  There was a wonderful spirit present.  Adoagyiri Branch is growing.  It won't be long until  they won't fit in their building.  The missionaries are working hard teaching and baptizing.

****

We received word this week that our RELEASE DATE will be MARCH 6TH and we fly into Salt Lake on March 7th.  That's less than 9 weeks!  Now that we know when we finish, we feel like the time is moving quickly and we have much to do. 

March 6th will be here before we know it.