"White" Christmas in Ghana!

I love it when Christmas is on Sunday!  Many investigators wanted to wait until Christmas to be baptised...and there were a LOT of them! 

There is one little group of saints in Bibiani, about an hour drive further than our most remote area.  There weren't enough members to even create a branch, but they wanted to become a branch so badly that they shared the gospel with their families, friends and neighbors...even without the missionaries and expanded their group to just under 40.  These humble people couldn't be baptised until there was a branch available for them to attend sacrament meeting.  They paid their tithing and held classes and meetings as best as they could for years.  The group leader fasted often and prayed one night...ALL night, that the West Africa Area Office would approve his petition to create a small branch and rent a building for meetings.  He had been looking for a building for a long time but everything was wrong and way too expensive.  The next day a friend told him that his friend, heard from a cab driver...that a building became available that day and would be perfect for the chapel - but it wouldn't last long.  Through several quick calls and with the help of at least a dozen people, the branch was approved and the building was rented in one day!  There wasn't a baptismal font available for the baptism, so they obtained permission from the Queen Mother of the village to use her river.  Now here is the "rest of the story"...

This is the path to the river before the Elders Quorum and missionaries attacked it with machetes.

This is the same path after they cleared it.  They also smacked a stick on the ground to get rid of the snakes.  They assured the mission president that there were no alligators in the river...only a few pythons in the trees around it!

A dressing room for the sisters and another one for the brothers was "built".  They also cleared room on the bank for a couple of pop up tents and brought in several dozen chairs.  Then they placed a gravel path to the water to avoid slipping in the mud.  They had to haul the gravel from quite a distance, one wheel barrow at a time.

31 candidates were fitted with white clothing gathered from Kumasi Stake and a very nice baptismal service was conducted.

Two missionaries assisted candidates in and out of the water, the other missionary performed the ordinance.

Left to right:  Elder Zoll; new branch president (former group leader that prayed all night); Elder Alba; unknown; Elder Hailemariam; unknown. 

The Queen Mother and Chief were very interested in the baptism, many of the villagers also attended the service.

Smiles flashed everywhere that day in the Ghana Cape Coast Mission!