Abidjan A2AA Brethren, and my Aboisso Friend

Last June (2021), on the 12th in fact, we were in Abidjan, Cote 'd Voire, involved in training our A2AAs or audit managers who live in Cote 'd Voire.  They speak French there while I speak English there.  Not out of choice but out of necessity to be understood.  

We spent Friday, June 11 training, Saturday, June 12 training, Sunday, June 13 visiting stake leadership around Abidjan, Monday June 14 visiting outlying District leadership in Aboisso and Alepe Districts.  In the very short time we visited with brother Simplice Gnonzion, the counselor in the Aboisso District Presidency and District Audit Committee Chairman, I grew to love him.  Kind, humbly inviting and friendly.  Not embarrassed to use his meager English, which is actually good.  He was baptized less than ten years ago, made branch president a week later, has been the president's counselor since 2015 while still acting as branch president because there is no one to replace him.  Steady and quiet leadership with a solid testimony of the restored gospel.  I would like to spend a summer working with him in that District, him teaching me French and me helping to improve his English, and teaming up to do some good among the saints.

Here is Brother Simplice on the far right, along with Mermoz Amani, Atobora Brown, Theresa Brown, Elaine, then me.

  The District center and meeting house, with the familiar, inviting sign.

Here are the A2AAs, or area audit managers in Ivory Coast.

We had just concluded our Saturday training, they had walked across the street from the stake center and were about to hail down a couple of taxis.  

These brethren are great men, experienced businessmen with larger companies or businesses of their own as contractors or consultants.  The young one is still getting started in business.  He would like to marry but it is a challenge in West Africa, partly because of the "bride price" custom that requires a young man to meet the bride's father's request for money or goods in exchange for his permission to marry.  The older generation has looked for to it as a means of funding their later years.  The Church discourages it.  It is a deterrent to young people marrying and starting a family.  Not a good thing.  All of these men have solid testimonies of the gospel and magnify their callings.  God bless them.

I had to take a pic of the fish stew and Ivory Coast foofoo, aka play-dough to Elaine and me, (different from Ghana foofoo), which is pretty good really.  We had it for lunch one day.  The stew wasn't at the normal level of "spicy" at my request, so it was good as well.   Elaine and I both enjoyed it.  Yes, the natives eat it with their fingers.  The server gave us forks and spoons. The sauce, however, on the foofoo is not good.  You gotta grow up eating things like that.