Life in the semi-fast lane of missionary work in the Africa West Area

You may have wondered what "senior missionaries" really do from day to day.  What happens to fill their days up?  How do the days compare with the "pre-mission" days?

The answers are likely as different as the personalities of the missionaries who try to answer the questions.  And one more thought; they are as different as the particular calling that the missionary said "yes" to, because there are many different senior missionary opportunities.

I have thought about blogging about this, but hesitated.  The subject is a bit dry.  The reader may not get all the way through the blog so it would be a waste of my time to put the thoughts down.  It is not as interesting as climbing a mountain, visiting a slave castle, or meeting little turtles on the beach at 3:45 a.m.

To start with, Elaine and I work with senior couples in Area-wide positions who have the following callings:

Area mental health advisors, Area medical advisors, Humanitarian missionaries (they can't        proselyte), Public communications, Pathway (the Church online college education system),        YSA missionaries, Family history specialists, Human rights missionaries, Executive secretaries to the Area Presidency, Self-reliance missionaries, Area history missionaries, Office of General  Counsel (legal work missionaries).  I think I got them all.  We, of course, are Area auditors.

Some callings are clearly defined like family history or executive secretaries.  At least these don't require as much "project and event management" as the others do.  For the most part, all of these positions require self-starting and ambitious couples.  People who want to really reach out to those in the community or Church who need aid, direction, or training.   Much of the work (direct contact with people) takes place outside the usual 8 to 5 business time frame, so the 8 to 5 time includes putting material together and arranging meetings for their assignments, then they go at it in the evenings.

The area mental health advisor basically has "clients" throughout the 17 missions in the Africa West Area.  He is on the phone speaking English or French from 8 am to 10 am and then 6 pm to 10 pm every evening helping missionaries, young and old, deal with challenging aspects of their mission calls and the environments in which they live; missionaries from outside Africa, and missionaries from within Africa all have challenges.  He works those hours because that is when the missionaries are generally in their apartments and not out in the community.

The area medical advisor is on call "24/7" to deal with medical matters, so his "clients" extend throughout the area just like the mental health advisor.

Public communications missionaries work with church employees in communicating with every type of entity out there (government and NGOs, for example) and organizing events explaining the Church and who we are and what we do for the world.

The other callings have their unique responsibilities.

Area auditing involves directing the work of the two six-month audits that take place each year for the 1,665 Church units that currently make up the Africa West Area. We train unit leaders at the Stake, District and Mission level on their audit responsibilities, and train new leaders in these units within twenty-one days of their being called.  We currently manage approximately sixty assistant area auditors serving throughout the seven countries where Church units are organized. After the audits are submitted, we follow up on issues that need attention like obvious training needs so leaders understand Church financial policies and procedures.  And we follow up where there are abuses of Church funds for personal benefit.  Not a good thing.  We work closely with the Area Church employees like finance, controller, management control auditors, welfare & self-reliance, and the director of temporal affairs.

We travel to other countries during the year to meet with our AAAs to train and counsel with them.  These are educated, dedicated, experienced latter-day saints.  Some are business owners, some are unemployed temporarily, all have strong testimonies of the Church.  Some are in their 30s and some are older, in their 60s.  All of the Africa West Area countries look somewhat the same to us. 

One thing about our work that wasn't expected - the executive secretaries to the Area Presidency have decided, with the approval of the Area Presidency, asked Elaine and me to organize excursions/adventures so that the senior missionaries have opportunities to see this beautiful country of Ghana.  In the past, some senior missionaries served their eighteen or twenty-three month missions without getting out of Accra except for Church assignments.  Ghana is a beautiful place, so they want all the missionaries to enjoy it.  The country is well worth seeing first hand. The weather is different from north to south, and their are mountains that the Ghanaians claim are cold places, but we find them "less hot".  And, there are beaches.

We also have the opportunity to rub shoulders with the senior missionaries in the two mission homes in Accra: the Accra and Accra West missions.  The office couples and health advisors we know are great people and fun to be around.  They have well more than a hundred young missionaries to watch over.  We invite these stalwarts on our excursions and they join if they can.  We have met MLS missionaries who are called to specific missions to help the mission president by working with missionaries, members and leaders in certain assigned Districts.  If you want to be on the front line of missionary work, that's a great place to serve.

Are you still with me?  The fun is in the doing, and not the telling.

Missionaries can go through their missions doing some good, or doing a lot of good.  Each missionary decides for himself the level of his work.  From our observations to date, we are working with outstanding, solid, competent latter-day saints who also happen to be highly friendly senior missionaries.  These are "people people".  Great to be around.  We are making friends to last a life time, plus.

Since we have been called and set apart, we feel different than we did at home.  We focus so much on the scriptures, the Church and the on-going restoration of the gospel, we see things in a different way and have vastly different priorities than we did before coming here.  And, we look forward to returning home when the time is right.  Elaine and I are together more now than anytime in our lives.  It takes getting used to.  Elaine likes her private time.  I do too.  I can be a little bit too focused on my work.  Elaine hates office work and loves working with the kids at the library.  We both enjoy going to the temple together.  We both enjoy being with the other missionaries.  We both love the AAAs (Assistant Area Auditors) we work with from Sierra Leone to Nigeria.  Atobora Brown, the Area Auditor (it is a calling and not a paid position) is a great guy with a lot of experience that we have benefited from. 

Senior missionary couples are generally assigned to one ward and attend it each week and accept callings from the bishop or branch president.  Elaine and I, on the other hand, visit a different ward each week so we can meet with the leaders and discuss how they are doing with the financial side of running the ward or branch.  We encourage, train, remind and we also learn a lot.  During my career, I enjoyed being out with the clients learning about their business and providing the services they needed.  It is the same here.  I know I need some time in the office to handle office stuff, but being out in the wards and branches is a must to really understand the challenges these people have and how I can best help.

Life is tough in a cash economy.  No locals have credit cards.  They deal with cash all the time.  The bishop doesn't reimburse a ward leader for a great activity they just put on because no one has the money to put the activity on.  The leader gets cash from the bishop, buys what is needed, puts on the activity and then returns the left over cash and receipts to the bishop.  One important issue is that most "businesses" don't provide receipts.  It is a cash economy and most businesses are very small businesses.  Local markets (where dozens of small businesses gather) are everywhere and people barter and haggle over prices.  

Most people are poor.  I mean really poor.  Some work each day so they can eat.  Some homes are small and made out of whatever material they can find; corrugated tin, wood, cement blocks (if you are lucky).  You do realize that your garage is bigger than 90% of the homes on the planet? (that estimate is my own, but you get the idea)  I am guessing at that %.  It has to be a big %.  I could fit three or four local "homes" in my three-car garage on Boulton Way.  

You made it!  You are near the end of the blog.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for being you.  Thanks for praying for Elaine and me every day.  We read in two emails this week that our family and friends are praying for us each day and it made us very happy and grateful.

The Church is true.  As faith in Christ increases, so does the work.  The Father works among His children according to their faith.  Miracles have not ceased.   That's what the scriptures tell us.  We believe it.

Did I tell you about the local fruit?  It is delicious.  We will seriously miss the mangos and the pineapples!  Well, that's food for another blog.

Have a nice day!