Elder Vinson's Mission Tour

 We have the wonderful opportunity to become acquainted with Elder and Sister Vinson.  He is a General  Authority that is in our area Presidency over the West Africa missions.   They have only been in Africa for about a month.   They are from Australia but we have a very amazing story about them that I will touch more on at the end of this page.      

 Elder Vinson traveled to Asamankese last week for a Mission tour to meet and get acquainted with all the missionaries here.  He not only visited us, but he will visit all the missions in all of West Africa.   Here are the 20 missionaries that are in our zone and we have become friends with everyone of them.  They all traveled to Asamankese that day to be a part of the mission tour, that is how we were able to get a picture of all of them together.  

 Elder Vinson and his wife, and President Hill and his wife singing a hymn in the meeting.   It was great to have our mission leaders here in our humble chapel in Asamankese.  Especially when they had to travel on the really bad road from Accra to here!

 This is Caleb Vinson.  Casey Jones and his family who live in Monroe now,  but lived in Australia for a time,  became acquainted with the Vinson's while they were there.  Caleb wanted to go to school in the states so he came to Monroe and went to South Sevier High School last year and stayed with the Jones's.  We knew him and his mother and saw them at our grandaughter Presley's ballgames from time to time. Caleb is also the same age as our grandson Waylon, and they are friends.  Little did we know that we would see them in Africa one day.   The first time we saw Caleb was when he came into a meeting we were in at Accra.   We were really surprised when we first saw him because he was wearing a 3 on 3 "T" shirt from the 24th of July celebration in Monroe.   

This is Elder Dube's son.  Elder Dube is also in the area Presidency in West Africa.  He and Caleb have become friends.  President Curtis is the area President.   We attended a devotional meeting in his house last night and came away with a wonderful spiritual and uplifting feeling.  It is assuring to know that our church is led by such loving and knowledgeable men.
Elder Dube will be speaking in conference on Saturday morning and Elder Vinson will be speaking in the Sunday afternoon session.   We hope all of you will try to listen to conference for I know you will feel the Spirit of the Lord from these men along with all who speak.  The Vinson's are leaving Africa tomorrow and they will be taking Caleb to Monroe for a visit.  They offered to take something home to our kids so we were excited about that.    I can't believe what a small world we live in when things like this happen.