Called to Serve II

Joel has been called to serve a two year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Ghana, Cape Coast Mission. He departs on July 11th. Training will be in the Accra Ghana MTC. He his thrilled with the call.

 

His missionary papers were submitted electronically by the stake president on Sunday March 3 and his call was assigned on Wednesday March 6--just prior to all of he apostles (who assign the calls) leaving for the Rome Temple Dedication. Tuesday morning just prior to his having to take a calculus exam, Joel got the above text saying his call was ready to open via the on-line missionary portal.

In the meantime he took the exam and then in the afternoon happily played in a high school soccer game. The goalie on the Spanish Fork High team was also opening up his mission call after the game.

Header. Not bad playing for someone still recovering from a two day bout with the the flu.

Instagram and Facebook messages were sent out to friends and family who wanted to come see the "opening". Others watched it live via Instagram video. We gathered at 7:30 .

Starting to read his mission call. He printed out the letter which is conveniently printed with a blank page on top to cover up the call. Then, while reading, that blank page can be pulled down line by line until the name of the mission is revealed.

Ghana, Cape Coast!! Followed by lots of cheering.

Happy boy. He thought for sure he would be called to Nebraska.

While waiting to find out, Maire was so nervous she said she felt nauseous. Here she is happy and relieved.

Happy dad as shown on a screen shot from the Instagram live video.

 Lots of friends and neighbors came to support Joel.

From our house many of the high school friends went to the home of Alex Ashton (center) where he opened his call to Mexico, Aguascalientes.

Emmetts
Chad	Micronesia Guam	Singapore (Malay speaking)
Lorin		Norway
Brain	Portland Oregon	Athens, Greece
Kristin	New York	Peru
Evelyn	North Carolina	Canada
Lorie	Arizona	Germany
Jake	Philadelphia	Ghana
Lesa	St. Louis, Missouri	Rome, Italy
Courtney	Birmingham, Alabama
Laura	Florida	Russia
Austin	Montana	Sierra Leone
Allison		Chile
Shelly	California	England
Adrienne	Arkansas	Canada
Melissa	Baltimore, Maryland	Uganda
Annie	Oahu, Hawaii	Melbourne, Australia
Bill	Tennessee Knoxville	Vietnam Hanoi
Paige	Mississippi	Philippines
Tom	Alaska Anchorage	Scotland
Amanda	Georgia	South Africa
Michael	Honolulu Hawaii	Japan Tokyo
Molly	Texas San Antonio	Italy Milan
Sam	New Jersey	France
Emily	Michigan	Thailand
Brandon	Cincinnati, Ohio	Toronto, Canada
Maggie	California	China
NIck	Nashville Tennessee	Montreal Canada
Jamie	Ohio - Cleveland	Portugal - Lisbon
Bob	California Anaheim	Czech/Slovak Prague
Jim	New York, New York	Philippines Butuan
Timmy	Colorado	Denmark
Isabel	Maine	Mexico
Lily	New York	Australia
John	Washington, DC	Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Tuellers
Marie	Washington, DC	Indonesia
Blaine		Panama
Rachel	New York, New York	Belgium/Netherlands
Emma	New York Chinese or Spanish speaking
Hannah	California Oakland/San Francisco	Peru Lima North
Jeanne	Texas Lubbock Spanish speaking	South Africa Durban
Ryan	Iowa Des Moines	Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa
Katie	Texas Fort Worth	Adriatic North, Croatian speaking
Tyler	Maryland Baltimore	England London
Paul	Florida Tampa	Argentina Rosario
Lucie	Illinois Chicago	Brazil Sao Paulo East
Win		Italy
Jan	Long Beach, CA	Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Martha	Texas San Antonio	Nigeria Lagos
Diane		Manchester, New England, Vietnam
Andrew		Vietnam
Sam	Omaha Nebraska	Adriatic South Mission
Megan	South Dakota Rapid City	Japan Kobe
Anna	Puerto Rico	Barcelona Spain
Bronwen	Kennewick Washington (Spanish)	Lima, Peru
Kirk	Boston Massachusetts	Kenya Nairobi
Matt	New York Spanish speaking	Mexico City
Betsy	Washington DC South	Sweden Stockholm
Eve	Louisville Kentucky	Puerto Rico
Henry	Charlotte NC	Moscow Russia
Anne	Raleigh NC	Phnom Penh Cambodia
Ian	Scottsdale AZ	Quito Ecuador
Michael	Massachusetts Boston	Argentina Buenos Aires
Josie	India Bengaluru	Texas McAllen
Ayae	Wisconsin Milwaukee	Argentina Córdoba
David	Seattle Washington	Guatemala

In the week while waiting for the call to come, family members were invited to make their predictions. Marie promised her famous scotcheroos as the prize to the closest guesses from the Emmett and Tueller sides of the family. Uncle Jake Emmett won with his guess of Ghana and Aunt Martha Tueller Barret won with her guess of Nigeria.

There are four missions in Ghana. The cape coast mission covers the southwest section of the country (shown in blue from this map included in his mission call packet).

This map included in his call shows the four stakes and multiple wards and branches included within the mission boundaries. 

Cape Coast Castle was one of the main slave ports in West Africa. To get a feel for the tragic history associated with Cape Coast Ghana please watch this CNN video of President Obama's trip to Cape Coast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gmDoon_yC0

and part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSfgjGBR6kQ

In 2015 when our family sailed with Semester at Sea, Ghana was one of the ten countries scheduled for a visit. We were to disembark at Tema near Accra and then a week later embark in Takoradi west of Cape Coast. Then ebola broke out in West Africa. As a precautionary measure, Semester as Sea dropped Ghana from the itinerary, but only after I had bought guide books for every planned port country. Having this unused guide that included Ghana in a stack of books on my bedroom floor has been a nagging reminder that I have yet to visit tropical Africa. Joel is now its happy owner. He used it for bedtime reading last night.

While none of us have visited the heart of Africa, family travels have allowed Joel and the rest of us to visit the corners of Africa. In 2010 we all visited Egypt. And then on Semester at Sea we spent a week each in South Africa, Namibia (replacement for Ghana) and Morocco.

Camel riding in Luxor with the Nile in the distance.

In Cape Town with the notables who helped dismantle Apartheid in South Africa.

Service project and lunch in the townships of Cape Flats.

Dune running in Namibia

 Magic carpet flying, slipper shopping and door knocking in Fes, Morocco.

I have no doubt that Joel will do many good things in Ghana. He is prepared and ready to be a wonderful missionary.

While waiting for Joel's call, as a geographer I kept wondering if he would be assigned to a country that we have visited or that I had visited. Ghana is new to all of us. But then I remembered a minor connection I have had with Ghana. In my research about FGM in Indonesia and Africa, I remembered that I had used interviews with two different people with ties to Ghana.

The first was a mission president that was referred to me by a student. I e-mailed the president and asked him what he knew about FGM and if it was being practiced by members of the church. Here is how I referred to his response in my article: "A February 2015 response from a Mission President in Ghana (where FGM/C is much less common that other countries in the region) noted that he was aware of the practice of FGM/C in Western Africa, but, like the Mission President in Indonesia, he had never ever considered whether or not it might also be practiced among LDS members. He then wisely noted: “I may need to look into it further to determine what is occurring.”"

Crys Kevan Lee, a former WomanStats coder at BYU who is now the executive director of Empower Playgrounds  (http://www.empowerplaygrounds.org/mgr) was going to Ghana where her organization has installed over 50 merry-go-rounds in villages so I asked her to do some inquiring about FGM. These merry-go-rounds (developed with the help of BYU engineering students) generate electricity that is then stored in batteries that are used in homes at night so children can read and do their homework.  A cool idea that actually helps locals to help themselves.  Here is what I wrote about her findings: "When a group of LDS women in Accra Ghana were asked about FGM/C (October 2015), they explained that they were not familiar with the practice. The one sister who knew about FGM/C was a nurse who had learned about it in school. Another sister who had served her mission in Nigeria said that she had not heard of its practice nor was it an issue there."

Joel may not have much reason to inquire about this issue when he is in Ghana, but it certainly speaks to the challenges faced by the church as its spreads into regions of the world with many different cultural practices and traditions. For more about this topic see my article about FGM and Mormons: http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleEmmettLDSFGM.html