The River Ridge II Beehive Girls

On November 1, 2004, over ten months ago, ten Beehive girls from the South Jordon River Ridge 2nd Ward (South Jordan, Utah) gathered hundred of ties, packaged them into a wonderful box, paid over $40 US postage and mailed them to the Ghana MTC for the use of missionaries who sometimes arrive with only the tie wrapped around their neck. Today, September 15, 2005 – as already noted, over ten month later - they arrived at the Tema Ghana Post office and after signing all the official documents and paying $9 duty we were the proud owners of this box of King Benjamin gifts.

As I joked with a postal customs man (a man I have become friendly with over the past two years) he commented, “They sent it ‘regular’ mail”. I (and he was close to breaking out as well) nearly died laughing about the reason he gave for having taking 320 days to come by ‘regular’ mail. I shared with this good man that the first missionaries who came to Africa in 1852 took 220 days to get here – and they walked and swam – all the way.

This package took exactly 100 extra days, 320 days in 2005 the year that 40,000,000 trillion messages passed each other and traveled around the world since I started writing this message, a day and age when the space station passes by Africa every hour as it completes it full round tripper around the earth, a day when it takes 25 hours to fly from SLC to Accra on economy class airplanes (it takes just a few seconds less to come Business Class). 320 days!!! These ties nearly had an anniversary while they traveled ‘regular’ mail from South Jordon to Ghana. AS I signed the forms they wanted signed and certified to prove they had delivered them, again it was a near hysterical moment to see the paper flow they needed to prove they had taken such good care of the $41 these young sisters had paid to ensure that our missionaries got an extra tie for their mission – since they sent the ties, over 300 missionaries have come and gone, nearly as many days this box spent on the water – ‘regular’ water.

The famous Box - notice how ripped up it is, the customs officer took his knife to it to see how much ‘duty’ he could extract from me ($9), before – he told me it was coming up for a birthday under their watchful eye.

Notice the date of 11-1-04, the date Sister Burgon mailed their ‘care’ package, ‘regular’ mail - guaranteed to be delivered in under one year...unconditional guarantee...no rain, sleet, hail, or hurricanes could stop this delivery...

The ten Beehives along with the letter from their leader, Liz Burgon after they did their part to be able to meet King Benjamin with a good record - well they get the service points and the Ghana Postal Service gets another award...but I can assure you the paper work has been properly signed and filed in the fireproof vault in case any one wants to question their efficiency. I love it...and it is healthy to laugh...Thanks girls...we will put the ties around some wonderful necks and send them out to serve.

Now, if someone knows The River Ridge girls, would you give them a call (they didn’t give us an email address) and please tell them thank you. Tell them we have sent a note through the mail to thank them but if the delivery service is ‘normal’ those kids will all be changing diapers on their own children before they even know we got their package.