W: There's six couples over there now. Or are there seven?

NW: There's two couples in Ghana, the Crocketts are serving as temporal affairs people right there at the home, and the Fishers are with them. So that would be two couples right there at the home, two over in Ghana, one couple in Lagos, and the Jensens and Bradshaws in the area where we were.

I: So it's still a pretty small group.

W: There may be one more couple over there. . . .

[pp. 80–81]

I: When you went over, you had gone with these other two couples, the Cleggs and the Olsons. And then the Espenshieds came. Were there other couples besides these we've mentioned?

NW: Oh yes, the Bradshaws.

W: Well, before we left and _we were being replaced, Mark Bradshaw and his wife arrived.

NW: On the 1st of October.

I: Somebody had replaced the Bartholomews by then?

NW: Yes.

W: Then the Crocketts are over there now. The Tates arrived just before we left. But the Bradshaws, I guess, were about the only ones down there for a while, weren't they?

NW: The Jensens stayed.

W: Oh yes, the Jensens and the Bradshaws stayed.

NW: Brother Jensen had been in the Indian [Placement] program for years.

I: But it sounds like it still didn't ever get up much more than five couples in Nigeria.

W: There's six couples over there now. Or are there seven?

NW: There's two couples in Ghana, the Crocketts are serving as temporal affairs people right there at the home, and the Fishers are with them. So that would be two couples right there at the home, two over in Ghana, one couple in Lagos, and the Jensens and Bradshaws in the area where we were.

I: So it's still a pretty small group.

W: There may be one more couple over there.

I: Was the possibility of sending nineteen-year-old missionaries over there ever considered?

W: No. It is not, and I don't suppose will be, a mission for nineteen-year-olds. It's a supervisory type of thing. You almost need ex-stake presidents, ex-bishops, ex-mission presidents, and so on, because of the nature of supervising these branches that are established.

It isn't a proselyting mission, in that sense of the word, because the people are al ready there. It's a supervisory sort of mission. To get people into the Church is no problem. Any day you wanted to you could go out and find people. You wouldn't have to tract, you wouldn't have to knock on a door. You could stop a person on a street and have a good gospel conversation. They would flock around you. It isn't the same situation as in most missions.

I think it would be a mistake to have two young nineteen-year-old boys over there with conditions the way_ they are, the situation of young children running around without clothing on and so forth. It's quite primitive. It's a dangerous situation, where it takes a lot of wisdom. You have to live very close to the Lord. Not that they wouldn't, but with the mere custom of no public restrooms, and so on, with people relieving themselves right out in the open, there would be an exposure to immorality. And young boys don't always act wisely, even though there's two of them. I think you need the protection and the security of a man and his wife, and even a husband and wife ought not to be left alone. The Church has taken precautions there. There ought to be two couples living together, so you can go out and work and come back and have some degree of companionship and security. Because you're alone. It would be two white boys and all the rest natives.

Now sending out boys has been done in years past in Tonga, I guess, in the isles of the sea and elsewhere, and I'm sure it was done under conditions very similar to those in Nigeria, but I think in all wisdom they feel that the nature of the work is one of supervising and presiding, as well as proselyting.