Colin asked "What do you do for service hours?" Response: We usually don't end up having time for any service. We try
and occasionally we have time to do a service project but I think I've done a
total of 3 on my mission. We try to do unplanned acts of service a lot though.
We cleaned a school once, painted a shop and cleaned up a street is all. We are
going to try to get our ward going with service projects this week though with
helping people finish their houses. Here people build their house and then add
on to it as they get money available. In my current area, which is a little bit
richer, there are a lot of houses were people live in one part and then have
the skeleton of the rest. Hopefully we can muster a bunch of people in the ward
and maybe missionaries to finish a bunch of houses kind of like a sod party type
deal.
There are 5 types of houses here really:
1) straw hut - this is the poorest type and usually is a
temporary rental called dependencias
2) stick/rock hut - second leg up and still is one of the
poorer types. People with this type will eventually put cement smeared around
the edges when they have the money to cover the holes.
3) cement brick house - this usually starts with the family
building one part and then slowly completing the house, in time, it ends up
painted.
4) apartments - the richest people live here and the quality
is usually really low other than the occasional nice apartment such as ours.
5) Normal houses - These can actually get pretty big because
they are the mansions and the giant houses of usually white people from other
countries and high up government people although I have seen very few that
could be as large as our house.
The average Mozambican lives in either type 2 or 3. In Praia
Nova there was only type 1 and 2 with the very occasional 3
My current area is just all type 3 so it's the upper middle
class because it is big type 3s. The dream of an average Mozambican is to build
up to a well established type three house and then maybe one day buy a car but
the car rarely happens. Our investigators and members in my current area of chota
are upper 2 and about half have motorcycles but maybe one day after they finish
their houses, they'll get a car. But it can take 10 or 15 years of living in a
incomplete house before it's done. My goal on my mission is to baptize someone
with a car.
With the ice thing, we have Ice trays that I always keep
ready so that I can have ice with my coke (I now love coke because it's way
better here and there isn't anything else). Plus I always have my two liter
bottles of water in the freezer to be half frozen ready to drink.
This week was really nice as far as statistics go. For sure
it was the best statistical week of my mission (other than baptisms). We got a
ton of work done and tons of our investigators came to church. We actually
found a couple of new families that are really nice that both came to church
this Sunday as well. Finally Elder Wood and I were able to get a normal week
and the statistics exploded. Lots of success and hopefully this week we can
have a couple more baptisms. Zone conference is also this week which is always
a fun time.
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Mozambique? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Mozambique in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez