Feb 2 letters

To Mom: My comp will probably be transferred this next week so this is my last week with him most likely. The house is really nice and I'm loving the vibe everywhere. Everyone gets along and it's all good at home. It's super hot here right now and rains a ton but other than that everything is going great. 

We had 3 conferences with the seventy Elder Ellis this week. 1 zone conference for the missionaries. 1 Saturday night leadership session and, also on Saturday, an adult session. And on Sunday, the general session. Mozambique will receive stakes on February 14, 2015, which is a huge accomplishment. The first stake to be established will be in Maputo. That is the only currently authorized one, though, so Beira has a little longer to go before we will be getting a stake. It's all good. In the meantime, we will continue to help the branches and district become self sufficient with better leadership and higher attendance so that we can be ready for stakes here shortly. 

This week we started marriage documents with several of our families. It looks like in the next month or so we'll be getting 3 more families to the waters of baptism. This is all super exciting and I love how the lord is preparing the way for so many people in this area.

This week I had a super spiritual experience. We were walking and we passed a family walking on the road. We were walking with another man to his house for a lesson so it would have been very inconvenient to stop this other guy to contact this family. We walked past them and I just glanced and didn't think much of it. Then, a couple seconds later, I got a super powerful spiritual prompting to go back and talk to this family. I stopped, following the prompting, and the next day we visited them. They are an amazing family and I know the spirit has prepared them. As of right now, they haven't progressed very far because it's only been a few days. But I have a lot of faith that this family's life will change and they will be baptized. 

To Dad: This week the announcement that we are getting the first stake in Mozambique came in so that should be nice. We will have another meeting this tuesday with Todd R Callister, President of the Sunday School and former seventy presidency so that should be nice. I really enjoy reading his talks. I'm curious to see if we will be receiving some sort of an apostle for next week or what. I hope so. 

This week was super awesome. We found some really awesome people and a lot of our investigators are going super well. We had to have a few heart breaking dropped families but other than that the work is definitely accelerating. I'm super pumped to start the final leg of baptism and marriage with some of our current families. 

One thing that we do is always work in the finding sector, as well as all other sectors. But we find it super effective to try and find 1 new family to teach every single day. This works out really well and we can get a good consistent 20 or so investigators at church. We are trying to increase this number but it's been a little tough with some sicknesses in our investigators. Also some of the wives of our investigators are being tough cookies so that's another tough difficulty. Work is another big hindrance for church attendance. We are having good success fighting through a lot of these difficulties, though, and should begin to see a bunch more baptisms. This week we will baptize a 14 year old girl that we have been teaching too, so that should be super great as well. 

January 26 letters

To Mom: This week was really great. We got a lot of awesome work done with our investigators. We had to drop one of my favorite families ever because they aren't progressing but we picked up a bunch of new really awesome ones. Things are increasing a ton in our area; it is super nice. We cooked some awesome meals as well this week. I made my biscuits and increased the butter to 1 and a half cups this week and it actually turned out really good. 

There is a new Elder in our house who I really enjoy talking to so that is super nice. He goes home here in a couple transfers. We had a super good division. It was super fun and we got a ton of work done. We ended it off with a family night at my recent convert's house with a couple of progressing families, those m&ms you sent, and a cake that I made. It turned out super good and was a really great night. 

My comp hit his year mark this week so we went to the nicest hotel in Mozambique to celebrate with a good lunch there. I just got Ice Cream which was pretty good. keep sending me as many dessert recipes as possible so that I can make more good stuff. And there is no way I can get shortening so I need another pie crust recipe.

To Dad: This week was really good. Church was a little disappointing because our frequency went down. The members didn't show up as well but it's alright because we'll bounce back. We've been working a ton with the branch, which I don't know if I've already said. It's super rewarding and everything has been growing a lot. 

We are going to get a bunch of general authorities this week (seventies and stuff) and have a big conference because I think we are preparing for stakes, nothing is for sure but that is just what everyone thinks. If we get stakes I'm hoping the prophet or an apostle comes to establish them and stuff. Either way the church is very exciting here in Mozambique right now. 

January 19 letter

Transfers are every 6 weeks but this last transfer randomly was 8 weeks because of the end of year situation and zone conference and stuff so this transfer will only last 4 weeks. These past weeks have been good. Last week we did three family home evenings where we brought one of investigating families over to the houses of members like usual. They all turned out just great. I brought Uno to one of the houses and it just killed it. They loved it so much. I was wondering if you could send me 2 or 3 new decks of uno cards so I could give them away. They really don't have anything like it and it would mean the world to them. 

These past few weeks the work has been going great. We're working our butts off and it's really paying off. We are having tons of success and it's really fun. I really am grateful that I'm out here serving the lord. It's super awesome. 

Zone Conference

Daniel's in the third row back just to the left of President Kretly

January 12 letter

To Dad:  I don't have any time to email this week because it's transfers and we had to do a massive cleaning project of our house to get rid of the cockroaches so just wanna say that I love you. 

To Mom:  This week was really awesome we had probably one of, if not the most successful weeks of my mission, finding tons of new families, getting them all to church, and just killing it. It has been a really awesome time this week. Transfers were today but nothing changed with me so it's all good there. Still in this area that I love with a bunch of families that I also love.

January 4 letters

Yeah, my baptisms happened and they turned out super awesome. Everything is amazing, I can't describe how awesome the area currently is and how awesome these new families we have are. For New Years we had to come home early because there were so many drunk people. We just did weekly planning so it was whatever. Other than that we didn't celebrate at all. 

Our zone conference was this past Friday. I got your big package and also the one from the young women. The candy is super awesome. I'm gonna use it in church to control the kids with candy. We really need to show the primary how it's done so Elder Dustin and I have taught the primary and I intend to really whip it into shape. They don't learn songs and the kids run wild in the church all the time. We need to get them on the right pattern of learning songs, being reverent and keeping them away from their parents. No worries there though, I'm great with kids so we've kicked some butt. Plus they're kids and African so they're suckers for candy. Also thanks for the shaver, workout equipment and everything else! 

Here in moz a lot of the work that we do has to do with strengthening the branches. The organization is absolutely terrible, they really need help. So there are some questions I'd like to ask to Bishop Nelson about presidencies, callings and stuff. Right now me and my comp are working with the branch president to call and solidify all of the auxiliary presidencies in our branch which will be a lot of work and training that Elder Dustin and I will be giving. 

Dec 29 letter

This week was really awesome. I already talked about the whole thing over skype but this coming week we will be getting 2 family baptisms of a couple of really awesome families. I'm super pumped for it all to work out. The marriage for one of them was this week on Saturday. Either way, we had a really awesome week and talking with you at home was really awesome.