March 2 letters

I work in the poorest areas in Africa where people certainly starve and other things like that happen. Is it sad at times? yes. Do you need to feel sad about it? no. The best thing you can do is just pray for them; that the lord will put the gospel in their paths and help them have better success. Many times they have money they are just terrible at using it. They spend it all on beer or just right away on random stuff. 

This week we had some good progress with our families and we are almost completely ready with one of the families that we have to be baptized and married, also a couple others are really close too. Belmiro and Isabel are just waiting on some documents from another city. Rosita and Goncolvez are ready and we have another one that is waiting. The power went out a bunch this week like usual but it's just part of living in Africa I guess. 

We continue to prepare more and more for the stake. We helped the young womens presidency in our branch along with the teachers have a meeting and get things organized we also taught a seminar on how to give a lesson so that was pretty good. 

 Colin asked Daniel about hygiene and if it felt like he'd already been out for 8 months.  Here are his responses:

It really depends how you look at it with the fast or slow thing. I feel like I've been here forever but at the same time 8 months is a long time and I've already been through a substantial chunk. Plus the days go by really fast because I'm constantly working super hard. The times without as much success or work to do are the ones that drag on. Right now things are going great though and time is flying by.

We can't eat with members because of sanitary stuff, unless they are rich and have filtered water. There is a filter in every house and we have to only drink that and use it for ice, cooking etc. We have to wear shower sandals always which kinda sucks and I'm excited for home so I can shower bare foot. We have a foot scrubber for the shower every day, a special hand sanitizer and it is a rule to take 2 showers every day. We have to take our malaria pills every day. Yeah, that's it that I can think of. 

I have never gotten sick enough to be throwing up. I stayed in once while I was in Magoanine because I was feeling bad but that's it. It's been all good so far with that for me. 

February 23 letter

This week was nice. One problem did occur though with our area. We usually work on the beach (a really poor area) but this week the tides came in and broke the sand barriers. The water came rushing through and many members' and investigators' houses are flooded. We have to wear big boots everywhere we go because the water is too deep. We spent several nights bucketing water out of their houses and doing the best to help them in this time of need. It really did show their faith though when they came to church despite the many problems with water that are happening in the zone of praia nova.

Belmiro and Isabel are still doing great and we are looking at a marriage and baptism date of the 21 of March. It should be an awesome day blessed with many marriages and baptisms with happiness all around. We are working really hard with several families for this date. The problem is really just coming down to if they stay strong and have the money to do marriage documents. 

This week wasn't really full of awesome stories so I don't have anything really miraculous for you guys but I will say that our families and investigators are coming along great. 

Rosita and Gonzolvez

Belmiro and Isabel

Letter to Rachel

This is Alia, she is a girl in my area and I love her a ton!

Feb 17 letter

So, this week was really crazy. 

First, we finally got the first stake in Mozambique and it was created in Maputo! For the occasion, on Wednesday, we got the information that all the missionaries in the mission would be going down to the event of the creation of the stake. The Elders in Beira all took a bus for 18 hours to arrive there in Maputo. It was sort of like a mini vacation and was super awesome. The new stake was created and the leaders were called by Elder Ellis of the seventy. We went to a chapel in Beira on Friday night and slept until 3 in the morning at which point we got on the bus. We arrived in Maputo late, ate a quick dinner and then left the chapel there to stay at various places. For me this place was at one of the senior couples house along with 7 other missionaries. The next morning we woke up and went over to the chapel where the stakes would be made and all the missionaries were there. We got to see a lot of wild Africa but didn't see anything particularly noteworthy. The stake was created, and after the meeting we went back and lunch was provided by the senior couples for all the non-Maputo elders. We ate and then went out into the city of Maputo to tract and stuff. We knocked a few apartment buildings and stuff and then came back at 6 o clock for dinner. After dinner we went to bed immediately because the next morning we had to leave on the bus at 4 o clock again. It was a really awesome experience. The bus did get a flat tire on the way back which was kinda funny but they repaired it in about an hour and we were on our way again. We were in a small little town when that happened so we just bought cokes and sat around and waited. 

With Belmiro and Isabel (it's Isabel not Elizabet, typing error there), we just taught them law of chastity and they accepted marriage so we'll start on their marriage documents and in no time they will be married. It is super exciting. It was a little difficult being away from the area for 3 days but lots of people still went to church which is really nice. 

Another miracle that happened this week was that we had to register a women so that she can get married (one of our investigators). We went to the register and tried registering her but because she is 22, it's really hard to register. (not registered means not even a citizen of Mozambique yet, no birth certificate, no nothing). They rejected her but then we went in there and were able to sweet talk the boss of the register and she was registered! this is awesome because now they can get married here in a month or so and baptized on the same day.  They are a super awesome family, her name is Rosita.

Oh and our house stayed the same in transfers other than Elder Walker left and we got an elder from Portugal in his place.

  

This picture is all the missionaries that came in with my group from the MTC.

New Stake

We received this from the A.P.s:

Parents of Missionaries,

This Monday, some of our missionaries will be travelling from Maputo to Beira and will not have the opportunity to write home until Tuesday.  Please know that they are safe and well!  This trip is due to a miraculous weekend in which the first Stake in the country of Mozambique was organized!  All of the missionaries in the entire mission came together to witness this miracle.  The mission and the people of Mozambique are being blessed by the efforts of your missionary and your prayers in their behalf!  Feel free to respond to this email with questions or concerns.

Pictures

Family night in Praia Nova
From Feb 17 letter: The thing about the other kids is that when they see a party they just mob the area in hope of getting some food or something so that's why we had a bunch of bandwagoner kids at the family night. We did do the family night again and got even more people there, it was super awesome again. 

At a birthday party - I hope hand symbols are different in Mozambique. :)
From Feb 17 letter: The middle finger means the same thing but it's not really as bad and I don't really know what those kids were doing anyways, they probably just didn't know.
 

Calton and Delilah's house
From Feb 17 letter: Calton and Delila are the richest family that I have ever baptized, but they are not the way rich family that we do p-day family nights with. 

Baptism of Ludmila and Catarina
From Feb 17 letter: That other elder is Elder Thurstan and he is in my house. Elder Thurstan and his companion, Elder Reed, taught Catarina and Elder Dustin and I taught Ludmila. 

Feb 9 letters

Today was supposed to be transfers but they delayed it so, according to them it will be on Wednesday but I don't know. I've made the biscuits these past 2 weeks a few times now and they have turned out just great. So what we do in our house for meals is we do house meals. We have six missionaries in our house so how it works is each person cooks for the rest of the people on his day. This, on that day, is in the place of language study so it keeps lunch times down and less time wasted on cooking. So I make 1 meal for everyone else each week. I don't know how that will continue for the next weeks with transfers and all but we'll see. I have made biscuits 3 times now. On my last two meals and for my comp in his last meal. They turned out super good and everyone loved them. I actually used margarine which maybe made the difference but I don't know. I didn't actually make the biscuits the first time I just gave the recipe to my first comp and he made them so he probably just messed up and did something stupid. Either way I think butter works out just fine. 

President Kretly will leave right around my year mark which will be sad but I'm sure whoever will come in will be super awesome too and have a whole bunch of new different things to teach me and the rest of the missionaries.

That family that I contacted last week are still going super awesome. They went to church last week and it was super awesome. He actually bore his testimony on his first day of Church. His name is Belmiro and her name is Elisabet. We are taking them to the family night at the Moianies house this week (that rich family) which should be super good.

Another really awesome story is about a family night that we had with a bunch of families all in the part of our area called Praia nova. We have the main city area, Ponta-Gea, Maquenino and this area called Praia nova which is the most poor area in any area in all the mission. It is super awesome and all of our investigator families are from there. Also, we have a few members there as well. We did a family night for all of our investigators in Praia nova and all of the members. We ended up having a total of 29 people there with a bunch more random kids. We made cake, played the game "cat and mouse" with our ties and they bought soda. Also, I talked about temples and tons of new friends were made. We are planning to do this weekly and I think it will be a big success. I'll send some pictures of the family night.

To Dad: This week we had the awesome opportunity to hear from Tadd R Callister of the sunday school presidency and Brother Gibson of the young men general presidency. Brother Callister talked about some really awesome things about the Atonement because he is an expert on the subject with his book "The Infinite Atonement" which, I forgot to tell mom, but that would be awesome to send me in the package. Elder Gibson also talked about some other cool stuff. I definitely grew as a person and as a missionary from listening to them talk and I look forward to applying the things that they talked about in my life and as a missionary.