Dondo

As part of my assignment on the District Council, Mom and I have been asked to attend/support/train the Dondo Group. A group is a term used to describe a unit that is not yet a branch. This town is about a 25 minute car drive from our apartment. Today, they had the highest attendance ever with 90 people in Sacrament meeting !! Ours was the only car.

The kind, humble Group Leader is Rui Moda. He was baptized on Jan. 11, 2013, and called as the Group Leader in May. He and his wife have 4 children ages 7-16. He works as a policeman. Here is his photo.

This is a photo of the District President Alfredo Camalizene. He gets up M-F at 3:45 AM !!

He has eight children, works two teaching jobs and told me once in English: "If you want a good life, you have to work hard". 

zone conference and girls camp

Hey there,
Last week was a little slower but this week was go,go,go!

 Monday we had torrential rain! It ran down the streets and the 

electricity went out a couple of times.  We had invited the Buenos 

over for dinner at 6:30. At 6:30, we got a call from them. They were 

stuck in the mud, but would come as soon as they could.  They finally made it - 

dripping. Oh Africa....  I made BBQ chicken sandwiches and taco soup. 

With chocolate mousse for dessert! After dinner we played "Heads Up" (the game that

 Chanelle showed us when she came here to visit).  It was so funny because Juao is from

 Brazil, so he doesn't know pop culture (movies/bands/celebrities) but he loved the

 game so it was just fun to watch him try to guess the answer because he'd get so

 animated! The boys really liked it too, so I think they felt it was worth the

 soaking ride to come over. Here's the boys with "Heads Up".
 

 

 Tuesday was an adventure. After Isabel cleaned, she and I went into town
 to go shopping. I had asked her where to go to buy capalanas and she 
said she would show me. So dad dropped us off and off we went. We wandered a 
little while, trying to find a certain store and while we were walking, 
she nudged my arm and said, "Sister, yada,yada,yada." I had no idea what
 she was talking about but she was talking in a low, "be careful" tone. 
Then I heard the word, "bandido" and I said "It's ok. I've got my purse 
right here." And she said "No, there." and nodded her head toward 
something. I looked up and there was the prison, right smack in the 
middle of town. There were open barred windows and the men were crowded 
in front of them calling out to us and waving.  It was crazy. I thought 
of the Bastille in "A Tale of Two Cities". I wanted to wave back to them
 but Isabel said "No!", the police would not like that. So I didn't.  
(btw, that whole conversation was in Portuguese. Are ya'll getting a 
sense of how I have to decipher and formulate every conversation I have? 
My brain is either going to get smarter or blow a fuse from being here.)
  After our prison tour, we found the capalana shop and I bought some 
for bday presents for the 2 sisters in Maputo. Ok, I bought a couple for
 me too... Then dad called and said that he had to go help some elders 
and couldn't pick us up so I told Isabel that we could take a "chapel", 
which is the little 3-wheel mini car or a "chapa", the vans that pack 
the people in. She said I could decide. I had planned on the chapel, but
 decided this would be my only chance to ride in a chapa, because they're 
not safe for me alone and dad doesn't want to ride in one, so........we 
took a chapa and got on right behind the lady that had a big stack of 
eggs on her head. There were 4 or 5 big cardboard trays. The chapa 
quickly filled up and there were 18 of us, four to a bench seat.  It was
 pretty rank.  Isabel put me against the window and told me that it 
wasn't safe to take a picture, so no picture of our kooky ride :(  but 
here's one before we left.

These chapas are hilarious! It's only 15c to ride them, where the 
chapels are $1.50. There's a guy that rides in the chapa that solicits 
for passengers at the stops. Then he hustles everybody on the chapa and 
collects the money. The more passengers, the more money he and the 
driver make, so he is pushing people on and off ( sometimes literally), 
as fast as he can. When the egg lady got off, he grabbed her little girl
 and swung her out of the van and grabbed the eggs and held them while 
the lady wiggled her way out of the van. As soon as her feet hit the 
sidewalk, he banged the top of the chapa, slammed the door shut (he had 
to push it in from the outside) and the driver took off! It was so funny
 to watch!! 
When we got to Isabel's neighborhood, it was the end of 
the chapa line so I had to walk home, which is only a 15 minute walk, 
but when I got to the end of the street, a car pulled up and asked if I 
needed a ride.  They were an older American couple, so I hopped in. It 
turned out that they're missionaries here from a Baptist church in 
Florida. The husband taught at the international school for 3 years and 
then their son came over this year to teach at the medical school. The 
son has 4 daughters so the grandparents are home-schooling them. I hope 
I'm that adventurous when I'm that age.....;) 
    Later, I opened an email from Megan C. with a picture of the YW shopping for Elisa's (our 
seminary teacher at the MTC) care package.  As soon as I saw the 
picture, I started crying, like really bawling.  I felt the biggest wave
 of homesickness wash over me, combined with being thankful that I have 
good friends that help me, combined with seeing my old YW. Anyway, I was
 a mess for about 15 minutes. Love these girls!!

 Wednesday was "new arrivals" day. 
The Kretlys, the mission psychologist, and the NEW COUPLE, the Dilles, 
came in for Zone Conference the next day. The Dilles served a mission to
 the Brazil MTC where Elder Dille was the nurse. They were there the 
same time as Pres Kretly was serving in the MTC presidency, so they knew
 the Dilles and requested them for Mozambique. They're going to live 
here in Beira so we're excited to have somebody to hang out with us. 
They're awesome!  The bonus part is that Sister Dille went to beauty 
school! She can do my hair and I don't have to go back to "Whack-it-Off 
Salon." Woot, woot!

 The psychologist and his wife stayed with us. The wife wanted to go to a
 capalana shop so dad took the four of us ladies and dropped us off 
where Isabel had taken me. We got lost, but eventually found it. We got 
the capalanas but I forgot to take pictures. It got dark and was a 
little scary when we were walking back to the pick-up point, especially 
when dad didn't answer his phone. But he finally did and while we stood 
on the corner waiting, we watched the people head home, one with 
chickens (live!) tied to his bicycle handlebars.  Then I had everybody 
for dinner at our place - crockpot lasagna and garlic bread.

 The next day was Zone Conference. Getting 
all the elders in from the out-lying areas is a feat! Here's a picture 
of the truck that 2 elders rode in for 8 hours each way. There were 2 
bucket seats in the truck - one for the driver and one for the elders to
 share.... 




Some have to fly in, so dad spent part of
yesterday picking up elders and delivering them to other elder's houses 
where they all doubled up.

 Thursday - Zone Conference. It went really
 well - a good spirit was there.  It was touching as Pres Kretly talked 
about the trials that some of the elders' families were facing; among 
them, Braydon's family, whose little brother was paralyzed in a 
trampoline accident.  It's tough when things are happening at home that 
the elders are worried about, but they sure are faithful and realize 
that the best thing they can do to help their families, is to do their 
best out here on their missions. It makes me teary for them, 
nonetheless. We are very impressed with the caliber and faithfulness and
 diligence of these missionaries. They are strong! 
Dad and I were in
 charge of the food so we scouted around because the place that they had
 last year is, in a word, gross. So we found a place that was the same 
price and has better food, and more food, plus they threw in a decorated
 cake. The cake says "The miracles continue.  Zone Conference, Beira." 

 It was SO good!

 They even set the tables with linens and real 
plates and glasses.  The elders LOVED it (food is their favorite thing) 
and the Kretlys said it was the best food that they've ever had at a 
Zone Conference, period. So, success!!

 After we took this picture, President Kretly called the three elders from New
 Zealand out of the audience and asked them to do the Hakka for us. It 
was pretty funny and definitely livened things up!
It was a long day/night by the time conference ended and we got elders delivered 

to their apartments.

The next day, Sis. Kretly, Sis. Dille, and I went to lunch.

 



 It was nice to speak English and we had fun -  I really like both of 
them! 

 This is our favorite restaurant and they were the ones that we got to 
do the food for Zone Conference. When we got ready to leave, I felt a 
brush against my skirt but ignored it, because 'personal space' doesn't 
exist here, so we are used to it.  But then I felt it again a little 
harder and looked down. There was the cutest little girl and when I said
 'Hi' she started talking away in Portuguese.

 



  I didn't know what she was saying, but Sis. Kretly told me that she was trying

 to tell me colors in English so I bent down and pointed to all the colors on her

 clothes and asked what they were. Then I asked her her name and how old she was 
and she talked away and took me to her brother and introduced me to him.
 Her name was Sofia and her brother was Simon. They are from Brazil. 
When her mother came over, she apologized for Sofia and I told her it 
was ok; I had a daughter just like her. So, now I've met the Brazilian 
Aubrey! She was super cute!!
  Don't you love her pose??  We had a crazy storm that night and 
the electricity went out 3 times. We also had a hacker hack into our 
computer.  Just as Dad was going to bed, he happened to glance at the 
laptop, and saw the cursor moving and the things on the desktop 
disappearing. He tried to control the mouse but couldn't, so we turned 
the computer off.  We have our own modem and password but when the 
electricity went out, it defaulted to the internet company's password. 
They give the same password to each person (yeah, it's Africa...) and 
everybody knows their password, so if a hacker finds a TeeVee account, 
they hack into it.  We were so fortunate to catch it before he wiped out
 our computer.  Thanks to Chad for his tech help!

   Saturday was Girls Camp. What an experience! 

The district YW president, Amalia, had asked me to do aerobics with the girls, like I did for the RS activity, and asked Sis. Kretly to speak. Kelly Bueno had taken the One Direction song, 'You are so beautiful' (?) and written new words for them to learn - in English - along with actions for a music video. It was kinda crazy (and long - 4 hours!), but the girls had fun and eventually got most of it. I held a tree branch to point to the words that Kelly showed on a sheet with a projector. It was pretty funny. The letter "v" and the "oo" sound is hard for them to pronounce and the chorus was, "Virtue is so beautiful."  :) They fed us lunch and I got to see what the normal neighborhood bathrooms and shower looks like because I had to use it. Here you go:

  Oh well...sigh....... Downeast had donated skirts to a 
humanitarian organization and guess where they ended up? Yup! 127 girls 
were all wearing Provo, Utah Downeast skirts!! It's a small world when 
you're Mormon. They had the 4 of us ladies come up and thanked us for 
coming and gave us each a t-shirt that read, "Stand ye in holy places" 
on the front and "and be not moved" on the back.  Then the girls 
chanted, "Sia, Sia", which means 'skirt' so the leaders laughed and had 
us come back up to each get a skirt. They were all ex-large but the 
girls didn't care. They had them pinned with the tag pin. At church the 
next day, everybody had their t-shirts and skirts on. They were so 
excited to get them - they LOVE them! 

 I had to take a picture of these shoes that a girl wore to camp. To walk around in the dirt....

Love you guys to the moon and back!!

17 Baptistms!

Sundays are mostly very nice days of rest after very long and busy Saturdays.  Today, I spoke in Sacrament meeting. My topic was on the family. I read a large portion of the Proclamation on the Family. We are so blessed to have a wonderful relationship with all of our family. When I pray for our family members, I include Joshua, Grant and Ellory Jane.

Yesterday, there were 4 marriages and 6 families baptized for a grand total of 17 baptisms.

The marriages involve a lot of work in buying and preparing the food for the reception. This week the zone leader (E. Martinez) implemented a simplified food of desserts only ! No chicken, rice,  potatoes or salad. Besides costing 75% less, it also saved a lot of time. 

Mom and the other senior sister (Dille) each made a Texas sheet cake to go along with the 4 wedding cakes. They also bought cookies and soda. We were surprised to see that all of the food was consumed in less than 15 minutes !!

Of the 17 baptisms yesterday, 7 were from the branch we have been attending (Beira 1) These 7 include a widowed father with 2 boys about 9 & 11. The mother died some time ago, but they do have a younger sister who is about 3. In speaking about the death of their mother, the boys like all Mozambiquens speak very matter of fact, without any emotion.

This week the other senior Elder (Dille) and I have been asked to serve on the District Council (similar to a high council). Mom and I will perhaps be assigned to attend/support a different branch. Stay tuned....

Mom and I were walking behind this woman, Look closely in her left hand.....

Love you,

Purple Hair and Aerobics

Before I start the week's narrative I want to say:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUBREY NOELLE SNELSON!!!! 

  Also known as HERMANA SNELSON, our youngest born/new 

adult child.  Twenty years old!!! Woot-woot!!!
 
 

Don't they look happy???

Our guard, the cleaning guy and the yard guy (not sure who the other one is)

Happy Birthday, Aubrey from us and the people of Mozambique!!!

Missionary work comes in waves, at least for us. Sometimes it's crazy busy, sometimes it's really busy, sometimes medium busy, and sometimes a little slow. Usually, it's really busy to medium busy. This week was a little slow.

Monday, we had to take our elder with the bonked eye to the Cuban eye doctor for a checkup. Here's what the hospital looks like. Just a big crowd of people with no patient appointments or order.

 Here's the crowd of people waiting outside the hospital gates to go in for visiting hours.

  After the elder's appointment and a trip to the pharmacy, I went to Kelly's for her to color my hair. (This is the couple from Highland, Utah where the husband, who is from Brazil, works for an NGO (non-profit) and they came to Mozambique, with 3 boys, for 10 months. Anyway, they live at the NGO's location which is pretty basic quarters and after she colored it I rinsed it out with cold water, because the faucet didn't have warm water. Well, guess what?! It turned purple!!! 

 

Yup, the sides were a lovely shade of lavender. I did a panic text to Crystal and she said "It probably reacted to the cold water. No problem. Put on the Logics color." which WAS a problem because I forgot it at home. So I got cotton balls and doused them with lemon juice and saturated the sides of my hair. We used to use lemon juice in college - it was cheap..... It worked! Sort of.....It took out the hair color but at least it wasn't lavender anymore. It was a home coloring job gone wrong. :)

The missionaries don't count their time here by the numbers of months that they've been here, but by the number of transfers they've had. I keep track of our time by the number of times I've colored my hair. ;)

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - staff meeting, driving/helping elders, the usual.

Here are a few things we saw this week:

A Portuguese Man-of-War on the beach.

 

A funeral procession. The first vehicle always carries a cross and the other cars/trucks follow. I did a faux paux here: I was just coming out of our gate to go on a walk when I saw this, so I quickly took a picture and then I waved to the people, not really thinking it through. My cheery wave was met with some real stink-eyes. I told Dad that I should've put my hand over my heart. He said that they wouldn't know what that meant, but I told him that at least it would've shown respect, instead of waving like a goof-ball. Sigh....

 

 We got our biggest shrimp yet - these were HUGE! 

 I made ratatoullie to go with them. (I just found out that that's what it's called. I always called it Garden Vegetable Casserole - who knew??)

 

On another walk, I stopped and bought popcorn from the neighborhood popcorn salesman. He moves around to different locations. It's good. Greasy, but good. They put kind of a burnt sugar coating on it.

(Yup, if you ask a local to take your picture - which we rarely do for fear that they will run off with your camera - you'll end up with fingers over the lenses or completely blurry)

  The guy, Paulo, that cleans around the apartment complex, was perched high on a ledge in the stairwell so I hollered up from the sidewalk outside and asked him if he wanted some too.

 A small voice called out, "Sim." I know he thought I was a little crazy, but he loved the popcorn and we're best pals now.

On Saturday, there was a District Relief Society activity. Isabel had asked me to teach an aerobics class. I asked her if the sisters would like it and she said "Sim!" (Yes!) I asked her if they wouldn't be in dresses and she said they would tell them to wear pants. Everything is word-of-mouth, so I wondered how that would turn out..... 

 

But I told her ok, I'd do it! So I used my aerobics CD (a quick thank you to Erin Booth who made me a bunch of music CDs that I have used and used!) and taught the women how to do aerobics. About half just watched at first but by the second song, everybody was jumping around and laughing. I had planned on doing it inside the church but Isabel insisted that we do it outside with the "flora." I about died of heatstroke.

  When I took off my capalana and started the music they all hooted and hollered. It was pretty funny!

Afterward, we had lunch under the trees and a lesson/discussion which took a interesting turn. The subject turned from reading scriptures as a family to marriage. We haven't seen evidence of this, but apparently wives are often not treated very well by their husbands and infidelity is a big problem.

Then each branch did a skit or musical performance. This group is from the smallest and poorest branch. The woman on the right is an albino, a group that is ostracized here, but the branch members seem to treat her really well and she fits right into the branch.

 Here's most of the group. The people performed on the sidewalk and the grass across from us.

 

On Sunday, we had Branch Conference and I sang in the choir. I didn't go to the practice because we had a baptism that day, so I had to do a quick study. I asked them to take a picture afterward and they were excited. I wanted y'all to see the ladies in their capulanas but they put the boys in front. There are a few honorary members in the picture, including your dad. :)

Primary was better. We've started to play music as they come in and it's helped it not be so chaotic. I still taught everything but they told me they'll do it next week. We'll see. I asked them what they thought about having the kids sing in Sacrament Meeting. They were all over it - as long as I did it... Baby steps.......

Talk to you next week. We love you guys lots and lots and lots!!

Snake encounter

Our water & power have gone out several times today. But as of now everything is working ! The good Mozambiquens  deal with many trials we never even considered before living here.

We continue to help train these very humble members who are willing to learn, but do not have anywhere to go for help. Our seminary & institute teachers are all outstanding and seem to do a good job. We lose a few of them each year to missions, but that is okay. Yesterday, we met with the teachers in our monthly Inservice meeting.  We played President Monson's conference talk from Sunday morning "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." (Joshua 1:5) They all payed close attention and made good comments afterwards. 

We are responsible for planning and coordinating the seminary graduation which should take place the end of November. They expect about 200 people !

Last night after a training meeting I saw a small black snake just outside the entrance to the chapel. All the Mozambiquen men were very afraid of this snake and any snakes in general. A few felt that this snake was poisonous and asked me to kill it, which I did.....

Here is a picture of Mom as we walked on the beach this past week.

When it rains, it pours!

Today I've been thinking of the line in that song, "I hear it rains down in Africa,"  because it has been pouring rain.  We've actually had really nice weather with only a few rainy days, but today the wind is blowing like crazy and it's coming down in buckets! Metaphorically speaking, it poured this week too.

On Monday, I met the African version of Aubrey.  Her name is Anita.  When I went for my morning walk, I heard a shout and looked down the street to see a little girl hollering to me.  That's not so unusual, so I said, "Bom dia" (Hi!) and kept walking.  A couple minutes later, I heard her again and when I turned around, she was just rounding the corner and acted like she was trying to catch up with me. I said, "Do you want me?" and she said, "Sim," (yes!) so I waited for her. When she reached me, she grabbed my hand and started chatting away. I asked her if she was going to school and she said "yes".  Then I asked her if she wanted to walk with me and she said "Sim!" again, so we continued down the street with her keeping up a running conversation. She got a little impatient when she realized  that I couldn't understand everything that she was saying, but she hung onto my hand and kept her stride.  We passed a  lady that knew her and she called out to Anita, probably asking her where she was going with that strange white lady, but Anita tossed an answer and kept right on walking with me. She was hilarious!!  I asked her where the school bus (it's really just a battered van) picked her up and she pointed ahead. Finally, after a few blocks, she said that this was the place that she needed to wait for the bus, so we stopped and I told her that I had to keep walking. She made a pouty face and told me to stay, but this is Africa and the bus could be 10 minutes or it could be 40 minutes, so I told her that I had to go but that I'd take her picture. Here's Anita.....

 When I said I'd take another picture, she immediately struck a pose. :).   

6 years old and she has chutzpah out the wazoo!! And in typical African fashion, I could've been a crazy lady, but nobody stopped us......

That night, we went to dinner and had Family Home Evening at the home of the first counselor in the district presidency. He works for a construction company so he and dad had things to talk about. He and his wife have been married for 3 years and have 2 year-old twins.  His wife has an 18 year old daughter that she had before they met.  They live in a nice apartment with a big refrigerator and stove, which is the first I've seen in a home. We had fish, spaghetti with vegetables, meat, and rice. (every meal here has potatoes (usually French fries) AND rice - so many carbs, so few vegetables....:(   I made a marble cake with chocolate frosting and they loved that! I've never seen chocolate frosting here. After dinner, the husband gave a lesson, which I didn't understand, but I did read a scripture...:) The wife and daughter are quite shy but afterward, the wife asked me if I wanted to sing in the choir for district conference in 2 weeks. She said they were all wearing white shirts and capalanas (the material they wrap around their waist/body/head/groceries - everything). I told her that I had both of those and I'd love to.

 Tuesday - We had staff meeting.

Wednesday - We went grocery shopping , but otherwise pretty quiet.

     But Thursday, we had to go shopping for weddings with Isabel and another woman named Beatrice from the branch.  There were 8 weddings scheduled for Saturday at two different chapels in two different cities and they were at the same time, so there was a lot of juggling because the branches have to share the tables, etc. Plus, Isabel always mans the kitchen and makes the cakes but she couldn't be in two places at one time, so Beatrice was going to handle the weddings at our chapel where there were two, and Isabel was going to the other city to oversee 6 weddings. But we had to shop for groceries for all 8 weddings! (Are y'all following this??) So, dad and I had to go to the chapel and pick up the tables/plates/glasses/flowers to take to the other chapel.

 Then it was off to the store.....

 Three grocery carts and 132 pounds of potatoes later, we were done........at the store. Then it was off to the market for the rest of the produce, the eggs, and the rice.

Here's Beatrice and Isabel at the market. The piles down on the ground to the left are garlic.

  That's a turkey inside the cage!

Four  (very hot) hours later, we were done,  and it was off to the other city to unload everything.

  Here we are, waiting for the zone leader to come and let us in. 

Then back to our chapel to drop off the rest of the groceries. Whew!! Our A/C felt so good when we finally got home!

 That night, we went over to the Buenos for dinner and a party, to celebrate the District YW President, Amalia, getting her doctorate degree.  She's a mother of 3, teaches at the university, big church calling, and just finished her doctorate. She's an anomaly. There are very few people with university degrees here and particularly women. An advanced degree, male or female, is unheard of. She's a bundle of energy and even though she speaks good English, you have to pay close attention because she talks a mile a minute with a Zimbabwe accent! I like her a lot!

    Mozambiquens are reluctant to say how they feel, but Amalia is frank and straight-forward. I could ask her if "these pants make me  look big" and she'd say something like, "Yes, I think you should not wear those pants."  ;) Anyway, Kelly Bueno had a party to celebrate and asked the district president and his wife and their 6 kids, their branch president and his wife and baby, and Amalia and her husband and their 3 kids and a niece that's living with them. It was a houseful. Kelly made sloppy joes and potato salad and I brought a veggie tray.

 And here's Amalia with her 12 year-old daughter on the right, the niece at the back holding another daughter, and her youngest on her back in a capulana, the all-purpose clothing item.

     After the party, we gave the district president and his family a ride home (they don't have a car) and then stopped by Ana Maria's house to take her the matapa and shrimp that I made and some candy for her kids. It was about 9 pm, so it was dark, and her uncle answered the door. When he saw me, he got this shocked look on his face and slammed the door and ran away, like he'd seen a ghost, which is maybe what I looked like to him. A couple of minutes later, one of the children came to the door and I asked if his mom was home. He said yes, but just stared at me. So I asked him if he would go get her. The door shut again. A few more minutes and then it opened and Ana Maria came out, with a child on her hip.  I told her that I'd brought her matapa for the next day and she said, "Oh, marvelous! Thank you!" and hugged me.  People don't hug here but Ana Maria does. She's effervescent. I wanna take her and her 8 kids to Disneyland - she'd like it as much, or more, than the kids. ;)

   I had told Isabel that I'd help with the wedding food prep, so on Friday at 8 am, we picked up Isabel and headed to the Manga city chapel to fix the food. They had one dull knife and no cutting board to share among 6 women. The elders were there cleaning the chapel to get it ready, so I asked if one of them could get some knives and a cutting board from their house. We chopped veggies, baked cakes, and gutted chickens. (I was on veggies - I haven't tried the whole "gut the chickens" yet). I left at 2:30pm and they were still working.

  Here I am "peeling" carrots before I chop them. They don't have vegetable peelers, they just scrape them with knives. It's tricky. I was the only one with a cutting board - they cut everything in their hands. Oh yeah, capulanas are aprons too. I've learned to take one with me to all the activities.

    Notice the chickens....down on the floor. Yikes! The girl next to me is peeling and smashing garlic. She just got back from a mission to Brazil a few months ago.

          Here's dad demonstrating how to carry things on your head - he did make them laugh....

On our way home, we got a call asking if we could pick up some members from the branch that were at the store buying food for a RS activity so we made a pit-stop and picked 3 girls and the groceries up and took them to the church.   Then we went home, ate dinner, and hit the road again to pick up 5 new elders that had just arrived from the MTC.  We got 5 elders and 5 sisters on this transfer! That makes 9 sisters total, plus 2 native sisters that have gone to Maputo to begin their missions because their visas are taking so long to come. One of them is Elisa, a seminary teacher that we've gotten close to. She's going to Zambia but has to go to the Provo MTC to learn English. I asked Megan C. if she could have the YW put together a care package for her and they are. I'm so excited because she has so little and the package will be such a fun surprise for her! The people here LOVE photos but very few have cameras so I emailed some pictures that I had of Elisa and Megan is going to get them printed and put them in the package so she'll have some pictures to take with her on her mission.

It's interesting because with the visa situation, we have missionaries that start their missions before they've gone to the MTC or temple. We just had an elder that served here for 7 months before he left to Brazil for the MTC and to go through the temple.  You gotta do what you gotta do. :)

   Anyway, when we picked  up the new elders, it was too many for the truck, so we had to drive the 12 passenger van for the first time and on the way home from the airport, there were 2 detours  and we got stuck in one of the detours (they're always crazy, narrow, muddy roads) so the elders had to get out of the van and push us out. They did it on the first try! Welcome to Mozambique, Elders!! 

Saturday, we had the 6 weddings in Manga and these were quite different from the others we've been to. The brides just sat on the front row, instead of walking down the aisle, and when each couple stood up, the people chanted "Para bens", which means "Congratulations!" One branch really wanted to welcome the couple into the branch, so they wore matching bright green t-shirts and chanted and danced when the couple stood up. They were pretty funny!

Two girls were following me around and touching my hair. After about an hour, one of them asked me a question, but I couldn't understand her, so I had an elder translate.  He started laughing. The question was: "Where did you get your hair?" Because she wanted to go and buy some like mine. Haha!! We had to give her the bad news that I was born with it and she couldn't buy it - at least not in Mozambique.......

Look at them leaning on Dad, singing the hymn on his iPhone. Not a shy bone in their body.....

   
   8 marriages!!!

  

Kids in their nice wedding clothes getting a drink from the spigot.

 After the weddings, we zipped back to Beira for 4 baptisms. Then we stopped and got something to eat, went home, and crashed. Long day!

   Sunday, I taught the kids "I am a Child of God". Ok, I really taught myself because it was in Portuguese. We had a slow start, but they finally mostly got it.  I bribed them by saying that if they sang really well, I had a surprise for them.  So they did and then I video-taped them singing it and showed it to them. Showing a video to 40 people on an iPhone doesn't work the greatest, but they thought it was amazing.  The adults got as much of a thrill out of it as the kids. :) But it worked - they belted it out while I taped them.  I'm trying to get them ready to sing in Sacrament Meeting.  Here, Primary has a stigma and nobody wants to serve in there so these kids haven't had anyone in there for awhile.  I really want to show them, their parents, the new presidency, and the whole ward, really, that Primary isn't just a babysitting place for their kids to be dropped off. They can, and should, learn and it's a wonderful place to serve. We'll see if the kids freeze up or not.  They don't do talks or a Sacrament program, or anything, so it'll be a new experience for all of us!  I did a short training with the primary presidency after church and gave them materials that I had printed out from the internet, but we have a LONG way to go. They still haven't done singing or sharing time without my help.

      Well, that's our week! Busy, busy, busy!!!