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!!