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!!