Monkeys and Blue Shrimp‏

Hey-oh little whippersnappers,
 "Another day another dollar" - well, we're working for blessings,

 but same thing. This week started with a trip to the 'monkey 

forest'. The elders in the Manga Zone called and asked if we

 wanted to go to the monkey forest with them on P-day - and

 could we drive everybody? Dad thanked them for inviting us

 to go with them...;) The missionaries have gotten used to his 

sarcasm and LOVE it, well, there are still a few that aren't sure

 if he's serious or not, so I have to translate for them. We didn't

 have anything going on, so we said sure. I asked Dillles if they 

wanted to come so they came too. We drove out to this isolated 

place that was flat and swampy, and then suddenly there was a forest. 

We parked the van on the side of the road and walked in. It was a little

 creepy at first but we got used to it. We saw this couple peddling their

 bike to who-knows-where. 

She had one baby strapped on her back and one on the front. 

We caught up to them a little while later. The guy was dropping her off - again I have no idea where to because we didn't see any houses anywhere...

I forgot my phone in the charger, so we had to use Dad's and I drove him nuts saying, "Take a picture of this." all the time. ;) So, not as many pictures this time...

We walked and walked and didn't see any monkeys except for a few that were really far away in the trees, so after an hour and a half, we headed back and drove out.

 On our way out, there were about 8 monkeys just off to the side of the road. We pulled over and the elders jumped out and took tons of pictures. Here's a picture of them taking pictures:

 They were so happy and excited that we found some!! Success!
That night, we had an FHE with the family of the inactive guy that we met last week, at one of the branch president's house. He was the only one that came (he's married with 10 children). I asked if his wife was coming and he said that she was busy with things at home. Oh well.... About 20 minutes later, his 14 year-old son showed up. Turns out that he's one of my English students. 

I taught the lesson on repentance and had geared it to the younger kids. But the presidents three younger children were already in bed. (It was 6:30 pm) I told them that I had planned it for the kids and to pretend that they were in Primary. I did the dye and bleach in the water object lesson and they liked it. After I finished, the man just spontaneously bore a testimony and said that this was a good lesson and that he needed to repent so maybe it did a little bit of good. We'll see...

Tuesday was staff meeting and Isabel brought Jessica with her. I think we're going to have to ask her not to, because it's hard to hear and focus on the meeting when she's playing and tugging on me. During this meeting, she came and sat with me to see the screen so when Dad and I had to talk, everybody saw her on camera. And I bounce on the exercise ball during the meetings to do a 2/1 and as soon as she sees me bouncing, she sits with me. It's pretty tricky to bounce on an exercise ball with a hyper four-year old....:(
That night in my English class, one of my non-members had come 20 times so he got his English triple combination. I'm hoping that he improves his English AND gets a testimony and gets baptized.

For the conversation part of class, they had picked 'families' as the topic to discuss. At one point I asked what families did for fun together. I said that I hadn't seen families together do things together. Nobody said anything. I finally asked, "Don't you do activities with your families.?" Several of them got a sheepish/chagrin smile and said 'no'. It's a different culture for families here. The older - and not so older - kids take care of the younger kids and I never see a whole family together except at church, and even there, several of the kids run about and don't sit with the parents. I don't think that they know the saying, "A family that plays together, stays together." Only one guy said that when they were kids, they played soccer together. I said, "Even your mother?" And he said "Yes." Then he added that now that they're grown up, they play poker together. Terrific....
At the end of class, I asked for a volunteer for the closing prayer. Sampaio (the one that got the triple) raised his hand and ended up saying the most beautiful prayer - in English! Listening, you would've thought he was LDS. He opened with "Dear Heavenly Father" and closed with "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" It surprised me! 

Wednesday, we found out that Chad & Chanelle were safe and sound from your Belize trip and had a great time, except for the stolen phone and Chanelle's hitch-hikers - bed-bugs!! 60 bites!!! Very bummed to hear about that! I couldn't sleep for worrying about an infestation and you getting an infection from them. I think each of the 10,000 miles multiplies the worry by that much!! ;)
Dilles returned from a trip to another city, Chimoio, where they have fresh water ponds. The shrimpers stand by the side of the road holding up the biggest ones for sell. They stopped and got some and we had them for dinner that night along with corn on the cob - which oddly made an appearance at the store. It was delicious! The shrimp was good but we all decided that we liked our salt-water Beira ones better. They were so strange-looking though! They were blue with a really long horn-like antenna that sticks out of it's body. We paid Paulo, the guy that cleans the grounds, to clean them for us. It was money well-spent because none of us wanted to touch them. ;)

Dad's shaky hand made the pic a little blurry...

Thursday, we took Isabel shopping for two weddings that were that weekend. We decided to brave the local market because their produce is so much cheaper than the stores. Oh, I wish that I could've filmed everything! It's a CRAZY sight!! But suffice it to say, the dirt paths are narrow, crowded, and out of the 200+ people in the market, I was the only white person. A very risky place for a camera. Isabel told Sandi to stay in the car to guard it, and I went with her to help carry stuff.
Here's Isabel at the entrance by the chickens:

 I did sneak a picture at the stand where we got the onions and tomatoes. The seller was a friend of Isabel's. She was sitting on bags of onions and her side-kick was laying across the bags of potatoes. Looking at them, I thought how uncomfortable that would be. Can you imagine sitting like that for 10 hours a day? Anyway, I took a picture, and when I showed it to them, the girl that was laying down got pretty animated about how her bosom was hanging out and proceeded to pull her shirt up. We all laughed. It was pretty funny because the women here never worry about that, even some of the members, and with this girl, the whole world had been looking at her all day. I guess they never see themselves in mirrors or pictures.:)

 At class that night, the topic was health and I told them that to be healthy they needed to eat healthy food (Africans fry and put oil in everything), exercise, and get enough sleep. Simao said, "That is difficult." I said that I knew it was difficult and that it was a problem in the U.S. too. Then he said, "I do not get home from school until 11:00 pm and I go to bed at 12 or 13." These poor kids! The schools go so, so late!! Even little kids are walking home at 8:00 pm. At the end of class, another non-member said the closing prayer. It was in Portuguese, so I didn't understand much, but he spoke like he was having a long conversation with God. It was sweet. 

Friday, my tea-party girls (the young adult girls that are my buddies) came for a visit. They were 45 minutes late. This is how they view punctuality here. First of all, it's not important, they are used to waiting and they don't mind keeping others waiting. Second, if they arrive anytime during the specified hour, than they're 'on time.' In other words, if you tell them to meet at 3:15, as long as they are there before 4:00, they are on time. It's crazy.

 I had made a cake for them and I had to make another one for our Seminary & Institute training the next day so I told them that they could paint their nails while I made the cake. They said, "No Sister, we want to help so you can teach us how to make a cake." I said ok and we got going. They were so funny!! They were a little nervous about using the electric mixer but Rudy was the brave one and did it first. After she had done it for awhile, I told the others that they had to give it a try. They did it gingerly. (Keep in mind, that these are 19 and 20 year-olds.)

 I told them about licking the beaters so they tried it out:

Dad and I had made a date to Skype with Norma and Richard Smith for the first time, so after the cake was made, we only had 15 minutes until the girls had to go. I dished up their cake and we just chatted. I asked about one of the guys in my class, who's a favorite of mine but doesn't seem to be a favorite of the girls. They started laughing and said that they don't like him because he told Rudy that he didn't like the way that she smelled. Oh boy...he's got a few things to learn about females. He's right actually - she's the one that I helped stretch out and couldn't get the smell out of my hand with soap and water and had to use lemon juice - but you don't say it to the girl's face.
When I asked the class for topic ideas in the last class, Simao, had said that he wanted to talk about 'love'. So, I told them that I was going to talk about what to say - and what NOT to say to a girl. They all said yes, that's a good idea! Then Rudy said not to say anything about what he said to her or he would kill her. To underscore the point, she made a swiping motion across her throat. I didn't understand the word 'kill', but I got that! I love sign language!! Especially the funny ones! Ha!

We FaceTimed the Smiths and had so much fun talking to them and comparing notes! We had tried before, but one or the other of us had poor internet, etc, so this was our first successful call. They just have a few weeks until they head home! They are my heroes!! When I think our mission is hard - and it is - I think about them in Russia freezing their tails off with so many groups to oversee and no language ability. So, so hard! And those were some lucky, lucky kids with Norma's gourmet cooking! The mission will lose a "low-maintenance/high-yield" couple. :(

Saturday morning, we made the rounds and picked up some of our teachers to head to Manga for our training. We talked about teaching techniques like using the scriptures, personal experiences, etc. and showed some training videos from lds.org. That's such a treat for them cuz they don't have access to the internet. It was good. I always make cake for the treat and do a different flavor each time. This time, I tried a new coffee cake recipe. It wasn't their favorite. They still ate it but didn't fight over seconds, like they usually do. I commented on it and Joachim, who's one our special favorites, said that the cinnamon and sugar topping was too sweet. They don't like really sugary things, although they love frosting. I told them I was sorry and that it was a failed experiment. Then Julio, said something that I didn't understand and everybody started laughing. Dad said, "That was a big compliment!" and proceeded to tell me that he'd said that Spain (who won the World Cup) never played bad soccer and Sister Snelson never made a bad cake. Ha! I think Joachim would disagree, but it was very sweet of Julio. ;). Here's the gang all packed in the van:

Just before we had started the class, Dad got a text that a mission call was arriving at the airport late that night. It was for one of our teachers, Ernesto, and when Dad told him, he got SO excited!! I took his hands and did a dance with him. He got teary-eyed, he was so excited. We told him that we would pick it up and bring it to church the next day.
Ernesto:

Sunday, was kooky. There were only about 20 people in the chapel when we arrived at 5 minutes to 9:00 and none of the branch presidency was there. It was stone silent so I decided to play prelude music on the organ. They had the songs on the display board and a guy asked me if they were ok. Apparently, I was now playing for Sacrament Meeting. Yikes!! I hurried and looked them up and had him change two that were too hard for me.
The branch president was the last speaker and when he stood up, his little girl ran up to the stand. She was pulling the step-stool out of the podium to stand on it and he was trying to close it while he talked, getting banged in the shins in the process. I went up and picked her up and she started squirming and howling so I whispered that I had pictures in my pocket. I held on to her while I wrestled my phone out of my pocket and hurried to find the pictures. That got her quiet but then her older sister bounded up to the stand.
It was a circus! They kept trying to grab my phone and the littlest girl grabbed my hair and pulled it up in the air and kept pulling my skirt up. I wasn't sure whether to save my phone, my hair, or my modesty. I decided the hair was a bust and focused on my phone and modesty, especially because I had two elders sitting directly to the side of me on the tiered stand. My reflexes got a work-out. When I went to play the closing hymn, one of them followed me to the organ and I thought for sure she'd play the keys but she didn't. The mother sat in the audience with nary a move. Oh Africa.....
That afternoon, three single adults came over to have me help them fill out applications to BYU-HI. Martha had sent me an email saying that the college has a work program for foreign students and will pay all the college expenses, except food, for students that qualify. She asked if we had anyone that might qualify and/or be interested. Well, about a million people would be interested but I only thought of three that might qualify. I called them and they were so, so excited! One said it was an answer to a prayer.
They had gone to the church and printed out the application but were having trouble understanding some of it, so when they called me, I told them to come over and I would help them. Oh goodness. I thought your college applications were hard but the ones for foreigners are four times worse! Holy cow!!! We got timed out and had to start over three times because it took so long for us to decipher the questions and spell the answers for me. (The family names and school names are long and complicated.) 2 1/2 hours later, we had finished two of them. Whew!!

  Dad and I had to leave cuz we were going to watch Ernesto open his call. Two of my little gals wanted to come along.
Here we are just finishing the applications. The girls in the back are waiting for a ride.

We drove in near pitch-black to his house. It's scary to drive here at night because the street-lights are few to none, once you get off the main roads. We were trying to find the turn-off into his neighborhood, and by 'neighborhood' I mean the areas with a bunch of make-shift houses, hovels, and shacks all clumped together with dirt tracks, sometimes big enough for a small car to snake through, sometimes not. We finally found the right dirt road and it wasn't wide enough for a car, so we parked at the end of the road and started walking. It's a good thing that we had those girls with us because we never could've found the right road, much less the right house.
We went around to the back of the house where a coal fire was going with a pot on it, and Ernesto went inside and got his mom and two sisters to listen as he opened his call. The two elders that are in that branch were there too. Ernesto is the only member in his family. His mom is about three inches shorter than me and she was so funny! I hugged and kissed her and she kept hugging me and giggling. Very friendly and affectionate for a Mozambiquen. Maybe it was because I'm short too and told her that she looked so young! I thought she was his sister. ;) She really did look young. He's her oldest so she might've had him when she was 15 or 16.
Ernesto was very nervous! He asked Dad to read the call and when Dad read where he was going, he starting deep breathing to keep from crying. He's going to Angola and we just found out today that he's got to apply for his visa in person in Maputo so he's staring his mission in Maputo in two weeks. How's that for a lot of notice??
Here's the family, with us and the girls. It's the only time I've looked tall in a picture!

And here's the two year-old that was lifting the pan lid with a stick to get something to eat:

Well, we are the lucky ones. Sometimes you don't realize how lucky until you see the ones that aren't....

Here are some scenes from the street:

Carrying, umm, well, trees on her head:

Typical street:

While driving somewhere, the left lane was closed so they moved over into our lane and we moved over into the next lane and that lane had to drive off of the road. There are no white lines painted on the street. It's a free-for-all... The white semi is off the road barely missing a fence that you can't see to the side of him.

One day, Isabel showed up at the apartments to clean the Kretlys apartment and she stopped by with a container of food in her hand. I'm always giving her stuff to try but this was the  first time that she's brought food to us. It was so cute of her! It was a sauce made from pumpkin leaves. We liked it, it was really good! Dad was reluctant to try it because of the couscous that I'd cooked to go with it....oh Dad....but he was finally hungry enough this day:

Love you, Chickies!