Matilde, the new mission housekeeper, and I took down the Mission
Office’s Christmas tree. As for our Christmas tree, I’m not planning on taking it down. We’ve decided to call it our “Family Tree” as
it displays pictures of all of our children and grandchildren!! The nativity scene is a great reminder to
remember the Savior in everything we do.
We’ve not had a lot of spare time for activities; the skirt
I started to make from a capulana last week still needs a lot of work! I did do some cooking, though: oatmeal/raisin/chocolate chip bars and lemon
pudding out of fresh lemons – both delicious!
I have my eye on the marshmallows the Smith’s brought us
from the USA. We bought Rice Krispies at
the store on Monday, so we’ve got all the ingredients!
Elder Tidwell has used some of his computer time at night
after I go to bed to download our movies from Kruger National Park to Dropbox
so we can share them with family. It is
so fun to relive our fun day in the park seeing the wild animals.
The fruit on the trees in the mission garden are ripening and birds are flocking at various times during the day. The mangos are ripening a beautiful purple color.
The Mafura Tree pods are opening and their orange bean-like fruit are
tempting Mousebirds, English sparrows and Bulba birds. We’ve tried to get pictures of the birds, but
it has been difficult. According to an
Internet site: The Mafura tree, also
called Natal Mahogany, is “an East African tree (Trichilia emetica) having capsular fruit whose seeds yield a fatty substance resembling
cocoa butter that is used for soap and candles.”
I’ve been told that eating this fruit is very
nutritious; some Mozambicans sprout them before they eat them, but I have not
heard of any American who likes the taste of it. I collected some of the fruit and am trying
to dry it. One of the mission
housekeepers said that it wouldn’t dry and that I would just have to throw it
away, but we will see. The orange
colored fruits are so pretty!
We continue to have water! We heard today that the Beira couples haven't had water or electricity for 2 days!!!! On to the next challenge!
This week we continued to work long days organizing budget files and cleaning and straightening shelves and mission cupboards for the audit which will begin at the end of the week and continue next week. The Wednesday evening family history class and the Matola 2 couple's training on Saturday continue. The mission is preparing for transfers and Elders were told to look at their email before they did their shopping Monday (P-day). Transfers are a week early, since next week Elder Hamilton from the Area Presidency will be visiting for District and Zone Conferences in Beira (next week) and Maputo (the week after).
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