10 - 16 Feb 2014 Nespruit,Border,Mall,Movie,Shopping,

On Monday morning, February 10, 2014, we got up at 4 a.m. and by 5 a.m. we were on the road to Nelspruit, South Africa, with Elder and Sister Hobson.  We had been on the same road to Kruger National Park on New Years Day, but this time we went further to Nelspruit, South Africa, the closest biggest city to Maputo.

To leave Mozambique we had to show our passports and Mozambique ID at the border, and Elder Hobson had to fill out some vehicle documents for Mozambique police. Then a few feet further on the South Africa side, we had to show our passports to the South Africa police.  It went smoothly for us, but there were caravans of cars and loaded trailers which made for long delays for travelers headed in the opposite direction.

We passed banana orchards, sugar cane fields, orange trees with green oranges.  We even saw a group of 4 giraffes at the side of the road!  As we neared Nelspruit, we saw rocky hills and mountainous terrain; it all looked quite different from the flat terrain near Maputo.

On the way we saw this old railroad bridge.

Within three hours we arrived in Nelspruit with malls, McDonalds, and beautifully landscaped roadsides, streets named “Waterfall” and “Rapids,” and people who spoke English!!!  We were on an errand for the mission while we were there in Nelspruit:  we were to purchase print cartridges and to price and buy sheets, pillows and pillowcases for the next groups of missionaries, if we found better prices than in Maputo.  After checking into our hotel, we went to the Riverside Mall across the street.  Mall shopping was a tiring but fun activity; it was certainly a change-of-pace for us. Sandy got her hair cut and styled.  We took in the 5 p.m. showing of the film “Frozen” before we met the Hobsons for dinner.  The movie turned out to be an “exclusive” showing, as we were the only people in the theater!  We really enjoyed the music and the cute snowman Olaf.  We wished some of you could have joined us there!  It was a great movie. Outside the mall was this beautifully lit tree.

We stayed at Hotel “StayEasy” which was a quiet, clean, and beautiful place to stay. The hot breakfast was great and the service perfect. It seemed like we were in Hawaii or Florida with Birds of Paradise flowers and other tropical flowers in bloom.

The Hobsons had located a store on their last visit to Nelspruit, called Makro, which is very much like Costco in the USA. We ended up buying the bedding there for about ½ the price these items would have cost in Maputo.

Here at Baker’s Bin we discovered a treasure of mini dark-chocolate, white-chocolate, and caramel-chocolate chips along with other baking supplies which were fun to browse through.  After our purchases we figured we may have enough chocolate chips to see us through the rest of our mission!

During our trip, we ate at a variety of restaurants, but the most unique one was called “Orange.”  This very fancy restaurant, complete with tablecloth and linen napkins, was hidden away in a beautiful setting. 

We thought the prices would be exorbitant, but they were reasonable and the tasty food was presented very beautifully.

In contrast to this high-end restaurant, we also enjoyed McDonalds.

We went to a fabric, craft, and housewares store, Valencia, which also had a café named “Seattle.”  They had all kinds of yarn and fabric and there were mannequins dressed in fancy glittery sequined fabrics.  They had an interesting way to display buttons.  On the wall in bins were hundreds of plastic tubes, with a sample button on the lid. 

On Wednesday, when we loaded all our purchases into Hobson’s truck, we realized how much space pillows take up. The truck bed was completely full and, in addition, we had to put a few things between us in the back seat!

As we traveled home we stopped for lunch at Wimpys. In the parking lot we met these 9 children who were on a school outing. Looks like they were having a good time!

We arrived home with plenty of time to unpack before our family history class.  Unfortunately, we had a “no show” for class, so we went home and Sandy went to bed early. 

We were back to the mission office on Thursday morning.  At the mission office there are frequent training meetings.  [On my mission I do not remember that we had so many training meetings.]  It is a thrill to hear them sing together when they open and close their meetings.  This is the group of elders and sisters in the Maputo Zone after their training meeting.

Thanks to our successful trip to Nelspruit, there is now a collection of sheets and pillows for the next 21 missionaries (18 Elders and 3 Sisters) who will be arriving through April 15.

We saw beautiful, unique clouds from our kitchen window.

When we were walking the other day to the chapel on the block in back of our apartment building, we saw a huge tree stump on the sidewalk and one stump partially dug out.  We had been watching with interest the steady progress of the removal of these stumps.  Hand digging has been the means of labor on this project. Then a few days later, we noticed the second stump was out of the ground.  It must have taken many people working hard to get the stump out, because as you can see in the photo the stump is huge and they had no heavy equipment to pull it out! 

Not far from there, we saw that a small acacia tree had been planted.  Someone was planning and planting for the future!  It will take many years for that tree to be big enough to provide shade like the old ones represented by the old tree trunks.  Planning and planting for the future is a good thing!

Sandy, inspired by our daughter Lyn, made roll-out Valentine cookies, iced them with pink frosting and decorated them with chocolate sprinkles.  Needless to say, the sister missionaries, Hobsons and the office elders enjoyed them very much!

District Conference was Saturday and Sunday. Here are a few thoughts that we would like to report from those meetings.  

On Saturday at the leadership training President Kretly, Mission President, noted the growth of the church in Mozambique. He said that it is growing so much that when congregations report attendance doubling from a year ago some cannot believe the numbers. But it is true; it is growing. He reminded us of the importance of reaching out our hand of fellowship to the new and returning members that they will enjoy being a part of the church and keep coming as well as invite their friends. He noted the importance of home teachers and visiting teachers, being a friend, having a calling, and being nurtured with the word of God. 

President and Sister Kretly took turns during this presentation. They talked about being well-prepared teachers, thinking about students during the week, and starting preparation the week before. As a teacher, you should not just read the lesson or have others read it but rather encourage participation, tell stories, share experiences, use the scriptures, use open-ended questions (those which can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no”), and love your students.  Sister Kretly shared the video “Teacher do you love me?” (1980) as part of her presentation.  When we love our students we prepare well, she said.  When we received our call to serve here, she related, I prayed that I would love the people here. When I arrived I felt a great love for you, more than I knew I could have for anyone. You also can feel love for those you teach. We can make a difference in the lives of other people. 

President Kretly spoke of the great power of members partnering with missionaries to find and teach the gospel to people. He spoke of departing from negative traditions and setting new traditions as the pioneers of the first generation of members of the church to create a legacy for descendants. The door to eternal life and joy is through the temple. If you only walk in the sand all your life, you will just die on the beach. Temple attendance and ordinances set the tone for your lives. Work towards attending the temple for the first time and then return often. He introduced the new Minha Familia (My Family) booklet, a simplified way to collect family history information.  Booklets were distributed to each family in attendance.

On Sunday morning those who had been baptized in the last 12 months were invited to a special meeting. There they were shown the Joseph Smith film that had been shown in Salt Lake City at the visitor’s center to help them understand the history of the church and the level of sacrifice that was required for the church to be established.

On both days of conference, branch choirs, wearing matching clothing presented hymns.  On Saturday the choir sang the first phrases of "Tal Como Um Facho" ("The Spirit of God") in English!  It sounded so natural to Elder Tidwell, that he didn’t notice it was in English!  One of the songs on Sunday was specially rousing, "Ide Por Tudo O Mundo" ("Go Into All the World"), a hymn that isn’t in the English hymnbook.  Another group sang the first verse of "Vinde O Santos" ("Come, Come, Ye Saints")  in English and the other verses in French, Spanish and then Portuguese!!!  22 young men were sustained to be Elders. The District President spoke about tithing and how eight years ago when he was having missionary lessons, he did not know how he could afford to pay tithing. He bore testimony that we pay tithing with faith and that we are blessed temporally and spiritually.  God wants to bless us but we must act worthily before we receive the blessings.  

A returned missionary spoke of the blessings of service. A new missionary leaving to serve in Angola spoke of his conversion six years before. A sister and her husband spoke about the blessings of being sealed in the temple and how they can do work for their ancestors.

Sister Kretly spoke about the sacred nature of families.  She pointed out how important it is to understand the teachings in The Family Proclamation.  We can teach the concepts to our children during family home evenings and have unifying family activities.  It is a sacred responsibility to raise children in love and truth. As parents, we are examples to our children.  When we live well we are doubly blessed by our actions and the righteous actions of our children. Let us make our homes a piece of heaven.

President Kretly explained that when we teach we learn. The church was restored with great sacrifice. Many sacrificed their lives that we might have the gospel today. He mentioned the difficulties that the church was experiencing in locating a place to build chapels in the Maputo area. He said to not despair, as the Lord would provide a place as we are patient and do our part. New chapels will be started yet this year to bless the saints. He invited all to pray that land would be available for chapels here in Mozambique. He spoke of the 33 Mozambicans serving as full-time missionaries and how he desires to have as many Mozambicans serving as there are full-time missionaries in the Mozambique Maputo Mission, about 100.

He spoke of the Spirit of Elias that leads us to do family history and turns the hearts of the children to their fathers and vice versa. The gospel is complete; it is like a banquet. Why do we sometimes settle for water when we can have the complete meal?  With our living families we build a firm foundation in the gospel. Satan is attacking the family by sending false messages to confuse people.  He wants us to think it is okay to mistreat your wife or child, that same-sex marriage is okay.  In reality, these have no place in the gospel plan.  Let us prepare well and go to the Temple.

Sister Tidwell was able to have a conversation with Elder Schacterle from Vancouver, Washington. It was interesting to note that Vancouver now has a number of Stakes and even has its own Mission, reflecting the great growth of the Church there.

3 - 9 Feb 2014 HeroDay,MinhaFamilia,PublicAffairs,HelpingHands

Hero’s Day, Dia dos Heróis Moçambicanos, is a holiday celebrated on 3 February.  It commemorates the soldiers who fought for the country’s independence from Portugal, a struggle that lasted from 1961-1974 and ended in Mozambique independence on 25 June 1975.  It especially honors the assassinated leader of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), Eduardo Mondlane, and Samora Machel, the first president of Mozambique.  

In consequence of this holiday, P-day for the missionaries was moved to Tuesday and we went to the office to work on Monday.  The African Lilies along the Mission Office road are in bloom!!!

The Smith’s invited us to go to the lunch with them and we went to Café Sol which is not far from the mission office.  Their son Mark had fun playing in the sand and on the small playground they have.  Staff Meeting was still on Tuesday, so this week our P-day was going grocery shopping on Wednesday morning.   

The huge bank building downtown is being equipped with huge windows!

School Started on Tuesday Feb 4.  There are three sessions during the day.  Some children go early in the morning and are out about noon.  Another group starts after lunch and a later group attends in the evening

  

At Premier last week, we saw this push lawn mower.

We are not sure where it would be used as most homes and buildings have no lawn.  At the mission office, the grass they encourage is what we would call crab grass.  The guard cuts it with hedge trimmers and it looks very nice.

This week we finished a lengthy document we compiled for President Kretly on the use of the new "Minha Família: Histórias Que Nos Unem" ("My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together") booklets that will soon be arriving in Mozambique.  We are so impressed with the many inspiring videos the Church has put on lds.org about Family History.  You can find them under “Resources / Family History” and “Resources / Youth / Youth and Family History.” 

An interesting program that now connects to FamilySearch is puzzilla.org. The “Puzzilla Descendant Viewer: Research Patterns in FamilyTree Collateral Lines” is explained on the website as follows: “Looking for new relatives? Is your pedigree picked over? Is there really no work left for you and your family to do? The Puzzilla.org Descendants Viewer lets you see hundreds of descendants from an aerial view. Compact symbols reveal patterns of incomplete research. You can start where prior research left off.”  Most of the family history research I do lately is descendancy research, so this is very interesting to me.  I am anxious to try it out!!! 

Although our core of Family History students on Wednesday evenings is very small, we have “quality” students.  One student shared this week that when he was baptized he knew there was something that he needed to do for his ancestors, but he didn’t know what it was.  Since learning about family history and temples, he knows that what he is to do is to provide temple ordinances for them.  He said that when he one day sees them, he wants to be happy he has done for them what they couldn’t do for themselves.

This weekend was the Public Affairs visit of Elder and Sister Humphreys.  They live in Zambia and are over the Public Affairs of 4 African countries:  Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, and Zambia.  This is their 3^rd mission for the Church.

The elders are implementing different approaches to teaching the gospel.  In this week’s training meeting, they were teaching with analogies.  They asked the guards to catch a lizard for one of their lessons.  They caught a black and white one, the striped kind we have seen in all sizes.  Then the next day they reported that they had caught another one – a white one.  They had the lizards in a bottle with the lid (with holes, of course, so the lizards could breathe) on securely.  The analogy:  Lizard represents Satan or bad thoughts.  When the lid is unscrewed a little bit, that means you are letting bad thoughts to enter into your mind; if you keep unscrewing the lid, the bad thoughts will take over and run rampid, just like the lizard.  The elders who had been in Beira said that they also used this analogy, but they put huge hairy spiders, which lived in the trees there, into the bottle.  I think the spider idea is way more effective, but I am not anxious to see those spiders!!!

Friday morning we decided to begin our day with a walk to and along the beach.  The weather was perfect – not too hot.  The barn swallows were swooping over the dune that separates the road from the ocean.  I found some interesting shells along our walk down to where the car usually turns to go to the office.  I hope that we can take more walks like this to begin the day.  I’m going to take the flip camera next time and see if I can video the barn swallows.

A few weeks ago there was talk of a service project that was coming up in our area for Helping Hands.  They talked about a drainage ditch that was full of weeds and debris.  Well, Saturday was the first day of the project and we went to help out.  It turned out to be a very long drainage ditch that runs along a very busy street next to the grocery story where we shop on Mondays.  Attached is one "before" photo of the drainage ditch to the south of where we were working - we didn't think to take a picture of the actual side we were working on before we started, but you get the idea from looking at this photo.  You could hardly see there was any water in the ditch and the weeds were super tall and dense. 

Well, we started in.  There was a great turnout of members to help!  A very large group of members from T-3 arrived in one chapa! The young men used machetes, long knives, and hoes to cut down the weeds.  Elder Hobson found an old spoon and I used it to pry weeds away from the edge of the sidewalk.  Little by little we made progress, as you can see in the photos.  All the debris was put in a trailer which was pulled by a tractor.  It was hard work - and it was so hot and sticky out, but we persevered.  Elder Tidwell and I had a meeting to prepare for back at the chapel, so we got a ride with the sister missionaries, who also needed to get back to help with a wedding.  The next time we go grocery shopping, we hope to take pictures of the ditch to see how far along the group got in the project.  We understand that we’ll be continuing to work on the ditch, perhaps its entire length, as the project is supposed to culminate in a closing ceremony In August.

Elder Tidwell went to his Public Affairs meeting with the Humphreys.  They taught the Public Affairs Council for Mozambique about how Public Affairs is responsible for informing the world about the Church and to make friends for the Church. They talked about the Southeast Africa Area plan for 2014 and how Mozambique can be involved.

While he was in meetings, I attended 2 weddings and a baptism!  There was lots of singing and dancing and a couple of the little girls were carrying white satin pillows as they led the wedding party into the chapel and to the garden afterwards.  The couple who were married got ready to be baptized!  Since the chapel was being used for the second wedding, the baptism meeting was held outside in the garden behind the chapel.  One of the missionaries was asked right on the spot to give a talk about the Holy Ghost.  Although had no preparation time, he got up and explained that the confirmation process and the reception of the Holy Ghost completed the baptismal covenant.  He emphasized how important the Holy Ghost is in our journey back to Heavenly Father.  Thinking about Elder Tidwell’s experience a couple of weeks ago and then this experience, I think I should prepare talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost "just in case" I am called to participate!!!

Highlights of the week are when we talk to family via Skype.  Paul’s family is doing better after the last of their 5 kids have had their tonsils out.  Here is a picture of Peter and his family via Skype.

Many of our families tell us that they are ready for warmer weather and some sunshine - we wish we could share some of ours with them!  We are thankful there is usually a breeze. 

Recently we talked to the missionaries who have been in the Beira/Manga area and they said there are no breezes there!

I learned the first name of another sister in Maputo 1 branch, Ermandia, and she speaks beautiful British English, having been born and raised in Zimbabwe.  I had made a comment in Sunday School class and she complemented me on my Portuguese [I had written down a comment beforehand and read it].  She encouraged me that, even though I didn’t know how to say everything I wanted to in Portuguese, I should make the comment in English and speak via a translator.  She said, the Portuguese will come!!!

We should always have faith that we are making a difference, even though we may not know when and with whom.  Sunday, Elder Tidwell was talking to one of our family history students.  He had the opportunity of doing splits with the missionaries. In one lesson, they were talking about the importance of families.  This young man reported that he was able to contribute to the lesson, telling about the opportunity families have, through temple covenants, to be an eternal family, all because he had attended our class and it was fresh on his mind!

Susie, Sharon and Karen - do you remember the oriental gentleman who ran the vegetable stand in Fruit Valley?  I remember going there with Daddy to buy vegetables and the man was always happy and very kind.  As we walk up and down our street, to and from Church or to and from the store, we pass this gentleman. 

We stopped one day and Richard helped me tell him the happy memories I remember when I see him smiling.  I think we made a friend!

We end this week with a picture of the afternoon sky and a sunset!