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.
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 3rd 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!
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