Tuesday, January 20, 2015

12 – 18 Jan 2015 MissionHistory,FarewellParty,Neighbors,Premier

Monday, our last P-Day, was the long 7-hour (this includes our stop for lunch in Xai-Xai) drive back to Maputo from Maxixe.  You pass through many little villages and along N1 there are always people walking, and groups of people waiting.  Some cement houses in each small village are painted red and have white bold lettering advertising Vodacom, the main telephone company in Mozambique.  As we drive by people turn and look, not that cars are a spectacle to them, but they are waiting for the next chapa or bus to take them to their destinations.  Even the babies and small children peer around the shoulders of their mothers to see what is going on in front of them, children point down the road expectantly.  In addition to people walking, people rode bicycles and I saw one man pedaling a bicycle, his wife straddled on the metal framework (not the handles).  These people are busy providing for the necessities of life: they carry water, wood; they sit by the roadside weaving palm fronds together; the outstretched hands of their children hold bowls of litchi fruit in hopes that passers-by will stop and buy. 

We’ve mentioned before that in the countryside of Mozambique it is like stepping back 100 years.  We saw many carts pulled by donkeys.  Children play with simple toys - a stick and a wheel rim or tire - pulling a stick to which a wheel or other things has been attached. The stands which were full of oranges last June, are now full of bottles of piri-piri (hot sauce), mangos, melons, pineapples, litchi fruit, and coconuts.  We saw many piles of coconuts and trucks piled high with coconuts.  I was struck again with the beauty of this country – jungles, ocean views – but more importantly people like you and I, with hopes and dreams as real and as earnest as ours.

The Maxixe trip had its losses too.  On Tuesday I realized I must have left my silver Africa necklace in my hotel room.  We contacted the hotel and talked to our friends there, and they were going to look for it, but we never heard back.  Sister Kretly said she would order me another one, but I still feel sorry I did not see it on the floor or anywhere when we checked the room before we left.
 
Tuesday was our last Staff Meeting. President and Sister Kretly attended via GoToMeeting.  It was challenging to take notes, because the entire meeting was conducted in Portuguese!  Since it was our last Staff Meeting, we got to go out for lunch and I got to choose the place to go – CafĂ© Sol, of course!  Elders Douglas, Hamrick, Reinstein, Poyfair and Shumway joined Elder Tidwell and I and the Kimballs.  We have always been welcomed by the personnel there and will miss the good food and these wonderful friends!



Tuesday we were both feeling pretty frantic when we thought about all of the things we wanted to accomplish before Monday morning rolled around.  After a good-night’s sleep, regaining an eternal perspective and, with the help of prayer and the Spirit we regrouped and I know I felt more peaceful, knowing that as we prioritized our tasks, we would be able to finish the necessities. 

On Wednesday, the computer specialist came and checked all of the computer and Internet connections.  My Internet began working again!  I do a lot of work on Word, but it was really limiting to not be able to access the Internet – many times I need to go to a site here or there to obtain the things I need for the document I am compiling.  Tualufo sat down with me and we identified a pile of documents which could be filed.


 I finished more of the Mission History.  That evening I made 2 batches of small banana cakes (ready to give away), and we began going through our papers and possessions getting everything ready for the packing process.

Despite Thursday being a holiday, Inauguration Day for the New President of Mozambique, we were able to give out some of our small banana cakes.

Matilde baked  the Date Pinwheel cookie dough I brought.  They were part of the treats for the “Going Away Get-Together” for that evening. 

Kimballs took us out to lunch to MansoBrasso, a fish restaurant down from the fish market around the corner from the Mission Office.  Richard and I shared grilled salmon with vegetables.  The food was delicious and I thought the service was better than at the big hotel down the street.

All of the sister missionaries and the APs and the Secretaries came to the “Going Away Get-Together.” Yara and Lumiana stayed for a while after the others left.  They had a surprise for me.  They sang hymn #41 Firmes Seigue (Press Forward Saints) to us in the same plan that we had planned to do as a special musical number months earlier, but we were never able to do it.  It was very thoughtful of them – Richard filmed it on our flip camera.  Lumiana also gave me recipes for Feijao and Pastels, a fish/potato cake.



That evening started our major packing process!  It was so challenging – like a giant jigsaw puzzle – no wonder it wasn’t Richard’s favorite thing to do.  One by one, we filled our huge suitcases.

On Friday morning, we said good-byes to our neighborhood friends before we left for the office. Along with the breads we gave each person a Thank You message with an invitation to learn more about the gospel.  This is Antonio, who lives around the corner from our apartment building.  He always greets us in English when we walk past!  


We had our last shopping trip to Premier and give our gifts and said "Good-bye" to “The Premier Girls” - Mery, Mariana and Dionysia.  They said they would convey our good-byes to Guilhermina.


At our last District Meeting, I told Sister Bernardo about Antonio; they said they would invite him to Church!  And he came!




We enjoyed a special lunch cooked by Matilde.  Angelo came by so we could say good-bye.



Here is the Extraordinary Mission Office Staff of the Mozambique Maputo Mission: (front) Elders Shumway and Hamrick; (back) Elder Poyfair, Naldo, Tualufo, Elder Reinstein.


We enjoyed dinner at Smith’s.  They have been such good friends to us!


Saturday was a busy day. We said good-bye to more of our neighbors, and to the guard on duty at our apartment building.



We packed up our remaining suitcases, went to the Distribution Center to give the crochet supplies to Maria, met Laura and we walked to Marta’s for our last crochet session.



We spent the evening with President and Sister Kretly.   We enjoyed dinner together at the Manso Brasso Restaurant where Richard had lobster tails! 




Then we visited at their home. They are very appreciative of all we did to help the mission.  We will see them again in Provo, as they are coming to spend time with their daughter who also lives in Provo in the Vineyard area. 


Saturday evening we stayed up late getting all the final details arranged in our apartment.

We attended both branches on Sunday and were invited to share our testimonies in both.  Brother Chivite said I had spoken “PortuEnglish”, a new language, but he understood every word!  When Sunday School time came in the Polana Branch, we were happily surprised to see Antonio sitting next to Sister Bernardo.  I had passed on his contact information to Sister Bernardo after District Meeting, she had followed-up and there he was!  His son had brought him.  I hope he wants to return to learn how the gospel can further be a blessing to his life.  After these meetings we said good-bye to many wonderful friends who we have grown to love. That afternoon we had dinner with the Ponds and the Kimballs.  


The next morning, we'd be up at 3:45 a.m. so we could be at the airport by 5 a.m. for our 7 a.m. flight to Johannesburg for our after mission African adventure.

5 - 11 Jan 2015 Crochet,Xipaimane,Training,Maxixe,Beach,MissionHist

Instead of having a shopping day, I had a crochet day on Monday.  I met with some sisters in the new Chamanculo Branch at their home and taught crochet!  The weather is very warm lately, but Laura faithfully walked to our apartment building to meet me and walk me to Marta’s home, which I never would have found by myself.  The ladies each crocheted a small baby shoe.


After grabbing a quick sack lunch (peanut butter and jam sandwich, apple, and drink) I headed over to the chapel for my last crochet lesson for Benita. Together we created a new two-layered flower!



That afternoon, Sister Olander and Sister Bow took me and Sister Pond to Xipaimane, where there are many capulana stores.  It wasn’t crowded at all - quite a contrast from the first time Sister Olander went there.  Each of us purchased capulanas.



This week at the office has been spent organizing computer files, cleaning out folders, writing the mission history, and training Elder and Sister Kimball on some of our duties. The Internet hasn’t been able to connect to my laptop at the office for the last week and that has made my work there limited.  Richard has a hardwire to the Internet, so he let’s me use it when he is busy doing other tasks which don’t require the Internet.

On Friday we began a four-day Maxixe commitment.  Richard needed to do a financial audit for the Maxixe Branch and I came to help.  We went with the Lopes couple who would hold training sessions about councils, self-reliance.  On the 7-hour trip from Maputo to Beira, which included a lunch stop in Xai-Xai at KFC, I pinned the rest of the 3-tiered skirts, crocheted, and we played a game of Scrabble.





We stayed in the same room at the Farmar’s Hotel that we stayed in June, with the same (?) little lizard!



They have expanded the hotel since we were there, and have fixed the wall that we used to just walk over to get to the beach. That didn’t stop us from finding a way to get to the path.






The tide was coming in and there was only a small strip of sand, but we made it down the beach and were able to see our friend Aquilo again.  He was watching a group of men drag a huge sting ray out of the water and into a wheel barrow.  The next step for them was to cut it up and sell it at the market!


There were no flamingos!  Aquilo explained that they are migratory – they lay their eggs, incubate and hatch their eggs, and raise their young someplace else and return to Maxixe in about February.  I noticed these parts of flowers which were on the beach; I called them nature’s votive candles!


At dinner we were reunited with Alda, who we had met in June! She is happy and is a very confident and dedicated worker at the hotel.  We also met Claudio who is from Inhambane. 





Stelio, who we had met last and is now working in Inhambane, was unable to come to Maxixe and see us, but Claudio, who knows Stelio, said he would relay our greetings to him. We also were happy to see Maria again who worked at the hotel and is a member of the Church.



The Saturday morning audit was accomplished with the Maxixe Branch President and Branch Clerk.


The missionaries invited us for lunch. They had prepared an interesting crab soup dish which was served over rice.



As we were getting in the car to go back to the hotel, across the street from the Church, we watched a young man take the turkeys, which were standing next to him, by their feet and walk down the street with them.



Not having Internet at the Hotel was a blessing in disguise. With no other option, I worked on the mission history whenever I could. By the end of Saturday, the draft was almost finished.


If we had been home in Maputo, we would have been attending the baptism of Carolina, one of the sisters who has been learning how to crochet. She knows English, having lived and attended school in Swaziland.


Sunday was Maxixe’s Branch Conference and President and Sister Kretly and their son and daughter-in-law were there.



I helped Sister Kretly and her daughter-in-law in Primary with the music. The lesson was on the first Article of Faith and the small packet of Article of Faith cards I have carried in my Church bag for weeks found a home! Each of the families with children received one! At the end of the Branch Conference a group photo was taken.



Low tide in Maxixe, Sunday afternoon:


Monday, January 12, 2015

29 Dec 2014 - 4 Jan 2015 MinhaFamilia,NewYearsEve,Puzzle,MLSTraining

The rain continued Sunday evening and Monday morning!  The rain kept the crowds down at the grocery store and we were home by 10:30am!

Monday afternoon and evening, I met with some members with their Minha Familia booklets.  During the week I had input their information on FamilySearch, which has included family stories.  This week I also finished a couple of other member histories which we had started to compile during our Family History lessons earlier in the year.

After Staff Meeting on Tuesday, we did some training with the Kimballs. It was the end of the month, and that means Baptismal Fichas!   So far for December I had only received 40 fichas.  When I heard at Staff Meeting that the total number of baptisms was over 100, I knew I had lots of work ahead!  I trained Sister Kimball on the CDE system we use for inputting fichas and she caught on very fast.  I will finish up for December and then Sister Kimball will take over beginning January 2015.

On New Year’s Eve we spent part of the evening beginning to go through our things, deciding what stays and what we pack up to take home!   We planned to have banana splits for our special New Year’s Eve snack.  Before banana splits, Richard said he had an activity – a treasure hunt for me!  I feel like I am very blessed to have my thoughtful husband who thinks up fun things to do together.  I remember when I tried to put together a treasure hunt and how frustrating it was for me.  I had tried to organize it before I put out the clues.  He explained that he just plans it as he goes!  Guess in treasure hunts, you can be too organized!  I followed the clues - “go to where there used to be hot water” “got to where you can see a saw” “get some vitamins” “go to where you see the sunset” “go where you get cool” “go where the mosquitos cannot go” “go where skyping happens” “go where it is super cool” “go where hot water lives” “go to the Christmas tree.”   The Christmas tree held the treasure: a paper with the number 9134!  Then to solve that, I could only ask “Yes” and “No” questions (like the game 20 questions) to determine the significance of the number.  Well, the number is our cabin number on the cruise we’ll be taking after our mission!  It is a balcony cabin – we didn’t want to be down where you can’t see anything!

When midnight came, the city was aglow with little colored rockets arching through the air over all of the surrounding neighborhoods.  People were launching fireworks off apartment balconies and rooftops.  The sizzles, pops and bangs of the fireworks were accompanied by joyful sounds of celebration!  Now and then a bigger colorful firework would explode. The display lasted about 20 minutes before the activity died down a little.  It was an amazing sight!  Happy New Year 2015!  

Took some time to put together a puzzle - a holiday tradition I don't want to give up.  The title of this puzzle was "Three's a crowd" but, since I put it together over the Christmas New Year's season I like the title "We Three Kings" - these are King Penguins!




Richard has been working many hours on the MLS (Member and Leader Services) training for Saturday.  MLS is the software which wards and branches of the Church use to keep records of membership and finances.  On Thursday evening I suggested he practice the presentation by saying it to me.  Then he said, “I don’t like this training!  They won’t be able to follow it!”  He asked me to word-crunch it (down-size it) and make it flow better.  Working together a couple of hours before dinner and then a couple of hours after dinner, we felt we were on the right track to make it a good presentation.

On Saturday morning, MLS training happened!!!  It started a little late, as we had trouble getting the projector to cooperate, the training went very well.  We had prepared a PowerPoint for the overview part, and then we went to the test system to show the functionality of the system.  There were 30 in attendance and all 7 branches in the District were represented, some having all of their branch presidency and branch clerks in attendance.  They asked good questions and the experienced branch clerks helped Richard explain some of the answers.



After the meeting, the brethren helped move a stack of Distribution materials to the top floor of the chapel "bucket brigade" style.





We’re both feeling the stress of getting the last things accomplished.  The 2014 Mission History is coming along slowly.  Then there is training, packing, and cleaning.  When I tried to explain to a member on Sunday that we’d be finishing our mission in a couple of weeks, he expressed “What a pity!”  We have come to know and love so many people here and it will be difficult to say “Good-bye.”

There were a total of 101 people baptized in December 2014.  Included in these numbers are 29 families!