3 - 9 March 2014 CafeDoSol,Flood,CatBus,Zefanias,game

When we did our grocery shopping today, we also shopped for food for the 5 new missionaries who were arriving from the United States this week.  In addition to our regular stop at Premier, we also shopped at Shop Rite.  Sometimes Shop Rite has produce that Premier doesn’t usually carry.  We also got to go to the “9-8-6 Deli” and we purchased corn tortillas, taco chips, ham, and some artichoke ravioli that we’ll try soon. The Deli is the only place we have found that you can get good ham. We also stopped by the “plant building” near the mission office.  A man was weeding the wall garden while standing on a scaffold.  That’s got to be a difficult job as he has to be careful not to pull out an entire plant!

One of the sister missionaries came to watch a video her family had sent to her for her birthday.  Her family sings together all the time, so in the video her family sang the song “Less of Me” (originally she thought by the Statler Brothers). The words were so catchy that I looked it up on the Internet.  I found that the song writer was Glen Campbell.

Let me be a little kinder
Let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those around me
Let me praise a little more

Let me be when I am weary
Just a little bit more cheery
Think a little more of others
And a little less of me

Let me be a little braver

When temptation bids me waver

Let me strive a little harder

To be all that I should be

Let me be a little meeker
With the brother who is weaker

Think a little more of others

And a little less of me

Let me be when I am weary

Just a little bit more cheery

Let me serve a little better

Those that I am striving for

Let me be a little meeker

With the brother who is weaker

Think a little more of others

And a little less of me, less of me

After staff meeting we went to lunch at Café do Sol which we really like.  They have kind of a Café Rio menu plus a few other offerings. We like to share a Vegetable Burrito; it is just enough for both of use.  They also have milkshakes!  They’re not as thick as in the United States, but they taste delicious! 

As we were eating we noticed the huge black cloud overhead.  Soon after we were back in the office a huge long rainstorm began. 

With so much rain and no storm sewers of any consequence, streets flood.  It flooded the street in front of the mission office!!! 

The sidewalk cleared enough that we could walk to get to the car to get home that evening.  The red soil here is very fine, so a sidewalk with wet silt is very slippery.  I forgot that momentarily until my foot slipped when I took my first step down the sidewalk.  I thought I was a goner!  There must have been angels next to me, holding me us, because I recovered my footing and made it to the car by walking on the wet grass.  I was so thankful!

We are now in the midst of the rainy humid season.  For example, we are having temperatures in the 90’s and humidity in the high 80 percentile.  With high humidity the temperature feels hotter.  If it is 90º F and 90% humidity, it feels like 121º F!  

We had a very busy Wednesday.  After our day at the office and then teaching our Family History lesson, we stopped for a few minutes at our apartment and then we went with two missionaries to teach an investigator family.  The missionaries were teaching about Family History!  It was a great experience to participate in a lesson with the missionaries and to visit in a Mozambican home.  I had the opportunity to explain more about the Minha Familia booklets they had received and teach why we do Family History.  The missionaries have offered to take us again on teaching visits.

To travel to their house we had to go on some very rutted and flooded dirt roads.  The elders told us about a unique kind of fish that come alive during the rainy season.  They are able to live for a couple of years underground.  When it rains enough, they burrow up out of the wet soil.  I did a quick search on the Internet and this type of fish is called a Lungfish – the African Lungfish.  Sounds like an interesting fish to research … 

Elder Tidwell and I wanted to get a picture of the "cat bus" that we sometimes see in the city. It is a school bus that is a van decorated to look like a cat!  Well, we usually zoom by it so fast that we can't get a good picture of it.  We saw it parked at the side of the road once and got a picture of the side of it, but we wanted to have a picture of the front of the bus so we could send it to some of our grandchildren.

We let the Office Elders and the Assistants to the President know that we wanted to get a picture of the cat bus.  They knew exactly the bus we meant!  So, for many weeks they were looking out for the cat bus, too. 

One night this week when we were getting into the mission van to go back to our apartment.  One of the Office Elders, Elder Douglas, was the last one to get in and all of a sudden he said, "Camera!  Quick!"  Elder Tidwell had just taken another picture so his camera was out, and he gave the camera to Elder Douglas.  We looked down the street and we saw what he had seen and why he was so excited - it was the cat bus! 

Elder Douglas flagged the bus down and the man stopped driving so we could get these really great pictures of the cat bus to send to you!  Thank you, Elder Douglas!

The cat bus has a horn that goes "Meow" but the horn was broken that day, so we didn't get to hear it.  Maybe another day we can record it and sent it the grandchildren!

Friday we bid Matilde good-bye and wished her well as she and her family go next week to the Johannesburg South Africa Temple for the first time. This is the first family we have seen follow through with their commitment to prepare for and go to the temple.  We have helped them get the information for their immediate family and for their parents’ families so they can not only obtain their own ordinances, but also extend blessings of the gospel to some of their deceased ancestors.  On Monday, the family will travel 9 hours on a bus to Johannesburg; Tuesday and Wednesday they will be in the temple.  We are so thankful for them and this blessing in their lives!

On Saturday we attended a wedding and the couples’ baptism.  While there we got to talk, in English, to a couple who were investigating the Church. They were interested that the Branch President who performed the ceremony also had authority from the government to perform a marriage. They had recently been married and they had a wedding by a government official and then by their pastor.  They were surprised that they could stay and witness their baptism. After the wedding ceremony, the Branch President asks for a representative from someone from the groom’s family and someone from the bride’s family to say a few words of commendation and congratulations.  The bride’s aunt spoke in a local dialect so the Branch President translated for her.  We not only took pictures of the bride and groom, but also of the cute babies!   

In the chapel garden we spotted this beautiful butterfly.  Those of you with a butterfly book, please look this up and tell us it’s name, okay? [It's now 6 April 2014, and since we wrote this post, we got one response from someone we didn't know affirming that this is the Dark Blue Pansy Butterfly (Janonia oenone) or Eyed Pansy.  Kelsie counted the "eyes" on the butterfly's wings and got 10!]

Who would have guessed that the first person in the Maputo area to fill out their Minha Familia booklet (they were given out at District Conference 2 weeks ago) was one of the guards, Zefanias, who is investigating the Church!  Good job, Zefanias!!!

One the way home from Church we saw children playing a game, similar to Jacks, played with small pieces of tan-colored tile and a dried round green fruit for a ball.  We stopped to watch them and asked them what the name of the game was.  It is called “vondo” (this is in a dialect language, not in Portuguese).

Ship and clouds

24 Feb – 2 Mar 2014 Beach,Birds,Records,ElderHales,Triplas

Monday we went grocery shopping with the sister missionaries because Hobson’s were out of town.  On the way to the store the sisters said they were going to the beach later and I asked if they had room for one more person, me, to go with them.  They said, “Yes!”   I can’t get enough of walking on the beach.  It was perfect weather, hardly any wind.  This is the Indian Ocean and it felt warm as I waded on the edge. 

As I walked along, a young Mozambican man came up to me and started talking, seemingly wanting to know some English words.  The sisters, I found out later, call these young men “crazies.”  However, he didn’t seem crazy.  I told him a little about the Church, since he wanted to know if we were another Protestant Church.  I explained that we weren’t Protestant or Catholic – we were the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and explained what that meant, in my best Portuguese! Sister Olander gave me these pictures a couple of weeks after this event, so I decided to go back and add this to our blog.

It was fun to be with the sisters!

 

I did a little bird-watching, too!  I saw a couple of Common Black-headed gulls among the Grey-headed ones and a huge gull that I found out was the Kelp Gull.  I, of course, looked for shells and I found some unique ones - among them my first keyhole limpet (a very tiny one) and a sea urchin, the second one I have found so far. 

When I walked by one part of the shoreline, I noticed the sand ahead looked wet and bumpy and it glistened in the sunshine.  As I got closer, I saw that the glistening came from the shells of tiny (about 3/4” in diameter) crabs “basking” in the sun.  When I got really close to them, they would scurry inside their little holes!  I hope to get a flip camera video of this another day.


Back home at the apartment, we relocated my computer table to a wall closer to the air conditioner.  The apartment isn’t very air-tight, so you have to be pretty close to the air conditioner to feel it!  I have better lighting on this new side of the living room.
Saw our first lizard in the apartment this week – a tiny little guy we captured in a bottle and then let go over the balcony!

During Staff Meeting this week, the AP’s were assigned to get together training for Zone Conference for the missionaries and a combined meeting for members on the Minha Familia booklets.  They are taking the information I gave to them and putting together a presentation using Prezi.  I am excited to work with them.  I don’t know if it will really come to pass, but one of President Kretly’s ideas was for Elder Tidwell and I to travel to Beira and be there for a week to train family history consultants for the branches in the Beira Zone and hold workshops for the members.  That would be exciting to travel to another area of the country.  We’ll see!! 

After Staff Meeting, Elder Hales took us to see the Ministério da Justiça Repartição do Registro Criminal building in Maputo.   It was very interesting to see where they keep thousands of paper records which are a sort of index of where birth records are in the Conservatories.  We couldn't take pictures.  We walked quite far to find the place, and on the way we noticed some black clouds forming. On the way back to the car from our long walk the wind picked up and the black clouds were ready to burst.  A little while after we got back to the office it was really raining and there was bright lightning and loud thunder claps!  Apparently the storm was part of a cyclone forecasted for the area!   It caused some minor flooding of some of the streets downtown.

On Wednesday morning a group came to spray the house for insects and other pests.  We had to be out of the house, so, Matilde, the housekeeper, helped us get situated outside on the patio with my laptop and Richard’s pile of papers.  Gladly the weather was pleasant.  We found out we had to be outside until 1 p.m.!  We watched lizards climb the garden walls and later watched the huge cockroaches try to flee from the deadening fumes! 

 

Wednesday Sister Kretly invited the sister missionaries and me to lunch at their home to celebrate her birthday and Sister Smith’s birthday.  The sisters were very interested in looking at the missionary scrapbook Sister Kretly had made for her husband when he was a young missionary in Brazil.  She also told about how she came to know President Kretly when she was about 16.

The first group of Triple Combinations arrived this week!  This is the first shipment of triplas we have seen since we arrived in July last year – and the mission had been without them for many months previous to that! 

When I am working at my computer in our office upstairs at the mission office, I often glance out the window.  Across the way I can see the clothesline of the house in back, which is on the same level as our office.  The housekeeper is often outside either hanging up or getting clothes from the clothesline and she always smiles and waves at me.  This week when I saw her I opened the window and asked her what her name was.  Her name is Fátima!!  Next time I see her, I want to ask if I can take her picture.

This week, Matilde told us that their family’s temple date is March 10^th!  The Jamine Family are counting the days and are so excited and thankful they are finally going to be able to go to the temple for the first time.

I began training another person to be a branch family history consultant.  Maria Betania is the new employee at the Maputo Distribution Center, so we meet before the center opens for customers on Saturday morning.  Maria speaks and understands English, so it is so much easier to teach her.  She is familiar with the FamilySearch.org site, too.

Sunday was the first day Maputo 1 and Maputo 2 branches met in separate buildings.  Relief Society, which is the first meeting, started out with not many people there, but by the end of the hour the room was full.  There are always sisters attending for the first time.  The gospel principles class, during Sunday School, is always a big group.  Sacrament Meeting was very well attended!

17 – 23 Feb 2014 Snelsons,Sewing,BananaTree,Maputo1Move

On Monday, February 17, 2014, Elder Brian and Sister Kim Snelson arrived in Maputo from Beira, Mozambique, where they are currently serving as CES missionaries.  Brian was our home teacher years ago in Provo, and we have known Brian and Kim for many years, as they live in the Edgemont Stake. Other than on the computer screen via “GoToMeeting,” this is the first time we’ve been able to see them since we arrived in the mission.  The Snelsons were on their way to spend a few days in South Africa visiting Nelspruit and Kruger National Park.

If you haven’t taken the “Gratitude Challenge” it is way worth your time.  Our daughter, Zoe Schnebly, used this for a home evening lesson for their family before Christmas time; however, it would be good to do any time of the year since it leads you identifying 100 things you are grateful for and will help you become more aware of the many blessings you enjoy every day.  Elder Tidwell did it for our home evening lesson this week.  Intrigued?  Go to lds.org, in the search box put “gratitude challenge.”  All 3 of the articles which come up are related, but only the 2^nd and 3^rd links pull up articles with introductory materials for the home evening lesson.  So, click on either “Three Reasons to Give Thanks” by John Hilton III and Anthony Sweat, or “First Presidency Message, "The Choice to Be Grateful" by President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency.  Enjoy!

Before we left on our mission, our grandchildren were asked where we would be living and what we would be doing on our mission. One of them guessed we would be living in a grass hut. Well, we do not live in a grass hut, but we do work in the Mission Office which is a house with a thatched roof!  Here is a picture of the ceiling in our office.

We saw our first grasshopper this week by the Mission Office!

If you want to listen to a wonderful devotional talk, you will want to listen to Suzanne Julian’s talk which she gave Tuesday, February 11.  Go to BYU Speeches (http://speeches.byu.edu/ )  and you’ll see the link to “Led by the Spirit.”  Suzanne was my supervisor when I worked in Library Instruction at BYU and I loved being able to listen to her voice!  The Digital Universe reported that she emphasized that “now is the time to develop important skills gained through educational opportunities, regardless of how irrelevant they may seem during the pursuit toward furture careers” (Digital Universe 12 Feb 2014).

We knew that on our mission we would be “sowing," but sometimes Sister Tidwell really is “sewing.” Missionaries have found out that she has a sewing machine and is quite handy in mending and hemming slacks.  Record so far is three pairs of pants for a single missionary in the same week.

In an earlier post, we included a picture of Peter with Amelia & Georgia taken via Skype. Here is one with Zoe with Samuel, Sedona and Sarah!

This tree by the beach has had most of the sand eroded away from some of its roots.  Other roots must still be firm in the sand or it wouldn’t be standing. Even if we are burdened down by problems, we can hold on and overcome our challenges.

Along the Avenida de Marginal which runs along the beach, there are countless vendors selling everything!  One of the items seen most often are capulanas flapping in the wind.

The sunflowers here remind us of Utah in the summertime.

The guard at the Mission Office proudly showed us the banana tree he planted in the garden. The pointy part growing up out of the middle of the fronds will send out a flower which will become the bunch of bananas.  It will take a total of 3 months He explained that after a banana tree produces its bunch of bananas, the tree dies, but new shoots come up at the base of the original tree and form new trees.

On Friday the Tidwells and Snelsons went to the Arte Parque in the Parque dos Continuadores in Maputo. Here are the two main shoppers: Sisters Tidwell and Snelson at the opening gate of the selling area.  As it turned out they were almost closing and we were the ONLY customers. We were the focus of all attention. We bought a lot of good things, but it was so fast and crazy with everyone wanting to sell their product. We were not in danger, but we did feel a little intimidated with sayings like: “you have bought nothing from me”, “I have a family,” “I have sold nothing today,” “Just look at my things.” We finally were able to get out of there, and maybe we will go again.

Dinner was at Café Sol where we ate Mexican food and it was very good. We had milk shakes, and Brian was overwhelmed to have one as I gather you cannot get one in Beira.

The activity for a combined activity for the youth was a field trip to the Coin museum, the old fort in Maputro, and to the Parque dos Namorados where Mozambique was dedicated for the preaching of the Gospel. They rented a bus to take them and came back to the chapel for food.

On Saturday we went to church distribution and came upon a baptism for which we stayed. It is exciting to think that just about every Saturday morning there are many baptisms happening throughout the mission.

Sister Kretly, the Mission President’s wife, had a birthday and some of us and member families went to help celebrate.

At church on Sunday we learned that one of the two branches we have been attending is moving to a rented building to be closer to their branch boundaries as well as to make room for possible additional branches. That was exciting but quite sad at the same time as we will not have contact with the Maputo 1 branch members who will be attending there. Without a car it will be very difficult to attend at the new location at least on an weekly basis. We are already feeling a loss of the regular association with these members many of whom have become dear friends.

This week Elder Tidwell has been working on completing the instruction sheets describing how to apply for assistance from the church to attend the temple for the first time using funds from the temple patron fund. In addition he has been working on a flow chart to help members determine how long it will take to prepare to go to the temple to include obtaining passports and other documents. All of these procedures need to be written in English and Portuguese.

Sister Tidwell is working on adapting her family history classes to utilize the new My Family booklet.  She writes the lesson in English and then translates it into Portuguese. It has been a challenge to teach the classes when the Internet service has been so undependable. In the meantime Sister Tidwell has been doing some of her personal family history and submitting names for temple work. Having access to the Internet does allow her to be quite productive in her research.

Sandy’s newest project is to update apartment/house/chapel information for 25 missionary dwelling places, including landlord contract information, apartment inventories, and appliance status reports.