12 - 18 Aug 2013 Cooking,BanksCouple,HelpingHands,Branches

This week’s all around lesson has been to be patient if things don’t happen or can’t happen as you thought they would or should.

We were able to get the Internet hooked up on Monday, a day earlier than we’d expected.

We discovered the roof our building is a safe place to get some walking exercise in the morning! 

On Monday evening, we had the Hobsons over for dinner, welcoming them home from their over-the-weekend trip to Maxixe.  We had chili and cornbread.  Since we didn’t have an oven yet, I learned you can cook cornbread in the Microwave.  The corn meal here, since it is made from white corn, is a very light yellow, so the cornbread looked anemic, but it only took 7 minutes and tasted great!

Thanks to the expertise of Elder Banks, our washing machine and dryer were hooked up on Tuesday.  Elder & Sister Banks are the Humanitarian missionaries who went home this week.







We love the email updates from and Skypes with our families!  Here is a poem Klaesara wrote and sent to us this week:

In Mozambique

So you’re arrived in Mozambique

With new people to meet, and new things to eat.

There’s a new experience every day,

Like how in the world do people drive this way?

You might even see an elephant who,

It seems has wandered too far from the zoo.

Or maybe you’ll show someone the way

To true happiness: a brighter day.

I bet you’re needed there more than you know.

And that what you learn there will help you to grow!

We love you; you’re always in our prayers!

Remember Christ knows how to comfort your cares.

Love, Klaesara

We’ve had a working refrigerator since Thursday afternoon (the first one froze everything!).   We are so thankful for cold milk and unfrozen fresh vegetables!

We celebrated my Birthday by going to the Mission Office to work with the files there.  I brought banana bread, which I’d cooked in the microwave, for a treat for the elders to have after Staff Meeting.   It didn’t get brown and crunchy on the outside (I do so like the end pieces on oven-cooked banana bread), but it tasted good and it only took 4 minutes to cook!  Thank you for everyone’s birthday wishes, songs and videos!   I love how technology is keeping us connected!

On Thursday the mission purchased us a counter-top oven – so now we have a fully functional kitchen. 

President Kretly has given us some assignments to work on in the Mission Office.  We have hitched rides with the AP’s, bring a sack lunch, and return home to fix dinner.   They usually take the road (rua) that goes right by the water.  We’ll try to get a better picture one of these days, but here is one that’s pretty good.

Sometimes we have time for a quick errand up to the “Chinese” store not far from us.  For instance, we bought a dish we could cook the cornbread in; another evening we purchased an oval casserole dish so we could cook rice pudding in our new counter-top oven.

We participated in another “Helping Hands” clean-up project on Saturday morning.  Lots of members and missionaries came. 

At one point in the project I noticed this part of the sidewalk.  What does this image say to you?  It says to me, “Put your bottle caps here!”  When things are cleaned up, it sends the opposite message:  “Clean is Beautiful; Let’s Keep it Clean!”

The one young lady, Laudi, saw us working and stopped to help us.  She is here in Mozambique for a month teaching all kinds of music at a primary school and will be returning to Argentina next week.  She talked about how music feeds our soul!  The older gentleman pictured is Brother Castelo Branco.  His birthday was Saturday and he turned 83!

After the project, the Hobsons invited us to go dutch-treat to Mimmos, which was right across the street from the white modern building you see pictured below, for lunch.  Even though the building on the right is old, it is certainly more colorful and a woman, on one of its balconies, noticed us looking up at her, and she waved to us!   Mozambique people are genuinely friendly.

This Sunday we attended both the Maputo 1 and Maputo 2 branches.   

I went to the Primary in both branches.  I met a few of the children and learned their names and some of the leaders’ names while waiting for Sacrament Meeting to begin.  Dad came with me to Primary for the last group of meetings.  They asked us to introduce ourselves, and then, the leader had the children greet us in unison, “Bem vindo, Elder e SisterTidwell.”  During their lesson, the teacher asked Dad to share with the children an experience about obedience!  He did a great job!!  We really enjoyed singing the Primary songs with the children.  Especially touching was singing “Meu Pai Celestial Me Tem Afeição” (“Heavenly Father Loves Me”).  It was one of the songs they were practicing for their Sacrament Meeting presentation.   Here is a picture of the Maputo 1 Primary and a picture of little Heringues Pedro Yessa and his mother Margarida Sustino Yessa.

Being in their Sacrament Meetings takes us back to our New York City experience.  At the beginning of the meeting the one conducting the meeting says, “Irmãos e Irmãs, bom dia!”  The congregation responds with a hearty “Bom dia!”  Every speaker does the same at the beginning of their talk! “Bom dia!”

Remember the bells we said we’d heard bells and we didn’t know where they were coming from? Sister Hobson pointed out a church down the street where she thought they may be coming from.  However, the bells we had heard seemed to be really near.  They reminded us of the bells we heard when we stayed in Mühlhausen, Germany.  Only the German bells kept ringing and they were so beautiful.  Well, we continued to hear the bells at random times.  This week we solved the mystery!  It was Dad’s phone’s ringtone!  He had wondered why he had missed calls when we hadn’t heard it “ring”.   Needless to say, we changed the phone’s ringtone!!

4 - 11 Aug 2013 NewMissionaries,Driving,Beach,MoveApt

Last Sunday evening we ate dinner at the Hobsons with the office elders.  The Hobsons, if you haven’t gathered already, have been our lifeline on many occasions! 

The office elders told us that 11 new missionaries were expected on Monday evening.  Since President and Sister Kretly would be out of town until late Tuesday evening, Dad and I we were asked to host the new missionaries until they returned.  Monday morning we found out our role would be a little more extensive.  We were asked to plan, buy and make Monday evening snack, 2 breakfasts, and 2 dinners for 16 missionaries. So, we made menus and we were off to Premier again, but this time following Elder Hobson, who volunteered to lead us there, as he also had to go to the store for a few things.  Our shopping took a couple of hours, which was great, because it helped us become really familiar with the store. We returned safely from the store and were surprised that Isabelle Guilamba, the Kretly’s maid, had prepared a dessert and bread. She helped me bake a chocolate cake for Tuesday dinner dessert, too.

The missionaries in this group are exceptional!  Susie, Karen, and Sharon, do you remember the Poyfairs from Vancouver?  Well, one of the missionaries was Elder Poyfair from Spokane, Washington.  His uncle is Ed Poyfair and his grandmother is Penny Poyfair, who is married and lives in Utah!  Small world!  Another Elder in this group is Elder Boone Christianson, grandson of Helen Christianson and Moreno & LaVinia Robins in our ward.  Here are a few pictures of our group of missionaries at the Mission Office on training day, at Mundos Pizza for lunch, and later enjoying the spaghetti dinner.

After much agonizing over driving, Richard talked to President Kretly. President Kretly offered that the mission could find an on-call driver to take us in our vehicle where we needed to go. He also said that instead we could have the Secretaries or the Assistants to the President give us rides as they were available. Rather than managing a driver and a vehicle, Richard preferred for us to take rides as available from the missionaries.

We walked down to the water near the Mission Office and found a little stretch of beach.  We’ll be going back soon, I hope, to find a longer beach front to walk.  Of course, I found a few shells!!

I am loving seeing the different flowers and trees they have here, including Bouganvillea Hibiscus. 

At the end of the week we got into 5th floor apartment on Avenida 24 de Julho.  We have been doing lots of shopping, moving furniture and other possessions, the missionaries moved furniture and other possessions and cleaned the apartment for us!  Friday the office elders moved our suitcases to the apartment and we were “home” to stay.  It was like being newly married, unpacking the new pans and silverware and other things the mission purchased for our apartment.  Making meals here feels like I am playing house.  After lots of organizing, but we have most everything in place, except for hooking up the washer and dryer.  Electricity has been pre-paid, for we think about 2 months, and we’ve signed up for the Internet, which is supposed to be installed Monday morning.

 

This is a country of contrasts; and it is very humbling.  Here we are in a large apartment building and as I wash dishes and look out of our large kitchen windows, I see other families.  One woman is also washing dishes outside of her tin-roofed home next to her clothes line filled with clothes.  Another woman is adjusting the blanket of a toddler who is on the ground being tended by an older child.  Three geese waddle around; children play in and out of the pathways in between the shelters. Several times a day we hear the Muslim call for prayer, on Saturday evening this week we hear loud music way into the early morning hours, and we’ve also heard bells, but we don’t know where they are coming from.  Most stores and apartments have security guards (government buildings have armed guards).  Some streets are neatly covered with pavers all in place and the street is immaculately cared for; on other streets the pavers are broken, missing, and they are littered with garbage.

President Kretly realizes it is quite the culture shock for Western young people and couples who come to Mozambique to serve missions.  He emphasized, when talking to the new missionaries:  We are not here to help the people materially; we are here to help them spiritually. It makes no difference, eternally, if you have dirt or tiled floors, what makes a difference is how you live your life.  Are you following Christ, his gospel and his example of how to treat each other? Are you applying the principles of faith and repentance? Are you preparing to live again with Heavenly Father?  He urges us not to look at the trash or poverty, but look at the people as Christ would look at them. 

Saturday & Sunday we attended Maputo District meetings.  The front of the chapel was draped with colorful capulanas.  We feel we are very blessed to have been here for a district conference, since they aren’t held very often. President Kretly spoke about not needing to be commanded in all things and not tiring of doing good.  President Cook of the South East Africa Area Presidency talked of the purpose of physical facilities:  (1) provide places of worship and feel the Spirit, and (2) present the image of reverence and dignity in the community.  He reminded us that we should bring people to feel the Spirit at the Church rather than to just visit the Church. He said the growth of the Church in South East Africa is greater than the traditional plans for buildings can keep up with.  He described a modular approach for temporary church buildings in 2014 that would allow more flexibility and put more churches in areas close to members’ homes.

Sister Kretly gave 6 points to strengthen our families: (1) make our homes like a temple; work towards making covenants in the temple; (2) refrain from arguing; it takes 2 to argue; don’t be a part of it and it will stop; (3) a child who sings can feel the gospel; (4) be generous with our hugs – sometimes we only need a hug to feel support; (5) read the Book of Mormon; live what they teach, not just know them; (6) our home can be a piece of heaven.

In the Sunday youth meeting, President Kretly said that the future of the Church is in the hands of the youth.  Youth need to prepare now to serve missions, gain education (including Seminary) to be able to support a family, marry in the temple and serve in Church callings. The only thing you keep is what is in you; you can’t take your cell phones, your video games, or headphones and music with you.  Use your time to do important things that matter eternally.  He also emphasized the importance of understanding and following the standards outlined in “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet.  You can’t live with one foot in the world and the other foot in the Church.  You reap what you plant.

In the general session, there were about 1,000 people present – the large chapel room and two over-flow rooms which had video and audio.  The District President told about the growth of the district since the last conference in February.  Almost fifty men were sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.  He also said that soon there would be 13 full-time missionaries serving from the district, the highest ever for Mozambique. The gospel is going forth like the rock cut out of the mountain (Daniel 2:44-45).  He encouraged members to share the gospel and put their arms around the new members.  We heard the confident testimonies of selected youth and newly married and newly baptized couples.

Sister Kretly spoke about raising families unto the Lord.  We don’t want any empty chairs (cadeiras vazias) in our eternal family.  President Kretly gave a strong testimony of the growth of the gospel in Mozambique.  Twenty missionaries were added to the mission this week, the largest number ever.  Moses parted the Red Sea for the children of Israel to escape from the Egyptians. Some people explain away this miracle – that it was only a huge wind that parted the waters.  Satan tries hard to deceive us; we must try harder.  The Savior will win!  We need to recognize the miracles in our lives.  The eyes of the Lord are on Mozambique and we are experiencing miracles here.  President Kretly closed his talk by showing the “It’s a Miracle” video we shared with you earlier this week via email.  This video is also linked on this blog and on President Kretly’s blog.

We felt the Spirit in the talks, testimonies and music in the meetings. The saints and the choirs, which for the conference consisted mostly of young people, sing the hymns with vigor and enthusiasm.

Here are some pictures of missionaries and members in the Maputo District.  The women in purple capulanas were one of the choirs. The little girl in the last picture was dressed in a Cinderella shirt and a red tutu.  Here name is Melody and her Mom is Angelina.

29Jul-4Aug2013 Kretlys,Shopping,HelpingHands,T3Branch

On Monday afternoon Kretlys took us to the airport to pick up our last suitcase. We also went to the American Embassy, the short first step in the immigration process; Wednesday we went to Moçambique Immigration, a longer (almost an hour and a half) process, and obtained visas good for our first year.

We had an interesting Family Home Evening with the District President, Brother Castanheira, who brought his wife and children, and Samo, one of the counselors in the Mission Presidency. After a light dinner we watched “It’s A Miracle” a video about the success of the family approach to missionary work here in Moçambique referred to by Elder Anderson’s April 2013 conference talk.  Hopefully this video will eventually be available on YouTube; we’ll let you know when it is posted.  We also watched “A Pioneer Miracle” a short video about a child’s prayer for safely being answered and we highly recommend it!

On Tuesday we attended our first staff meeting in the Mission Office with President & Sister Kretly, Assistants to the President, Office Missionaries, and we also met Elder and Sister Hobson, Humanitarian missionaries.  President Kretly is an amazing leader and the elders are exceptional.   Mission growth was reviewed:  June - 156 baptism (38 families); July 42 baptism (12 families).  In August they have projected the additional of another 40 families!  The meeting also reviewed plans for the District Conference in Beira (August 3-4) and the District Conference in Matola (August 10-11).

Elder and Sister Hobson, who have already been here almost 3 months, have been wonderful to help orient us to Maputo and how to get around. We’ve gone to lunch with them a couple of times and we enjoyed, along with four elders, a delicious Sunday dinner after Fast & Testimony meeting.

This week we have been able to use Sister Kretly’s car, as President and Sister Kretly have been out of town most of the week.   This has been a great challenge because driving is done on the left-hand side of the street!  Also, the streets are narrow and most streets have no lines delineating lanes.  Vehicles weave in and out of traffic in a seemingly random fashion and horns are honked to warn people and cars to move out of the way.  People are always present on the roads and they jay-walk everywhere – few intersections have crosswalks and there are no pedestrian light signals.  The Matola chapel is about 7 miles away; the mission office is about 5 miles away. Both places will require driving, which in this crazy driving world will be problematic for us.  Public transportation exists in the form of "chapas," vans that cram people in, and open-bed trucks, which are off limits for missionaries.

The Hobsons live on the 2^nd floor of a 5 story apartment building as do the four sister missionaries.  We will be living on the 5^th floor (the far tallest building on the left in the picture below - 3991 on Avenida 24 de Julho); the latest is that we’ll be moving in on Tuesday, August 6. 

One day this week we went shopping with Sister Kretly to purchase some things for our apartment. There are two main stores that carry groceries and other items that we might need: Premier and Shoprite. They carry some American brands but most of the products are supplied from South Africa, Europe, or Brazil. You can get most of what you want, but the brands are different. Food is quite expensive. For example, milk is about $2 per liter that's $8 per gallon. Ice cream is about $10 a quart. Guess Dad will be eating less ice cream here!

New things we’ve seen this week:  children selling dogs by the side of the road; sparrows (yes, they look the same as the sparrows in Utah!); first “Laughing Doves” (remember the common doves in Utah are called “Mourning Doves” – guess birds are just happier here :); Pied Crows – Dad calls them crows in white  t-shirts as their chest is white; selling beautiful fabric called "capulanas" which the women wrap around for long skirts; actually there are people selling everything from oranges to dog collars!  It's like a walking convenience store!

Our most diverse day so far was Saturday, August 3.   Hold on, here we go! We helped with a service project in Maputo, cleaning up garbage on the streets.  If we had known beforehand what the service project was, we would have dressed more appropriately :).  We had dressed for the baptism which was happening after the service project.  Over 80 branch members, including missionaries, came to help with the project. There was at least one man who saw us working and helped us, too!  This country has a real problem keeping up with garbage and litter; we picked up candy wrappers, cigarette butts, bottle caps, broken glass, bottles, metal lids, plastic bags, paper, cardboard, etc.  The next time you unwrap a piece of candy, remember if you have ability to remove the wrapper from the candy, you have the ability to put the wrapper in the garbage, not the ground!

On the way "home" we got stopped by the police (very official green uniformed police armed with rifles with bullet magazines) who detained us for a while (we had made a left turn from the wrong lane).  After calling his "boss" the police gave back Dad's international driver's license and sent us on our way.  After getting Dad's credit card back at the Kretlys, because we thought we needed more than 500 Meticais for groceries, we headed out and missed the street where the Premier grocery store was.   We got lost! We were on streets which were off of our map and we were "driving blind" dodging cars and people.  Word to the wise – don’t go driving on Saturday!!  We finally got back to the city and thankfully Dad saw our soon-to-be apartment building on the right and we knew we were on “Avenida de 24 Julho” and we got our bearings to get to Premier.  We purchased only a few things – spent 313 Meticais.  So, we didn’t really need the card, but we used it :).  Almost got lost again going "home."  We were very thankful to be safe here at the President's house.  Just think, all of this adventure happened before 3:05 p.m. (or 15:05 as they refer to it).

The weather here is very moderate.  One morning the clouds rolled in and it rained a lot, but by 10:30 a.m. it had cleared up.  During the service project it also rained for a while; by the time we were walking back to our car it had cleared and was getting hot.  We've seen lots of palm trees and other tropical plants.  This red flowering plant grows outside (in Utah this plant is only an indoor plant).

           

For our 2^nd Sunday here, we attended Church at the T-3 branch with the Hobsons. On the way there we passed many women dressed in white coats and white hats.  We didn’t know what Church they were going to, but it showed that this people are devoted church-goers.  There was an accident on the main road to T-3 which backed up the traffic.  We noticed the huge well-kept gardens at the sides of the road.

When we arrived at the church building, Sister Hobson whisked me off to help in Primary while Dad went to Sunday School and Priesthood Meeting.  There were no Primary leaders, so Sister Hobson and I began singing with the children and I got to play the keyboard!  Elders Oyarzun (soon to be going home to Chile) and Bender (from Las Vegas) came in and helped teach the children the words to “Families Can Be Together Forever” and “Book of Mormon stories.”  It was fun to help!  Then, one of the counselors came and taught the group of children (about 15) a lesson on forgiveness.

There were 7 confirmations in Sacrament Meeting – children from member families.  This shows that the families who are in the Church are teaching their children the importance of covenants.  Testimonies were steady and the meeting went late – I wished I could have understood what they were saying!  After Church we talked to 4 of the elders:  Elder Hall (from Richmond, Utah); Elder Bender (from Las Vegas); Elder Oyarzun (from Chile); and Elder Proksch (from Las Vegas).

 

Joseph, pictured below with his Dad (Paulo), was one of the children confirmed today.  The rest of the Solomão Family are Mother (Alzira) and daughters Liahona and Arco-Iris (rainbow).

We miss our family!  There is an 8-9 hour difference between us; when we wake up our children’s families often have already gone to bed; when we are sleeping it is afternoon for our children’s families.  Although it is pretty tricky to arrange, we are really enjoying Skyping with our family!