October 28, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Well unfortunately, because of a funeral and some other circumstances that we hadn't foreseen, we wont have a wedding this week. But we are opening up the marriage process this wednesday which means they will be married next week! But transfers are next week also so we'll see if I'm even still in Manga! Exciting! First off, I wanna thank everyone for the letters every week. I really appreciate the time I have to read everyones emails and see what is going on at home. It really is a huge blessing and if I don't respond its cause I ran out of time, but I still read them all and they are honestly so good for me! Now on to happenings of last week. So last monday we had another super fun family night where we played uno. Mozambicans and uno... They love it haha. They weren't too happy that I won!!! Haha :) And we also make banana bread or other things like that for treats and they think its the greatest thing ever haha. Tuesday, was really good, we started teaching some part member families in hopes to bring families together in the church so we started teaching sisters of two different families and their friends. Also, on tuesday we had this super powerful lesson with a family where we took Domingos (our recent baptism) to help us teach. We talked about how its time for them to act and be baptized. They need to put aside the african marriage traditions and follow the Lord (if none of you have watched the video e um milagre on youtube you should. Its about the marriages here but how the church has overcome it.) Anyway they completely accepted and so we are working hard so they will be ready for baptism the first week of december!! Wednesday unfortunately was a little bit harder day and not much happened. Thursday, the inevitable happened. I had avoided being sick my whole time here in africa so far but it finally got me last thursday so we spent thursday in the house and I slept and rested up. Friday we were back out and had a good day. We taught a new family who understood really well and was really pretty relaxed and accepted everything really well. It was a blessing! But saturday we had one of the coolest first lessons I've ever had. This guy was just so ready and prepared. The Lord prepares people in various ways and this guy was prepared to hear the gospel. He completely accepted baptism in the first five minutes of the lesson, we have a date set for him and he came to church the next day. What a blessing!!! Blessings are all around us if we will just look. Ok now for the funny stories of the week. So there was a family who was married and baptized last transfer during the collective marriage, and they wanted their kids to have nice shoes for the wedding and church so they went out and bought what they thought were these super nice shoes. Well they were really tap dance shoes haha. And unfortunately, nothing here has carpet and so our chapel is tile floor so you can imagine what it sounds like when he walks in. We just die laughing every week joking about how he just wants his true talent as a tap dancer to be discovered haha. People here are always trying to speak english to us even if it doesn't make any sense and they think they are just the funniest people in the world. We walked by a guy who was holding a bottle of alcohol and he yelled, "You want to try??" and we just said "Boa tarde" and he just started laughing crazily and said back in english, "Thank you verrrrrrryyyyy much!!!" Needless to say, he needed to rest a little before he was gonna be with it. The other funny story didn't happen to me but to other elders in our district. They said they have this guy in their area who everytime he sees them just comes running up and says the same thing everytime and then walks away. He walks up and says, "Peace half moon, peace half moon. No rans!" then smiles and walks away hahaha. They said they want to teach him the word cookies next time haha. Well I just want you all to know that I have a testimony of this church and how true it is. I have so much respect for the prophet joseph smith and everything he did for this gospel, he was an amazing man. I hope you all have a great week and don't be afraid to be missionaries! Love, Elder Lynn The pictures are, one of me and one of my investigators little boys. Don't let the smile fool ya, he's crazy hahaha. Then me holding one of our huge banana trees that we cut down from our back yard, and the other is me on top of the grand hotel. You should all go look up the grand hotel. It was once the shining hotel of africa and now its nothing close. Definitely should look up old and new pics of it. Love ya!

 

 

 

 

 

I'll send you some pics you can put on the site of me washing dishes like a mozambican. Our water and energy were out so we couldn't wash dishes or take showers so we washed them in big tubs outside. Bucket showers are pretty nice here actually. When we don't have energy or water and I don't shower for a couple days I will just finally take a bucket shower and they are actually kinda nice!

October 21, 2013

Hello friends and family!

Well week four of the transfer is done! I'm in an internet cafe where I cant send pictures so no pics this week but hopefully next week! So last monday. Oh man. We had a family night at a members house and brought investigators and it was one of the funnest nights I have ever had here! Hahahah. We taught them how to play uno and they were just going crazy! When they get excited they will speak in dialect so we dont know what they are saying haha. But there was a returned missionary there who spoke a little english so he would turn and just say hilarious things to us in english. Mozambicans are honestly so funny especially when it comes to games! So that was so fun. Then on wednesday I had a division with the newest elder in the district so that was really fun. I was in a close area for once and it was weird not having to walk 45 minutes to get to my area. I can't believe I ever drove before! hahah. I think another one of the coolest things happened thursday. We walked with a member who is 20 years old, he was baptized last month and he walked with us to teach lessons for like 4 hours. So him and I just talked the whole time and it was so amazing to think, we are from two different countries, before four months ago I couldn't speak his language and yet here we were talking like friends. The world is a lot smaller than everyone thinks! And then my cool thought from friday was, as I was ironing my shirt I was singing "God be with you till we meet again" in portugues and here the people sing hymns with their own notes sometimes and kinda "africanize" the hymns and so I am now doing it too haha. But I was singing it like them and just thinking, wow, I actually feel like I belong here now and I really do love these people. I think it was really one of the first times that i felt i belonged and that i wanted to be here more than I wanted to be home. It was a wonderful feeling to feel like i really belonged. Then, saturday and sunday was general conference! In portugues! That was most definitely the hardest I've ever had to try and listen before but it was so worth it! I'll be honest though, I am only 18 still so it was kinda hard to pay so close attention for so long so i kinda lost out on the last couple talks but everything I heard was amazing! Ok I'm sorry today everything is so short, we are kinda rushed today and unfortunately thats how it is sometimes. But next week will be better! I love you all and I love this gospel!

Love,

Elder Lynn

October 14, 2013

Hello Family and Friends!
 

Well first off, I wanna say I'm sorry cause this week there won't be any cool pictures. I didn't take any more cool pics this week haha. Secondly, guess what!? I get to watch general conference this week! Saturday at 14h we get to watch the saturday session and then sunday at 8 we get to see the sunday session. I can't really express how giddy I am right now haha. Ok anyways on to the happenings of the week! So I forgot to tell you something pretty cool/funny. So Luiza the lady who I baptized. She goes by luiza but when I baptized her and had to say her full name we found out her real name in total is Njeruza Chanigua Chinai Sande hahah. So when I baptized her I had quite the mouthful to say! Last week was a pretty hard week I guess. We had lots of good things happen though too. So we made it a focus to try and find people who could be leaders of the church, and we really feel like last week we were blessed to find 3 families where they really could be. We had some amazing lessons with all of them and it was a good week in that sense! But then none of them showed up to church. That was really sad. It was tough to not have many investigators at church. But I still have hope for them. I sent this part in a letter to mom but I'll share it with everyone. We have this little family who I started teaching about the third week or second week of last transfer. At first we weren't so sure about them, but now they are just the biggest blessing in my life. Their names are Felizardo and Dorca. They are like my little parents here. We walk by their house quite often and so Dorca is always checking up on us making sure we aren't sick and just seeing if we're having a good day :) And Felizardo is just this cool, slick dressed man haha. But they both have such strong testimonies of Joseph Smith and prayer. It is just one of my favorite things to get to go to their house! Now for some funny stories of the week! We have a family that we visit and they have a neighbor boy who is like 3 years old. And here the kids just all run out and just spout out whatever english they know. Its normally like "good morning teacher" or "i'm fine tanks and you?" or good afternono." But this little kid runs out everyday just telling "Good morning tooter!!" He is trying to say teacher but its just the funniest thing ever haha. Also, I don't know if I have told you, but here no one has addresses cause there aren't roads just little paths with houses scattered everywhere. So you have to have a phone pretty much for us to contact them and find their house. Well we street contacted a guy and he didn't have a phone but he says, "Don't worry, I can give good directions to my house." They never can but we listened anyways. So he says, " first, go to the market of pequeno brasil. Then head on the path towards the church. " Keep in mind there are about 3 churches right next to that market. "You are going to head to the road by escola 25 but you wont get there. You will see a house that was being constructed but isn't anymore and doesn't have paint." Also keep in mind, no houses have paint here and every house was being constructed at one time haha. "Then turn right at that house. Go in two houses on the left and ask them if they know Hage. My name is Hage. They will know me. If not, they will know my son, he is very preffered in our village." Well, the next day we went, and actually managed to find the place he was talking about and went in, and asked if anyone knew hage. Little to our suprise, no one knew hage haha. So we never taught him! Haha but mozambicans. They think their directions are so specific lol. Well family and friends, I don't have much more time but just wanted to let you know, this life is a journey not a race. Take it day by day and enjoy the little things. "Adam fell that men might be. Men are that they might have joy." I never understood this scripture until now. We are on this earth so we can have joy. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much he has given us this precious time to love, grow the gospel, and have joy. We need to work everyday to enjoy the journey and have joy. I love you all so much and want you all to know that I know this church is true! I love you and hope you have a grand week!

Love,

Elder Lynn

October 7, 2013

Hello Family and friends!
 

Well the theme of last week was RAIN! The rain came a bit early this year and really had the mozambicans confused haha. It started last monday and would rain for about half of the day each day of the week. It would drizzle at some points and then it would just open the skies of heaven and rain was pouring! I have never seen rain come down so hard before. This also made us very wet. Haha because despite this, we still have to be missionaries and go out and preach the gospel. So we put on our irrigation boots so we could get through the flooded areas and we just wrapped our scriptures up in plastic bags and went out. The only problem is that, Mozambicans hate rain. So the minute it rains the streets clear and everyone is gone and no one wants to meet with us haha. But we still thankfully had quite a few lessons anyways. Its pretty hilarious to see them running as fast as they can to get out of the rain and we are just out getting absolutely soaked haha. We also had an amazing lightning storm one night. It was crazy! Besides the weather though, last week was a fairly rough week with investigators. We had to drop four families for cause of the fact that they weren't progressing and then we had one family who was ready to be baptized and they moved. So we lost five families last week that was really hard. So we are kinda starting new again. But we had an amazing zone conference last week where we kinda learned more of what we are focussing on. So, right now the church is still very young here and so while no one is excluded from the church, right now we are trying to find those who can be leaders. Because the church is like a house, every single part of the house is important, but you cant put the roof up before you have the foundation. So right now we are building the foundation. And here, it is very common for people not to be able to read, and if they can they almost never understand when they read. So we have to teach so extremely simple so they can understand. But there are people who understand! These are those who will be the leaders. We need them right now so that the church can have a strong foundation to build upon. So my companion and I have started a new process of looking for those who understand well, progress well, and can be the leaders of the church! Luckily, those families who are left, are going to be leaders. We have Elias. He is the smartest person I have met here. I may have already mentioned it but he has already read the whole book of mormon and is now starting in on d&c while continuing the B.O.M. They other night he told us that he didn't read much since our last visit and we asked what he did read, he then went on to give us a description of mosiah chapter 16 and how he learned that because of the atonement of christ the law of moses was fulfilled and then started cross referencing to D&C to back up his scrips and then he also read and knows the background of both priesthoods and why they are what they are and how they function. And he said he didn't read much. He is honestly going to be such a strong leader. We also have about two other really strong families right now who we are very happy with. So this week we will be starting fresh and beginning again to try and build our area while looking for those who will be leaders of the church. I wanna send more pics so I'll end this early and send descriptions of the pics! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Lynn

I think he forgot to send his descriptions, except for

the last two photosStill fun to see the pictures!

 



Elder greenman and I wearing our irrigation boots together haha

We started making some super good food, Elder Galland and I did and so one is a meal that we made. We made homemade tortillas, then some rice, beans and then shredded chicken and I made our homemade bbq sauce to put on it. We have been making awesome food and I'm glad I know how to cook haha!