Decemmber 29, 2014

Well... Surprise! We actually don't know transfers yet! Beira hasn't had zone conference and so they won't be announcing transfers until friday I believe.. So ya. I'm not exactly sure yet what will be happening! But man this was a crazy crazy last week! So on Tuesday, Elder Stubbs and I went to the city to do some interviews, and we had combined with the other missionaries to meet up at the maputo chapel at 18h30. But that time came and went and they weren't there... in the end they finally got there pretty late and we went and did the interviews and anyways, that night we got home pretty late from the interviews, took a quick shower and got into bed. Then Wednesday, we went and talked to you guys and also ended up getting home late that night and so we had a couple days of less sleep. Then Thursday was Christmas! We got up and did a gift exchange. I had drawn Elder Thomas's name so I bought him some mozambican soccer shorts that he had wanted. So one of the pics is of Elder Thomas and his shorts. Then we did our weekly planning, made like 80 cookies, went to lunch, and then at about 1:00 pm, we went out to the areas and went around and visited the members and investigators in all the areas until night time! So we walked for about 8 hours straight haha. And Christmas once again proved to be the hottest day of the year! It was up above 100 degrees!! It was so so so incredibly hot haha. Friday, we had some more interviews to do so I was with Elder Stubbs again. Then saturday we had the wedding and baptism! It was all very very simple but it went really really well! And then there was last night... We were in a lesson trying to teach the restoration to a family when it started to rain. And here roofs are just a metal sheet, so when it rains hard it gets loud! And it was raining super super hard so we were practically yelling. Well we finish up the lesson and then water starts flooding the house, so we were like well we better get out before the roads get to flooded. So we opened up the door to leave and, too late. It was already bad. The water just came pouring in and the water outside was already knee high. So, we didn't have boots or anything but we had no choice so we just went for it and took off through the water. It was about a 20 minute walk home in the water and when we got home our pants and shoes were destroyed haha. So we took them off to let them dry, and then we tried to make sure our house didn't get too wet. It was pretty crazy how fast everything flooded. And then it rained all night long and even right now its still raining. It hasn't really stopped since last night. It started at about 7:00 pm and is still going now! This morning I pulled out my umbrella and it was raining and blowing so hard that it just broke my umbrella in half pretty much haha. So time for a new one now! Other than that, life continues on here normally! I will be glad when the new year passes, transfers are over, and life can get back to normal. I've had enough crazy for a few weeks! I love you all so much! I hope you have a happy new year!

Love,

Elder Lynn



December 22, 2014

Well if I could title this email... I think I would title it "Hot Sun and Cold Showers" haha. It is getting hot hot hot here. And whether I am taking cold showers because we don't have energy and we can only take bucket showers or because its my choice, I think I only took cold showers because its just too hot! I was looking and apparently its supposed to be getting up into the 100's this week and with the humidity added to that... its gonna be a hot one! 

But yes I did get my package and thanks so much for all of that!! Zone conference went super well. We got there and started at around 9:30 and then it went until 5:00pm. It was really nice to be able to see Elder Galland again. I hadn't seen him in about 3 months so that was nice. But the training was excellent as always. I really enjoyed it. Then afterwards, we all went to the mission office for a little Christmas party, we ate, watched a slideshow of pictures, did some skits and just talked and had a good time! It was our early Christmas haha. But it was a really really nice day. It was a little hard to work the next day after that though haha. 

Yes transfers have already came up again. This will be the last week of the transfer. We will be having our baptism on Saturday morning. We are really excited. This week will be a little crazy. Tomorrow, I have to go to the city to do some interviews for the elders there, and then wednesday, we will be talking on skype. Then thursday is christmas and i think we are gonna try and make some cookies and stuff for our families and then take cookies with a message about christmas to them and it should be a great day. Thhen saturday will be the baptism and the transfer will be over! Time isn't stopping!

Well just to end this email here is a funny story. Right now, the people in the internet place, are going on about the CIA haha. The people here are obsessed with the CIA. They think that we are CIA. They think that any white person who walks around with a white shirt and tie is CIA. And they think that the CIA is out to get mozambicans hahahahaha. Its so incredibly funny. well I love you all and i'll see you on wednesday!

Love,

Elder Lynn

Elder Stubbs, Elder Lynn, Elder Galland

December 15, 2014

Good morning family!

Well it is really starting to heat up now! I am fighting the sweat right now as I type this e-mail haha. It's insane that in one part of the world it can be so cold, and in the same time in another part of the world, be so so hot. 37 years already??  (This week Mark and I will celebrate 37 years of marriage!) You guys are getting old! That is insane... Time goes by so dang fast. Yesterday, we had a Christmas devotional and its not that far away to Matola, but it takes about 2 hours to get there. So we have lots of time to talk and what not. And yesterday Elder Stubbs and I were talking about how weird it is that for him in less than two months, he will be a returned missionary but how we don't feel like we are old enough for that to be possible. And we really really don't feel old enough that we'll have to start thinking about dating to find a wife haha. That is just weird. Time really does go by fast. 

In regards to Christmas, I haven't gotten my package yet, most likely I'll get it tomorrow at zone conference. And with skype we'll be skyping on the 24th, so next wednesday. My alotted time will be from 7:00pm-7:40pm. I'm not sure what time that will be back home right now. I think that is about 10:00 am but you'll want to make sure. 

Once again, it doesn't really feel like Christmas time. Its really hot and there are no real signs, like they don't put up lights or anything so its just normal time. But honestly I like it better like that. If it was cold and all decorated, it would be hard to stay focussed all day so I think for missionaries, this is a lot better. Umm so we had two families preparing for next week, but when we went to open the marriage processes, only one family was able to open the process. The other family got there, and we found out that the wife lost one of her documents, so it looks like they will have to wait a little bit more until we can get that document back unfortunately. But we are still extremely happy that we will have one family next week! 

Well I hope you all have a great week! I Love you all so much and we'll talk more next week!

Love, 

Elder Lynn

December 8, 2014

Bom dia Familia! 

Well I think this week I can truly say that I feel like Ammon in chapter 26 of Alma. This week we were so incredibly blessed that I just want to truly rejoice and praise the Lord for His goodness. He really has opened ways for His work to keep on going. Something extremely interesting that I learned last week, comes from a talk by David A. Bednar that he gave in the most recent mission president training meeting. In it, he makes it very clear that this is the Lord's work and that He will hasten it. Now we play a very important role in helping, but we do not decide when or how. If we want the work to be hastened we must do it when and how the Lord wants. It makes perfect sense. He knows His children much better than we do. So we must trust in Him and do it His way. He also makes it very clear in the Book of Mormon that He can do this work on His own. The reason that He allows us to participate is because He knows how much we will grow from it and that it is for our benefit. With this being said, can we deny this great blessing that He is giving to us? No! We need to magnify our callings as members of the church and spread the gospel. Another thing that we have talked about a lot recently just at home with the other missionaries is qualifying for the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. And then this morning after reading the talk by Quentin L. Cook, Elder Ence and I were talking a bit about it also. And I was reminded of the tak by Dallin H. Oaks, Good, Better, Best. We can look at it this way, good choices, will lead us to a good place. The terrestrial kingdom is a good place. Better choices will get us to a better place, the lower two degrees of the celestial kingdom are better places. But to get the best place (the highest degree of the celestial kingdom) we must make the best choices. This includes magnifying our callings. Often times we as members become to lackadaisical in our callings in the church. But President Kretly taught us a very important principle this last week, he said, "Responsibility is not a burden, it is a privilege." What a powerful statement! I really thought that was awesome. I just pray that I can magnify my callings in the church so that I can one day enter into the highest degree of glory, exaltation. 

Well on with the blessings of this week. We were so incredibly blessed this week to find new investigators. But not because of our own work, because of the members. This week they stepped it up a lot, and gave us so many awesome references. We didn't have to spend time looking, we were able to teach! It was really awesome. On top of that, our two families Bernardo and Mercia, and Joao and Julia, were able to finish all of their papers and tomorrow and wednesday, we will be going to the register to open up the marriage processes so that they can be married and baptized on the 24th. Unfortunately, the husband of that one family is still having quite a few problems, and we aren't quite sure why. We just keep praying that the Lord will work with him. 

So here's a funny story that Grandpa Don would love. The other day, one of the elders decided that we should describe all of the elders in our house using one verb.... Guess what verb I received? Telling stories. hahhaha. I was dubbed as the one who always has stories. I think I must have subconsciously received that from Grandpa Don. Speaking of these stories, this week there were plenty of them! I am running out of time so I will only tell one. So last night this drunk guy stopped us and started babbling about who knows what and in the end he was trying to convince us that alcohol doesn't hurt anything and that he is perfectly fine when he drinks. So at the very end I said, "Look, I believe you are a smart man, but right now because you are drunk, you are talking a million miles an hour and it just is coming out alkjfdlkfjaskldfjsdfjdkasfklasdjfkldsjfl." At this point he just busts up laughing... like hysterically laughing and then just manages to say.... You...you...you...gotta point haha and then just walked away laughing. In the beginning I wasn't even trying to be funny but he just couldn't stop laughing haha. Good times in Malhazine! 

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Lynn 

December 1, 2014

December? DECEMBER?? Is that even really possible? Was it not December just a minute ago? The time is flying by now. I feel like there really is no stopping it now. I am glad to hear all is going well at home. It looks like you all have about 6 months to practice up on ping pong before I come home to take you all down. I also can see that the christmas decorations are starting to go up. Well they are also starting to go up in our house haha. We bought a bunch of paper and made like over a hundred snowflakes and then hung them up in our house. i will try and send more pics next week. We also put up a small christmas tree, a nativity scene, an elder got a gingerbread house, and we hung up some lights. So its not completely like home, but its a little piece of Christmas here :) We also attempted to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday. At lunch time, instead of us all eating separately, we made rice, beans, corn, meat, and some random foods together and we all ate together. It was nice to sit all together at the table and eat a little bit like a family. One thing that has been very nice about Maputo is that every single day isn't blistering hot like Manga. We get days that are hot still, like the other day it was up over 100 degrees, but there are also lots of days in the high 70's or low 80's which is a blessing! I definitely am loving that little bit of a temperature change. It hasn't rained super hard yet either. It doesn't flood too bad here so its not as big of a problem like it was in Manga. In Manga, it just always instantly flooded when it rained haha. Last P day we ended up just chillin at home. We have a few games at home so on Pdays we like to play "Risk" a lot. I now have the most wins in the house. I won last week, so next time we play i'm sure i will have the target on my back haha. This week, Elder Ence was sick for a couple of days so i had some time to listen to some different talks, make some cinnamon rolls, and call all my families that I know up in Beira. It was nice to talk to all of them. I love the Inhamizua branch president so much. I called him and when he answered he couldn't figure out who I was cause i was sick and so my voice was a little raspy, but once i said it was me he just started yelling "oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ELDER LYNN meu grande amigo!!" hahahaha. I miss him a lot. I told him that even if I never get transferred back up there, that I will be coming with my family, and he got so excited. He is very excited to meet mom and dad. He really is an amazing man. But that was nice to have time to call all my recent converts and see how they're doing. So this week was a little weird with having those couple sick days, then elder stubbs and I had a meeting on saturday, so we did a division that day. We were close to the distribution center so I used a little bit of personal money and splurged a bit... I was just so ready to hear some new music cause I have had the same music my whole mission.... so i bought a motab cd... it has been wonderful to listen to them. when i say splurge, i mean it cost 10 dollars haha. so not that much but more than i normally spend. I can't believe that Tyson Thompson is already gonna be done with his mission.. that is insane. I just am amazed by that.. Well this week should be another good week. We have a couple more big meetings, we should be opening a marriage process to have a family married and baptized on the 20th and 25th of this month.. SO the miracles and blessings keep coming. I love you all so much!!!

Love,

Elder Lynn

 

 

November 24, 2014

Hello family!

Well, because of the time I used to finish up my college application, I will have to be a little short today. But the week in a brief summary was good. We walked and we walked and we walked some more this week... that part was a little bit rough, but it ended up paying off. We found a couple new families finally and we are so so grateful for that. Last p day, we just went back home and relaxed for p day, cleaned up the house nice for the new elder. The new elder's name is elder Mapenda. He is from beira. SO now we have two mozambicans in our house. But elder mapenda will be leaving soon for his real mission in three weeks. He is going to south africa. So he wont be here long. but something cool is now there will be two missionaries from mozambique going to america! First is a Sister who should already be in her mission... or close to finishing up the MTC and she is going to Marshall's mission!! The other one is an Elder who is going to go to Florida. Its super amazing!! Then  saturday and sunday we had district conference.. same thing as stake conference. Both sessions were packed full and we had no room for us to even be in the building so i didn't really get to watch or hear any of it but I am sure it was super good!! No worries, there were no crazy gun stories this week! We survived with out any scratches! But just for all of your enjoyment, I attached a picture of a rat we found in a bucket of water last night at our house. ENJOY!

Love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Lynn



November 17, 2014

Good morning family and friends,

Well it was inevitable... I knew that it would eventually happen and it did yesterday. I just want you to all know that I am just fine!!! Nothing happened in the end. But this is the story. So yesterday, Elder Ence and I were walking through this little alley, when a man who had been drinking walked out of a bar, saw us and pulled out two guns on us! One pointed at Elder Ence, one pointed at me. He didn't say anything though, just sat there. So we proceeded onward. We kept walking towards him until he turned and started walking with us, guns still out. He looked elder Ence up and down, but he was somewhat a small man and so Elder Ence began to giggle. That's when he pointed the gun at Elder Ence's foot and yelled in english, "You should run if you get the CHANCE!!" But I thought to myself, "Run to where?" So we just kept walking. Then we turned down onto a main road where there were some cars and he ended up Chuck Norris roundhouse kicking one of the cars that went by and then started to act like our security guard. Then Elder Ence just turned and said thanks to him and the guy said thanks back and then walked away as if nothing had happened.... It was INSANE!!! What a way to end the transfer!

So anyways on with the rest of the week. Well the big news of today is that I am staying again! With elder ence. We are both staying for a third transfer together. This is the first companion that I have had for 3 transfers. Hopefully he doesn't die being with me for that long haha. And this is my 5th transfer here... so I will have about 7 months here by the end of this transfer! I guess the Lord wants me to learn a thing or two here. Ummm but other than that, the week was good. It got really really blazing hot and it also rained and has been a little chilly in the same week. It was crazy, on saturday it was super hot and all of a sudden like thousands of these little flying cockroaches just came out of the ground everywhere! But there was this huge toad in our yard who just sat there eating them for like 2 hours, and then when he was done, he hopped off, dug a hole in the dirt and burried himself hahahaha. But he ate so many!!!! Like he had a pretty good average of about 13 cockroaches per minute and he was there for almost two hours.. I thought he was gonna explode. But the baptism went well... It didn't go exactly how we had planned it but it went well. Unfortunately, the husband had a little relapse with his drinking the day before the baptism and so he wasn't able to be baptized yet but the wife was baptized. So the picture is of her and then elder stubbs had a family where the wife was already a member but the husband was baptized. And so we will just continue working with the husband! I know it will all work out in the end. Other than that, life continues on! I love you all so much and hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Lynn

P.S. the toads name is Kendrick

P.S.S. They weren't real guns that we had pointed at us.. it was some crazy drunk guy pointing his hands at us like they were guns.... hahahahahahahahahaha :) Love you! 

 

 

November 10, 2014

Dear Family,

Well, its week 6, the last week of the transfer. We'll see what transfers bring us. I've been here for almost 6 months now... I am not sure how that time went by so fast. I was thinking back on my time here in Magoanine the other day... When I got here I hadn't quite hit a year on the mission... and now almost 6 months later I am quickly approaching 1 year and a half. Time is flying by. I have made countless eternal friends here in Magoanine and it has (just as the other areas) made a mark on me that will help me forever. I am not sure where this next transfer will take me, but I know that the Lord has a plan for me. This past week, was good and bad. The bad, we are having a really hard time finding new families. We have been searching and trying so incredibly hard and yet it just isn't coming. So that was frustrating. But on the bright side, our families that we already have, made a lot of progress. Pinto and Lizete are prepared for baptism and will be baptized on Saturday. Joao and Julia were able to get one document for his wife and are one step closer to marriage and baptism. Bernardo and Mercia took a giant step and she took a 10 hour trip to where they were born to be able to get their birth certificates. It was a big sacrifice but it went well. So all the families are progressing. There is always happy times and sad times. But in the end its just the happy times that we remember. On Saturday, elder ence and I did Holes 2. We went and dug another trash hole... this one was even bigger. I could hardly get out haha. And I was so tired. I am getting up at a little before 6 to work out from 6 to 7 each morning and so that day I worked out from 6 to 7 and then went and dug that hole... I was so tired after hahaha. Another funny moment from the week happened on a division. So its not like we forget english or anything but here and there we say portuguese words mixed in with english but when it comes to anything gospel, thats where I have trouble with english and we contacted a guy from like zimbabway or something that spoke english. So i proceeded to try and contact in english and the following sentence came out, "The families are blessing by this message that we have..." after leaving the contact We couldn't stop laughing at the awkwardness of what I had said haha. It was a good one. But I hope you all have a great week! I love you all so much! Today we are going to the beach to play a little!

Love,
Elder Lynn

 

November 3, 2014

WOW! What a week! Again! haha. But what a week in a good way :) It was a busy week in terms of the wedding preparations, ya super busy. Normally when it comes down to the wedding week, most missionaries kinda just focus on the wedding and forget that we still have other things to do, and so we wanted to change that this week. We wanted to show that we really can do other things still. It took a lot of work and sacrifice, but we got it done! So, for every wedding, the couple needs witnesses. Here, though, the witnesses are like God parents and even though we try and explain that its just for a simple wedding, people still take it seriously. Well tuesday, the witnesses we had had planned, called and said it wouldn't work any more, so we spent all week trying to find new ones. Wednesday, we found new ones who said it would work, but then they called Friday, less than 24 hours before the wedding saying it would work anymore!!!!! So then it was a true scramble. Thank goodness there are good people in this world though and Irmao Mouzinho and his wife Irma Carina accepted to help us out, she called and got someone to work for her and then they were there on saturday to help us out. They went to the temple one week ago and were sealed together after almost exactly one year of membership in the church and they are truly faithful members who understand the importance of the gospel. They helped so much. Well, meanwhile, while all that was happening, we were trying to finish up the preparations for the couple. I learned (or taught myself) how to iron a wedding dress... hahaha. I sucessfully ironed it without burning it luckily! But then Friday came and the wife was trying to get her hair done but she had gone too late and no one would do it for her. And then what do you know, Virginia, a member came to the rescue! She came running to help and found her sister in law how knows how to do it and they ended up staying up till almost 2 in the morning doing her hair. In that same day of craziness though, I was on a division with elder thomas and we found 2 new awesome families. One family has the same story as Joseph Smith... they have been to many churches but just haven't been able to find the right one. They are an extremely intelligent family with two little boys and they loved our message. It was such a powerful lesson and then they came to church with us on sunday. We are so excited for them! Well back to the wedding. Because we had gotten the witnesses so late, we didn't know who was gonna be able to help the wife get dressed the next day because normally the witness for the wife helps.... So we were kinda freaking. And Virginia who had said she would love to help said she couldn't because she had a really important family meeting the next day. Well I just had been praying that a miracle would happen and it would all work out well. The next morning we woke up early and Virginia calls us. She told us that she had a dream that we had gone to pick her up to help with the wedding and so she took that as a sign from God that she needed to skip her family meeting and help us. And so she did.. She helped us so incredibly much. I couldn't really express my gratefulness for her sacrifice and all that she did to help us. Especially when her family was not happy with her absence. But she did it with a happy face and when I was thanking her, all she said was, " Elders, I know that one day I will need help too. Its our duty as members to serve and so this is nothing at all. Don't worry about it." What a powerful statement. It is truly our duty as members to serve! We all can learn from humble irma virginia and when the Lord calls, we can't hesitate. We must act in that moment to serve our brothers and sisters. I hope we can all learn and grow from this great example. Well Saturday, we ended up starting our day at 7:00 am to get everything ready but in the end, the wedding went well and it was a beautiful ceremony. There was a bunch of old ladies at the wedding that didn't speak portuguese so the whole ceremony was done in dialect so i didn't understand much but they did and that's what is important. It was truly a wonderful wonderful week and the Lord blessed us immensely. I love you all and hope you have a great great week!!! (If you can't tell I am pretty happy with how well this last week went :)

Love,

Elder Lynn

October 27, 2014

Wow... What a week! This was one of the more interesting weeks on my mission! So, last tuesday, we were supposed to have a meeting with Elder Clayton from the presidency of the seventy, Elder Ellis from the seventy, and President Kretly. Well they had a meeting in Beira on Monday and then all of sudden their planes got cancelled and lots of stuff happened. Well what ended up happening? Tuesday, or meetings got delayed and only Elder Ellis was able to make it. He came because he knows how to speak portuguese. But the meeting in the end went super well and even though it was quick, it was super awesome! I really loved the meeting! It was awesome! Then we went back and worked what we could that night. Wednesday, we woke up, got going a little bit, and then Elder Ence got sick, so he went to bed and slept. Well, I had a lot of time on my hands, so I decided to clean the whole house first. So I did a deep clean on the whole house, everyone's rooms... everything. Haha it took about 4 hours or so. Then I decided to make some banana bread, so I listened to some talks while I made banana bread for everyone. Then I just relaxed and listened to talks until everyone got home. It was so weird trying to find stuff to do.. I'm not used to not working every day! Haha. Then thursday was normal, friday I had a division with elder Gage and that went really well. It was fun to do a division with him and meet some of the families that they are teaching. Saturday, we got done doing some contacts in the morning and we were about home at about 11:00 a.m. when we got a text from the assistants saying that there was a blood drive going on at the maputo 2 chapel and that if we wanted it was a good chance to serve and we could if we wanted.. We all talked about it and realized, how many chances will we have to donate blood in africa and have it be a safe experience, so we ditched what we were doing and went to the city. When we got there they were so happy because not many people had showed up. So we weighed in... took down info.. all that good stuff. Then one elder started. He got his bag put in and started. Well another Elder saw the needle and blood and apparently didn't like it and he passed out... So they were taking him inside the chapel to recooperate while the rest of us were going. Elder Thomas, Elder Stubbs, and I were all donating at the same time. My bag was about full and then Tualufo, the mission secretary was there and he was like hey your bag is all full you're all done. Well just about that time i started to get a little light headed and I said, to everyone, "I am feeling a little dizzy, oh oh I'm going..." and then I passed out! Haha! I guess because I hadn't eaten dinner the night before and only a little bit of breakfast, the blood loss got to me and then i was out. When I came back to, the district president's wife was standing over me saying, You ressurected! And then everyone was laughing at the fact that I had told them that I was about to pass out. They all thought I was joking until I was out haha. They just couldn't get over that though. They just kept saying, man who knows when they are going to pass out... and who tells everyone like that?? They thought it was hilarious. haha. But that took a little bit out of us. So we went home and rested for a little while and tried to regain some strenghth again and then at about 5:30 pm we went back out and worked that night. Haha so that was quite the day. Now I can say I have donated blood in Africa! Anyways, on another note, the preparations are being made for the wedding this saturday and all is going well. But I think we are gonna hold off a couple weeks with the baptism... We just wanna make sure that they are completely ready and ya.. so the wedding will be this weekend but we'll hold off a little with the baptism. But we are still super excited!!!! The transfer is half over and so we gotta keep working hard! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Lynn


I have two pictures to post but am having trouble getting them to load.  Will try again later!

October 20, 2014

Well this week was a pretty good week. Last P day we went bowling with the zone again and that was super fun. Elder Ence and I got there a little early so we played a little bit of pool. I was a little bit rusty but I acutally didn't do too bad! Then that night we finally found a new family! We have been struggling a lot to find new families and so it was a big blessing to find them! THen Tuesday we opened the marriage process for Pinto and Lizete! We went and picked up their last document and then opened the process. We wanted October 25th, this weekend, but the workers there created some problems and so we eneded up agreeing on the 1st of November. I really love this family a lot and I am so so excited for their marriage and baptism. On sunday they were getting super integrated into the branch and that was really awesome to see. Its just really incredible to think that 2 months earlier, this family didn't know anything about this gospel and now, they are about to enter into the waaters of baptism and change their lives! Then on Wednesday, we actually didn't have to stay in, we just had to go home a little early. So at 5:00 pm is when we had to be in so we just listened to some talks and what not, it was a nice little rest. Then on Friday I went on a division with elder stubbs. It was a super awesome day. We went to a leadership meeting in the morning and then came back and we worked the rest of the day together. At lunch we went to buy some chicken and i asked if we could get the 2 piece with fries and they were like oh sorry we only sell the 3 piece now.. the 2 isn't possible anymore.. and i was like huh? just only put two pieces in and charge me less and she just couldn't wrap her mind around that so i ended up getting a 3 piece haha. Also, that day elder ence was on a division with another elder and they got hit by a truck!!! He said they both got sent flying through a barb wire fence, and yet nothing happened to them... Angels really do protect us as missionaries. He is completely fine... doesn't even have a scratch and he got sent flying through a barb wire fence... that is a miracle! Then saturday and sunday we had general conference and it was super super good. We have a neighbor that only comes to our church on the week of general conference because he loves the motab choir and loves the director. He has been talking to us about it for like 3 months and sure enough he was there and he loved the choir just as always hahahahaha. Elder Ence and I are doing well. We are just struggling to find new famliies... But I think the Lord just wants us to learn something... So that is the challenge, figure out what the Lord wants us to learn. Bring our will in line with His. I love this work! There is no greater calling than to be a missionary of the true and living God and know that you are on the winning team... Its incredible. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week! 

October 13, 2014

Hello!

This week was a good week. Last p-day we downloaded general conference onto my memory card and then went home and did a deep clean on our house while listening to parts of general conference! It was actually a really relaxing pday. THen on thursday we had quite the day. We needed to do some documents for a family so they can get married on the 25th and the workers didn't want to help at all. In the end it took a lot of patience and time, but we were able to get the documents completed. So it looks like we are going to have a marriage and baptism on the 25th of this month! We are super excited! I really love this family a lot! Today I am super short on time! Sorry! We are going bowling today and ya we are just kinda behind. But i Love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Lynn

October 6, 2014

Wow, another transfer has come and gone and the time is flying by! Good news, I will finally be staying with a companion! Elder Ence is the first comp I have stayed with for more than one transfer since elder galland! so thats nice and refreshing. Transfers didn't bring too many changes for Magoanine but Elder Galland is going to Swaziland. So that's pretty crazy. He only has three more transfers left so he will for sure be finishing his mission over there. I am not sure if I'll get to see him again before he leaves so that's kinda sad but it'll be a super awesome opportunity for him! Elder Barroso went to a different zone so now the new Zone leader with me is Elder Stubbs and I am really excited because I really like Elder Stubbs. He will be in the same house, we'll just have different comps so that will also be nice! Other than that, not too many changes for us! I am pretty happy that I am staying because we've made some really good progress this last week with our area. We are hoping for three families on the 25th of October and then 2 more on the 15th of November, the last week of the transfer. So we are super excited. I wanna send some pics and explain them so I will send pics and explanations. We are in a little bit of a hurry today so I will send a better email next week! Love you all so so much!!!

Love,

Justin

All the Elders in the branch with

the branch mission leader.

 

 

 Justin and the branch mission leader, Vivaldo.

 

Pinto and Lizete

 



 

Rafael's little brother holding Rafael's baby

 

 

Rafael (his wife, Vania was sick so they didn't get a picture)

 



 

A Family Home Evening Wheel

they made for one of their families.

 

Happy Elder Ence!

 



 

September 29, 2014

This week was really a crazy but wonderful week! Zone conference was tuesday, that took all day. Then wednesday we have interviews with president, some craziness happened and lots of us didn't even end up getting interviewed but it took all afternoon. Then on friday i had to do interviews for elder barroso's families in the city so that took up my friday evening, so we didn't have a ton of time in the area like I would have liked but we still had some really great things happening. It hasn't been to hot this last week, relatively speaking and we have always had our energy which is nice. So returning to zone conference. I wish you all could just go to one zone conference... its like incredible. I will try and pack as many things into this little email that I can about what I learned. So we talked about the 7 habits to being an extremely succesful person. A training that he gives to everyone, and then we turned it to missionary work. We only went into detail on the first three habits, but they are 1. Identify your goals 2. Create your plan 3. Execute your plan. So we talked a lot about our personal paradigm. He showed a video about a man who was taken in during the holocaust and in the end they did body tests on him and it was all very inhumane. He said that at the lowest point for him when he was being probed, he decided to change his paradigm and he pictured himself in austria teaching his students. He said he didn't think about the bad that was happening and in the end, he made it out alive. This all because he changed his paradigm. He showed another video about how one day stephen covey was on a subway and one day a man entered with two kids and the man had his tie undone and he just sat down while his kids were running wild. Well after a few minutes he turned to the man and said, "don't you think you should control your kids?" and the man responded saying, "You know you are right, i probably should... but we just left the hospital where my young wife died and their mom died and I don't think I know what to do and they don't know how to react either...." and then he said his paradigm completely changed. He began to look at the whole situation completely different and instead of being annoyed with the man, he only felt compassion for him. Its so interesting how that can happen. When we look at things realizing that we are in control of our paradigm, we can do great things. When we look at our lives and realize that we can make it what we want, everything changes. So that is the first step...Identifying our personal mission statement and creating our paradigm. THen we enter into the spiritual creation. We must create all things spiritually before we create them physically, or in other words, we must plan for success. I am running out of time and wish i could go into more detail, but the main part I wanted to focus on is changing our paradigm. How we control ourselves. No one else can make us mad, no one can make us be offended, we choose personally. I just wish i could put this all into an email. I wish you could have just been there! 

On the part of the investigators, things are going really well. We have three families that are getting going really well on the documents and we are planning a collective marriage for the 25th of October. The names are (Pinto and Lizete) (Joao and Julia) and (Rafael and Vania). Prayers are always welcome for them so that they can really reach this date! I don't know if I will be transferred or not but whatever happens in the will of the Lord. I love you all and I hope you have a great conference weekend! 

Love,

September 22, 2014

Hello from Magoanine!

So this week was good. We had a little rough time getting some lessons but, it was still a really good week. We had a visit from Elder Khumolani from the seventy. It was a really good meeting. We talked about the false traditions of africa, tithing, our testimonies, how to strenghthen our families... it was all really good! That was saturday afternoon. I really enjoyed that meeting. Last p day we played football, soccer and a little basketball, but it was so dang hot we ended up just quitting and going home to get out of the sun haha. Luckily, these past couple days it has cooled down a little bit! We also were informed that two more General Authorities will be coming next month,but we don't know who yet, they will announce it in a couple weeks. Tomorrow we will have zone conference so we are very excited about that! Umm some things that have been on my mind lately also have to do with obedience. There is a talk where one of the apostles talks about a thing called selective obedience, that we as members have a lot of times. Where we want to be obedient but only to the commandments that we want. But the Lord expects exact obedience. This has been something I have been trying to work on a lot lately. Is exact obedience. And one thing I had thought about is, why would the Lord expect exact obedience? Well if you think about it, what is the purpose of the plan of salvation? Why did christ give his life for us? Why are we here? It is so that we can prove ourselves worthy to one day, have all that the Lord has. Do you think that a person who doesn't understand exact obedience is worthy to have all that the Lord has? I don't believe so. The Lord knows what we need to be able to recieve blessings. When we choose to disobey, we are saying we trust more in ourselves than in the Lord. So why is it so hard to give up some of our sins? We see them as pleasurable maybe, or maybe we just don't see the big picture. If everyone could really see the big picture, look at our potential and then see what we need to do to reach our potential, I think obedience would be a lot better. Once we can truly give up our sins, and submit our will to the Lord's, is when we will be truly and eternally happy. I was talking to another Elder about this, how we as missionaries have it easy sometimes. We aren't tempted by a lot of things, but when we get home, we will have lots of new temptations and how we have to be strong. And I was talking about the principle of making up your mind. And really its that easy. We have to decide. Once we decide that we will be completely obedient, it becomes much easier. Really obedience is such an incredible principle. I invite all of you to read 2 Nephi chapter 9. Me and my companion are doing a 30 day challenge. We read this chapter once a day for 30 days along with our other studies, with the purpose to gain a stronger testimony of the atonement. I invite all of you to also take this challenge. Take 10 minutes each day to gain a stronger testimony of the atonement. I think we will all be surprised at the difference it will make in our lives. It will give us a little bit different perspecitve on life. I love you all and I would love to hear your experiences you have with this challenge if you choose to do so! I would love to hear what you learn!

Love,
Elder Lynn

Also a funny joke that a person told at church during his talk... So there was a couple that was getting married and the wife had a box. But she told her husband, as long as you truly love me dont ever open this box. So he loved her and never opened it. SO the years passed by, they laughed and cried together and just kept on loving. But one day when they got a little older, he said, can I finally see what is in the box and she agreed. So they opened it together, and in it was a tiny little circle that had been crocheted and $25,000. So he asked her, what is this? and she explained that when she got married, her mom said, when you get mad at your husband, don't say anything, just crochet! and he said wow! I did good then if you only have this little circle crocheted and he hugged and kissed her. but then he said, well what does the $25,000 have to do with anything? and she said well thats the money i made off of all the things i crocheted hahahahahahahahaha

 

this is our ghetto bench. we had a person make the rack, but the bench is homemade :) haha

September 15, 2014

Good morning my family! 

How are you? I want to write this letter to you in Portuguese and then, I will translate. But our week was very very good. Elder Ence and I are doing very well. Finally our families are progressing a little more! We all sat down with our families last night and plan what we will do very well to get all the documents. So I think it will be all right. You pronounce the name of elder ence as the word (sense) but without s. And we are doing very well together. I like him very much. It is getting hot these days. The heat is starting! Yes, we try to focus on families, so when we contact a man who lives alone, we invite him to arrive at the church, and if he comes, we will appear in his house and teach him too. If he really has the desire, of course we'll still help him. We had many miracles this week. We taught a family the law of chastity .... The husband liked it and wanted to do it, but the wife did not like. She said, maybe two years, but not now. So we prayed a ton. And we finally decided we had a member who could help us. He went with us and then we watched the movie It's a Miracle. We bore our testimony that this really is the work of the Lord. Then I said, now what? What do you think? And her husband said, we will try to fulfill. And the wife said, no, we won't try, we'll do it. BOOM! It was amazing !! The Lord has truly changed her heart. The spirit was so strong that lesson. In addition, we are always trying to improve our techniques of teaching, bring more spirit, and always do better each day. One thing I was thinking today on the way to the internet is that we are very blessed, and often we don't recognize it. For example, if I could do my youth again, I would do many different things. I would not spend so much time doing things that have no value. This life is too short is what I am recognizing that we have and enjoy an effective way! But today, we have plans to go and play football as a zone. It should be great fun! The transfer is passing too fast, and before I even know, it will be over. I hope you can all have a great week! I love you all !!! 

With love, 

Elder Lynn

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Justin Lynn <justin.lynn@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Bom dia minha família! 

Como estão? Eu quero escrever essa carta para vocês em português e depois, hei de traduzir. Mas nossa semana foi muito muito bom. Elder Ence e eu, estamos fazendo muito bem. Finalmente nossas famílias estão a progredir um pouco mais! Nós sentamos com todas nossas famílias ontem a noite e planeamos muito bem o que faremos para conseguir todos os documentos. Então, eu acho que vai dar tudo certo. Se pronuncia o nome de elder ence como a palavra (sense) mas sem s. E estamos indo muito bem juntos. Eu gosto muito dele. Está a aquecer muito mesmo estes dias. O calor está a começar! Sim, tentamos a focolizar nas famílias, então quando contactamos um homem que vive sozinho, convidamos ele para chegar na igreja, e se ele chegar, vamos aparecer na casa dele e ensinar ele também. Se ele realmente tiver o desejo, claro que ainda vamos ajudar ele. Tivemos muitos milagres essa semana. Ensinamos uma família a lei da castidade.... O marido gostou e queria cumprir, mas a esposa, não gostou. Ela disse, talvez em dois anos, mas agora não. Então oramos muito muito mesmo. E finalmente decidimos que tinha uma membro que poderia nos ajudar muito. Ele foi conosco para a casa dessa família e daí, assistimos o filme È um Milagre. Prestamos nossos testemunhos de que realmente essa é a obra do senhor. Depois eu disse, e agora? O que vocês acham? E o marido disse, vamos tentar a cumprir. E a esposa disse, não, não vamos tentar, vamos cumprir. BOOM! Foi incrível!! O Senhor verdadeiramente mudou o coração dela. O espírito era tão forte naquela lição. Além disso, estamos sempre tentando a melhorar nossa técnicas do ensino, trazer mais espírito, e sempre fazer melhor cada dia. Uma coisa que eu estava pensando hoje no caminho para o internet é que somos muito abençoados, e muitas vezes nem reconhecemos. Por exemplo, se eu pudesse fazer minha mocidade de novo, eu faria muitas coisas diferentes. Eu não gastaria tanto tempo, fazendo coisas que não tem valor. Essa vida é muito curto é o que eu estou reconhecendo e temos que aproveitar duma maneira eficaz! Mas hoje, temos planos para ir e jogar football como uma zona. Deve ser muito divertido! A transferência está passando muito rápido mesmo e antes de eu souber, já vai terminar. Espero que vocês todos possam ter uma grande semana! Eu amo vocês todos!!! 

Com amor, 

September 9, 2014

Hello!

One more week come and gone here in Magoanine! We had a really awesome week here and we are really happy with everything! We still have some disappointments every once and a while, but we are going on strong here. Umm this week the highlights.  Well this past week we found some new families! We found some really awesome new families this week and they even came to church. Our main families that are working on marriage documents, unfortunately, are having problems still. Not money problems but government problems. So the law is that you have to be 21 years old to get married. If you are under 21, your parents have to sign for you. So we have a couple that she is 19 and he is 20 which really complicates things. Her parents are here, and willing to sign, but his parents are super far away and it wont be easy to get them here. So we are looking for any other alternative to see what they can work out. Because like this, they won't be able to get his parents here. Our other family, is a newer family, and their problem is that they were registered very far away. In Quelimane, which is not close at all. And they registers are not helping out at all. I am afraid he is gonna have to save up the money to make a trip all the way to where he was registered.... if that is the case, it could take a while to get that money. Our other families are chuggin along little by little. I love every single one of them so much and I just really hope that the Lord opens up a way for us to get all this done. We are really praying for that. We have also been working with a couple less active members lately. There was a family that was baptized back in 2003 and lots of them are inactive now. So we are working to try and reactivate them all! Its really just as pleasing to see someone come back, as to see someone baptized, because its the same work! Bringing souls to the flock of god! Last night we had a family night with some of the members of the family and it was super fun! I loved the video of derrick, it was pretty funny! I am glad that all is going well at home! Today, we were gonna go bowling, but then plans changed and now we are planning on just relaxing a bit at home. It is starting to heat up again and that means that I will be covered in sweat once again in all my pics! I hope all is well and that you all have a great week!!

Love,

Justin

 

The family they had Family Home Evening with

and some paintings Justin purchased

 

 

September 8, 2014

Good morning everyone,

Due to a Mozambican holiday which will occur on Monday, September 8th, many stores providing internet will be closed, making it nearly impossible for missionaries to communicate with their family and friends.

We want to inform the families of the missionaries that all of the missionaries currently in the country of Mozambique will be writing home on Tuesday, September 9th, 2014 rather than on Monday due to the national holiday.

Your missionaries are working extremely hard and the Lord is continuing to bless these amazing countries. In just 2 years more than 410 families have been baptized.  During the last month of August alone 26 full families were baptized. We are grateful to have your missionary serve in this mission to build up the kingdom of God in Mozambique and Swaziland.

President Kretly

September 1, 2014

Hello!

So the first week with Elder Ence went very well. We had some ups and some downs but we get a long great so the only difficulties are in the missionary work itself! These past few weeks have been very tough here, we haven't been finding new investigators, the ones we have haven't been progressing, and I was starting to get a little down. I just didn't know what else to do and I felt like I have been doing even better than i ever have on my mission in being completely obedient and working harder.. and then the work just stopped. And I was frustrated.. i questioned a lot why this would happen to me, yes a very selfish thought but its what was going through my mind. And so with training a new missionary, i decided that this would be a great chance to really turn everything around. I am doing much better this time training than last time. More experience, and i know what I did bad last time so i know what i need to do better. And so I am teaching much better this time and hopefully helping more! But we went out with a lot of energy and we were having a really good week. But then on Friday, we went out and we worked all day long in the heat (friday was hot) and no one wanted to talk to us. We had like 6 new families marked to teach, and all of them turned their phones off or lied and just denied us... all. day. long. And so it was like 6:00 p.m. and we had been working and walking all day long, and I was just praying... really hard just saying heavenly father, we are working our hardest, we are trying and we know that we can't do this on our own so please help us have a miracle, and within five minutes we ran into a man who invited us in to their house. We sat down and talked a little bit, and saw his wife wasn't their, so we told him we would come back at like 8:00 p.m. when his wife got home. so we came back and sat down with him, his wife, and their daughter. And as we were sitting their, the thought came to my mind that we should teach the plan of salvation first instead of the restoration but i tried to shake off the thought thinking that it was a crazy idea, but in the end i couldn't let the thought go and we decided to teach the plan of salvation. And it ended up being one of the most spiritual lessons I have had in quite a while. We really were so blessed. It was a tender mercy that the Lord gave us. So we were really happy and we had got everyone saying they were gonna come to church this week, and then Sunday came, and no one came... Ok there were a few people, but complete families? no. and ya really the majority didn't come. And i saw the husband of our family who is preparing for this month but his wife wasn't there. SO i called the wife and she just sent a message saying, i am not coming today and so i sent a message saying, oh but you also need to come and she sent back saying that she doesn't want to come to church again.... it was one of the hardest messages to read.. She has been visiting with the family a lot and the family had her convinced that the church is bad and all that... so that was super disheartening... And i just didn't know what to think. I still don't know what is going to happen to them... we haven't had a chance to talk to her yet, we are going to try today. But i was frustrated again. Frustrated with the work... And then last night we had a little activity at the church about missionary work and we watched a video called missionary work and the atonement. And it talks about the life of christ and the atonement and how it wasn't easy and so it won't be easy for us either... it was really powerful and I realized how selfish i had been to think that it would or should be easy for me! and so i made the new goal to really understand and study even more the atonement and really gain a testimony of it. So this morning i was reading in the book of mormon and i read a few verses that really hit me hard...

2 Nephi chapter 2

7 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.

8 Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.

9 Wherefore, he is the firstfruits unto God, inasmuch as he shall make intercession for all the children of men; and they that believe in him shall be saved.

10 And because of the intercession for all, all men come unto God; wherefore, they stand in the presence of him, to be judged of him according to the truth and holiness which is in him. Wherefore, the ends of the law which the Holy One hath given, unto the inflicting of the punishment which is affixed, which punishment that is affixed is in opposition to that of the happiness which is affixed, to answer the ends of the atonement—

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;

29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

and also 1 Nephi chapter 19

9 And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.
As I read these, i realized that there must be opposition in all things, but we must follow the savior's example and support all that happens because we truly love the people... SO that is my new goal. To really begin changing even more, and take my spirituality up another level. I hope you all too can study the atonement more and know that God truly has a plan for us and know that the atonement applies to all parts of our life!

A fun event for the week is that elder ence and I on saturday went and did some service for a member. They needed a hole dug for their garbage so we went and dug a hole! They weren't there when we dug it and so when they came back they couldn't believe how big it was! They were like what?! We can't even dig it that deep and big, we won't need another one for forever! (the people here think that we are super fragile and don't know how to work so they couldn't believe it when they saw how much we had done and that it was bigger than they can do it! haha. it ended up being over my head so elder ence had to finish it and so there are some pics showing the progression of the hole.
I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Love,
Justin

 

This is massala. Its like the fruit that rafeeki uses on lion king where he breaks it open on a rock and then uses it to write on the wall... who knew it was actually so tasty!!!