Dear Family,
We finally came to a good internet place so this week you will receive a good email and pictures!!!!!! So I will answer all the questions first and then go into the happenings of the week. My birthday... My birthday consisted of us running over and eating a hamburger from a little restaurant and then the rest of the day was just normal haha. Birthdays on the mission aren't much of anything special. So the stupid thing about those hair clippers is that they have never worked. I got here and they just never worked and so no I have not used them. Instead I just go places to get my hair cut and it depends how I want it cut. If I want a really cheap quick buzz, then I can just walk out of the house into the area and get it cut for 75 cents haha. Or there is a super nice place in the city that we can go to and they do good hair cuts and wash our hair and everything but that costs about 5 dollars so we don't do it a lot. 5 dollars may seem very cheap but here we can do a lot with 5 dollars!!! No I never got anything from the young women, I just got a card, i think it was from them at least haha. But before I forget, I wanted to tell you that whoever sends packages should send them through just normal shipping. Don't use like express or anything cause that will cost more and it will actually get here later. Just a little advice. No I am not overwhelmed at all with all the emails. I love getting tons of emails but I got a couple emails from people saying that they would like a response if possible and so I just don't want people to be offended. I want as many emails every week as I can get! I love emails! Ok on with the week.
So this last week was really crazy but really awesome. We spent all last monday pretty much in the clinic for Elder Lake cause he had a cough that wouldn't go away, so we never got out to our area last monday. But then ironically, I got sick the next day and so last tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday I really didn't have a voice cause I lost it from coughing so much. I am pretty much better now but the cough is still lingering, it could be like a bronchiitus thing. Anyways, Friday was zone conference!!! It was incredible. The missionary work here in Mozambique is really about to change!! So we have a new program called "My Family." Here in africa, first of all people don't know how to use computers, and secondly, they are horrible at keeping records of family. But the church came out with a program to get family history started here. It's a little booklet to help the people find names and dates of family members so that as they prepare to go to the temple, they can also prepare their family history to take with them. I have truly gained a new appreciation for this work. Honestly, family history is not only for those who receive the ordanances but us also. Because, true happiness can not be attained, unless our family is at our side and not just our immediate family. This is truly a grand work that needs to be done and I feel that the flood gates of family history work are about to be opened up here in mozambique. But have a new goal to use family history work in our every day work, in contacting people, in teaching lessons, just in everything, and after two days of work, I can testify that its extremely powerful. We were talking to a man, and he was very firm in his catholic religion, but as we talked to him about how he can do work for his ancestors and help them also gain salvation, he stopped and said, "I would love to receive a visit from you one day, because this is a wonderful thing that no other church offers." This really is a wonderful other proof of the truthfulness of this wonderful church. Our church is the only church that can offer such a service to the people! So in wanting to help them, I also need your help! I need you to send the names of : aunts and uncles, children of great grandparents, pretty much all family members through great grandparents and dates for all of them! Also, pictures of you and dad, grandparents, and great grandparents are very needed! This way we can show them how to fill out their family history! What a wonderful work! The spirit of Elijah is filling Mozambique!
Then, we come to sunday. So Elder Lake gave a huge training to our whole branch on the family history work so we wanted all adults to be there so I taught primary! Normally, the kids are so irreverant and I get very impatient, but I realized they are very capable of being reverant and we had a great lesson on obedience! The senior couples help out with music also, and they had taught all the kids "head, shoulders, knees and toes," in english hahahahahaha. But we had a great primary, we got them to be so reverant and then during sacrament meeting they were obedient and quiet!!!! What a blessing! It was the best sunday by far I have had here in the country. We also received the new branch presidency and so Elder Lake is no longer branch president. It will be really good for the branch to go over to the members. And then after church we had the wedding! I will send lots of pictures! Her name is Felicidade which translated means Happiness and his name is Marcelino. The wedding went super well! But they will wait to be baptized on the 13th of April with our other two couples who are getting married next weekend on the 12th. So it was a really great week! I will send lots of pictures and I love you all! I hope you all have a great week!!!
Love,
Justin
Felicidade and Marcelino
With the bride's father. Maybe her mother too? I'm not sure.
With Elder Lake and Elder Lynn
Throwing the bouquet
Elder Lake catches it!
So we were helping an investigator do his family history work last night and he found an identification card of his Grandma. This shows kinda how out dated things are here. Only now within the last five years have they switched from writing everything by hand. This was from 1974, the year before mozambique gained its independence from Portugal and so you will see that its an identification card from the Portuguese republic! Thats like unheard of to find because to be black and get an identification card during that time was extremely hard. You will also see on the back that it says, Nao sabe assinar. That means "doesn't know how to sign his name". Not many people here really know how to read or sign their name, especially older people. Its pretty funny because if you talk to older people here, Portuguese is also their second language. Honestly even the women that are like 18 and older, most never finished school and they only learn portuguese if they go to school so a lot of women here dont speak good portuguese, they speak dialect. Most women here only speak dialect also when we aren't around. They only speak portuguese with us because we don't speak dialect. Just an interesting fact for you guys haha
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