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!!!