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