August 25, 2014

Wooo crazy week!! Well we finally got energy back on wednesday! So in total it was like 8 days without energy. In the end we paid someone to wash our shirts and then I just washed my underclothes by hand cause i couldn't stand dirty clothes anymore haha. But we had a good week.. once again we had a few troubles with finding new families, but we actually find two new ones, unfortunately they didn't come to chuch, but at least we found two new families! And then on saturday, we had tons of new lessons marked and then, I got a call from the assistants saying that I would be training again, and that my new comp would be there in like 2 hours so we had to abandon the new lessons, clean the house really well and wait for my new companion to get there! And he got there saturday night! So ya I am training again! My new comps name is Elder Ence. He is from Utah, and he is super awesome! He just graduated but he is like twice my size haha. He is like 6'4" and a left tackle (if you know what I mean dad ;) haha) But he is really nice, he has a lot of desires to learn well and work hard! We had really good news with one of our families. Rafael and Vania. They have officially confirmed with us that they have all the money to finish up the documents and they are ready to do it so for sure in the month of september we will have rafael and vania! We are very excited and happy with how well they are doing! Our other families is just the same money problem... we are always searching to find ways to help them, but they will make it.. i have lots of good hope for them. But ya, I know now that I will be here at least until October now.. how is it that we are so close to october already....It will be interesting if I will finally stay with a companion for more than one transfer again. I haven't stayed with a companion for more than one transfer since Elder Galland! I know this transfer is gonna fly though because we are gonna be working on the wedding and in no time it will be time for the wedding and.. honestly 6 weeks feels like nothing now. I don't understand how because a month and a half at home was an eternity and now a month and a half is just like.. nothing haha. I can't believe how fast life is moving right now. Just a quick thought that I have had lately... I was kinda freaking out the other day with how fast life is moving and i was justl like wishing that life wouldn't move so fast... but then I realized that that is the beauty of the gospel. THat it doesn't matter that it moves so fast, because we can live together forever! What a great great blessing! That even though life doesn't stop.. one day we will live together forever. I don't know exactly how it works, and I don't need to know exactly how it works. I just am so glad I can trust that God created a perfect plan. I don't know why I was blessed to be born into the church... but I am so grateful that I was.. But I am really happy with how life is going. We cleaned the cemetary over in Matola for the helping hands service project that one day.. I am healthy and happy and loving life!! I love you all!!

Love,
Justin

These are some paintings that a guy does here...

 they are cool because they are on a canvas that you can roll up

 and put in your bag and they don't rip or ruin. i didn't buy all these,

 i just took pics of them haha 

 

 tree of life

 



first vision/captain moroni

 



 captain moroni with the title of liberty written in dialect!

 



first vision/enos praying

 

jesus walking on water

 

nephi breaking bow

they have KFC here.. the only fast food restaurant from america

 so i bought some for the first time the other day haha

 



 

August 18, 2014

• Justin Lynn
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• Justin Lynn
  justin.lynn@myldsmail.net
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So first of all, I will say that I won't be able to send a very long email, and this week will probably only be to mom... I will explain why during the letter haha.

So it sounds like everyone had á really great week! That is really awesome! I also already emailed todd and have talked with him a øíttle bit about all that! Super crazy!! Also i translated for án elder at zone conference that already lived with todd! so we talked about how we both know him haha.

As for our week. The training went really well and ya..It went well! No problems! But also on Wednesday, our energy in the house went out... we thought ít would come back soon, but unfortunately untill today it hasn't come back. SO no worries darcee! I am right there with you with no running water or anything haha. We have to do our daily planning by candlelight and our phone died a couple óf the days... we had to charge ít in our ínvestigators houses...embarrassing. The people always say they will come fix ít, but not yet haha. Unfortuntately all óf our food went bad... so i ate banana instant porridge all last week hahahahahaha... its actually not too bad. Luckily i have been sleeping just fine, and we can still take bucket showers every once and á while, just eating ánd having clean clothes is a little more difficult. But also the normal internet place ís out of energy also so we are at á random one that ísn't that good ánd we have to get home soon to see íf the energy people will come. so it will be short today.

Our week was á week óf learning. It was a pretty rough week, as in no one was home to teach and all of óur lessons were falling and just lots óf things were going wrong...but we truly learned a lot... I know í will e better ecause of this last week ánd i am excited to work even harder this week! Normally the last week of the transfer I get á littly ansy to see what ís going to happen but i am finally getting to the point where ít dosn't matter anymore ánd I am just gonna keep working like normal. We have some families who áre progressing well ánd we áre really gonna focus really hard on helping them, while álso getting some new families prepared for later months. So i ám looking forward to this week a lot! Sorry for the shortness of the letter ánd what not. The computer ísn't very good ánd we are in a hurrry today. Pics to come next week!

Love,
Justin

August 11, 2014

Hello!

Well I have to thank everyone for the wonderful emails this week. Everyone sent awesome emails and lots of pictures and I loved that! I feel very informed about how everything is going! I sent a couple pictures of the baptism of a few youth we had this week and then me and my comp in front of our chapel, and then also the cinammon rolls I made last week. They were super easy and a big hit in the house haha.

Well over here, things are going well as normal. We had a really busy week this week and so it flew by.. The time is going faster and faster every single day. Tuesday was the only day that we had a whole day of normal work and it was the one day that everything fell through hahaha. Of course it has to be like that! Then wednesday, we had another meeting in the city. It was another leadership training that was really awesome. The only problem is that we have to leave right at 8:00 to catch transport there and then it starts at 10:00. We talked a lot about more of how the mission helps us prepare for after our mission. President really stresses this a lot, being successful in all of life, not just on the mission. Then afterwards we had to fight to get home. It was a battle and took us like 2 and half hours, then we had to eat something, and do our studies, and then we only had about 3 hours in the area. We are really trying to do better with always doing our studies. Its a big temptation to skip studies and just work but I am gaining a testimony that if we just be obedient even to something that seems like a better option, the Lord will help, and its a rule to do our studies, so we had little time but we had a some really good lessons that night. Thursday was the same thing but this time we had to go to the city to renew our papers for being in the country for a year. But we had to be there at 8:00 and so we had to wake up pretty early and leave the house by 6:30 to get to immigration in time. But we had some really awesome people that helped us get there and then it just took forever at immigration. We spent the whole morning there and then we didn't get out to our area again until late at night once again. But that day we found some awesome new families that we are really excited about!! Friday I had to do some baptismal interviews in the morning and we also had our district meeting and we had to do weekly planning so all that added up, only left us with a little bit of time in the area. Its not easy to be out of the area because you worry a lot about what is happening, but I am working on just controling what I can control and letting the rest work its way, becasue it doesn't do any good to worry when you can't do anything about it! and then saturday we had the baptism of a few youth, it went really really well, and then afterwards, we did a division and Elder Barroso and I had to take some time to plan the training we will be doing on wednesday. We got it all planned for the most part, but I will be using pretty much the rest of my p-day today to put it all together on the computer... so no fun stuff today haha. and then saturday night I went out and walked with Elder Khumalo. He is the elder from south africa. He is the missionary of many languages haha. He actually only learned english when he was like 13... he still says some things a little funny but he speaks well. He speaks tons of languages though. But everything is going well. We are just waiting for our families to recieve money from their work so they can do some more documents. I wore the shirts but they were next to the mints so they smelled minty haha. No missionaries have been sent here yet... maybe at transfers? i dont know. And I got to listen to all the messages! Loved them all! I love you all lots and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,

Justin

 

 

August 4, 2014

Thank you so much for sending those recipes!!! Unfortunately my email will be a little bit short this week. We had a meeting last wednesday about how to better help the families go to the temple and president talked about how we need to have a paper talking about these families in the area book and so I had an idea to make a record that can go in the area book so I took a little time to make that today! Also in very great news I got my package!!! Thank you so so much for everything! It was super awesome! I loved everything in it! And just so you know, that will be plenty now for the rest of the mission. I won't need anything else, just letters and pictures will be perfect from here on out! We had a really good week, we didn't have a ton of time in the area but all the time we have in the area we are working hard to make it useful and worthwhile! I am super jealous of all the mountain activities that you all did. I miss the mountains just about as much as any other place haha. It looks like you all did some crazy hiking and fishing! The families here are doing well. The same money problems but they are working at it little by little. It seems like the famliies that don't have money problems have problems with the families not wanting them to get married and when they don't have family problems they have money problems... Satan sure is trying his best!!!!! But luckily we know who is stronger! THe Lord will always win. Right now in my house there is 5 americans, 1 brazilian, 1 mozambican and 1 south african! ITs pretty fun! This companion has a super strong brazilian accent and half the time i don't understand his accent haha but i am getting better! Oh I forgot to tell all of you last week. So with my limited piano knowledge, every chance i get, i play the piano just messing around. I have gotten to the point where I can play most of the hymns in the hymns made easy (don't fall back in your chairs, I know you all thought that I had no piano skills). And sometimes i can manage a normal hymn if i practice a lot. Well we had a meeting last sunday night and the missionary who normally plays the piano wasn't there and they were like hey you know how to play right? and i was like no no no i just mess around on the piano, I don't actually know how to play... Well no one else knew how to play so guess who played the piano at a church meeting for the first time in his life??? Yup, that would be me. So jamie, your lessons weren't in vain! They came in handy because my limited piano skills were put to the test hahahaha. I am loving this area and loving the mission! I wouldn't want to be anywhere else except for where I am right now. I love all of you and hope you all have a great week!!!

Love,

Justin!

SOrry for the shortness of the letter, next week will be better :)

July 28. 2014

Wild week in Magoanine!!!!

So first of all, I called the AP's and they said that they will be going to pick up packages tomorrow, so we'll have to wait one more week to see whether or not it got here... sorry. So second of all... here is the story of the crazy week. So all was going normal right... we had our family home evening... which I sent a picture. It was super fun and we had a good time. Then tuesday, was also normal. Then wednesday. SO we were walking on the road when all of a sudden BOOM!!! something exploded and it is getting close to presidential elections and so my first thought was "oh no, war" but then nothing was weird, no one acted weird so we just kept going. Then elder barroso and I were sitting outside of a house waiting for the husband to get home when President Kretly called us.. ANd so at this point my heart is racing cause I am like, oh no it really is war and he is calling us to tell us to go to our houses. But then he was like elders, how is the day going and everything and then he was like, elders i have news for you. Two new brazilian missionaries just arrived and the Lord as called you both to be their new trainers. You will both continue being zone leaders but elder barroso will work in the city of maputo and elder lynn will continue in magoanine. He then gave some further instruction but explained that on thursday we would be getting our new companions! So as of thursday night, my new companion is Elder De Souza. He is from the same city as elder barroso. He served for 6 weeks in brazil waiting for his visa but now he is here so I will finish training him and then we'll see what happens. Elder barroso is training a missionary named elder Carvalho. He is working in the branch of Maputo 1. We will continue being zone leaders together so it will just take a little bit harder work on our part. At least once a week we have to get together and do a mini division to discuss how the zone is going and plan things out. And then almost every night we have to call each other and see how everything is going. So we wont have as much time in our areas now, but we will just have to make the best out of the time that we have! Our families are doing well, we are just having lots of problems with our families being really poor. For example, two of our families need to get their birth certificate which costs 50 meticais, or $1.80 and they don't have that money even. So, we are trying to find ways for them to make a little bit of money. Its truly incredible to see how they want so badly to get married and just don't have money that we often times don't even think about. $2.00 is almost nothing for most families yet here, they just can't afford it. So pray for them. They need all the prayers they can get. The weather is starting to get a little bit warmer now. In the mornings and at night it still gets a little cool but during the day time it gets warmer. I was able to call lots of the people up in Inhamizua lately and it sounds like they are all doing well. I just need to call Antonio and Saquina from manga cause I haven't talked to them in a few weeks. But they actually moved to Tete so they are no longer in Manga. But all is well here in mozambique. We are all happy and healthy and working hard! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,

Justin

 

 

Family Home Evening

 



 

Saying goodbye to his companion

 

 

July 21, 2014

The family history stuff has helped a ton!!!! Seriously! and I loved the pics of the weddings! I didn't know dad had so much style back in the day!!! I haven't gotten my package yet... not sure if it got stolen... we'll just have to wait and see. I am so sad to hear that coach stringer passed away... that would be so hard for the family being so young... That is pretty cool about the new family in the ward thathas a missionary in brazil. We'll get home around thesame time then. Ya its interesting... I truly believe that if we have righteous desires and then invoke the help of the lord, anything is possible. Before President Kretly got here, the missionaries and truly no one believed it was possible to baptize here. The branches all had around 25 people or less. WHen he got here, the missionaries literally told him, its impossible to baptize here. And then he said, no, the Lord has called us to serve here and so we know its possible.He had righteous desires and then he did all he could, we are doing all we can, and recognizing thatthe Lord will be theonly one who will truly baptize here. And since he has been here,the mission has baptized more than 370 complete families. Its not because its easier to baptize someone here. Its because the Lord needs these people for his work to go forward and we have an incredible mission president who understands that we can't do anything without the Lord, but with the Lord, miracles will happen. The only reason miracles wont happen, is if we don't have faith. But God is a God of miracles andif we have faith, miracles will always happen! All the missionaries are doing super well. Its interesting having missionaries from four different countries in theworld. America, brazil, mozambique, and south africa. Its great to learn from themand learn different cultures. Elder Juma from mozambique is always the life of the house haha. The missionary from south africa is new new. No, i still am horrible with the dialect here... some funny things from this week... this really shouldn't be funny but for some reasoni couldn't stop laughing. we were out doing contacts and we stopped a guy and went to shakehis hand, but he wouldn't shake our hand, and then we asked what his name is and he just looks at us with a dead serious face and says, "if its about church, i don't want it" and just walks away. Ithad to do with how he said it and just theway he was... I couldn't stop laughing haha.We had a new member ofthe 70here in our branch. His name is elder cumbulani or somehting like that. He is from south africa. He asked where I was from and I said wyomingand he laughed and said with his south african accent, wooo the wild west! apparently he has been to wyoming twice! Haha. He was really awesome to meet! Well i willsendpics and stuff next!I love you all lots and hope you have agreat week!

Love,

Justin

 

Some pictures of their apartment and where they meet for church

 

 

July 14, 2014 Staying in Magoanine

Well transfers have come and gone, and I am staying with Elder Barroso. Nothing will be changing for us. Some of the elders in our house are changing but we will be staying the same. Unfortunately Elder Mason is leaving our house, he was my best friend in the house, he is going to Beira. But Elder Juma will be staying and I like him a lot, he is hilarious and so that is good at least. Elder Shachterle, my trainer, is going to Swaziland! That is pretty crazy. Elder Galland will stay where he is at and the work will continue forward!

P day last week was super super fun. We went bowling, i well send pics and I think i bowled the best game of my life, as you can see on the score where is says L and then my score :) The bowling place is literally insane, cause its like an american mall. We went there and it was like walking into a whole new world. I didn't feel like I was in Mozambique haha. But it was really really fun. Unfortunately we didn't plan anything fun for today because of transfers and not knowing what exactly would happen. So today will be just a normal day I am guessing. We also had a family home evening last monday night. I will send pics of that. We had 20 people in total and it was super super fun. This last week was a really really succesful week for us. We got a couple new families and one family has accepted marriage and everything so we are super excited about that.

We didn't do any divisions this week. We'll start doing divisions again now that its a new transfer. We'll plan out our trainings and all that good stuff. This next transfer will go until the end of august... I can't believe that at the end of this transfer I will only have like 9 and a half months left. Time truly is always running and before we know it, the transfer will be ending again.

On Saturday we visited a super wealthy family that the house had a tile floor and they were doing a Saturday morning cleaning and it smelled like and reminded me tons of Saturday cleaning at home and it just made me appreciate the little calm summer days at home!

I am super jealous that you all got to watch all the fireworks. I don't think about all the stuff at home much anymore, in terms of missing it all. But there are still a few things I miss and fireworks is one of them haha. But I am glad you are all having a fun time! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Justin

 

P.S.  I forgot to say also that yesterday the magoanine branch exploded!!! We had 278 people!!! There wasn't even enough space for the missionaries, we had to sit outside haha. It was incredible!