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!!!

 

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 :)