April 28, 2014

Hello!

Well week one of the new transfer is already over and some how april is coming to an end! Wasn't it just christmas? I don't feel like I even passed through february or march.. I think I am still 18 right? The first week of training went well. We had a really Really busy week. We were running all over the place doing marriage documents and we had a meeting and all that good stuff so I worked him pretty hard but he is hanging in there pretty well. he is super quiet but he is a good elder who is just down to do anything.

I am super Happy for Bowen! I was just saying the other day how I knew he should be getting his call pretty soon! That is super exciting!! He will do awesome! Umm unfortunately I don't know much yet about when we will be calling home again.. but it will be within the next little while! I feel like I just called... is it really already that time to call again??

 

But anyway, we have a lot of really incredible families right now! Umm Inhamizua is really a miracle story... So back in august, Inhamizua had a church attendance of 60 people on average. And the branch had never fully been run by an all mozambican branch presidency. It always had a least one missionary as a counselor. Obviously this is not how we want it. Well the hearts of the people here were softened and Inhamizua now has a church attendance of on average around 240 people... last week we had 260. And as of March we have an all mozambican branch presidency... What an incredible miracle! If that doesn't humble your heart to show you have wonderful the Lord really is... I am not sure what will. That is incredible and now I am seeing the miracles. I am not sure why I have been so blessed to see these miracles but I am incredibly grateful, more than words can describe. We had another wedding on Friday! It is a really intelligent and wealthy family! They will be getting baptized on the 11th of May with our other two families that will get married on the 10th. In even more great news, Felicidade, the woman we baptized with out her husband. Well she is doing incredible and is probably the strongest woman I have baptized into the church. Anyways, they came up to us with good news that her husband might get a new job here today and be able to come to church and be baptized also!!!! How incredible! I truly know the Lord answers prayers. He has been in all our prayers for a while! Umm besides all that... everything is going super well. The other new elder in our house now is Elder Stewart. He just finished being trained so he is still fairly new. Umm I enjoyed immensly the packages that I got yesterday! That made my day!!

Now regarding the pics that I sent in this email... Elder Biddulph and I had finally had it. We were tired of not working out and not having weights to work out... He has a whole P90X packet with the workouts written down... we just needed weights. So we took that into our own hands. I went and bought a bag of cement last monday and then last tuesday I bought a long thing of PVC pipe. Then on tuesday night we began making our weights. And today we have almost all of our weights done and we can starting working out good in the mornings!! Hahah so the pics are of us pouring the cement to make the weights!

Well I love you all! I know the Lord loves each and every one of us and that this is His work. We are so incredibly blessed to be a part of it. I know that the church is true and that it is His church. What a wonderful blessing to be a part of His church. I love you all!!!

Love,
Elder Lynn

 

Questions and answers:

 

1. Did you ever get Darcee's package?   Yes! I got it yesterday
2. Did you get the package we sent with Elder Williams parents? Yes! I got all but the family history stuff.
3. Have you watched General Conference yet?  not yet, we listened to it a little bit at our house cause Elder Biddulph downloaded it onto his flashdrive. But we are going to watch it on May 10 and 11
4. Where in Idaho is Elder Van Leuven from?  He is from Ruper, Idaho I believe
5. How is he doing with the language and adjusting?  He is adjusting well and we are working hard on the language.
6. Do you ever use your jump rope and did you ever have birthday cake or cupcakes and have you made snow yet?  Yes I have been using the jump rope. unfortunately the cake and cupcakes got left down south cause they didn't have room to send them up. yes I have used the snow though haha (It wasn't really cake and cupcakes - just a cake mix and frosting)
7. Will you take some pictures of you that shows your house in Inhamizua and the orphanage too....and the other elders in your house? . Yes, I will take some pics this week
8. Is it starting to cool down at all there yet?  Umm it cooled down a little bit and then got really hot again. Elder Galland said down south it was getting cold but up here it is still pretty warm... hopefully will start to cool down soon
 9. Do you think Derrick is a better son than you? you have to say yesssss! (Guess who typed that question!  lol)   clearly you are the favorite. the little princess in the family is always the favorite ;)
10. Have you seen Tercia lately?  no its been over 2 months since I have seen her. I dont see manga people very often anymore

 

 

 

April 24,2014 E-mails from President Kretly

Elder Justin Bill Lynn has been called as a District Leader in our mission.  This is a key position here because everything happens in the district.  Most of the time the District Leader lives in the same house as the members of his district, so he has a key role in helping each missionary in his district to become an extraordinary missionary.  Some of his responsibilities will be: making sure that the house is clean at all times(a harder job than you may think), conducting District meetings every week, training the missionaries by doing divisions within his district, being an example for the other missionaries and conducting baptismal interviews for baptismal candidates being taught by members of his district.  Besides these responsibilities he will continue to have his proselyting area and he will continue to find, teach and baptize families and help the church to grow in our mission.  In this capacity he will be able to develop leadership skills that will give him experience that will help him for the rest of his life.  We give thanks and appreciation for the continued support that you give to Elder Lynn.  Thank you very much for preparing him to serve in such a position.

 With love and appreciation,

 President Paulo V. Kretly

Mozambique Maputo Mission

 

Dear Parents and Leaders,

 It is with great joy that we announce that Elder Justin Bill Lynn has been called to be a trainer in our mission.  The role of a trainer, among other things,  is to help a new missionary who is arriving on the mission become an extraordinary missionary.  In order for this to happen, the trainer must be an extraordinary missionary who stands out from other missionaries by developing qualities such as proactivity, perseverance, leadership skills, and above all else being an example for other missionaries.  We hope that you all will join with us in a spirit of prayer in order to help Elder Lynn in this very important calling to bless the life of this new missionary.

 

Sincerely,

 

Paulo V. Kretly

Mission President - Maputo Mozambique Mission

 

April 21, 2014

Well transfers were interesting. Elder Lake was supposed to leave last friday, so on Thursday we went to Beira to say good bye to some of his families he had taught before at the beginning of his mission. And then we just stayed that night at the house of the missionaries in Beira. But then thursday night I got a call from the assistants and found out that I am training this transfer! My new companion got here last friday morning! He is from Idaho and his name is Elder Van Leuven. He just got here from the MTC last week! So I am really excited! He doesn't speak portuguese yet, just like all new missionaries so it will be a good experience for me and I am super excited to help him come into the mission! So my week consisted of saying good bye to elder Lake and then introducing Elder Van leuven to all the new things in Inhamizua! This transfer should be a really successful transfer so I am excited! Ok pictures take forever to load so I will begin sending them!

Justin sent a lot of wedding pictures but I am only going to include a few.  He sent 21 pictures and it is a bit overwhelming!  I will mostly include the ones that have him in them.

 

Inhamizua - where Justin is currently serving

 

April 14, 2014

Wow a new car!!!!!!!!! Mom is gonna be riding in style now. You aint driving no mommy missle no more hahahahahahahahaha. But to answer your question about who will stay... I think for sure I will be staying. Elder Thurston has been here since last august so he is almost certainly gonna be leaving to another area haha. But his companion Elder Biddulph has a chance also cause we came here at the same time to Inhamizua. It will be interesting to see! The weddings and baptisms went extremely well!! I wish i could send pics this week but they'll have to wait until next week because the internet cafe we came to this week isn't very good. But they went super well! Today, I got some emails from the siblings asking some questions about some stuff that needed answered today so I am not gonna be sending a super long email today. THis is elder Lakes last pday so we are having a big party on the beach for him so I dont have much time today. Next week you guys will get lots of pictures and stories though so dont worry! Well just know how much I love you and you'll just have to learn patience with me as you will have to wait one more week for the pics! Next week will be a good week for emailing and all that jazz! Well I Love you lots!!!

Love,
Justin

An e-mail from President Kretly

Dear Parents and Leaders of Missionary from Mozambique Maputo Mission,

Your missionary is doing great. All are in good health and today we are having zero problems with that and obedience. The mission is growing and the Sacrament attendence is growing each Sunday.

About 20 months a go the Sacrament attendency was 1700 in 18 branches. Today the Lord bless us with 3200 total in 24 branches. It's a miracle. What your missionary is doing here is amazing and have no words to thank you for prepare such a great missionary. I think we can have wonderful missionaries in other missions even great ones like we have here, but not better. We really enjoy work with them and my wife love them as her own sons and daugthers. They are adorable!

Please, keep praying for them, and the families that they are working with. By the way, since we start to mesure that, (Dec2012) the Lord bless us and they baptize 274 complete families! Is not a miracle? More than 85% of than is active on the church!

Our next big goal is send these families to the Temple this year, will be a big chalenge, but for God nothing in impossible, and our missionaries knows that.

Thanks again for all you doing to help them and lift them.

With love and appreciation,

President and Sister Kretly

April 8, 2014

Hello!

Well Iºll answer your questions first off. Yes my cough is all gone, I donºt have a stuffed up nose anymore and I am feeling good! So the other two marriages will be this week on saturday and then after church on sunday is when we will have the baptisms. The families that will be married this week are Zacarias and Lina and then Valentim and Diana. Zacarias and Lina have some kids who could be baptized with them but they live with their grandma so they wonºt be baptized. They have a little baby girl though who is absolutely adorable. She is so dang cute. Her name is Ariane and I seriously am going to name one of my kids that. I am just gonna have to figure out how to spell it right so people can pronounce her name right. Cause the pronunciation is like.. Are-ee-on-ee. But anyways, the other couple Valentim and Diana are also super awesome. They will be baptized with their son Santinho. Then that other family that was already married, only Felicidade will be baptized right now. Unfortunately the husband works too much right now and canºt get off most sundays, so we will hold off until he is able to come to church more often. So that is the plan for this week. Other than that, we have some other really good families who are also progressing well, and will be baptized next month!

This last week was pretty much just another normal week. We made some more trips into the City to work on some marriage documents. Thats always good to get marriage documents done, it just stinks having to take a lot of time to get to the city but its all worth it. So then last monday and tuesday we didnºt really have energy so we slept pretty hot, but then wednesday and from then on our air conditioner wasnºt really working but we couldnºt get anyone to finally come fix it. So we finally came up with a creative solution. There is this little hallway in between our room and the other elders room, so we blocked off all the air ways to other rooms and then set up a fan inbetween our rooms so that the cold air would travel to our room. It worked pretty well haha but hopefully it gets fixed up tomorrow. Besides that, not much happened! I still havenºt gotten too many pics of Inhamizua, they will come soon. Donºt worry! Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!!!!!!

Love,
Justin

March 31, 2014

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