Elder Ryland Earl Rash: Week 17: Bucket Showers keep you cool on a Hot Day!

So this past week has been a little crazy! On Friday Morning the water went out... and didn't come back on until Sunday Morning... Sheesh! I never knew how much I relied on running water until it was gone! We were, however, blessed enough to have a community spout that was pumping water still, so we filled up basins, trash cans, bottles, anything that we could find, really, with water so that we could cook, bathe, drink, and everything else that you need to use water for! So I took a bucket showers for a few days! Now you might think, "Man, that stinks!" But to tell you the truth, there is nothing better than a nice cold bucket shower after an extremely EXTREMELY hot day! I came out here with the thought, "Psh! I'm from Arizona! I can handle a little African Heat!" Boy was I wrong! It has been in the 40's, which is around 110ish, but with the humidity, you just stay wet and sticky from your own sweat. Plus, when you're walking around at 13:00 with the sun beating down on you relentlessly, you just want to lay down on the side of the road and die like we see so many dogs do here! So yeah, it's been hot, and without water! What a beautiful combination!

As for Conference, I've heard quite a bit about it, and we're going to download all of the sessions and listen to them this week, but we were only able to watch the Saturday Morning Session at a Members house in English, then we had to go home because it was too late. It was 18:00 here when the first session started, and we had to be inside by 21:00, so we only had time for the first session, but I absolutely LOVED it! I learned to much! I loved Elder Uchtdorf's, Elder Maynes's, and Elder Lawrence's talks so much! I can't wait to hear all of the rest of the sessions! But here in a couple of weeks, we'll watch them in Portuguese with all of the ward at the Church building!

As for our investigators! We WILL be having a big baptismal service on the 17th with 3 of our investigators, and 2 investigators of the other Elders in our District! So I am super stoked for that! Joanna, Lidia, and Lima will all be baptized! Whoo hoo! Joanna is an 11 year old girl, and her adopted father and mother are super active! Her Mom is actually the Young Women's President, and her Dad is the Excecutive Secretary. Lidia is a friend of a recent convert that we have. She is 16 years old, and we almost stopped teaching her because she told us that her Father forbid her from going to church and being baptized... So we taught her that if she had faith, and if she prayed that her father's heart would be softened, she would be able to be baptized on the 17th. She showed great desire and faith to be baptized, and so I had been praying super hard for a miracle for about a week. The next time we met with her, she greeted us with a huge grin on her face! "Everything is resolved now!" She said! Yes!!!!! Our prayers had been answered and her father had a change of mind and a change of heart! So she will be baptized in 2 weeks as well! Lima is just this super awesome guy that we met doing door contacts! We initially met his nephew who was a 2 year old named Kelvin! He called Elder Badger fat, and I was just laughing so hard, and apparently he didn't like it, so he called me ugly! Haha! We initially didn't think that Lima was all that interested, and the only reason we returned was to see Kelvin again, but Kelvin went with his Mom up to Nampula. But Lima invited us in, and has been one of our best friends, most progressing and reliable investigators, and is just super nice!

This Saturday we will be having an awesome ward activity! We have planned it all out, and we will be taking the ward on a "Flight to Tete". The "Plane" is going to crash, and we are all going to "Die". We will then take them on a tour of the Spirit World to teach them about the Plan of Salvation. It is going to be super awesome! Plus the ward is all super hyped about it! Well, I think that is all I've got for now! Thank you for all of the prayers on my behalf! I love you all, I think of you often.

I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know God lives. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's kingdom once again established on the Earth.

Love,

Elder Rash