Monday, December 14, 2015

Week 27: The Package has arrived!!!


To the Family:

          Mom, you will be pleased to know that I got my package!!! It came safe and sound and I got everything inside! I opened it the moment I got it! You know how I am, impatient! But I absolutely LOVED everything inside!!! My favorite part was all of the letters!!! And all of the pictures! That was a nice touch! However, as for the pictures... Next time when/if you do that, can you just send me pictures from home? Pictures of people? Maybe pictures of my buddies out serving! The pictures of me on the mission, I already have all of those... But I enjoyed them none the less! But I LOVED the letters! Keep them coming! Grammie, Thank you so much for all that you sent me! I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with that Pocket Butler here, but I'll hold on to it! But we all loved the candy! OOOOHHH! We love American Candy! 

          The camera is super nice! I like it a lot! Elder Nielsen has the same one! And thank you for the Wassel recipe! Apple cider and Apple juice are the same thing, right? We don't have apple cider here, but we have apple juice! So we'll see how it turns out! As for Skype, we still know absolutely nothing! I haven't been thinking about it too much. You can email Sister Koch. She'll have more information than I will! As for our baptisms!!!! We will have them this Saturday at the Matola Chapel!!! I'm so stoked! It will be my first time getting in the water! I'll send a bunch of pictures next week! But as for pictures this week, it isn't really working! So I'll have to just send a whole slew of em next week! 

          HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!! I hope you had a great 39th Birthday! I heard a lot about it! Oh man! So many memories around this time of year!

          Well, I'm gonna keep it short this week, I don't think I'll write an actual letter, but you guys can put something together about all of the information that I give you guys!

          Also, when is Devon gonna put in his mission papers?!? I've been waiting for a while to have a confirmation that he is coming here! 

          That is so cool about Austin Hildebrand! I'm so stoked to hear about that! If someone could send me his email address, that would be great!

          But to answer your questions, we had 18 investigators in church, including 2 families.

          You will all be pleased to know that I have been developing my soccer skills quite a bit. We have been whapping some young men in our Ward SO hard every P-day! We kick their Butts! 

I don't know what else to say...

I think that is all that I've got for you guys...

Sorry, but we've got to go. I don't have too much exciting news...

Oh, we were in a Choppa that got in a minor fender bender... So that was kind of exciting!

Well, I'll do better next week! I love you all! Tchau!
 
*  After reading his letter, I was so disappointed to know there weren't any pictures in our Dropbox.  I just happened to go and check and to my surprise.....7 pictures!!!!
 
Reunited with his trainer Elder Badger

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!  Package arrived safe and sound!

I don't even know what to say about this.....
 
 

Monday, December 7, 2015

Week 26: HOT AS HADES in December


Here's my weekly email to everyone!

          I am doing great!  We had 1 family in church and 12 investigators, This last week was pretty good! We committed quite a few people to baptism before the end of the year. We will be having 2 or 3 baptisms on the 19th. We will be baptizing the daughters of a part member family. We've been working with Silva and Tereza to get them married, and the daughters have been wanting to be baptized for the past 4 years, but missionaries always said that they would baptize them as a family. Finally, Nora (the 16 year old daughter) asked in a lesson, "When are we going to be baptized?" We decided that there was no point in waiting any longer to baptize them. They've been coming to church as investigators for the past 4 years, already have testimonies, and we figured that the family will just receive more blessings by having more members in the family. So Nora asked me to baptize her, and Zuni (the 14 year old daughter) asked Elder Carvalho (The AP that initially taught this family) to baptize her. So their baptism will be on the 19th. We also have another young man that will hopefully be baptized on the 19th as well. Then we have the daughter and grandson of the Polygamist man that I told you about. They should hopefully be baptized on the 26th. But we'll see with all of these people if they are ready. But we will definitely be having a baptism on the 19th. Whoo Hoo!

          The Maputo Stake had their Christmas party over the weekend. We were was supposed to be there, but it was so extremely inconvenient and a waste of our time, that we didn't go. It is a pain to get to that chapel, we wouldn't have been able to bring any investigators, and we would have wasted 6-8 hours of our day in transit and singing. But we will sing as a choir for the Christmas party that we'll be having as a Maputo/Matola Zone.

          It is HOT AS HADES here! We were in an investigators home and he said, "I don't know what we did to make God mad, but He is burning us SO BAD! I think we all need to repent." I got a good kick out of it. But it is getting so hot here, and is only going to get hotter. I don't have a lot to write about today, so I'll just leave it at that! Merry Christmas! Have fun freezing. I can't remember what it feels like to not be sweating. Anyways, have a nice week, I've got to keep it short this week. Until next week!

Elder Rash
 
He throws kids around in his spare time

The kids love touching the white missionaries

You can pick all the bananas you want.....for FREEEEEEEE

This is on the out skirts of his area. Less people, less noise, less lights

I can't tell if he is stretching or showing us his muscles

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone from AFRICA!!!!!!