Elder Ryland Earl Rash: Week 67: Zone Conference, traveling, area, and responsiblities

* From Elder Rash's mom: This e-mail are answers to questions from his dad. So it doesn't really have a flow to it. But I didn't know what questions were asked, so I'm just posting it as is!

Hey, so my zone practically covers 90% of Mozambique.

We have missionaries in Tete, Nampula, Chimoio, Maxixe, Quelimane, and had missionaries in Marromeu, but it got closed down because the war was getting too close to the city. The areas that we have missionaries in is pretty much the entire province in which they are serving, so there are no boundary limits.

We don't currently travel to visit other missionaries, but we are talking to president to see if we can get some divisions arranged. Each flight would be about 2 hours long or so.

Every other Transfer we have to fly down to maputo for a leadership conference and every other transfer we have to fly down to Beira for Zone Conference. So each transfer we are on a couple of planes to get from place to place.

Nampula is massive and 90% of the population is Muslim, so we never work in the city because that is where they all are, so we work in the outskirts of town. I love Nampula and the branch here. They are so excited about missionary work and give referrals like crazy! They are such a big help. We are really pushing to divide the branch into three so that we can become a district. We used to have an attendance of 200 here, but this past week we had 126 because the missionaries were out of town for half of the week at Zone Conference.

Once you've seen one part of Mozambique you've seen it all. The only difference about Nampula is that there are some cool mountains surrounding it, and the city is more spread out and bigger. The streets are wider, everything is more organized and clean.

Elder T is awesome! I also just call him T, so don't worry if you don't want to spell his name. We get along really well. He is really relaxed and chill, but is good to work with.

Zone Conference was really different because of the new stuff I have to deal with, but it was good. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to being Junior Companion without any major responsibilities.

As a Zone Leader I don't do much, I just make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing, and give them ideas to fix any problems that they have. The main thing that has changed about me is that now I have to be even more of an example. So that has become a big shock to me. I wasn't asked to serve in this position because of what I have done in the past. I was asked to serve here so that I could grow as an individual.

Hey, can you guys send me the emails that Devon sends home so that I can see them. I wasn't able to subscribe to the automatic thingy.

During our time in Beira I was able to pass by and see Tony and Carolina. Tony is still super active, but Carolina has gotten a little weak. She lost her baby that she was pregnant with- a baby girl...

Thank you guys so much.

Elder Ryland Rash