Week 10— 7/22/2013--Quelimane,
Mozambique
“We found Candido and Marcia (a new
family) while knocking doors last Saturday night. They let us in, we
taught the restoration, and they came to church the next day with their two
children, age 7 and 11. The next day when we visited they said that they prayed
and knew that the church was true…”
Dear Familia,
Wow, it's been pretty hot over there,
hasn't it? I forget you're right in the middle of summer. The weather here has
been nice, not too hot or cold. But the people here think it’s cold ha-ha. This
is some of what we did this past week. Earlier this week, we visited a member
family and they gave us dinner-chicken and rice. They eat a lot of chicken
here. We don't always cook lunch; we usually go out to a restaurant a few times
during the week. There are quite a few places to eat here that are safe and
don't cost too much. Today, we will be going to a member's house for lunch and
have FHE(Family Home Evening, a church
program that helps bring families closer). Last week we had FHE with
two families combined. We played UNO, it was pretty fun. We don't always do FHE
on Mondays, though.
Our surroundings
Among other
things...the grocery store
is pretty close. Quelimane is not very big, so nothing is super far away. The
store is small, but has all the basic necessities. They have a few American
brands but all are expensive ($5 for a box of cereal, Pringles, etc. all
expensive. This week, we bought ground beef and had tacos for lunch on
Saturday, it was really good.
My shoes and feet are doing fine.
It's a lot of walking, but I've gotten used to it by now. Having bikes would
just make things more complicated, and would probably get stolen anyways, so
being on foot is easier.
You can see food vendors on the
street everywhere; there are people all over the place selling just about
anything they can find to sell. We can't
buy food stuff from the streets; it's not safe. But the food from most
restaurants is fine and safe for us to eat. We usually get a chicken and
rice plate or a hamburger (yes, they have hamburgers and fries here!).
This
from the blog kept by the senior couple working here before Josh arrived, they
wrote this back in April as they were about to
leave: “Debbie (Sister Osborn) however, on the keyboard (among other
contributions), is where the pain will be felt. The music I fear is going
to fall into serious decline. We have no one here who can carry a tune.
She alone has kept our services from bedlam”
The music during Sacrament
Church yesterday was great. There
were about 80 people at church yesterday, which is a pretty normal, the members
are great, some travel long distances to be here. Oh, I almost forgot, I play the piano during sacrament
meetings. I play from the Simplified Hymns book, and I make some mistakes, but
people don't really notice. Nobody else knows how to play piano or knows
anything about music, so I'm the only one. We just use a small electric
keyboard that's at the chapel. I practice the hymns during the week so I don't
do horribly during sacrament meeting. So I'm grateful that I am definitely
using my musical talent here--so to speak.
Our Investigators
Our investigators are doing well. We
have a couple families that are progressing nicely. One of them, Candido and
Marcia are doing really well. We found them while knocking doors last
Saturday night. They let us in, we taught the restoration, and they came to
church the next day with their two children, age 7 and 11. The next day when we
visited they said that they prayed and knew that the church was
true. We invited them to be baptized on August 4th, and they
accepted. It happens to be the day when their daughter turns 8, so she can be
baptized too. They're already married and have accepted to live the word
of wisdom. We still have a lot to teach them, but they'll be ready for their
baptism.
There is another couple, Gomes and
Joaquina that will be getting baptized on that day along with their children.
Other missionaries started teaching them, and they wanted to be
baptized, but they weren't married and didn't have money at the time
to get married (the documents required cost money, not a lot, but this family
doesn't have much). They finally got the money together and will be getting
married on the 3rd and baptized also on the 4th. So in total, there will be 9
or 10 people getting baptized on that day. There is yet another investigator, a
widow that might get baptized on that date also. So that's going to be great!
We are very excited for all of them!
Other than that, we have a few more
families that are moving along, and will probably be baptized later in August
or September. We also continue to do a lot of door to door contacting. A lot of
people around here work for the government and travel a lot, so it's a bit hard
to find time to meet with them, but we continue to work on ways to teach them.
Every day I
continue to improve in the language and in teaching. I'm being patient with
that and it is working out fine. Anyway, that's about it for this
week.
I think of you guys in my prayers.
Thank you for your advice and words of encouragement.
Have a great
week everyone!!!
With Love,
Josh (Elder
Rebollo)
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