Week 14 - 8/19/2013

“I will start teaching a music class here in the next couple weeks. We announced it yesterday, and many members have already shown interest. It would be nice to leave Quelimane with at least a few members who could play a hymn or two during sacrament meetings”

 Hello everyone!    

It sounds like you had a fun week. I'm glad that you are having a fun summer. Time really flies, I can't believe Jacob is going back to school this week. 

It's nice to hear good news from the ward; it’s amazing that we will soon have about 10 missionaries from our ward out in the field.

About sending me care packages. It is difficult but not impossible mostly because it could be a little expensive to send and it takes a long time for me to get them. But I think it's best to wait for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'll keep thinking of things you can send me.

 

My new companion, Elder Heaton, and I are getting along well. He went to AF high school. He was involved in band and choir, so he knows about music too. This is the second transfer that has taken place since I got here, I wouldn't mind staying here for two more transfers. Quelimane is a nice place and I’ve started to know the city and love the people here. There have been a lot of baptisms in all the areas of the country where we have missionaries. Also the number of missionaries here has been growing pretty fast. Last week the mission received 22 more missionaries; most of them have been put in the Beira and Maputo areas, where the church is growing the most. If the rate of growth continues like this, it seems that we will be able to organize the first stake in Mozambique, in Beira, by the end of the year. It's cool how fast the church is growing in this country.

It's weird to think that exactly one year ago I was starting school up there at the U and moving out of the house for the first time.  Jacob, as we walk around we hear people listening to all kinds of music not just African music, but from other countries as well, including America. In our house, we have hot water for showers and sinks for washing dishes. In case you’re wondering, I haven't eaten anything unusual this week. People eat a lot of rice, beans and chicken, so I don't eat anything out of the ordinary very often.

The weather is starting to get hotter here. I heard Quelimane is one of the most humid places in the mission, and I can definitely tell; it's starting to get more humid, and it'll only keep getting hotter and more humid. But at least we have AC in the house.

Church on Sunday was good; I gave my first talk about enduring to the end. I though it went well. I read a few scriptures and talked about them a little and in the end I bore my testimony. Members came by to congratulate and said that they liked it. I haven't taught a class in church yet- thankfully. I don't think I would be able to do that yet—but maybe soon. There is primary here, and elder's quorum and relief society and young women's. But no young men's because there's only one young man that is 16, the rest are 18 or older or younger than 12. But the branch here is really strong, considering how few they are and how new they all are to the church.

I will start teaching a music class here in the next couple weeks. We announced it yesterday, and many members have already shown interest. It would be nice to leave Quelimane with at least a few members who could play a hymn or two during sacrament meetings. I'm still not very good at piano because I don't have much time to practice, but I know enough to teach the basics. I'll let you know how that goes.

This week was filled with contacting and trying to find new families to teach. We found a couple good families, but we need to find a lot more. Several appointments fell through this week so it was a little tough, but I’m confident that as we keep finding more people to teach, we'll get the ball rolling again with progressing investigators. We are also getting references from the members whom we are keeping involved in the work. For some lessons, we invite member couples to come along with us, so investigators can see that members are people just like them, and that they had similar concerns about getting married, keeping the word of wisdom, etc. Other than that, nothing much happened this week. Just work.

Well, I think that's about it. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for me! I really appreciate it!
Have a good week everyone! I love you all!

Elder Rebollo