Week 26—11/11/2013 T3 (A suburb between Matola and Maputo)
“I was surprised to
find out of my transfer out of Quelimane and was a little sad to say goodbye,
to all the members, investigators, and Elder Heaton. I have a lot of good
memories there. I hope to return someday”
Hello again family!!!
I was so happy to read your email
letters this week. I thought you guys might be anxious to hear back from me,
considering I'm in a new area now. This past week has been a little crazy with
the transfer and all, but it was a really good week.
 |
| Elders Rebollo and Heaton |
I was surprised to find out of my
transfer out of Quelimane and was a little sad to say goodbye, to all the
members, investigators, and Elder Heaton. I have a lot of good memories there.
I hope to return some day. I found out on Monday morning and left early Tuesday
afternoon, so I didn't have time to see all the people I wanted to before I
left or take all the pictures I wanted, but here l have a few for you guys.
 |
| Saying good bye to Joaquina and daughters, unfortunately her husband Gomes and older kids were out |
There was a family night that same Monday
night, so it was nice to see a lot of the branch members there and a couple
investigators and say good bye to them.
 |
| Here I am saying good bye to Walter and his family |
Then on Tuesday I packed up my stuff in
the morning, went to Walter and Darmin's house to have lunch. They made rice
and beans and crab for me, it was really good. Then we went to the airport and
I got to say hi to the elder coming in my place before I got on the plane.
Elder Bender, my new companion, met me
at the airport and a member gave us a ride to the house in T3. The house here
is really nice! I'd say it's definitely one of the nicest houses on the mission;
I will be sending pics next week for sure. T3 is like a suburb between the city
of Matola and Maputo. Maputo and Matola are like one big city pretty much.
Things here are definitely a lot busier than in Quelimane, there are tons of
cars, chapas, and people. (“Chapas” are mini vans that go all over the city, it’s
basically the mass transit system here) The next day on Wednesday we went
shopping for groceries, after all the elders in our district had arrived.
There are 6 elders living together in
this house and all of us are our own district. The other four are Elders Allen,
Ndala (from Angola), Barroso (from Brazil), and Herd. Everyone seems like a
cool bunch. My companion has just about 3 months more on the mission than I do,
and he started out in Quelimane too with Elder Seoane. So we've had fun talking
about all the people in Quelimane and how things are going there. We get along
super well. He likes to have fun with the work and likes to joke around, so
we've been having a pretty good time so far.
He has been here in T3 since July, so
he knows the area really well. I'm excited for this week I can hardly wait to
start working. This area we work in is really big and has a lot of people, but
we need more progressing investigators than we have now, so we'll get to work
on that right away.
The church meetings are not held in a
church-built chapel, it's a building that the church is renting out, but it's
pretty big. There are individual classrooms for primary, relief society, elders’
quorum, young men’s, and young women’s, and the sacrament meeting room is
really big too. There were about 100 people that came to church. I would have
thought it would be higher, though. President Kretly came to visit the branch
yesterday and gave a talk. He told the branch how they have to help re activate
the inactive members and help the missionaries more in finding and teaching
investigators. I can see that a lot of the things we did in Quelimane might
help here, so I'm excited to start working with the branch here like we did
there.
I'm glad you sent my package out. I do
hope that it will get to me in time for Christmas. I can't really think of anything
else that I would want at this time. Don't forget to send me a small calendar,
like I mentioned in my email last week.
The weather here was hot for a few days
but the past couple days has been cooler and cloudy, which is nice.
It's nice that President sent you guys
that email- I definitely feel safe here, and feel that President and Sister
Kretly really care for our safety. I already have that biosense lotion,
President gave us a bottle when he visited Quelimane. You can send some hand
sanitizer, if you want though. I haven't had any health problems, except weight
loss, but it hasn't been unhealthy (By the way, I lost 20lbs so
far) I have been really blessed; I can honestly say I've not been sick once so
far on the mission, not even a little bit, besides being tired sometimes, but
that literally happens to everyone. I'll make sure to be keeping myself as
healthy as I can.
I hope you guys are making it through
the weeks alright and not getting too tired. I'm glad you're doing well too,
Jacob! Not too long until Christmas break already!
This P-day has been pretty awesome. We went to the Matola
chapel and played basketball and soccer with a bunch of other elders and some
sisters. It was nice to meet and talk with a lot of them. It's weird to be
around so many missionaries after 4 months of being far away with only one
other missionary. Then we came here to do internet. We do internet in
Magoanine, which is another area near Maputo. After this we will go do
shopping, and then get on a chapa to get back to T3. The grocery store here is
like ones in the US, there is so much selection, and it was kind of
overwhelming when we went there on Wednesday haha. But overall it hasn't been
too hard adjusting to the new environment, I like it a lot. I'm super excited
to have a normal week and get to work.
I love you all so much. Thank you for your letters again
and for all your thoughts and prayers for me. Always know that I'm safe and
happy and having a great time here. I wish I had time to write more, but I kind
of had a long wait here for the computer, and we have to go shopping for the
week soon. We are getting our house sprayed with permethrin today so we have to
go shopping and drop the food off at home and get out of the house before they
start. (We have a senior couple, the Hobsons that are based in the T3 branch.
Elder Hobson is the one coming over to spray our house.)
Anyway, have a happy week everyone, until next week!!
Elder Rebollo
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