Week 57. The work goes on-- Four new branches in Beira

Week 57-- 6/16/2014

"...many are being blessed because they accept the message that Jesus is the Christ and that He lives today."

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letter this week. I actually had no idea that Sunday was Father's day until I read your emails. As far as I can tell, they don't celebrate that day here. June 1st was children's day, though, and they have mother's day (sort of), but not father's day.  Dad, I hope you had a great Father’s day!  I wish it was easy to send things home from here, or else I would be sending you guys things for these special occasions.

Oh Yes! I know very well that the World Cup is going on right now. Mozambican love futbol! It seems that everyone is paying attention to the games, and for the most part people here would like Brazil to win.

Things in the mission are going well. We learned today that four new branches were created in Beira. The church is growing very rapidly there! In Maputo not as fast, but it's still growing. 

We had a really good week. One of our investigator couples, finally finished their document process for marriage and submitted them at the civil register. They will be married and baptized on July 12th!  They are excited of finally being able to set a date for their wedding and baptism; they are making great progress. We are very happy and excited for them as well!

This Saturday we will have the baptisms for three young men, all are 17 years old. They are very excited to be baptized. These are very smart young men who will have the power of the priesthood and the potential to serve full time missions. We also have two other couples in the document process and they are doing great. We are trying to have one more couple get baptized on the 12th of next month as well, if everything works out that way. We also found a couple new families this week that we have started teaching and have good potential to progress.

Things with my companion, Elder Zeca, are going great! He is an awesome missionary and a great companion. He is helping me to perfect my Portuguese more and I'm helping him learn English.  He likes singing church songs and sometimes we sing hymns in English using the little hymnbook that you sent me. We are working really well together and the Lord has blessed us soooo much in our area with many people who are willing to listen to our message and in turn many are being blessed because they accept the message that Jesus is the Christ and that He lives today (click here). We do what we can to reach out to as many people as we can every day and The Lord rewards our efforts.

The weather continues to be cool, but it's nice because I don't get super sweaty from walking around all day.

Anyway, my health is good and I'm happy. I know that you are always happy- I can tell by reading your letters every week-- I'm so grateful to the Lord for how he is blessing you guys back home as well as He blesses me out here.

I hope you guys have another good week. Enjoy your next trip to the temple.

Love Josh