Dear family,
That's crazy that there will be a lot of changes in our stake. My area will be going through the same thing in November. We will have a district conference here in November and some branches might be split.
As I told you last week, transfers were on Monday (8/25), that day we went to bed very late, we stayed up waiting for my companion Elder Caetano; he and another Mozambican missionary arrived at our house at 1:00 am on Tuesday morning directly from Beira. The next day we were so tired, but we still went to work as any normal day. We went out in the morning to walk in the area and talked to people. In the afternoon we got a call from the APs asking us to be at the mission office to meet with President Kretly.
When Elder Caetano and the other missionary, Elder Paulino arrived, they still hadn't been set apart, so we had to make the long trip to the office so they could get set apart (Going to the office is always difficult and time consuming, not because of the distance, but because of the difficulty in transportation--the chapas are not the best transportation system). Other four missionaries were also there to start their missions. Afterwards they received their name tags. It was a cool experience. Elder Caetano and an old companion, Elder Conde, are from the same branch in Beira. Back at home, it was Elder Conde that first invited Elder Caetano to come to church and sit with the missionaries and Elder Conde ended up baptizing him. He was baptized in 2012. Elder Caetano just turned 20 years old a month ago. He is very excited to be on a mission. He speaks mostly Portuguese, but I'm helping him to learn English. I'm glad I have the opportunity to work with him.
This week we worked a lot and walked a lot too! We did a lot of contacting and found some good people that are interested in our message. The difficulty that we found was in actually getting to teach them. A lot of lessons fell this week. We had fewer lessons than usual because of it. But I think we'll be able to sit with more of these people this week. The more people we find the better chance we'll have at sitting with at least a few of them. We have good investigator families, but we need to focus on finding more new families who are ready and willing to accept the gospel and change their lives, These are the elect people and they are hard to find, but that's what we've been called to do. Church yesterday was good, we had a few investigators at church, but a lot of others weren’t' able to make it. All these little difficulties are just part of the work though, and there is no use in getting frustrated.
Anyway, so on Monday when I heard that Elder Keck, (my previous companion) would be going to Quelimane I decided to write a letter to bring with him up there. I wrote the letter to the family of C****o and M****a, remember them? They were the first family that I baptized here in Mozambique. In the past couple weeks I had been talking with the elders up in Quelimane, who said they had become a little inactive. Apparently they have been having some problems with their testimonies and have not come to church in the past few months. It made me feel sad hearing that they have been struggling in their faith. So I wrote to them bearing my testimony about the covenant of baptism and the importance of the family, I mentioned how grateful I am to know that our family, is sealed in the temple and how they should desire and work towards going to the temple to be sealed. I really love them and have a special place for them in my heart and hope they stay strong and stay close to the Lord and his church. Elder Keck called me later in the week saying that he visited with C*****o and M****a and gave them the letter, which they read immediately. He said that they really enjoyed it and M****a cried when she read it. He said that they will continue to work with them, but it looks like they are working to get back on the path to being active again and working on regaining their testimonies. It was a special opportunity to be able to send them my love and share my testimony with them. It was also a reminder to me that I can never forget about the families that I teach and baptize here.
Learning to love the people I teach, bringing them into the Gospel has created a bond that will last for a very long time, as the Lord says in D&C 18:15.
Mom, Dad and Jacob, I hope you all have a great week; You're always in my prayers,
I love you
Josh
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