Week 19 – 9/23/2012

“Church yesterday was great! Seven of our investigators came, and there were almost 100 people in attendance, the highest number I've seen since I've been in Quelimane!”

Hello Everyone!!

First of all, transfers were today and, I found out that I will be staying in Quelimane, thankfully. I feel like I got off the plane in Mozambique a couple weeks ago, not 12. It hasn't felt like I've been in Quelimane very long, so I'm glad I'm able to stay here at least for the next six weeks.

I was very happy to hear that Utah won again!!  I remember the game last year where Utah barely won and almost blew it because the fans rushed the field early haha. Wow, that was a whole year ago

We had been planning on going to Marromeu this coming weekend and attend church there

, but our plans have changed. Instead, we will pick up the elders there, and then we will drive down to Beira to attend zone conference. After zone conference, we will go back to Marromeu, drop off the elders, and then return to Quelimane. The whole trip will take us away for 5 days, and we will be staying the nights in the missionary houses in Marromeu and Beira. We don't know exactly when that will be, but most likely it will be the first week of October. General conference is that weekend too, I think. We will get the CDs of general conference in Portuguese a few weeks later to show at church, in case you were wondering about that.

Church yesterday was great! Seven of our investigators came, and there were almost 100 people in attendance, the highest number I've seen in the branch  since I've been in Quelimane!

Something nice that's been happening is that members are inviting others to church. And almost 100 percent of the time, if they come, they like it and want to learn more. We're really blessed to be in a branch with members that care about missionary work and growing the church here. They want a chapel of their own, and know that in order to achieve it, we need more members here.

This past week was really good. We didn't have anything out of the ordinary happen to us, so we were able to focus on teaching lessons and contacting. We had more success this week in teaching investigator lessons with members present. Having members present at a lesson is really helpful. When an investigator has doubts about baptism or marriage or the Book of Mormon, the member is there and can answer, knowing what it was like to be in their position. For example, we were teaching an older couple about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. We had a member, Augusta, there with us. This couple likes the church, but they have been catholic their whole lives and don't want to leave their church. Augusta, who used to be catholic, too, was able to testify to them how she was able to follow what she knew was the truth and get baptized in the true church. But we'll see how that couple progresses. I told you last week about Marcelino and Inez. They are still doing well. They currently live apart, but are looking for a place to rent to live in when they get married. We are going to try to find him work to do so he can earn money to pay for the marriage documents. We hope that they will be getting married and baptized this coming month.

The car has turned out to be a big blessing for us recently. We've started teaching a few member references, and most of them live a bit far. If it weren't for the car, we wouldn't be able to take the time to go teach them. With the car, we are also able to give the member a ride to go to the lesson with us. The bikes have been a blessing too. Without them, we would be late to most of our teaching appointments. Everything here is flat, there are no hills to climb up, thankfully, and so riding the bike here is pretty easy for the most part.  

I love you all, and hope you have another week of health and happiness.  

Elder Rebollo