We're "Back In Maputo Again!"

We are Home again......In our own apartment! 

What a way to welcome in March!

We were in Johannesburg for 3 weeks. The last of February until March 17th.

Ok! It is amazing how time gets away from you and you live from day to day and not really know what day it is. But I do now.

Today is March 29th. and soon the end of another month. I wanted to write so many things on this blog for march. But internet troubles got in the way so here is the first 3 weeks of march...

So we have been in Johannesburg for 3 weeks. 
John has had surgery and we had a wonderful Country Directors Conference.
 
The week before we tried to get John as recuperated as possible so he could sit through the long days.
Sunday the 10th we were able to go to Church. At least Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School in a branch outside of Johannesburg. We went with the Merkleys .  Not to Pretoria but closer to Soweto area.
It was a wonderful Branch. The meetings were held in a Modular type church set up. It reminded me of the class rooms set up for the overcrowded schools. In the middle of the square complex of class rooms and Chapel area was the Baptism Font.

Branch Garden. How's it working?

It was so clean and nice in the area around the church .  They had a garden that looked a little like a community garden but I didn't get enough time to ask questions about it. 
John could only make it 2 hours and then we returned to the apartments at Dukes Court.
As we drove in and out there was a funny thing you noticed about the area.
Up on the telephone poles were several... not just a couple but many pairs of Sport(tennis) shoes...laces tied together and flung over the telephone wires.
just hanging there.

Shoes on a wire.

Sister Merkley said they are always just hanging there. No reason. Just a funny thing....one of the many funny things in Africa.

Merkleys are a great couple who are serving a 6 month mission now along with being  called as technical specialist over water. 
 They have been traveling through all of the Africa South East Area looking over old water projects to see how we can more efficiently bring the people clean water. 
(When not traveling they reside in Johannesburg so we have had the chance to see them a lot as much as we have been in Johannesburg lately.)

Also as country directors  we are trying to learn to make the projects more sustainable.

We have had many experiences with the Merkely's on this mission. It has been wonderful to get to know them and the other couples we know on this mission.
Sister Merkley has taught me to take more pictures  of the people. People are so much a like all over the world.
Mom's! Do you recognize this picture?

Baby and Bath time.

Or this....A Mozambican nap.

After a sucker ~

We met so many wonderful couples from all the countries in our area at the conference.
Many this is their 2nd, 3rd time to serve in Africa and for some their 7th or 8th mission.
Sharon Eubanks who is over Humanitarian work for the church spent the week with us and she is so delightful and Brilliant in humanitarian efforts.

 A table full of humanitarian seniors and Sharon Eubank

Early at Mikes...a tradition.

To end with an afternoon at the temple.

Our conference started on the 12th of March, but on the 11th of March the Osborns, from our mission arrived in Johannesburg as well. I have no pictures but just their story. 
They flew to Maputo and drove a mission car to Joburg to be at the temple with Abel and his wife from Quelimane. All the way for a branch member. To help with translation and understanding and just to lend support. 
How many of us do that and we live in the same state.? Guilty!
BUT !  This Kind act and the wonderful ordinance of the temple will really strengthen this family and the Branch in Quelimane.
It was fun to see them there and to tell the other couples about what a super work they are doing in Quelimane.

Oh ! I found one..
Here is this great couple on the Island of Idugo, close to their location of Quelimane. Here they are counseling Rocha, Amizade's son, about school and etc. Rocha also a member. 

We have the greatest mission and the best senior couples serving there. Along with the best missionaries in the church working day and night to Share the gospel with families.

Elders on the streets of Beira! Hot and humid streets of Beira!

Ahhh !  Mozambique and the mangoes. Season over!

Kids carrying mangoes on Idugo!

      
           

    

The last of February and in came March...you can say it came in with an I Do!

I thought of just jumping to March but I can not.
There were some awesome things that happened the last two weeks of February and the first week of March.
2 of them were  Miracles.  We know we have miracles everyday here on this mission but these two are worth mentioning along with a couple of other small stories.
Hope you can endure it.

So many things were going on in that month at one time.
The Nichols family had arrived from Portugal, actually they live in Alpine Utah but are living a year in Portugal, and were in country for a month.
We had a great time watching their experiences as they were showing their children the country their mother of their mothers birth.  The mother Catia was born in Quelimane. She lived there until she was 2 when Her family went to Portugal to live.

Elder Wollenzien on Island shore looks across the Sopinho River.

This is the other shore where the baptism was.

 I knew them through Karen Swalburg and  we have been keeping an eye on them as they traveled through this country with so many experiences including Real Mozambique flooding, mosquitoes and monkeys,

plus the baptism of their 8 year old boy in the Sopinho River.

Their kids will never be the same again.
We were finally able to meet them on February 24 at the church in Maputo right before we flew to Johannesburg. But we will get together again. They finish in Portugal the same exact time we finish in Mozambique.They were a great family.

There are 2 more children. One taking the picture and one young man downstairs visiting with the missionaries. I have never seen kids so excited about sharing the gospel with their family and others.  They will make great missionaries back in Alpine.
A secret...I know they plan to do the same thing I plan to do the minute we get off  the plane!

One of the completed wells.

We had a visit from Angela Hadjipateras from England. She came by to visit us because She was so impressed with the church's efforts to bring clean water to the Island of Idugo.

Women of Idugo working as we inspect the well!

Idugo is the island she also is trying to help in northern Mozambique. It is close to her project of Zalala Beach Lodge and Safaris. Look it up on line.

She is very concerned for the women of Africa.

She is also trying to build a functioning school in the community of Sopinho close to the island.

 We had a nice visit with her and hope her efforts with that island will continue. I am sorry I did not get her picture. We were so pressed for time.

Small Handful of The Children of Idugo.

We also spent many hours on our wheel chair project. We had a few problems with some of the chairs. This was a great concern for us. We did not want to be giving out a faulty product to someone disabled and poor. We tried ourselves to figure solutions and do what we could to remedy the problem. We were so thrilled when Rodney from the great company CE Mobility in Johannesburg came directly to Maputo with a truck load of parts and tools and commenced to repair the chairs that were faulty.

Repairing the faulty chairs.

Cantol, Rodney and Vernon repair wheels.

Vernon and Eugenio working together.

He also taught the technicians in the hospital how to do the work and he was so good to leave tools with them. When you come here and see how poor quality everything is you cant help but want to give them better.
Everything they have here is the cheapest quality you can find. It is very difficult and expensive to buy good tools or anything of high quality in Mozambique. It has to be shipped in from South Africa.
But Rodney gave many tools to the hospital technicians. What a great guy!
He spent 3 days in Maputo. It was wonderful. Now the process can continue.

Rodney shows a technician how to fix the axles.

This was a worry to us as we care so much about each of these projects and initiatives. We want to be sure we are giving the poor the very best quality we can under the proper conditions.

That  next few days we spent getting distribution items shipped to northern Mozambique and organizing the distribution center because we would be gone for 3 weeks.
Just the regular work that keeps us busy.
Meanwhile Elder Wollenzien is babying this Hernia so the surgery can wait until we get to South Africa.

We also had a wonderful sister in our branches here get married again after being divorced several years. A wonderful man found her. He adores her and treats her so wonderful. This woman is from Brazil. He is Italian.

Nilsa and Dany (He is Italian and she Brazilian)

 She has a boy on a mission and is a seminary teacher. Just a wonderful lady. She met this wonderful man and the missionaries and the Mission presidency are working with this man. He is very interested in getting baptized and to have an eternal marriage with Nilsa. That is her name 'Nilsa". I have to show you pictures of her cakes.

Two of her 3 cakes. A Big Deal!

Cake Number 3! Cakes are importante!

Oh By the way this is Eduardo White Castle. The Oldest living Member here.

Just a simple get together afterwards.

Tradition is a big drinking Party for days. Not for LDS.

But they always set their tables very nicely.

No matter what they have.

The following pictures are youth and young adults at the wedding. Playing music. Jose is playing the piano. 

Jose and some girls.

  Jose just started piano a  little before we arrived. He is doing really well and he has great goals.

Jose spends every free minute he has at the church practicing to keep himself out of trouble.

He is working to go on a mission now. He is the only member in his family. This boy discusses U.S. politics with us all the time. He stays up on U. S . history.

A really sharp young man. His problem is the girls love the fact that he can play the piano so well and ask him to teach them. But they want to immediately play as well as he does.

Poor Guy.

It is very difficult to be an only member of a family here.

 

 Below is a picture of Vanessa, me some young women and Albertina (the young women President).

Side Note: At the wedding All these girls sang 'Families Can Be Together Forever' all verses in  ENGLISH! 

 

Albertina is preparing for mission. She will turn her papers in very soon. Probably this month.

Vanessa is still working at getting permission form her uncle to go on a mission.

Of Course Vanessa(left),YW, me and Albertina

 Below are Jose and girls again and some Young Men in Maputo 1 branch.
Boy with Big smile in front on left is Albertina's brother, Luis.
I call him Captain Moroni. He helps encourage his older sister, Albertina, when she has hard days. He is 13. He can hardly wait til next year for seminary.
These two,Albertina and Luis, come to church every week and during the week often. The kids come to the chapel whenever they can. They are the only members in their family. Their mother would like to be a member but is not legally married to the father. (Remember here also boys are always holding hands. Girls do the same)

Their father some days absolutely FORBIDS them to come to church. Do you know they have such faith. They pray so hard and most times he softens or falls  asleep.
They are the best children. It is amazing. The young man in black and white sweater is Nilza's son from her first marriage. Another great young man.

Some traditions are the same.

(Hope you are not too bored.)
That brings us to
Monthly Miracle  # 1! 
 (we have many but these were the top 2 of Feb.- March)

We also had a group of 4 Elders getting ready to go home the same day we were going to South Africa. We always get so sad when they go home. So they were so kind to come visit us one of their last nights when all the departing elders had flown in.
We promised to one day feed them the food we had to stick in the freezer when the power was out a couple weeks before...remember.
So they were going to take us up on it this night.
WELL.... When they all arrived at our house The first thing the Elders did was  hand Elder  Wollenzien and I this letter. They knew we would be excited as they know the work we go through at the Ministry of Health.

Elder and Sister W open the letter while the missionaries cheer.(and eat)

 It had come to the office hand delivered by The Ministry of Health.  The Courier was to deliver this letter to us personally but not finding us at the chapel he took it to the mission office, which is clear across the city. The Elders assured him that they would deliver it to us.
When we opened it we were so shocked!  It was like a dream come true for us.
It was a letter of permission from the head ministers for us to have an HBB (Helping Babies Breath) training in the province of Tete during June or July of this year.

Now the reason this is so amazing is usually we have to go through so much work to get these letters and stamps and people to respond just to get a letter of permission which the church needs in order to have a training. The church will not do anything without the proper permission in any country.
But we have been working very hard to get to know the Deputy Minister very well, Dra. Nazira Abdula. She is a wonderful caring person and pediatrician in the ministry. We have been trying to help them understand that the church is more willing to help Mozambique when the country is willing to work with us. Not against us and making things so very difficult.
For Them to deliver this to us is not characteristic of the Ministry at all! Not at All!

The Proof is in the STAMP !

(: It was so funny because We realized that we needed to start asking for this permission letter when we returned home from Johannesburg in March. We were anxious about it as it is just so much work and effort to go back and forth to their different offices to finally receive the document. :)

But WOW! Now we don't have to. They brought it to our DOOR!.
It is truly one of our miracles!  To us this is a great accomplishment.

So that was miracle #1!....

Now back to the Elders....(be patient)

Elder Gibson (from Victorville), Elder Barlow(from Kaysville) Elder Largent,(Morgan Utah) and Elder Paxman (Provo, Utah) were the elders leaving. Because we just love these elders here in Mozambique and because we had food they came by with the office elders,Elders Greenman, Ostler and Rios for a district meeting. They included us and it was nice.They again are the best Elders.  I am sure now that Heavenly Father has sent and continues to send the cream of the crop Elders to Mozambique.

Miracle Number 2:
The elders in this whole mission have been working on something wonderful.
Bringing families into the church.

Elder Paxman told us a story about passing through a 'neighborhood' when the spirit told him to stop and talk to this man that was just sitting there on the street. To open his mouth and talk to him.
When he did it ended up they taught the entire family and this family is preparing for baptism.

(Elder Paxman told us this after he told us that his goal when he left Provo, as he told at his farewell, was to save someone.)

The last conversation Elder Paxman had with this man, as Elder Paxman was leaving before the baptism, was this; He told Elder Paxman 'Thank you Elder! Thank you for having the courage to talk to me that day in the street. and especially thank you for SAVING my family!'
This is what the Elders in this mission are doing right now. They are out working hard to save families.
It has been amazing how the Lord has directed them to the most amazing families.

In the Beira district and chimoio and Quelimane area there have been many families coming to the church.

You see the first challenge for them is that in order to be baptized they need to first be legally married.
Here there  is another problem. Families dis-own the couples when they don't do things in the traditional manner. Many traditions involved in traditional ceremonies are contradictory to the commandments of the  church. So the couple has to choose to marry in a way that will keep them worthy to be baptized. This creates a problem.
There is a lot of money involved in the registration process and paper work. There is a traditional Lobolo the groom must pay. So many times they go against there very deep traditions of their culture to live the gospel culture. So it is a huge sacrifice for them to be married.

Long story short this is the goal! families!

In December, in the Beira district,  there was a combined wedding of several couples and the next day they were all baptized.
In Chimoio and Quelimane they are having marriages and baptisms right and left.

The Combined weddings have worked out very well. Right off the new couples have friends in the church. They know they are not alone. It has really been a good thing to have the combined weddings.
The Goal was to have a combined wedding in March in Maputo.

And So: Our March Miracle in Maputo:
(even though we were in Johannesburg we were all excited for this day in Maputo)

The marriage of  9 couples at the Maputo Chapel on March 1st 

President Castanheira at left officiates as  9 couples say 'I DO!'

And on March 2nd the Baptism of families.

Today To the Lord they said 'I will'!

What a great sacrifice for them. But what a blessing to their families. What a blessing to Mozambique!


 
I have learned so much about sacrifice here. The youth sacrifice to be able to serve missions. Couples sacrifice to be a family in the Lords kingdom. So many people here sacrifice so much more than I do. So much more.
If I could take one lesson home to share with my family it would be this one.
Be so thankful for what we have. Cherish it. Take care of it.
When you begin to think you have nothing look again. We have everything.
Especially when we have the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have it all! 

Update On Elder Papa John:
Since February 24th we have been Johannesburg. John had his surgery on the 27th and all is going fine.
Painful but fine. He is going to live.
He ended up with two hernias in stead of just one and some vericose Veins he needed to have taken care of.
It has really taken the wind out of his sails for a while ....but there are so many around us who have had the same surgery we can see he will survive.

Yesterday we took an adventure to the Nelson Mandela house in Soweto and that walking and standing and riding in the car did him in big time. So he needs to take it easy still.  

 We are anticipating the country directors conference of sitting long periods of time next week-
And then the 4 flights of stairs up to our apartment in Maputo! 
We definitely will take it one step at a time.
 
  


We have a country Directors conference all next week and plan to return to Maputo on March 16th.

We will let you know how the rest of March goes.
Chao for Now!
 

February -The month with no energy!

February was really a challenge!

Toyota takes advantage of the High Rises of Maputo

This month was full of some pretty dark, warm days and nights.

It is normal once in a while to have the power go out anywhere in Africa. 

But when you have it continue for days it is really challenging.

This month I think it was off more than it was on. 

Here's how it started the first weekend in February.

We were just glad the rain was letting up a bit. Everyday was sunny and nice. Hot but nice.

On Friday a Transformer Blew up at the Power Plant just outside Maputo.

It killed some people and left Maputo and surrounding without power for 4 days.

This is in the middle of the summer here. It is like August in Miami here.

 

So we had no idea how long it would last. We moved everything into our small deep freeze and luckily we had frozen big jugs of water so they kept things pretty cool. 

At this altitude everything defrosts faster than in the mountains and so this is another problem.   

It was interesting as on Sunday the power went on just long enough for meetings to be held. This was good as in some of the chapels they are without any windows and you can see nothing. 

We were just grateful for it.

Well we had no power from Friday night, Saturday, part of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

But Monday with no power the Members still met for family night with the missionaries out side in the heat because to them it is just normal.

On Tuesday there was no Staff meeting because there was no power.

 Tuesday night the power returned. What a blessing it was. You could hear the cheers go up.

So during the week the power would go off a few hours now and again. This was fine except it affected our internet work which for us right now is critical.

We are trying to get our paperwork caught up for the past projects and close them.

We also lost our old computer which has many of our files on it. The mother board burned up. Probably from the electricity.

The worst outage was the next weekend when Elder Bricknell came to visit and do training for our district in Maputo and then attend District Conference.

He and Sister Bricknell are from south Africa and serve in the Area Presidency now.

Summer Streets in Maputo

 

Art Work

Table Cloths

 

T-Shirts

Dresses

They are so wonderful.

Shoe Shopping in Maputo

They and president and Sister Kretly had been in Beira at their district conference and flew into Maputo on Friday. 

President called us Friday night.

Refresco vendors in Maputo!

 We were out on the streets looking for wheel chair candidates.He explained that they had no water in their home at all. It had been off while they were in Beira.  He asked us if we would go in the morning to the store and buy groceries needed to make a nice homemade lunch for them all, the Bricknell's, the Kretly's and the district leaders and their wives.

We needed to have it ready and served right at 12 noon as their schedule was such that they would only have that 1 hour to eat.

Well we had some meat in the freezer and started the meat early in the morning, we ran to the store for other things to make a nice lunch and calculated it all to the minute of being ready right at 12 or a little earlier . So we are madly making the meat dish, preparing the vegetables, we made 4 loaves of banana bread(they all seem to love U.S. made banana bread with their little monkey bananas) and stuck them in the oven knowing they could cook until after twelve a few minutes. We had the water boiling and stuck the rice in which gave us 45 minutes (oodles of time) to have everything out and ready by 12 noon.

And wham!

The power went out.

The rice did not cook,The banana bread didn't get finished, The meat dish had to be served on rice as there was nothing to eat it with. The power to the stove everything was electric.

When we received permission to order pizza we had to find a place across town that had electricity.

Primary leader from T-3 and friends.

Sweet Nefi and his wonderful mother come to conference!

So we ordered but it did not arrive until 1:30 and it was passed time for the leaders to eat. Elder Bricknell just kept training them. Sister Bricknell was already hot and now with no air conditioning at all she was really miserable.

We got her what ice we had and made her as comfortable as possible until she felt better.

Then the training went on and the food went to the coldest place possible. Our deep freeze again.

It was a very uncomfortable training and when it came time for the couples meeting in the evening the power was still gone.

It was very very hot. Many couples came from all over the district and met in the very hot chapel just to hear the General Authority Speak.

Sheila and Dino

Now the meetings take place with Elder and Sister Bricknell speaking and they have to use a translator because they speak English. South African English. 

The President asked The Tualufo's to translate. Sheila for Sister Bricknell and Dino for Elder Bricknell.

 They are a wonderful couple. She is a doctor and he a return missionary. They are an endowed couple and an example to many in the mission.

(There are so many members with wonderful stories and One day I will just tell their stories.)

Sheila, vanessa, 2 yw, Albertina and Luis.

As they speak the people listen so attentively. Even with translators. Even in the heat.  They are so thankful to hear the words of the lord through their leaders. President Kretly and Sister Kretly also spoke.

The training and couples meeting were wonderful. 

Power came on early Sunday morning I think.

Members from t-3 arrive to conference.

Sunday morning we went to the Sunday meeting at Matola Theater about 20 minutes away. This was for the Main conference. Members are bussed in from the outlying areas.

Magoanine Branch Bus.

The place was full to the brim. The most I had seen.

They had a special meeting before  for just new members and investigators.

Elder De Oliveira and members arrive.

We were able to go to this meeting and we also had a sweet translator.

The District President shared his conversion story and  Elder Bricknell asked Many of  the new members to share why they joined the church. It was amazing to hear their stories and testimonies. Many of the new members were brought in by couples already baptized.

The conference meeting was wonderful. The spirit was so strong. All the messages were so good but I loved Sister Kretly's message to the people.

After the meeting President Kretly asked us to come to his home and eat with them and the Bricknells.

Sister Kretly in her home hadn't had water all week.But it had returned on saturday night. She had frozen some casseroles earlier that month and in the morning was able to find some other things to make.

We had a delightful lunch and visited and  left so the Bricknells could catch their plane.

Another bus of Members arriving!

Still another bus. 

I cannot remember if we had power the rest of that day or not.  But I remember wondering all weekend about these problems.

These are not uncommon. They happen often here. Sometimes drastic like this past week or two and sometimes just for a few hours but in the middle of something important.

But we said many prayers to have them return.

Why after many prayers did the power and the water go off and stay off, until the authority left.

 Then I was looking at my notes I took of Elder Bricknells message to the people. He told of the political trouble in 1985 in South Africa. He said at that time the temple was built.

In Berlin the Frieburg temple was also built.

Then the Berlin Wall came down, and a new political party took power in South Africa.

Heavenly Father has a hand in all these things. No coincidences.

Coming to conference.

No Darkness in all the world has power to put out the light of a single candle or stop the work of The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is true. It didn't matter if we had electricity or water. It didn't really matter if we ate.

We had the priesthood and the power of God gathered together and the work went forward. 

It seemed at times that those things at a point didn't matter at all. Food, Air conditioning, water.

However the small amount of preparedness made it possible for us  at one point to care for an aged Sister Bricknell and keep her healthy enough to finish the training.

Everyday we learn lessons here.

Yes the Energy went off a few more time in the next couple of weeks but that week was a real lesson for us. The Mozambicans were actually fine. They were used to this. They have coal grills they cook on and not electricity. Most of them don't have electricity. Few of them have air conditioners or refrigerators.  They just go about life as usual without electricity. Even in the city they have for their own houses alternative cooking styles.

Water is just something they are used to doing without.

They are thankful for what ever they have.

I have learned so many lessons '.

We really have no idea what it is like to be without.

I only  hope that we can be more thankful these and other things we have.I hope we will remember these experiences and always know what is important.

  

Oh! And this is Benildo Antonio Ujembe.

He is Naldo's brother. He is having me take his picture so he can finally put his 

mission papers in. He has been working very hard to get the paperwork finished and all the requirements met.

Naldo being the oldest in the family is helping him to get ready by hiring him to work on his house and property.

This family now have all joined the church except for the mother and one daughter. That makes 5 members out of 7  living members of the family. They are a very close family.

There are many young men and young women getting ready to serve missions. Albertina will be the next one to put her papers in from Maputo .

Well that takes care of the first two weeks of February. Many last minute lessons we are learning.