Week 82

Remember, I plan on calling you the Monday after Christmas, kind of like we did last year. I call you to let you know when I can talk. Then you can call me back and we can talk for a little bit. Just use the number I call you with. And remember the country code is 258. I am buying a sim card today and I dont have the number. 100 dollars should be plenty. It was last year. On saturday, the Beira and the Manga zones will be getting together to have a christmas party at a couples house. On sunday, we still have to work like its a normal day. We only have a hour of church on sunday. So I was thinking we can still try and visit a few people. Hopefully it wont be too dangerous.

So this was a really, really, really hot week. December is one of the hottest months in mozambqiue. December, January, and February. The second you walk outside, you are already starting to sweat. I carry 3 liters of water with me. Almost every day, I am drinking almost all of three liters of it. I have been in some hot places, but with the humidity here in Beira, you just start dripping water. It’s really crazy how wet you are. You get home at night, and you take off your shirt, and ring it out, and your sweat comes dripping off. When that happens, you know you sweat. And when you drink three liters of water in a day, it’s pretty bad. With the humidity, this comes with the gift of lots of rain. Last Friday, there had to be a tropical storm pass by here. Beira was flooding, people’s houses were, and everywhere was covered in water. We just got soaked. There were literally buckets of water pouring on our heads from the rain. I think it was one of the wettest days in my mission. It was bad! At an investigators house, they put cement in their patio. The guy, who did it, did it bad. He made it like a slant. So you have the entrance to her house and the cement leads in a slant to her front door. It’s not a very smart idea. We get to the house when it’s pouring and they are taking out buckets of water from the house. We helped. But it’s weird how the worker did it that way. Not a very smart idea on his part. At the same house earlier in the week, Elton, the little brother, got rocks and was throwing them at the little birds flying around. Ha-ha.

Last P-day, we had a bask again at the beach again with the 2 zones. We had steaks, garlic bread and rice. We did it because of transfers. My old comp, Elder Sessions, was transferred down to Maputo. I got a new comp, Elder Homer. He was serving up in Nampula and is from Utah. After a very long 28 hour bus ride for him, He finally made it here to Beira. He is a very good worker. We have been kind of slacking here in Munhava, but with him, hopefully we can get working and having some good work done here in Munhava. That’s something I need to change. Get more work done here in Munhava.

There is a member here in Munhava who was born and raised in Zimbabwe. I think I might have mentioned here before. Her name is Nicole. So we were at her house the other day, and we taught her some American slang. For example, what a "kneeslapper" is. You know when something is not really funny you say " that’s a kneeslapper" and hit your knee. We also taught her the phrase "do you want a cookie". While talking, we would use those jokes with her.

While waiting for my comp to get here from Nampula, I walked with Joaquim, our branch mission leader on Thursday. It was a good day. We had some good lessons and I felt the spirit. It was great to walk with someone who actually spoke better Portuguese than me. Elder Sessions didn’t really speak all too well. I spoke a lot better than he did. Elder Homer speaks pretty well for being in his 5th transfer. He speaks a lot better than I did in my 5th transfer.

On Saturday, Elder Anderson was waiting for his comp to get from Tete. So in the afternoon, we walked with him for a little. They had a branch Christmas party. While waiting for it to start, they played Disney songs sung in Portuguese. I really like them. I will have to show you all the songs when I get home even though you won’t understand them. Ha-ha. Good times!

Well that’s about it, Have a good week. I love you all. FELIZ NATAL PARA VOCES. I would like pictures from all of you.--

Elder Sirrine - The one and only