SO I HAVENT TOLD ANY OF YOU CAUSE YOU WERENT EMAILING ME YOU SLACKERS BUT IN ABOUT A WEEK IM GOING HOME.
so yeah.
Friday, February 26, 2016
NEWS
Como estao.
This was a good week. Ive had lots of big decisions and havent had the courage to tell anyone here about them cause of extenuating circumstances.
Anyway. Elder Rash is still awesome and I love him to death.
we lose power at least once a week. Its sweet.
The ward here is incredible. I have about three People here that said that they re my mozambiquan mom.
We had an interesting question. A guy walked up to us and asked Why should we adore/worship God? We responded like Alma. All things testify of God and He gave it all to us. Por cause do amor que Ele tem por nos.
Ugh also ate a fish. I hate fish.
I have an afrikaans Book of Mormon. Its awesome.
We also saved some ones life. He passed out on the stairs and we caught him and literally i thought he was dying in my arms and was freaking out. But hes better now and we got hime some help.
We climbed some trees and ate some beans and basically partied all day every day.
I let some little girls put mesha(fake hair) in my hair but it wasnt sstaying cause my hair is too slick so I put some sand in it and then the hair stayed.
I fed an alligator by hand. So that was cool too.
Eu amo "Voces"
Elder Lorimer
Feb 8 Ainda estou aqui
Foi uma boa semana. Não posso queixar-me.
Got transfered again. Now im in the T3 area or as its called here the kindom of sand. Ugh so much sand. Im gonna have calf muscles of steel.
26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing thesong of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?
Elder Lorimer
This week was great
This week was good. I had a sweet mile stone. So the incvestagator Eskameesa. Turns out his name is actually Chicamisse. I learned that while writing a ficha batismal. OR BAPTISM PAPER WORK
It was super cool to have my second baptism already and the first that i got to do.
He was super ready and aced the interview and since they dont have addresses here we got super frustrated with the gps but it all worked out in the end Chicamissa is a member of the church now and i think next week he will get the Priesthood and be ordained to a deacon and have his first calling. We are super excited.
I forgot my journal and so i dont remember everything thats going on.
My comp is brushing his teath with bleach to make them whiter despite my repeated warning for his life.
Theres something weird in my thoart that makes hiccuping hurt but im told ill be fine.
We have 11 more people to baptize this transfer.
Fernando and Juakima are moving with there documents (finally). we went and talked with the secretary of the bairo and he moved to process along.
Joao and Marta are just waiting for the mucipio to finish with their declaracao of residencia
We have algumas outras pesqisadores que estao a progredir.
today we went to the wood market and i bought a lion and a rhino. there pretty awesome.
tomorrow is zone conference which will be about humility and pride and will be awesome. THere will also be food there that we dont have to pay for.
the day after will be a day to go down in history.
It is a world wide missionary broadcast from the first presidency. Literally every single missionary will be listening at the same time aand its gonna be awesome!
any way
portugues e muito bom e eu gosto muito desta idioma.
What 'ere thou art,
Act well thy part.
Doesent matter if you are senior companio or zone leader or trainee or big sister of mom or dad or missionary or man or woman. God put us where we are in the position were in because he knows we can flourish there or because it will lead to a place we can flourish. We must act well our part.
Love "yall"
r
I Had A Great Week OK
I keep telling myself that. :)
I have several things I am currently working on. Mostly is can be described as oil off a ducks back. or something like that. SO its grudges and forgiveness and pride and charity and humility.
The people here are insanely prepared. We taught one guy a lesson and now he has a white shirt and has been to church and knows the gospel is true and prayed and is reading O Livro de Mormon and we didnt even ask him to!
Elders are annoying. I got in trouble for not talking about my dream girl. and all the other elders do is talk about the girls they're writing. Super annoying.
That Rm i mentioned last week came with us to one of our lessons and HOLY COW CAN HE CALL DOWN THE FIRES OF HEAVEN ON OUR LAZY INVESTIGATORS. It was really cool.
So i got homesick again. And talked to some people about it and long story short it was a long week.
We had someone to come fix our door but he got here and said that its not metal its aluminum so he cant fix it so our door is still about to fall off. I started talking with the other elders in our zone and they are super cool!
I found favourite passage in The Book Of Mormon. Its Second Nephi 4:16-35. It really helped me a lot this week. "I know in whom i have trusted"
We got our new mission plan for the year and everyone has very specific goals that were created based off the history of the area. So we need 29 contacts and like 20 total lessons per week. The elders upstairs need 270 contacts very week and 157 lessons. We all think its kinda funny. but i think this new lesson plan is a great idea and it will be difficult to put into practice.
There was one house here that didnt have water for a week.
We found some weird bug crab this thats food but is still alive when you buy it and they sell everything here.
I bought ketchup chips and was suprised and slightly dissapointed cause they taste like ketchup.
So we have to have proselyting shoes and shower shoes and house shoes in order to avoid the things that live on the ground. But Elder Rispress has been using my shower shoes for a few weeks. so we bought super girly ones for him.
Theres also a word here that is Brazilian that all the missionaries use. Its fubeka. Its like super lazy or doesnt do what theyre supposed to.
The gift of tounges is real man. I talked with the mission president on the phone and he thought he was talking with my comp.
Theres a river of death in our area. So peoples bathrooms are rooms with pipes that go to holes in the ground and they stink and avoid them but this is a river of filth. and its next to the busiest road in our area and we get a million contacts there.
Lost power for two days this week.
We had lunch with the castro deus couple and is was super good. I like Brazilian food. Mozambique doesnt have any food thats especially mozambiquan.
The transfer ended yesterday. I totalled everything up and we had 147 lessons in 6 weeks. Thats pretty good. I think I'm gonna baptize someone this saturday. :) His name is Eskimeesa and he is super cool. Hes been to church for like 8 months but was never baptized and we met another person like that.
transfers today. Not alot changed. I have the same comp.
Elder Castro Deus does something really cool. He takes pictures of the happy people here. Now he has more that 1000 different pictures of people "com almas feliz" with happy souls even though these people have nothing.
Eu lhes amo.
Elder Lorimer
Sunday, January 10, 2016
I think I slept more than I proscelyted
Its been a long good week.
On Monday night the only "Lesson" we had was with the Bishop. His name is Bishop Fumbe and he is super nice. He's trying to learn English so he can teach English at one of the four schools in our area and help his kids have better lives. So we helped him with English and taught them how to play "Go-Fish" for the activity of FHE.
He was super late, so Myself and Elder Huffaker sat and waited and talked about goals for the next transfer. I think we're looking at 12 baptisms this upcoming transfer. I think Three Jovens (young adults...?) and the rest families.
Yesterday Joao and Marta told us they wanted to pay a lobolo, which is a african tradition to pay the family of the wife 4000 metacais. Missionaries only get 7900 a month to live. Lobolo is a challenge for almost all of our families but it was especially disappointing because This family almost has there documents done and is ready to be baptized on the day 30 of January but now there's a 4000 metacais road block in the way.
I wasn't feeling good on Wednesday so my comp told me to take a nap after lunch and I slept for 6 hours(with permission from the senior couple in Beira) and woke up to go to work for three hours. We taught three lessons and found someone who speaks English. Unfortunately we can't teach him cause he's from South Africa.
So we had to be in the house at 17 on new years eve cause everyone is drunk and playing with fireworks. Firecrackers kinda sound exactly like the car crash so I am super jumpy, and the fire crackers aren't supposed to go away for another month.
Man being the newby is no fun, especially in my house cause My companion is District Leader and the other two elders in my district are the Zone Leaders so i am asked (very politely) if i will go have an extra 30 minutes of study time at least twice a week so they can talk about stuff.
So also because we had to be in the house so early, new years we didn't have study time in the morning we had it when we got back. That meant that we taught ten lessons that day! That's a lot.
We also have a new investigator Moises. He is keeping all his commitments and coming to church and we are super excited for him. When he prayed to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet someone knocked on his door during the prayer. It was a guy that owed him 8000 met. He got 8000 met that he wasn't expecting immediately after he asked the question. It was a miracle.
I also accidentally put bleach in my load of dark clothes so if anyone has an un-bleach pen i would love it.
Because every one came back early new years we had a dinner get together thing at 21:00 after we finished studies. We made so much popcorn. We ran out of it yesterday.
I eat a lot of rice.
We also got some grape frozys for free. drank them and they were delicious.
Later that night we were trying to find Moises again, and we couldn't so we said a prayer and ended up finding an old investigator that we had forgotten about and marking with him and them finding a casa de Moises.
After we got home I saw that free frozy again. (I think he is sayting he threw up) It was gross. And ended up on the wall but my sweet district people helped me clean it up which is way more than I would have done.
The next day I studied like normal but didn't feel like eating but I had to eat cause it was time to fast. So I ate lunch and went for another nap at 12:00 and i was allowed to sleep till 13:30 so we could still make it to our meeting to organize the home teachers(that's how new the church is) and didn't wake UP TILL 17:30. THAT IS WAY TO MUCH TIME IN BED EVEN IF YOUR SICK. but the senior couple allowed it.
Elder Huffaker is melting his name tags. On accident
We also got a call that we didn't answer in time, so we called back and the phone told us that number were trying to call doesn't exist....
One of the members here just got back from his mission like two weeks ago. We talked to him and he said his mission call was " we will have a car at your house tomorrow at 8. Be ready to leave for two years." And there was no MTC. Straight to marromeu for eight months and then to Brazil.
Missionaries don't know big words in English or Portuguese.
Elder Couch gave me a great description of a mission. He said that A mission is like a tunnel. when you first get in you you're walking backwards cause you miss the light and it goes really slowly. Then eventually the light fades and you're walking blind and time goes pretty quick. Then you see the light at the other end of the tunnel and get trunky and time flies by.
I think I'm about at the turning around point.
So our door doesn't work at all and sometimes opens by itself. It did that this morning and so my companion creeps out of the room with a pen completely forgetting that we have a machete.
My Portuguese is going super duper well. And its definitely not me cause I could not learn french to save my life.
Christmas
Boas festes
That means "i want money" in mandow
It was a phenomenal week.
To start all the missionaries in the outside areas (Kilamange, Tete etc) came to Beira for the Christmas celebration we had on Wednesday. most of them arrived between Monday night and Tuesday morning. There were so many missionaries. We had like 70 missionaries in 4 houses.
So one thing to know about Beira is that we may or may not have power on any given day. And since our water runs on electricity, we may or may not have water on any given day. We don't know why but sometimes the city of Beira just turns off the power. So we didn't have power for like 35 hours this week which means.... bucket showers. joy of joys. We take freezing water in a bucket and use a cup to dump small amounts on our bodies and it is freezing and quite cold.
Anyway we had the missionary Christmas party on Tuesday and did a secret santa tie exchange and I had to give a tie to Elder Atkinson. nobody here can pronounce his name even more than mine. I got a tie from Elder Griffeth. It's sweet. He's a little quiet but we get along great!
In the middle of out practiced Christmas program for the presiden, the power went out so we lost our piano. It was sweet and sounded great till we got to a rest. THen every one came in on different keys. Oh well it was more time to hang out and be friends. We had a very mozambiquano lunch with rice and chicken and fries. And these fried triangle things whose name escapes me but they were really good.
We had interviews with the president on Tuesday and while we waited for our turn, we watched the other wise man, its a live action version of the fourth wise man. It was good.
Because there were so many missionaries there, and they weren't leaving till the next day, almost everyone had an emergency split. I was with Elder Chase from Tete who only has two more transfers than me. He's super cool and super fun and speaks in a way that people can understand.
Elder Huffaker got his Christmas package at the church during our party thing, and decided things might run away if he didn't open it right then. So he opened the package. What ever. Then he opened all his presents. What the heck! It was only two days away!
Wednesday started as normally as it could. Study, and then district meeting then we got back and for some reason our ac wasn't working properly so it ended up snowing in our house Wednesday! It was awesome! On our way back from the district meeting we bought stuff to door bell ditch the missionaries who live above us and it was a secret and it was sweeet. They got kapulana ties and mirinda(best soda ever) and lays.
Wednesday night our water finally came back. It was like 12 hours after the power came back. But I got to take a real shower so that was awesome!
We accidentally broke our front door. Idk how but we did. The hinges work and the latch works but the door frame doesn't connect to the wall. So our front door doesn't shut or open. Its sweet!
We had an experience this week with our 15 min lessons. We got carried away and ended up trying to prove something instead of having our investigator go to the source. So we were there for two hours and got nowhere.I've learned as Moses that we are less than the dust of the earth. Especially as missionaries. We cannot do anything of ourselves. Everything is through our Lord.
I had a split Thursday and that was fun. Elder Moreno is from Mexico and doesn't speak English at all. So I only spoke in Portuguese that day. We had a bunch of new investigators, and on our way to one of our lessons we got lost and ended up on the other side of our area which I have never been in. So it was a 50 minute circle we walked in. We got directions from some drunk guy and that didn't work out very well.
Also I ate some bread and maybe I shouldn't have but she's a super nice investigator and we didn't want to offend her and the bread was sooooooo good.
The biggest piece of advice older missionaries give me is that other missionaries are gonna try to break me down and make me feel bad about myself. Like 4 people have told me that. Why do missionaries do that?
CHRISTMAS DAY
Started with studies and then we rode in a chappa all the way to the other side of town and it was super long. We got to the senior couple's house and we were first to talk to our families!
My family is great and theyre doing great! Santa came and no one got coal. Also i guess my watch tan line is really bad.:)
We were gonna leave and do some work but the Castro Deus s told us to stay so we watched (with permission) National Geographic for like 4 hours.Then another mozambiquan\brazilian meal(Elder and Sister Castro Deus are from Brazil). It was also super good.
We had just finished desert and left when we witnessed a car crash. It was pretty bad. Its the first real crash ive seen. When I left everyone was alive but in bad shape, except one lady who wasn't crying about her daughter bleeding and in shock lying on the pavement she was whining about her broken car.
But that was really sobering for me. If they die their families would be devastated. The news we bring isn't just happiness in this life, it's in the life to come as well. I'm glad I have the assurance of this gospel in my life.
Malaria
The first week youre afraid your going to die.
the second week youre afraid your'e not going to die
- Elder Baker
He's pretty sick but we don't think its malaria. One of our investigators is in the hospital with malaria though. We think he'll be fine.
We visited Manuel and his wife Lucia and his 3 kids and he gave us some coke and bread. This bread wasn't nearly as good. But he also had some drink that was like apple flavored cream of wheat. The first batch we tried was decent but had a terrible after taste. the second batch was good but super fizzy. We asked how to make it and I'm pretty sure we drank fermented apple juice. Like one gulp and never again.
I made the cheesy potatoe soup my mom sent me for christmas and it was delicious! Thanks Mom.
I officially finished the new testament(again) and Jesus The Christ. Ten out of ten would read again two thumbs way up!
Sunday was fun. We got to church a little early for correlation and then correlation got moved to after church so me and my comp would have time to prepare talks! Yay! It wasn't bad. I was assigned to talk about the birth of Jesus Christ. Its was pretty easy. And to make it easier the mic doesn't work and when it does the reverb make it impossible to hear, so i don't think any one could hear what I said.
Also I had to break into the church building. We didn't have keys and the hymn books and gospel principles books were locked in a back room. Luckily for some reason the room had a big window. We opened the window and bent the bars and I slithered into the room to retrieve the books. I almost didn't make it out but after removing my belt and staining my shirt i made it!
We were also asked this week to start an english class. I can't teach in Portuguese and they want to teach English!? It'll certainly be an adventure.
We had the unique opportunity to teach about morning sickness. Two young unmarried men teaching a irma who has had two kids about morning sickness. Went about as well as expected.
Leads to today. More cleaning and gator ball and we played gator ball in the rain which is super intense cause there's no grip at all on the wet floor. It looked super cool with the rain coming in the windows and stuff but I didn't take a picture cause it was raining and my camera is afraid of water.
ALSO ATTENTION MISSIONARIES. YOU ARE WELCOME TO PUT ME ON YOU MAILING LIST OR HAVE ME TAKE YOU OFF OF MINE. ARE YOU GUYS EVEN ALIVE?
Every one here recognizes us and can't lie to us. We see guys coming up to us and they drop a beer bottle on their way over to talk. we know they're drunk, but we ask them and they say they've only drank a little. We press a little more and they admit that its a lot. We ask them to stop and promise blessings and they say they will. we ficamos (idk how to translate that) with their number and call a few days later and they say they haven't drunk and then we set up a time to meet. Bam! new investigator. After all Jesus came into this world not for the saints but the sinners. It is amazing the effect the spirit has on their lives.
also everyone wants to touch my hair........
Love "yall"
Elder Lorimer
Elder Lorimer
Another Summer Day has come and gone and I'm dying of heat stroke
EYYY
Wazzup peeps
I had another otimo semana.
Nos vimos milagres cada dia .
tao no dia depois de natal provavelment vamos ter um joven batisado. Stinking marrige docs. It takes forever and our area has the worst secretary. She is never home and people who want to get married have to go to her like three times for a signature.
I went on a split and spoke in Sina for the first time and the kids freaked. Also I am pretty sure that I'm the first white person the people have seen sometimes. A lot of kids touch me just cause they can.
Bull tail rice flavoring is good.
Oh everyone here has goats for Christmas so they buy live ones a few weeks early. Then the kill them and we see goat bones everywhere. And they eat all of the goat including the brains which leads to some interesting noises and bad dreams.
We've had a guy at our house from the office to fix stuff so our shower and ac works now. the bottom of the shower wasn't properly sealed so under the shower was full of water. It was crazy.
I've had some weird dreams. The weirdest is proboblay when my dad went through the misson phone to make sure we were using it correctly.
One of the tender mercies of the Lord is that when accidentally I touch the hot iron i don't get burns. It actually happens quite a lot.
My comp had humpday last week and decided to speak as much portuguese as possible. Its skyrocketed my portuguese.
I teach alot and contact all the time. Please guys give references to the missionaries. I'm supposed to have like 15 references a week but we've has like three cause nobody tells us people.
Chapas are annoying and people on them are dumb.
WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TWO WIVES? ITS THE DUMBEST THING IVE EVER HEARD AND WE'RE TEACHING TO PEOPLE LIKE THAT
I cleaned out the area book, and found a progress record that was filled out by Irmao Barlow. (That was JP's MTC teacher) It was crazy.
We were doing contacts and my comp looked into their house and saw a monkey tied up so naturally we held it. Then it pooped on my comp. :)
We have professional chefs in our house. The other elders cook good stuff all the time but sometimes they get the portions wrong. For example, 4 tablespoons of salt instead of 1/4 tablespoon. That was an interesting meal.
I also want a cool arrangement of If You Could Hie to Kolob and How Great Thou Art to learn for piano. Oh we have a baby piano in our house now so i play a lot.
Can someone please send me some real playing cards. I have cards from Mozambique but they are garbage. all I want for Christmas is bicycle playing cards.
The kids here are crazy. I have a lazer pointer. They think its gonna burn them so we play with that for a while with them and then show them its safe and then they try to get it. And they have so much energy.
Turns out kids are kinda dirty. Anythime we play with them, that day we come home brown.
Christmas is soon I guess.
People here are crazy about magic. They freak out if you pull your finger off or do the blowing on you tie trick. Imagine how it goes when I change the card in their hand while they hold it.
They're are some ugly animals here. There's a duck thing that looks like its face is covered in scabs. Also roosters are one of they most annoying animals on the face of this planet. They always manage to crow right in the middle of the prayer or the spiritual part of the lesson.
They have a word here for white man. Its Muzungo. It's not man literally just means you're white but there's so few white people here that anytime any one sees us they yell muzungo to which we reply mosoku which is their african dialect for hello and they are taken aback.
All the elders in the zone like our post-it note countdown.
To day were going to the Gotu which is the biggest open air market in Mozambique. Then we're giving each other haircuts.
Its super hot here. Every night we make a pot of popcorn and eat the whole thing. I finished one and found a bug that had boiled to death in the oil and that was gross.
Any time it's super hot it's supposed to mean rain and it rained for about 35 seconds this morning and now its really hot again.
I've been reading in the bible dictionary and there was a mountain whose name escapes me that Moses stood upon and viewed the promised land. I think we should all stand on the mountain every day. Because we live in the promised land.
So I have Joao and Marta and Helder and Perola and Fernando and Juakim( with there kids joao and armadillo) who are ready to be baptized except for the marriage process.
Vosco is a joven (youth or young adult) who is also ready to be baptized and we think he'll be the only on on the 26 of december.
We also teach some part member families and less actives.
all in all the work is going very well.
Love "yall"
El
der Lorimer
der Lorimer2 months?...
Maybe i dont know how long its been. Everything just kinda blends together.
I FORGOT TO WISH MY DAD A HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIKE THREE WEEKS IN A ROW AND NOW IM TOO LATE SO YOU ALL NEED TO DO IT FOR ME!
Elder Huffaker. He's also the district leader.
OH I fixed our microwave after we bought a new one and they don't do returns here. Oh well we gave it to the senior couple.
So dinner is frozys and crackers in the area for about ten minutes. Frozys are really good and 12 met.
There are eight people currently lined up to be baptized on the 26 of december but most of them need to be married before then and their all trying but the guy they need to talk to is never there.
Also we decorated our room with Christmas stuff but we don't really have a lot of Christmas stuff so we have a lot of ensign pictures hanging up.
So today we played gator ball and that like soccer but if it bounces off someones foot you can catch it and run with it and if someone on the other team touches you, you have to put the ball on the ground. Its super intense and super fun.
Sometimes we lose power and sometimes we lose water but we have so much water storage its insane.
Its kinda warm here
Tomorrow I have choir, then a zone meeting, then leadership meetings I'm not invited to but I have to stay and wait for my comp.
The rainy season should start pretty soon, and summer is in full swing here. When it rains its supposed to be like 3 feet of water for about a week afterward.
I'm going to lunch with my comp today.
any way
love yall
You think its warm where you are come here.
Elder Lorimer
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