2 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!

Thanks.

Hi guys

Its really hot here and its 50 metacais to use the computer. The money here is crazy. So the exchange rate for the  church is something like 48 metacais for a dollar. so when i go shopping is spend like 1200 met but only like 23 dollars. Its weird.

Any way Its officially christmas!

Monday when I was in Maputo I went to the embassy and was still the only white person, so they would translate everything people were saying, but I understood so i just kinda smirked to myself. So i got my background check checked at the embassy and then went to immigration and got my visitors visa changed to a residance visa and we were there at the same time as some sisters, and apparently there's an unspoken rule here that elders don't talk to sisters, and the secrataries told me not to expect to ever talk to one of the sisters while I'm here. So I think that's a load of bad missionary juju or something. Of course we can talk to the sisters but whatever. My trainer agrees so its chill.

When we got back to the mission office there was a tiny 3 foot tree set up in the corner. Yay for christmas.

The next morning I got onto a flight to Beira that i almost didn't have a ticket for. The secrataries are magic and I got on it. But i flew to Tete which is the wrong side of Mozambique, and holy cow that is the hottest place i have ever been in. The keyboards here are all wacky. Any way they made me get off the plane in Tete and I thought that was a terrible idea, cause even though there was literally only my plane there, there's no way I would be able to understand enough of what's going on the get back on it. Oh well after a few more hours I made it safely to Beira. My area is the Maraza b area. I live with three other missionaries, and the house above and on the side is also missionaries, and there's a house 35 feet away that's also missionaries.

There are lions in our front yard sometimes. I'm just kidding, but there might be a flood. Also we don't have a front yard. We do have bars over our windows though.

But my comp is sweet. Hes from Michagan and has done some college and is a great teacher. His name is 

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.

The other elders in our district are the zone leaders so I'm the only one with no assigned responsibility.

We walk in our area a lot and I get to go on splits with one of the zone leaders a lot, so that the investigators can be interviewed. Sunday was good here but its really hot. like I'm dying on the inside. All the time.

We take these taxi things to our area, and they're 7 met a piece which is really cheap.

Its really hot.

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

Thanksgiving at the mission office

last full MTC week

Como ta!

Been a good week. Not too much happened. Lots of cleaning and learning. Portuguese is going great. And I realize that all the portuguese speakers who read this are brazilian, but man brazilian portuguese is weird. 

My pet dinosaur jesseppi officially died. He is now sitting headless under elder jensens bed with a gravestone in front of him. Like I said before elder jensen is a great artist so while i was reading in ether he drew nimrod the might hunter and it might be one of my favorite pictures in the world.

I got cool scripture cases in the book store for my portuguese copies and am in the process of water proofing them.

And very important. This week I got my flight plans. I am leaving the mtc at 6 am on monday and flying to atlanta then j-burg then maputo. By myself. I am not going with anyone and thats sad.

I have got all of my investigators to commit to baptism and I had a skype TRC on Friday which went absolutely horrible. He just talked about a bunch of stuff that we didnt understand and i said about four words. I learned a lot from it though so  you know theres that.

MY FIRST MISSION PACKAGE CAME THIS WEEK! I got lots of stuff. Candy and a tie and a egg thing which the name escapes me. (It was a kinder egg)  but the toy in the middle was a lemur which was really funny cause at the beginning of my stay here some of the sisters couldnt remember my name so the called me elder lemur. Then they decided its my spirit animal. Actually they decided my spirit animal is king julian from madasgar. And i dont disagree. That taught me that even the lord has a sense of humor. 

I am so excited for the field.

My portuguese branch got combined with the other portuguese branch so now were all branch seven. we are supposed to get 35 more portuguese missionaries on wednesday(tomorrow).

I met another person in a mormonad. Elder smith in my zone is one of the singers in the come unto Christ music video.

The devo was soo cool! we got to see the new christmas video that doesnt come out till nov 29. Christmas.mormon.org. Its way cool.

Elder short broke his camera.

My house keeping skills are coming in handy cause i have taught several elder how to send letters polish shoes sew and tie ties.

Lots of snow yesterday

ALso qtip needs to up its game cause i dont need 170 qtips. Its insane. I dropped off some dry cleaning first time ever!

ALso last night was fun cause we threw glo sticks under the other elders doors and listened to them be confused.

I also had an illegal snow ball fight.

ACTS 5:41

Love "Y'all"

Elder Lorimer

week 4

Ola Irmaos e Irmas!

I has been a GREAT week.

To start I learned about the great emu war in australia. It is easily one of the funniest things i have ever leaned about. You can google it cause i am way to lazy to type it out. The devotional was good ant this week i think almost my whole zone is singing in the choir which is awesome!

I have begun to appreciate small thing on accident. I actually yelled for joy when i found a nickel. I was a weird experience. I sing a lot and my companion isn't a huge fan of songs. I just think he doesn't sing enough.

I Got a sick mission shirt. I has my mission flag inside the country shape and so my shirt has an AK47 with a bayonet on it and every one is jealous.

early morning service is hard cause its always cold buttt IT SNOWED! ITS SNOWING RIGHT NOW!

I am always cold but snow is worth it. I actually prayed for it and it happened so i blame my self) or take the credit?).

I perform almost every week in sacrament meeting with some other elders and sisters in the zone. The other portuguese zone only has 6 people in it so they come with us and i am spear heading an attempt for all the welders to do a musical number. I also think that there has not been a devotional where i have not been on the big screen so thats sweet!

Unfortunately guys do this thing whee whenever they get with three other guys there age and there are no sisters they turn into 12 year olds. so that's been an interesting experience.

I challenge all of you to do something that i am. READ THE NEW TESTAMENT IN A WEEK.

its only four hundred pages and although the gospels get a little boring cause they say the same things it is always interesting.

I think sunday counts as the best day ever. I was released as zone leader so that's kinda sad but we went to the temple and an elder came up to me and zoomed in on a picture on his ipad and asked if it was me photobombing in the background. it was :) My goal is to get in to as many photo albums as possible. I also checked something else off my missionary check list. I took a random girls camera and took a selfie on it. I don't think she knows yet.

yesterday was my companions birthday. he is now 25 which leads to some interesting problems  but anyway i have so much english chocolate right now. Every one in his family and all his friends keep sending him some. so i get more and more. So my companion is officially old. one more thing to make yesterday good was that dinner instead of burgers (which we seem to have all the time) WE GOT CHICK FIL A. I am stock piling sauce so i can use it in the field.

for the tuesday devotional we sang more holiness give me and we heard the story behind it but you can look that up. at one point the writer said he couldn't sing it anymore because it says more joy in his service i am beginning to feel that way. it is so much fun here! we also got our second investigator to be baptized.

Love "Yall"

Elder Lorimer

Whatever week this is (week 3)

Wazzup pessoas??

Having a companionship s weird and way more difficult cause i used to speak a little portuguese in the lessons and let my spanish companion take over the rest but now i speak portuguese for most of the lesson while and try to teach my comp during study time. Im teaching him the language and the gospel which is  exciting.

OOH THE DEVOTIONAL LAST WEEK WAS AMAZING! IT WAS ELDER NEIL L ANDERSON. AND I GOT TO SHAKE HIS HAND.   I probably wasnt supposed to be able to but i sorta ran into him after the devotional. so its all good. choir is a lot of fun and it is massive. the choir director is Brother Ryan Eggert (eggett?) and he directs the choir by telling funny stories and teaching the gospel to a group of missionaries twice the size of motab.

We have two new sisters in our zone and as zone leader i get to give them an orientation which went about as well as can be expected when i'm giving the tour. they're really nice but there both visa waiters. We also lost another elder this morning to sao paulo. and we expect to lose three more elders or sisters next week.

my comp went to the doctor and has something weird wrong with his chest and it might be muscle deterioration or it might be pneumonia. who knows. i got my malaria pills but the were originally prescriber to robert lorimer who was at the mtc about a year ago which is weird because i have yet to find a lorimer that isn't directly related to me.

My engineering skills are coming in handy because i'm fixing all sorts of stuff. unfortunately i have to tools or resources which make it a bit harder to fix stuff.

we did trc for the first time and it is super fun. taught lts of people all my lessons are going really well im doing great at portuguese. 

ALSO JOSH you better put up the christmas light cause they already have them up at the mtc and this is the lords ground so in our efforts to live after the manner of righteousness we need to emulate as much as possible which means putting up christmas lights the day before halloween. Its so cool!

halloween was fun i ate a lot of other peoples candy and dressed up as a certain christmas tie wearing danish missionary

during early morning service this week i discovered that for some reason the women's restrooms have urinals in them. weird.

I have also been on the big screen at devotional something like 6 times now which is pretty good. im gonna do a solo if i can and itll be great.

also i painted my name badge pink.....

love "yall"

Elder Lorimer

week 2

Oi!

Tudo bem?

     Its been another busy week at the MTC. Every morning we wake up at 6:30 And go to study time in the classroom then breakfast then study time/ lesson then lunch then study time/lesson then dinner then study time/lesson then there's an hour at the end of the day for what ever we want to do.

     My Zone is really cool and its been so much fun leading them. During our "free time" (you're supposed to stay in residence) we have story time or music a cappella stuff. Theres one elder in my zone who is the funniest guy you will ever meet. He used to be super into metal and had long hair and would head bang but now hes on a mission so he just has lots of stories for us. They are the highlight of everyone's day.

    We also have a beat boxer from one of byu's acapella groups in our zone(Unfortunately not vocal point.) and he'll start a song beat and then all the rest of us add melody and harmony. I found out that I am really good at rapping primary songs. its pretty crazy stuff.

     Since i got here we have lost 7 people out of our zone to the Sao Paulo MTC. So if your mission is in brazil you're supposed to go to the MTc there but if you visa doesn't come then you come to provo and wait for it. Just this morning we said goodbye to five out our elders. There are at least 4 more people that will leave before the 6 weeks here are up.

     Every sunday and tuesday night are devotionals. They rock and i sing in the choir for the tuesday night devotional and i'm gonna audition to have a solo in the sunday night devotional. Also don't tell any one but I think one of the twelve is gonna addresses us tonight. Its kinda a big deal.

     So that crazy elder i told about? his name is elder Jensen and he brought something with him to entertain everyone. They're pistachios that are cover in ground scorpion pepper. of course i had to try some. They're actually not that bad.Until you touch your eyeball. then it hurts pretty bad.... Can someone send me some ghost peppers or carolina reapers please? thanks. At this point ive had about 25 pistachios.

     Elder jensen also bought a shirt from the book store. they have shirts that have you mission and your years on it. He is going to porto portugal but bout an arkansas little rock shirt. the looks he gats are great. I am also borrowing his cologne. I call it cologne but is perfume. from victoria's secret. "Pure seduction. It smelllssss ssooooooo gooodd. 

     For those who are wondering what im actually learning I have taught five l;essons and commited our "investagator"  to baptism. He is now outr second teacher. So now we have irmao Sears and Irmao Belchoir(bell-shore) irmao belchoir is from mozambiqu so i am learning alot about pronunciatin and such.

I love Utah and mountains and the temple and this gospel. 

Eu tenho um testimunho de familias eternal. eu sie que o evangelho de Jesus Cristo e restaurado e verdadeiro.

Love "Y'all"

Elder Lorimer