Week 9: All the rain

Well, the high point of last week was my first Baptism, the low point of the week was a week without soda, but its worth it :) Edson got baptized this week, but I don't really feel like it counts because he already had a baptism date planned before I got here. I just helped run through the last of the lessons he needed. But all's well that ends well. Quick shout out to Hannah for my awesome mug, and Tate for always putting glass cups in the freezer- which I now do with the mug :)

As far as my daily* schedule it goes like this:
6:30-Wake up
8:00-Personal study
9:00-Comp study/calling for appointments
10:00-Language or 12 weeks (beginning of mission training-guess for how many weeks?)
11:00-Language or 12 weeks
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Walking to area
14:00-20:00 Lessons/Contacting new people (door "knocking")
20:00-21:00 Walk home
22:30-Sleep
*P-Day we wake up at 6:00 clean for an hour, then half an hour of personal/comp study then go do internet, shop and get back home. FHE with a member family at 18:00. Tuesdays we have training in the morning in Matola until like 12:00 or 13:00.

Into the weeks randomness. First off, I tried a few new drinks during my "pit stops". Pit stops are 15ish minute breaks during what I assume is most missionaries hour for dinner. Our area is a 30 minute walk to the edge of it, and probably another 2ish hours to really get deep into our area, but thankfully we get to ride in coffins, I mean chappas, to the far out areas. During the pit stop we get something to drink and sometimes a snack. Coconuts are awesome (7-15 Met depending on size), a small water bottle is 20, large is 30 or 40 (depending on who you ask, and if you're a white guy who doesn't really speak Portuguese), and soda is 15 for a bottle to 65 for a 2 liter. We eat and take a breather. I plan on pouring a coke into my coconut this coming week. No sodas at home (now letter money), but for pit stops its probably the safest cheapest option when I'm not feeling like a coconut. Anyway this week I tried a "Creme soda flavored yogurt".... Just how you'd think it tastes.... The strawberry version wasn't bad though :)

As far as food: Breakfast is usually cereal or toast. Lunch one of the 6 of us makes it for everyone. Lots of chicken, pasta etc. We usually shop at a place called Shoprite which is like 45 minutes of coffin riding away after a 40 minute walk to the chappa stop. It feels like a strange version of Fresh Market, but missing random stuff. Hard to explain. Then we do our pit stop whenever we need a rest between 14:00 and 20:00. This week I discovered "podareas" (probably spelled wrong). Its a small bakery 15 minutes from our apartment that has hot bread at 20:45! It's awesome, and only 7 Met for a whole hot loaf.

Currently I'm in a different internet cafe than normal because the entire area of Patrice (where we usually do internet/catch a chappa to Shoprite) doesn't have power... for literally no reason. The internet is usually "good" enough to send and get pictures without any issue. It costs 40 Met an hour, we get 2 hours.

The last big thing from this week was on Friday. We were teaching a lesson at 20:30, just wrapping up when it started to pour rain. Not cats and dogs, but elephants and freaking hippos. Thankfully we were inside (usually we sit in little sketchy plastic chairs out in front of the house. Most houses are like a fence, small dirt/sand yard, then the house) Thankfully were inside, but virtually all of the roofs are just tin roofs, so it was deafening. We finished our lesson, and walked into the storm. Tons of lightning, wind and endless sheets of rain. I quickly gave up trying to use my umbrella because I was getting soaked anyway. Maybe 1% of the "roads" in my area are paved, so the streets turned into rivers up to mid shin. Took us almost an hour to walk home in the pouring rain. Everyone was inside, or hiding inside at bars. They all thought us two Maloongoos were crazy walking in the rain, which we were. My feet loved me for it...Not. The blisters that were already there kinda exploded, yay.

Overall it was a good week though. One pit stop with a coconut, and one hot loaf of crunchy outside, warm soft inside bread at a time!

Elder Howell

This is a family we teach, they are kinda progressing, kinda not. People are quite flaky here if you don't really really keep up on them. The house is cement, tin roof. But they have a couch and small tv which makes it the second nicest investigators house I've been in. I look terrified because the power went out mid-lesson due to the storm, so we took it with a flash, always freaky.

Most of the people we teach are in houses made out of concrete, or concrete blocks. Tin roofs. 1/4 houses  we don't go in though. Usually we sit in the yard on sketchy chairs. The kids mess with our hair/arm hair. Usually the houses are really small, like living room and maybe kitchen in our house. Sometimes the family has a small fuzzy tv. Some of the houses have no electricity. Most cook with charcoal.

Elder Burchett and I after getting home in the storm, 100% soaked to the bone. Crazy wet, shoes totally full of water. I literally poured water out of my shoe when I took it off, a lot of water.

 We are drenched. 

 Smiling and wet Elders Howell, Mayeya, Burchett, and Griffeth.

 Missionaries and members.

 Five baptisms!

 Pit stop snack.

 Typical game, like checkers.

 Elder Burchett, Edson (soon to be baptized) and me.

 Lots of soda.

 Strawberry flavor is better than cream soda flavor.

 Lots of walking.

 Lots and lots of walking.

 Yummy fresh baked warm bread at 20:45 (8:45 pm)

 Favorite pit stop snack.

Lizard/gecko in my kitchen.