Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Weekly Email (Just 1 Day Late)

 Hello everyone. Sorry for the late email. Someone thought that it was a good idea to put a Zone Conference on a P-Day (I hear that everyone's moms were freaking out, mine just angrily sent me memes :) Love you Mum!) Thats why this email is being sent on a Tuesday and not the usual Monday email.

 This last week was a bit interesting. On Monday I went to a "zoo".... Pretty much they just had 2 massively obese crocodiles and monkeys. The monkeys would do tricks to get cookies though which was super fun. We were going to feed a live chicken to said obese crocodiles but they ran out :( Overall it was fun to just run around and see stuff.

On Tuesday I woke up early and over packed a car with people and supplies to then drive 6-7 hours up to a city called Maxixe. It was a pretty nice drive, good roads, "no speed limits" (or so I told myself!) and I only got pulled over a half a dozen times! The 3 Elders in the back pretty much slept through the drive and my mission president slept for a good chunk of it too so it was some nice thinking time while driving in the middle of no where.

I slept on a little "mattress" on the ground in the house in Maxixe that night, woke up early again (Which I despise) to drive again, this time with just 1 other Elder and the mission president..... It was nice for the first 2 hours... Then the "road" turned into more holes than pavement and it was a nightmare. I went from 120's (or like 145...) to going 25 kph..... On the shoulder of the road.... On the wrong side..... It was a painfully long next 8 or 9 hours. We hit occasional patches of nice road but overall it was awful. I don't plan to make that drive again!

 We finally made it to Beira that following day and we ate dinner then dropped off the Elder. I crashed and just slept until doing house inspections that day in Beira. I went on a "division" with a member up there to run between all the houses looking for all the broken/missing stuff. It was cool to see Beira finally and nice to get an idea for all the houses. I had some time to get some more capulanas.... I might have a problem with collecting them but they had so many new cool ones (plus I plan to get stuff made, so its worth it). That night we flew back. I am so glad, I would have died driving another 17 hours. We also somehow ended up in 1st Class which was super nice.

As far as "classic weekly missionary stuff" you probably came here to find in this:

 1. We had 11 people at church.... We need to get working with them, its been crazy in the office recently. But we have been getting lots of help from other missionaries.
2. We found out 2 of the awesome people in the English Group aren't members but one has been going for almost 2 years! Everyone thought he was a member, so we will  be teaching him soon!
 3. We had dinner with the Fox Family and Brother Root which was super fun.
4. We will hopefully be getting to our area a lot this week now that stuff is "calming down", which means time to go really teach people!

 Thanks for the love as always!


 Elder Howell


                                                   








Monday, August 21, 2017

Weekly Email.... First week alone

Well,

This has been the first week without Elder Sharpe really here to help me...... It has been interesting but the mission hasn't burnt down, gone broke and I haven't been excommunicated! Elder Skraba and I are counting that as a total win! We finally got everyone moved around to their areas and got all the new guys through immigration and the US embassy. It has all pretty much worked out.

We still have 3 Elders out of place here (2 new Elders and 1 Old one) that we will be driving up to Maxixe and to Beira tomorrow. It will be like 16 hours of driving.... I plan to try and do most of it given the..... well, lack of practice by the others..... Hopefully all will go well and we will get some good work done while up in Beira!

This week was Stake Conference which was interesting. I started off in the overflow tent outside the actual chapel but we were pulled into the meeting house to translate for the English Group members. It was a serious mental strain for each of us because the speakers talked so fast but it was actually a really cool experience to do. Thankfully that went well and I got to see several members from my old areas and chat with them about how things have been going. Its nice to see that several recent converts are still doing well.

Love all of you, I hear that my letters that I tried sending in January finally started arriving..... That is kinda Africa's fault, kinda some lazy Elders who used to be here. But in the end it all worked out.

Thanks for your support!


Elder Howell


Monday, August 14, 2017

Super Fast Weekly Email

Okay, it was transfers here in Mozambique. Elder Sharpe's parents came to pick him up on Saturday morning.... That was interesting. Its strange to see an Elder with his parents. Kinda hard to see for everyone who has to wait a year to see theirs. With the pick up,  now my comp is Elder Skraba (19 from Curitiba Brazil) who was in a tripla with Elder Sharpe and I last transfer... We didn't get anyone else in the office so now we are just trying to run the show here.... It will be interesting. He is from my group so we go home at the same time. He speaks pretty much perfect English thanks to watching movies before his mission. Hopefully a native speaking companion helps with my accent and vocabulary in Portuguese. I will pretty much just stay doing finances and he will do the other side of things.

With the insane preparations for transfers and moving everyone around we didn't get much teaching done during the week. We did however have lots of people at church thanks to us inheriting the Sisters old area (they were transferred to Beira). We have a few people who are progressing and hopefully keep doing so. We have plans to get lots done this transfer in our area and in the office.

I have lots of places to visit to inspect houses in the next few weeks so things will be pretty hectic, but it should be exciting!

Love all of you!

Elder Howell

Monday, August 7, 2017

Well......................... This week was kinda a giant blur just like the last few weeks. The days really blur together and its hard to remember what stuff happened which week. But being busy is a good thing really.

Highlights from this week:

1. We had a really awesome member direct us through and into his neighborhood to his cute little house. He and his wife have 2 little kids that are SO cute. Honestly just an awesome new little family. Anyway, they had two of their nephews (or something like that, the family situation was crazy) there for us to teach. We got to know them and taught them the first lesson. The younger one did really well and understood things that we taught surprisingly well for a 14 year old. Hopefully we will be able to go back and teach them again this week.

2. We did a Brazilian style BBQ this week with the Elders out in T-3 (my first area). They have a patio like thingy on the top of their garage with a super pretty view of the area. The food was pretty dang good given it was a bunch of us messing around trying to cook like 5kg of beef on sticks over coals. It was a blast.

3. We had 3 sacrament meets on Sunday which was interesting. Normally we go to the Sommerschield Ward (the area we work/live in). This week there was a new white family in the ward though! The father is working on the new US Embassy getting built here so the family will be here for like 2 years. They have 5 kids from 5-16. Then we helped with the Polana Wards sacrament meeting. Lastly we had our awesome little English Group meeting but another new white person showed up. He too just got here a few weeks back. He does security and such. He is super cool. He invited us over for a random lunch the same day and it was super fun to hear all of his crazy adventures.

Well, theres the highlights from the week. I hope everyone is healthy and happy back at home!

---Elder Howell