Another Week, but in Queliname

This week was a bit abnormal---which is always nice when getting into a routine that can get very boring at times. The week started out pretty normal a very relaxing P-Day followed by Tuesday when we dropped off the mission president at the airport (stupid early at like 4 am, why are flights here always at like 4 am???) to go to South Africa for a training. After a nice nap we got going with the day: visiting house owners to figure out issues with paperwork/rent, getting supplies to missionaries and of course lots of spreadsheets and numbers. The day was broken up a bit around 14:00 when it got really dark then started dumping rain. Not raining, that implies rain drops, it was just waves of water raining down. We were doing "House Hunters: Mozambique" as we looked for a new house and had just left it. We got soaked to the bone after 10 seconds running to the car. The streets flooded with more than a foot of water in some areas and little cars were dying from getting flooded. We were fine in our truck and I enjoyed driving around because the whole city was like one giant puddle to drive through!

On Thursday we headed out of Maputo. Do I love plane rides? Yes. We flew out to a city called Quelimane. There is a branch of members there. We just took out the missionaries from there temporarily (hopefully just a transfer or two) and we had to help with some housing issues there and Elder Gumbo (my Mozambican comp) was training the branch presidency on some church system stuff.
We landed early afternoon to be told it was 43 degrees C.... About 110 F... If I could have I would have stayed on the plane and flown back right then. It was nightmarishly hot the first day (and the house didn't have a really working AC unit). We baked. That city does have very cheap coconuts for sale so we stayed hydrated well! We spent an hour riding around on bikes (glad I don't normally have to do that, its annoying) and about 2 hours hunting for "Frango zambaziano"... This type of chicken that the province was known for... NO ONE sold it, sad :(

The next day we had a family night with members though! We thought it would be this little family... Nope! They brought 30+ people who the missionaries were teaching or who had been taught... It was incredible. Best family night I have ever been to. We sang, gave a spiritual thought and played games (Including that 'Black Magic' game that blows everyone's mind). It was great. The beans and rice after were not too bad either. To top it all off they have a pet monkey... Its a racist monkey that doesn't like white people, but it was still fun to try and hold.

All in all it was a great few days there. We got back just in time to sleep for a few hours on Saturday night before taking the mission president, who had gotten back a Saturday morning, back to the airport at 4 am (I swear all his flights are at 4 am....) to go to a city called Chimoio. Then it was off to Stake Conference where they tried showing a broadcast from the Area... It didn't really work, but I got to see a bunch of recent converts and members from T-3 and Mahotas that I really love! Awesome people!

That's it for my week! Thanks Mum for the package and the letters (The true MVP here)

---Elder Howell

PS: Oh, someone got a 107 lb package, they have a friend at FedEx or something.... Anyway, we got the package surprisingly quick, but the rats got to it first... and when we got it to the office we found that one was still enjoying the snacks within... The chaos in the photos shows the fun we had dealing with it.