Alright,

This week was interesting to say the least.

Long story short, the couple that I was training has returned to Brazil to do a temple mission. I am now training Elder Stevens to be my replacement and helping to train Elder Thornton as the Executive Secretary for the mission.... We have about 4 weeks to do all the training that is normally 2 transfers (12 weeks).... This should go smoothly.

Other than the nice swapping around we have been bouncing around from my house, to a house in Polana to sleeping at the office, back to Polana to now returning back to my house (where the couple had been for a while). Lots of moving around, lots of other things to do.

Everyone asks me 'How are the people you're teaching? How is your area?"
----I don't have an area anymore, we are 100% at the office for this transfer, most likely. Once he gets comfortable he will have a proselytizing area like I did with Elder Skraba and Elder De Paula but during the training period its too busy.

Hopefully I will have a few roadtrips to really far off places during April to help keep me sane, and to take lots of photos!

Love all of you, thanks for your love, letters and support.

-Elder Howell

A Week of Food

Its 18:00 right now and I only got a few hours of sleep last night because I was dropping off groups of Elders at the airport so I will keep this short.

This last week was transfers week so we spent an absurd amount of time driving missionaries to and from their areas. We also had Zone Conference, which we don't really participate in, we even do the 'behind the stage' stuff for conference, mainly the food. So we had a lot of food this week.

We also got new Elders from Brazil and a Sister later in the week from South Africa who will stay for a while here during her visa process for Angola. With the group of new missionaries we played babysitters at the mission home because the mission president was traveling for another zone conference in Beira.

Overall things are good, awesome comp and the papaya trees in Mahotas are growing like crazy still. The time is going by one day at a time.

'Step by step'

Elder Howell

'Highway' to H.... Nampula!

Well, as you can tell by the subject of this email I finally did the roadtrip from Beira (the middle of Mozambique) to Nampula (the top of Mozambique).

We flew out to Beira to pick up the car (the same car I drove to Beira from Maputo).... But our flight was delayed (I hate you LAM) so we arrived at about 22:30, President Senna interviewed a Sister who was going home this transfer then we all went off to sleep at about 00:00.... I then woke up at 04:00 to start the drive---great idea Elder Howell, just wonderful.

Google Maps is a wonderful thing, but it makes some predictions about speed that often aren't too true for Mozambique. The map said it would take about 14 hours, cool, leave at 4, get there at 18 before dark.... HAHAHAHA WRONG.

We got going on a nice big road for about 25 minutes then we had to turn onto a dirt road, okay, fine, its 180km (111 miles), give me 2 hours... Wrong again, it took 5 hours or more.

The path (calling it a road would be a straight up lie--I hope you're seeing this Google Maps) was filled with so many bumps, holes, mud pits and such. For the first 2 hours there were men on bikes with sacks of charcoal and men using bikes to walk massive cut logs... Tiny vilas (villages) then it went to not even marked mini mini villages. Just people mainly in tiny cement houses or shacks, communal well being pumped.

On and on, well other than getting 100% stuck in a mud pit, past the top of the tires.... Couldn't even open my door... It was bad. Somehow after a minute of panic we somehow backed out (shout out to the angel that guards my car!)

After that things went 'smoothly'.... Very bumpy but progress. We thankfully didn't get stuck again.

A few hours after the mud issue we got to an area with a ton of monkeys running along the road, that was cool, a nice change after nothingness. To loosely quote a movie 'There is nothing in the journey to Nampula and no man wants nothing'

After a total of 17 hours of driving we got there.... It was a long long drive (but making it to California from Utah on a good road will be easy now!). I got a bit of sleep then flew back to Maputo after a day to get back on top of things with the Medeiros.

Other big news from the week---Transfers! Elder De Paula will be serving in the Matola Zone now and I will be going to half stay in the office. I will stay in the mornings, eat lunch (thanks Matilde!) then leave to an area called Zimpeto. Its a new branch that broke off of the Magoanine ward (where bispo Tualufo is). It should be good to ease back into a normal area... Not that there is tons of time, but I've got to try. I will be with Elder Da Rosa, he is from Brazil, Rio Grande de Sul---Cidade Rio Grande. He is awesome, he came here at the same time as me. It will be a fun, but a very hard working transfer.

Ate Ja

Elder Howell

PS: I will try to get more of the drive photos uploaded once I get them.

Child and Grandchild

Só, it’s finally happened—-The couple has finally arrived. As we waited for them to show up my companion explained since I had trained him I was his ‘father’ and he would train Sister Medeiros this making her my ‘granddaughter’. So, that was an interesting thought. After after just 4.5 weeks of training Elder De Paula he would start training someone else.

The Medeiros couple is from Brazil and they are awesome. We are having lots of fun with them cramming our way through all the trainings, paperwork and policies as well as moving them into their home (where I used to live). Anyway, it’s all been an adventure as we get through not only office stuff but showing them Mozambique, how to drive (always scary seeing new people drive but he did well, and just general locations to know).

The plan is “Train them ASAP then I might leave the office”..... So we are training at max speed... until tomorrow at 13:30 I will take 3 days off to drive a car halfway across Mozambique from Beira to Nampula... this should be a fun trip. It’ll be a good test of how well they picked things up this week, because it’s all on them for a few days!

Thanks for the love!


Elder Howell

Até já....