Luaha 'The Jungle'

This week and the last 12 days have been a bit of a mad dash that have felt more like 3 or 4 days... Very long days, but still only a few, not 12 days for sure.

We had planned on spending a week in Maputo to get organized, do laundry, get supplies, make sure the office was in good shape and then go to Luaha.... But due to some other needs we decided to switch and go straight to Luaha (Nampula).... Sorry Elder Stevens and Elder Thornton, you guys got this!

This meant my 5 days of packed clothes weren't going to make it, and I didn't have a washing machine, so, I hand washed all my clothes. Why not. That's always a fun experience. I am super glad that washing machines are a thing.

Anyway, after a day or two in Nampula we headed out with two members from Nampula as our guides, the Nampula Zone Leaders (Elder Chugg and Elder Cordy). We were told the drive would be around 8 hours.... I wasn't feeling great so I switched out of driving and 2 hours later we had arrived. Way way ahead of schedule. The Luaha group welcomed us with singing and hugs. It was great. We had a welcome meeting then got to setting up our tents, the kitchen thingy and checking out the area. After lunch, still feeling awful I went to take a nap around 14:30....... and woke up at 23 :) It happens. Still feeling sick I quickly wrote in my journal (gotta keep that promise) then fell sleep again.... Until about 11:30. Yup, a solid 20 ish hours of sleep. I finally was feeling 70% though!

That day we mainly just explored the area, talked with members and enjoyed nature. There was a group of members who traveled 50 km (31 miles) to meet President Senna and have him officiate a wedding. The stars in Luaha were incredible because there is no energy, lights or anything for miles and miles and miles. Beautiful at night, super bright. The members just live day by day farming and eating and working and sleeping--repeat day after day.



The following day I woke up and got going on the day because 'Hey, lets try and climb that mountain before the baptism' seemed like a great idea..... So we went off to check out the river then try hiking a bit. The river was a bit busy with people bathing and washing clothes so we moved onto the hike. This however took a TON longer than we thought and by the time we got to the first main ledge it was 10 minutes until the baptism (not that like anyone in the village has a watch or a phone to tell time), and Elder Cordy was half dying of his allergies so we headed back though the jungliness to the village.



Once we got back we got all ready for the baptism, took photos and started the walk to the river. The baptisms was the 'dream baptism' look for an African mission. Lots of people all dressed in capulanas, river for baptisms and singing in dialect on the way back. It was great.



That night there was a wedding of two of the people who came 50 km to get there, it was nice, lots and lots of xima and little fried dough thingies.



Sunday was an interesting church meeting as each of us did 2 of the confirmations for the baptism and all the talks were translated into the dialect. I also was asked to bear my testimony, which got translated. That is a weird experience. The English native speaking Utahan speaking portuguese to get translated into dialect. Its a mess for the brain.



We drove back on Sunday and flew out Monday morning at 01:00 (Thanks LAM for pushing back our flight 9 hours. Love you and your customer service!). We got into Maputo at about 3 am and I got to take a real shower. Ah showers. Magical thingies. Now we have a few days to pack, make purchases and get ready to leave on Friday to catch a Saturday early morning train to Marromeu (avoid wrecking another Toyota truck).



Thanks for all those that emailed me. Another long email, crazy week!

Elder Howell

 Happy Birthday Hannah!

1000 kilometers... 1000 Cokes Week

This week was a week of driving. That is the normal for me, but thankfully the destination this week wasn't the normal airport, post office and bank runs. This week I finally hit my mission long goal of making it to Marromeu.

Long week, long email:

Marromeu: It's a mission branch in the Sofala province, same province of Beira where there are two stakes. Marromeu however is about 7 hours away by car or a full days train ride. I had passed by a ´Marromeu 112km´ sign on the way to Nampula which re-sparked my drive (ha, pun, I still can make those) to go there. Thankfully the branch was in need of a visit. There are hundreds of registered members in Marromeu, like tons, but only about 140 active members. Its been over 2 years without a visit from leadership or missionaries, that is super hard on a branch----so VISIT!

We (President/Sister Senna, Elder Da Rosa and I) headed up to Beira on Wednesday night to get a rental car (great idea), very white and every clean. We spent the day prepping, wrapping up all our stuff in thick plastic and getting snacks (yes, lots of Coke). We left Thursday morning nice and early at 5am

We spent the first 37 km on a nice highway, then came the ´Turn right and continue for 180 km´.... There isn't a road to the right, just a dirt path, let it begin. After 180 km of very bumpy, very muddy and shaking up trip we made it back to that ´Marromeu 112km´ sign.... Then ´Turn Right, 114km´... More mud, more bumping up and down, more Coke.

The last 80 or so kilometers is when things got super cool. We entered into the forest, full tree coverage. Every missionary that comes here wants ´real Africa´, well we found it. We passed well over a 100 monkies along the way just chilling in the road, wolves, deer, pheasant like birds (Okay, I might have run one over), and all other types of wildlife. It was just Africa.

Once we arrived in Marromeu we missed the chapel on our first pass but ended up finding it by showing our name tags to people and people recognizing it from the ´big version of your name tag on that one building´. We got to the chapel, an actual chapel. The chapel is big and nice, tons of space... And the missionaries house is in the parking lot! How nice is that. A senior couple years ago built it, not sure who, but if you´re reading this somehow, well done.

The members in Marromeu are super excited to have missionaires back, and they showed it. The branch has 8 duplas of branch missionaires who have been teaching people... We showed up to 6 people 100% ready, fully taught and just needing baptisimal interviews. We reviewed everything, did the interviews and had a great baptisimal service on Saturday. It was awesome.

Marromeu is pretty spread out and lacking the ´comfort´ of Maputo. There isn't any type of super market or really even a restaurant. Its just rural Mozambique. Pretty much everyone works at ´a compania´ a sugar company... And what a city. This is going to be sweet.

Elder Da Rosa was called as the branch´s second counsler and I was called as the branch financial secretary (and I thought I would escape that title by the end of my mission). What does that mean? We will be reopening the Marromeu branch for missionary work. I am pumped. So so so much work to do. 2 months to do our absolute best. 2 years is a long time without help or a guiding (or correcting) hand. We have a lot to do there.

We are currently in Nampula though. Why? We are going to visit a group in Luaha (about 70 members). They are 400 km from Nampula, no water, no energy just living off the land. So, camping! We will head out there on Thursday, then next Friday head back to our beloved Marromeu, this time by train, never again by car.

Why never again by car? Well, the return trip was hard on the car.... I did my best to be careful, but the road won. The photos and videos on my Google Drive explain it better than I can. Suffice it to stay we got stuck at one point, 100% stuck, buried in mud. No help for who knows how far, no cell service and 11 people we rounded up could not push or pull us out. After we had all said our frantic prayers for help, President Senna prayed. Once he lifted his head, what comes around the corner? A beefy 4x4 truck with a nice thick chain to pull us out. Unlike any Mozambican I have ever met, he showed up, helped, gave me tips on upcoming mud pits and then just left without asking for money.... That NEVER happens here.... We have decided he was one of the 3 Nephites.

Well, this is stupid long already, but its been an awesome week. Lots was done, lots planned and lots of work to come!

Love you all!

Elder Howell

PS: Going to Marromeu will be the true test of if I am addicted to internet, electricity or Coke (the internet doesn't really work well, the electricity is faulty and the Coke often doesn't have carbonation.... aka not worth drinking)

Super busy week

So, it’s 21:30 and I’m at the airport. It’s been a long long day. I haven’t had time really to respond to emails, I will try tomorrow to respond and do a weekly email. This week was crazy, fast and awesome. Super pumped for my last 9 weeks. It will be an adventure.  I will no longer be the mission financial Secretary..... I will be the Marromeu Branch financial Secretary. Elder Da Rosa will be the second counselor here. It’s super poor here. Mud houses poor. AKA awesome. The Branch is struggling, hard. I’ll explain in my weekly email.

Tomorrow we drive back the 320km of ‘path’ (at least there are monkies and wolves) to Beira then we will fly to Nampula to drive to Luaha. We will literally go camping for a week because there is nothing there.

Back to a few days to Maputo to pack up everything then hop a plane back to Beira followed by the train to Marromeu to stay until the end!

Love “y’all”

Elder Howell

PS photos in google drive, Internet here is awful

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....