Monday, July 21, 2014

Maputo 49th week - July 21, 2014

Update: Although he wasn't able to send an entry at the time, Elder Kanaga has since sent an entry for July 14th through the 20th. Enjoy!


OH P-DAY yup I do love a good preparation day. It is always such a good rest and rejuvenation. Not to mention the fact that now I get to do my shopping at Premier. And WOW Premier is really nice. Our internet place was really bad. I hope that there is another one for next week I literally couldn't stand up without hitting my head on the ceiling and what is worse is that the computer wouldn't read my flash drive so I couldn't send any pictures home. I cleaned the house and went through all the expired meds left in the bathroom and trashed them. I neatly organized everything. Then we did contacts and had a lesson with a part-member family.

Tuesday was good Dxxxxx and Mxxxx sadly are having money problems. I am worried if they are going to be able to succeed in getting everything done in time for their wedding date on 7/26. I really hope so! We  did contacts in the morning. After personal studies and lunch. We did companion study and left for a nice long walk to Sxxxx’s house. He lives a good 1 hour walk from our house. After that, we had a lesson that fell through, which ended up being a blessing because as we were walking, we received a phone call from the APS. They had Elder Mendes with them and needed to drop him off with us. So we had to run home and pick him up then head back for an absolutely amazing follow up Law of Chastity lesson. It was with our other couple, Dxxxxx and Ixxxxx. They blew my mind, they really took it straight to heart.  Dxxxxx already talked to his family about it. On his own, he explained that he was getting married to obey God’s commandment. They accepted. He also explained the same thing to her family. They also accepted. He is going to, or hopefully already started on the documents. Namely the Declaraçlaracão  de bairro, tonight! I was sad to leave my awesome families in Maxixe but I am super happy I found more families to teach here.

Wednesday,  we started off with no electricity which continued for the entire day. Miracles happen so I can’t complain - as we were waiting for a member, Axxxxx to go teach a lesson with us, we ran into Dxxxxx, Ixxxxx’s husband. He was returning from the Chefe do Bairro’s home with his Declaraçlaracão  de bairro. Tomorrow we will be going with his wife to the Municipio to get their Atestado da Residência. After that, all that is left is to open the process. Woo hoo!  I really think that they are going to succeed in getting everything in line to get married and baptized on the 26th of July. We passed by Dxxxxx and Mxxxx’s house. He managed to get enough money for the Atestado da Residência as well we will be going with Mxxxx and Ixxxxx to get their Atestados.  Wow that is awesomeness! It  was a pretty productive day. We had 4 good lessons and we sat with a new family from a contact I met yesterday, Bxxxxxxx and Mxxxxxxxx. We had a very good lesson with them. I hope to see them progress, but we will see. Wednesday was my niece Eisley’s one year mark in life. Para-Bens Eisley  Monster!

Thursday was pretty good, we went with Ixxxxx to the Registo and the Muncipo. We first went to the Registro to start getting Dxxxxx certidão made. Then we ran down to the Muncipio to get the Atestado da Residência. Sadly we will have to push the wedding and baptism back one week because of the Certidão de Nascimento for Dxxxxx won’t be ready until Tuesday morning. That’s okay; everything is going well with their documents. We had a really good lesson with them that night. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation. They had some good questions. One of Dxxxxx’s questions was “Is there really Hell, where people are burning with fire?” When I asked him where he thought we came from, he answered 100% perfectly correct. I almost thought he had read Preach My Gospel. It was a really good lesson. I am really quite happy to get to participate in their conversion.

Friday we had district meeting in the morning. I was happy with it. When I ended it, I felt like it went well. I am having a hard time getting lessons in this area. My companion is still way new and I don’t know our investigators well enough yet to get the marking down perfect. However, I am starting to get it all solidified. We had another good lesson with Bxxxxxxx. We taught about the Book of Mormon. He understood the “two points” example really well, but had a lot of good question to go along with it all. Then we had a lesson with an OLD (time being taught) investigator, Axxxxxx. It went good, but I am really worried, I don’t want him to turn into one of those “Eternal Investigators”

Saturday morning we did studies and headed out for a lesson with Jxxx and Axxxxx. Right as we were getting pretty close to their house we got a call from Jxxx that he  was at work still. So we just stayed out in the area and contacted until lunchtime. After lunch we had a nice full afternoon/evening marked and Irmão Dxxx  was planning to walk with us. I was pumped. But then, like a giant rabbit-eating mountain squirrel, disaster struck. One by one our lessons began to fall. All of them… that was very disheartening. As we were in front of Frangão, a restaurant, waiting for Irmã Dxxx, we frantically started calling our contacts again. Luckily Elder Mistola was able to make an appointment for a lesson. It was a really good lesson which is nice because it was the ONLY one of the day. On the brighter side we managed to get a solid sixteen contacts today.

Sunday was good. Church was nice. It is still rather odd for me to be in a branch that is big, where the missionaries don’t teach classes or conduct meetings. It’s nice. But to be 100% honest today was quite discouraging. Quite a few of our investigators did not show up at church. For sure we were to have a lesson immediately following correlation, however, that fell through. So we got home, ate lunch, and headed to the area. I was pumped. We had a full day marked, and an awesome member to walk with…However, the general public of Mozambique had a different idea. It all fell through… not a single one of our four marked lessons, or any person we called worked out. That made for a very discouraged Elder Kanaga on the 30 minute walk home. It is always discouraging to have lessons fall though, however, it is a whole lot more discouraging when lesson fall though and you have a member with you for more than four hours. It was something that, as far as I know, was out of my control. Hopefully this week that comes will be a bit more fruitful in terms of lessons.



Elder Kanaga and his new companion



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