Well, this week has been fairly normal. Not any broken down busses in the jungle, for at least this week... 

Morromeu will be coming down by bus here, next week for Zone Conference, so we'll see what happens. 

Too bad the Olympics are winding down, as all of the missionaries have been going to this one restaurant where 

they've been playing the Olympics on TV, to eat for the past two weeks. I hear Michael Phelps racked in the

medals again. Pretty amazing. Dominated the past two Olympics. Huge surprise that we lost in softball. The US 

always wins in that. I guess that is what makes the Olympics fun. You never know who is going to win. 

It’s been a fun week for us here in Beira. Elder Abraham (old MTC comp)was up here. He's currently an office 

secretary and is doing great. The church just installed computers into every church building here in Beira and 

Maputo(I have mixed feelings about that...) and so Elder Abraham was up here to install them the entire week. 

The reason we're getting computers is because the Church just installed the full MLS system here (mixed 

feelings about that too...). So he had to do some training on MLS for the branches and then we trained every 

single missionary in Beira on MLS. I'm sure Dad knows what MLS is but just in case, MLS is a computer system 

the church uses to keep records. It does everything. Membership records/audits and financial stuff too. You 

can transfer and change records, create records and register marriages... Everything. Keeps track of ordnances 

and everything. It’s literally the book of life here on earth... So they just put access to the “Book of Life”

here in Moz... I'm a little nervous. No other mission district in the world has access to MLS, other than 

the districts in the Moz. Map. Mission... MLS is usually only given when a stake is established... So we'll 

see how it goes. I know it’s going to fall on the missionaries to use MLS, because most of the people hardly 

know what a computer is. In Inhamzua the secretaries were having a hard time getting the arrow in the right 

box so that they could even click... You might be able to see why I have mixed feelings on this... Most of 

our branches up here in Beira, actually all of our branches up here in Beira, don't even have a full presidency,

much less a financial and executive and a records clerk. So pretty much what I’m saying is that It’ll help 

things a lot, but it’s just going to be another thing for the missionaries in the Branch Presidencies to do. 

However, it will help.We do have a major problem with record keeping here. A lot of errors and it’s a really 

bad system, so this ought to help. Anyways, Elder Abraham was out here to help with that. He stayed at our 

house and so we got to talk a little bit. One night he and I went out to Manga 1 where we spent the night with 

2 other Elders from our district and spent a good portion of the night talking about the Good Old MTC. The 

next morning we went to the District MTG of Manga 1, where one other Elder from our district joined us and 

so it just added to the fun. We were talking about how crazy it was. When we were all in the MTC we couldn't 

imagine the time when we would be leaders in the field. When we were talking at the District MTG (there were 

5 of us...) and out of the 5, that were there, we had one zone leader, one district leader, one secretary, 

one Branch President and one senior companion. Then out of the other six that weren't there, we have 3 more 

District Leaders,1 currently Training, 1 Senior Comp and 1 Junior Comp. We just couldn't believe how fast the 

time had passed. It was a fun little reunion.

The B-day was good. The football game was great. One of the best one's I've played. Way fun. That night we 

had a thing called DLC which is a meeting with the DL's and the ZL's, where we talk about training that the 

leadership will do for the next transfer. Well, we had the MTG at our house and so we showed up a little late 

and so when we showed up, all the DL's were there and so I walked in and they sang Happy B-day to me and we 

had a cake and a MTG. It turned out to be a good MTG though. Turned out well. So that was my week.

Good to hear that Andrew is doing well in CC. Tell him to keep running and get more competitive. I know he's 

got it in him. I know, because I’ve played board games with him... The Klomps are good. They made it up to 

Beira. We're actually going to have dinner with them tonight. It ought to be a good night. The campaign 

against measles is going ok, but what they need to learn, is that if you want anything done, the best people 

to go to, is the missionaries. So I have a feeling that in a of couple months, when this thing gets rolling, 

we'll have more work to do. It ought to be interesting. It’s a good cause though. Well worth the time. What 

I can't understand is why the general population of Moz. isn't lining up to volunteer for this thing. I'll 

see if I can't send a few things home with them, to be honest, I don't have too much to send. So we'll see. 

Well, have a good week!

Elder Okazaki