Well, it has been a good week for us ending with a very busy Sunday. ZLC was wonderful and so was Transfer Meeting. I'm sure you're all anxious to hear where I'm going, so maybe I'll start out with that. Well, I got moved and I'm still in Beira... at least until Thursday and then I'll fly down to Maputo. So yes, it finally happened, I got transferred to Maputo. I'll be going down to serve this time as an Assistant to the President and so it ought to be an interesting change for me. I'll serve with Elder Fiallo once again, as the other Assistant will be leaving to train in his last transfer. President told me he likes to do that, he likes to allow Assistants to leave from their last transfers, from the field. The news actually came to me at ZLC and the rest of the mission found out at Transfer Meeting. We sleep at Presidents house and so that morning before the rest of the leaders had come, he pulled me into his little office there and asked me (well, I guess he just kind of told me) to be his Assistant... Then it was a little bit of a Baptism by fire, because right after I said ok, he opened up his computer and we started going over the upcoming transfers and asking me questions about the missionaries and things like that. So I was a little blown away but it was good. I'm excited though. It'll be a great learning experience for me and I'm very excited to work with President Packard. I think I'll learn a lot from him. It'll be a good couple of transfers I'm sure. So it will be an interesting little change.
Actual ZLC went well. We are currently making up some goals for the 2009 year. We'll be focusing on more of fortifying the branches and doing reactivation work a lot more in the upcoming year than we have done in this past year. It was good, but after about 5 hours of just talking about goals, I was ready for it to be over and get back to Beira. The meals were great like normal. Sister Packard always feeds us well. The first night we got done a little early due to the fact that President hasn't been feeling too well and so we cut things a little shorter than usual. Elder Smoot and I decided to take a little walk around the block that night, and it was really nice. We don't get time to do little stuff like that. To just relax and take a break, so it was really nice. They've got some really nice houses where president lives. It was fun to go walk around there a little bit.
The rest of the week has also been good. I've already said goodbye to a bunch of people. Weird and sad. To be honest, it still hasn't hit me that I'm leaving Beira. I still don't believe it at all. I feel like it’s just another week and that I'm not really going to get on an airplane on Thursday and then go down. Super surreal... weird to me. I think things are going to fly by even more now though. I'll be in Maputo and so everything is new, including the members and the missionaries and so that will be an adventure in itself, and now with all these new responsibilities, it'll be nuts. Way interesting. You guys will be here before I know it. I still don't believe it’s winding down. Well, I'll email you next week and let you know how Maputo is.
Sounds like you all had a good week with the Christmas party and what not. Sounds like fun. Thanks for the money. I think that'll do. The American Dollar goes a long way over here, so if any one wants to donate we've got a good destination for the money. Well thanks!!! Talk to you all next week!
Elder Okazaki