Well, I’m sure you’re all waiting to hear the big news... Elder Fiallo is leaving early Wed morning and Elder Udall will be taking his place... ha, we’ve known each other for a while. He is a nice kid and so I think we’ll get along fine.
President talked to me and told me a little bit about what he has been thinking, and so I’m getting super excited. He told me that I would be leaving AP for at least my last transfer. He has plans to call another AP to work with Elder Udall for his last 2 transfers here, so he can train the two of them to be able to help President Spendlove when he comes. So that means for me, I would leave my last transfer. However, he threw in another option that might take me out of being AP as soon as the end of this transfer, in 2 weeks... I am excited to get back to being a normal missionary for my last 1 or 2 transfers. It would be a lot of fun. So I guess I’ll know here in about 2 weeks as to what will happen.
This Week we went to Beira for Zone Conference. It was probably one of the best ones we’ve had. I really enjoyed it a lot. There’s always a different spirit in Beira. So it was fun to see the old zone for a little bit.
About the visa thing. I have a DIRE, which is better than a visa. It is a 1 year residency permit here in Mozambique and it won’t expire for a little while and so that ought to get me back into the country without problems. Will I need a Visa for Germany and Austria and South Africa? Also on my plane ride back to Maputo from Beira I met this South African guy who is a member and
lives close to the temple there in Johannesburg, and has offered to help us if we needed.
Will’s eagle project sounds good. I know where both of those orphanages are and so we would not have a problem getting there. So ya, it’s all good. Thanks too, for that housing thing. I think it’ll be a fun year and I am super happy with the way it turned out.
On another note, my camera broke... well, to be honest, it broke in transit from the US to Mozambique. I put it in my carry on, and when I got to Moz I pulled it out and the LCD screen was cracked, however you could still see most of the picture and so I’ve just been using it like that, and it has been breaking little by little and it finally gave out. So my camera still works, but you just can’t see anything on the screen. So I was wondering what you wanted to do, should I replace it here or wait for you to come and bring a new one? I really don’t know what prices are and how they would compare to the U.S. prices. I would personally like to get a new camera, so that I could use it for the end of my mission.
Good luck with the ACT and all the other activities. The Safari was great, infact we’re going again today with the Maputo Zone instead of the Matola Zone. Last time we saw 3 giraffes, and a couple of ostriches... the guy who owns the park is from Switzerland and is a weird guy. He grew up here in Mozambique and has been living here ever since. He says that he doesn’t like to spend money on advertising and so he lets people find out about the park through word of mouth. He must have tons of money... as he bought the plot of land and put up the fences and what not. He used to have 2 rhinos but one escaped, and so he willingly let the other one go... weird because he bought both of them in South Africa. I don’t know how much rhino’s cost, but they must have been super expensive. We will go again today and try and see some zebras and other stuff. It was a lot of fun last time. Well, have a good week.
Elder Okazaki