AdSounds like you guys had a good week talking to Elder Lundgren. This week was a fun one for us. Of course the highlight was going to Maputo. We flew down on Wed. night and landed around 4:30 (that was a little weird... haven't been on an airplane for a while...) and the AP's picked us up at the airport. From the Airport we went straight to President Packard’s house where Sister Packard had cooked us a huge meal. It was super good. Haven't eaten so much food for a while. Haven't eaten that good of food for a while either. Not going to lie, we do pretty well at cooking, but we have nothing on Sis. Packard. We had a beef brisket with mashed potatoes, a salad, some peas and other things and some rolls. It was way good, and then we just jumped right into it. Pres. Packard had an agenda about things, and so we just started, we talked about the mission and about things we needed to improve and it was way good. We finished up around 10:00 pm that night and then we went over to the AP's house to sleep. It was fun because right now Elder Abraham is a secretary and they're living with the AP's, so I got to see him a little bit. It was good. The next morning we were right back at it at 8:00am for another huge breakfast of apple pancakes with bacon and juice. It turned out to be way good. Right after that, we went right back into it, with a whole other list of things to discuss. It went great. Finally we had lunch about 12:00, at 1:00 we were out of Pres. Packard’s house and at 3:00, we were taking off on a plane headed for Beira. It was crazy landing in Maputo. We saw how big it is. I was a little shell shocked. When we got picked up, we drove through the city and it was super weird. There was traffic and traffic lights and it was just nuts. It was a way cool experience though. Also at the conference we found out some more interesting and exciting news. The Mission has missionaries in Maputo, Beira, and Marromeu, but we also have branches in Tete, Nebula, and Angola. So, this last week Pres. Packard was in Napula and thinking about putting missionaries in there, and it is pretty much official that in September or October, President is putting missionaries into Angola, so we'll see how that goes. It ought to be epic. Our mission is gaining some serious numbers. We have 64 missionaries in all of Moz. right now, and over the next 3 transfers (4 1/2 months) we're going to gain another 18, which will put us at 77 missionaries. So President Packard is going to have to open up some new areas. It'll be interesting to watch the mission grow. Also, more exciting news for me, is that we'll be making a journey up to the branch in Tete at the end of this month. President will be going up there to visit and they have some investigators that have been attending church for a while and so they need to be taught lessons and possibly be baptized and so we'll be going up with the President. He comes out the 22nd to Beira, the 23rd we have zone conference and then the 24th we'll celebrate Pioneer Day and on the 25th we're driving out to Tete with the President. The 26th we'll have church and help Pres. with what ever translation he needs to do, and then on the 27th I think Pres. will leave and we'll hang around for a few more days teaching lessons and ending with a baptism. So we'll probably return the 31st or some date around then... So ya, I’m way excited. The rest of the week went well. I'm starting to get the hang of the ZL thing. It’s fun. Lundgren was right though. It seems like I stepped under a magnifying glass as everyone is always looking at you. It’s good though, but tiring. It’s true about us being isolated; the Beira ZL's are the AP's, ZL's, Secretaries and sometimes the mission president up here. It’s good though, I'm learning a ton. Well, things are going good, glad you guys got a chance to talk to Lundgren. He's a great guy. Have a good week!

Elder Okazaki

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