Hey!
So everything is still going well here. nothing totally new to report.
Elder Lundgren is great. we're working well together. He's in the
Branch Presidency and the DL plus he's training me so he's got a lot to do.
This week has gone by a little slower than the MTC days but it was
good. No, its not true that we have an armed guard outside our door. other
appartments might but we don't. This food is good. a lot of rice and
beans and bread. we did eat hamburgers yesterday though. we got the meat
patties and a couple rolls and things like that so it was a nice
change. the appartment is really nice compared to the peoples houses that we
teach its not much by american standerds. it works for me though. we
sleep under mosquito netting every night so thats kinda fun. the worst
part of the days though is the mornings. no matter where you are in the
world 6:30 always comes too soon. also the showers have a hot water nob
but i dont know why.. whenever you turn on the hot water in the shower
it always comes out cold. however, i've almost gotten used to early
morning cold showers. i guess it could be worse though. i could be in
japan having cold water showers.. not in a tropical area having to take a
cold shower.. we have 5 people marked for baptism right now. they ought
to be baptized a week from sat. we have a bunch of investigators we
teach a lot of lessons. its nice. we still go knocking doors and things
though, contacting and everything. its fine though because the people
here are all way nice. the language is coming a long fine. i'm starting to
be able to understand the people. in lessons i'm actually
semi-effecfive in teaching so after being in the field for like 10 days i'm pretty
happy with my progress. Apparently the President told the trainers that
he wanted our group of elders to be ready to go Senior by the 3rd
transfer... thats not saying that we would go senior but he wanted us ready
to go senior by the 3rd transfer. i think they're really expanding
this mission. our group alone makes up 10% of the mission (there's 62
missionaries in Moz. now). plus next transfer we get another 6 guys.. then
the next transfer like another 5 or 6. I think they might put us into
Angola soon too. during our orientation the President said that they
would be drafting a proprosal and sending it to the first presidency to
send us into Angola. And he thinks it will go though, however there's
some sort of problem with gettting visa's or somthing. so who knows. OH!,
so the dear-elders.. ya, they print those out in Salt Lake and then
send them over via Pouch Mail.. so i haven't gotten any yet.. ha ha. i did
get all of dads the day i showed up though. plus i just read the last
one he sent last night. thanks for the advice about sleeping on the
plane.. i'll remember that for the trip home.. But ya. things are good. we
walk a lot. the shoes are good, people are nice. the most i have to
worry about is how to cook my next meal. so we'll see. the president is
way nice. his wife called me today to check and see how i was adjusting.
she's really nice. we don't see him much though being up where we are
but all the leaders are really nice and everything is just great. so
about the letters. you can e-mail me. i'll just print it out and take it
home and read it later. if you have anything you want me to respond to
just put it at the top of the e-mai and star it or somehting and i'll
read that and respond to it asap. so ya. but maybe you can just write an
e-mail on sunday night.. i usually check my e-mail at about 2 am
monday morning your time so ya.. no package yet. i hear they take a while.
expecially to get them up here to Beira. Probably the best things to
send in packages is food. we don't need any more stuff. we've got enough
of that so ya. but thanks. just food. we miss that the most. good old
american food. well thanks for all the stuff. i'll just talk to you guys
in a week! love you all.

Elder Okazaki

PS. Dad.. Remember how you were joking about how we had to find peoples
houses using a GPS.. well, you were right. we actually do use a GPS..
we mark everyone's house in there.. just though you'd get a kick out of
that..