Wow! You guys are never going to believe what happened this week. It has been absolutely nuts for me! Elder Vieira got transferred in the
middle of the week to Morremeu! We were all really excited for him. Then we also found out that my old companion would be training a Brazilian this transfer and going District Leader! And so we were super pumped for him too. Way good. Then we also found out about me. Turns out I’m not moving too far. I’m just switching rooms in the house; however, I will be senior companion over Elder Harris! I’m super excited and I actually have already gone senior. When Elder Vieira left, I just went over and started walking with Elder Harris, and a branch missionary has been walking with Elder Buckner. So it’s been an exciting week. Oh, plus I got put in the Branch Presidency... Almost every branch up here in Beira has a missionary on the branch presidency and so when Elder Vieira left he left a lot of spots to be filled. So I took the branch presidency job and Elder Buckner took the district leader job. It’s crazy though. I’m still having trouble believing it. No one expected it. This transfer, I and one other elder went senior. Me and someone down in Maputo, who is a transfer ahead of me. So as of now I’m the youngest senior companion in the mission. No one expected it because there are still a lot of guys ahead of me who still haven’t gone senior. A couple Brazilians too. But I’m excited about the new assignment and it’s been going well so far. We had our first Sunday yesterday and our first Presidency meeting on Saturday. I’m excited about it, but nervous. I’m kind of getting baptized by fire here. I’ll have to do good though, because I’m sure if anything goes too wrong, I’ll go back to junior companion for sure. There’s still about a 50/50 chance I could next transfer, but I think I’d rather have good numbers working in my favor. I guess I’ll just worry about going junior again when next transfer meeting comes around. But anyway, that’s the big news from me.
As far as rain goes, I wish we had more; it’s been fairly hot around here. Too bad to hear about Andrew being sick. Funny because I too was a little sick this week. It started Monday and then ended about Friday or Saturday. I couldn’t eat anything. I could drink fine, but eating just made me super nauseous. But it wasn’t bad enough where I had to stay in. But ya, it’s been a good week so far. Elder Harris is a nice guy. I’ve known him for 2 transfers now. He’s going into his 3rd
transfer and I’m going into my 5th so we’re pretty close in age. He’s
doing really well. He speaks super well, so it ought to be easy with him. But I’m really excited about this next transfer and hope that it
will be good. Still a little uneasy about things but so far it’s gone
really well and we haven’t had a problem. So ya, for the next 6 weeks(hopefully more after that) I’ll be a senior companion and on the branch presidency. If we were back home Dad would be reporting to me... ha ha...
The new area is good. I know it a little bit from divisions with Elder
Vieira and what not, but it’s a lot bigger than ours and it’s just
weird being in a different area. It was nice to go senior in an area I
kind of knew though. I know a lot of the members already and so that was nice to. It’s been fun having a branch missionary in the house. He’s just a kid from the branch and he’s pretty funny. He really likes being a missionary. We’re going to start teaching his father here this next week.
Well, things are going super good. I’m super happy with where I’m at
in the mission and hopefully things will go well this transfer. I got
a feeling I’ll be watched a little closer than the other senior
companions... Well, have a good week. I’ll let you know how things go my second week as senior companion next Monday! Love you and miss you all!

Elder Okazaki