Hey,
So this week has been good. Things are going well out here. It sounds
like stuff is going good back home too. Yes we did hear about the base
exploding in Beira. We had Elders pretty close to it. The base is in
between the mission areas of Monga and Inhamizwa. The guys out in
Inhamizwa got evacuated to Monga where the Monga missionaries were waited with
one of the Senior Couples. They just hung out in the Monga house that
night incase things got really bad. But we got a call from the ZL’s
when things started happening. We could hear some of the blast in the
distance. The guys in Monga could see the flames of the blasts. So that
was the big exciting news of the week. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the
blast at the beginning of the year down in Maputo.

We haven’t gotten to see conference. I don’t think we’ll be able
to either. We’re watching last spring’s conference in our branch
right now though. They have it on DVD so this past sat. we watched 2
hours in our chapel. Then on Sunday we watched another 2 hours as well.
They put a little platform on top of our podium and then set a TV on top
of that. The TV is a little Smaller than the one we have at home and we
have to put our microphone next to the speakers so everyone can hear.
Its pretty ghetto but it works.

This Sunday we had 158 people at our branch. It was so packed. We
filled all the benches then we had to add chairs down the aisle’s and then
we still had people sitting in the hallway. So it was a good meeting.
We just watched conference though so I don’t know how much people
like that.

People have water again in Muhnava so that is good for everyone.
However now we have something new to occupy our time with. This Saturday we
had a special meeting about records and forms. We have a lot of work to
do. We need to straighten up all our records and old and new. Its going
to be such a pain. We have to go through all the records of the church
from when it first started. A ton of missionaries in the past simply
didn’t do records. All they did was baptize and write a few names
down. No addresses no anything. So if the church records say that a person
doesn’t have the priesthood but they actually did receive it. They
don’t have the priesthood. If someone was baptized but they didn’t
record it, the baptism didn’t happen. So that mean we have to go and
straighten out everything. The records are bad too. Some men are marked
as being female, women have been given the priesthood, tons of people
addresses consist of comments like “enter the neighborhood at the far
end of the market”.. just things like that. So now we’ve got to give
everyone an address that will consist of GPS coordinates and we are
going to have to find people. Tons of people were just baptized someone
recorded their name and now, no one knows were they are because they
died, or moved or went inactive or something. So we have to find them, see
if they still exist, finish filling out their records, re-activate
them if needed and just a bunch of busy work that could have been avoided
if people just did thing right in the beginning. At the meeting they
said we were to devote all our time to this. Like this is now our main
priority. They said like only 1 or 2 hours of teaching a day and the rest
should be open to find these people and doing forms. Not too happy
about that. I don’t know how much of that is actually going to happen
though. I think we’re just going to use our mornings to finding these
people and doing forms and then just teach in the afternoons. So ya.
That’s the latest news about the slap missionaries from the past.

I got your letter this last Saturday. The one with the news paper
article in it. That is so nasty about the guy growing hair out of his ears.
I didn’t even know you could grow ear hair. I also got the news
letter from Steve’s family. The best letter by far though was the one’s
I got from Patrick, Nicky and Kate. I really enjoyed those. Tell
Patrick that I’ll try not to get “seriously wounded” or “really
really really sick”. I’ll probably have a little bit of time to write
them back today so tell them to be looking for a letter in like a month.
Also the letter from Bapa was good. Sounds like he’s not getting a
lot of time to enjoy his retirement with all those mice to kill. Tell him
that when I get home I’ll help him kill those mice. I’ll have
plenty of experience I’m sure. The rats here don’t get eaten by cats.
They’re too big. They can put up too much of a fight. The rat might
end up eating the cat. I’m not even joking either. They are so big
here. The first time I saw one I didn’t believe it was a rat. It was
huge! Like the size of one of Andrews sneakers. Seriously huge. We don’t
have that big of a problem with them out in Munhava but other houses
do. The cockroaches are big though. Those are about the size of you
thumb. It just seems like everything is bigger here.

I’m glad to hear that they Bailey’s will be out here. I actually do
want them to take some stuff home for me if that’s ok. As far as
some things to bring out here.. I’ve made a little list: stamps (so I
can send letters, we have envelopes just no stamps. I send the letters
home through the pouch mail then they go to the American mail system from
there so I need American stamps..), some root beer extract (so we can
make rootbeer shakes.. mmmm..), maple extract (so we can make maple
syrup… mmmm…) and any other church CD’s, Oh! And I want my Enya
back. I have no idea why I sent that home… but other than that everything
is good. Thanks for putting that money in my account. I might withdraw
some of it this week to buy some stuff to send home. You got any
requests? Tell me what you want. I already got one thing. But ya, let the
Bailey’s know that if they’re down here on a Monday I’m pretty sure
I’ll be able to see them, any other day, it might just be lunch. But
even for lunch we can arrange our schedule so that we can have about 3
hours free. But let me know. The sooner the better. Then we can plan
it into our schedule. So just let me know.

Well that’s about it from Africa. Thanks for the info about the
changes in the presidency. And yes it was Elder Lundgren who delivered the
packages. I get to see him a lot actually. Its nice. He’s a really
good guy. They’ve got to prepare for Zone Conference this week. Its hard
to believe that we have zone conference this Friday! I’ll let you
know how that goes. Well. Talk to you guys in another week. Thanks for
putting together all that missionary stuff for me. Love you all and miss
you!

Elder Okazaki