Well, Things are still going good around here. This past week was busy and we had a ton to do, but everything went well. Friday morning President Packard landed and we took him around to all of the houses. He did interviews while we did house inspections. It was good but boring. When we finished, we got a call from the Marromeu guys saying that they were down and waiting to be picked up in Dondo. We dropped off President and went out to Dondo to pick-up the Marromeu crew. They're all doing well and made it down just fine. As we were picking up the guys from Marromeu, Elder Watson, Sister Watson and Sister Packard landed at the airport and so President went to pick them up out there. We were able to meet them a little later that night. The next morning was a baptism, so we were a bit nervous, because there was a general authority presiding over the meeting, and so we wanted everything to go well. Luckily it did, and so it was a success overall. That afternoon was the first part of District Conference. We had a leadership meeting at 2pm and then the general adult session at 4pm. During the leadership meeting, they split up into men and women, and so the assistants went to translate for President and Elder Watson while I translated for Sis. Watson in the women’s meeting. Sister Watson's a really nice lady. The next day was district conference and that went really well. I enjoyed the talks and everyone did a really good job. The assistants translated for that one, thankfully. I don't know how they did it, but they did well. Elder Watson was using words like cumbersome and short-hand and stuff like that. I asked the smartest Brazilian I know, about short hand, and he hadn't even heard of that sort of thing being done... So ya, it was interesting. I felt bad for the assistants, I always get a huge headache when I translate and those guys were doing a lot of really hard translation. So Sunday went well. After District conference, we ended up taking President and Sister Packard and Elder and Sister Watson out into the field and visited some families with them. We went to a sick sister in Beira 2, a family trying to get married in Munhava, and one recent convert single sister with 3 children in Manga 2. So in those meetings, Elder Smoot translated what they were saying into Portuguese, and I translated what the people were saying into English. They were really good quality visits, and I think they really enjoyed them. I think Elder and Sister Watson were a little shell shocked, but all went well. The rest of the day was spent doing stats and other random things. Yesterday we had our mission tour. Super good day, I enjoyed it a lot. President and Sister Packard didn't speak very much but Elder Watson took a lot of time. In the middle of the meeting, we had a mini-testimony meeting and so everything went well. I was a little nervous, because I had to conduct the meeting, but it all went really well. Probably one of the best Zone Conferences I've been too. Elder Watson is a really funny guy. Good speaker too. He didn't really have a central message, but covered a ton of topics and a lot of ground, but did it well. Later that day, we finally dropped all of them off at the airport, and then came back home. It was weird, because the President drove a car with the Watson’s out to the airport and we took the assistants out there, and so on the return trip, I drove one car, and Elder Smoot drove the other car. So we were split up for a little bit. Super weird.

Today ought to be a good P-day we'll be hanging out a little at the beach. We've got some chips, bananas and Elder Smoot and I made about 25 liters of root beer last night, and so it ought to be a good day. Well, next week is normal again. I'm super excited to have a normal week. It’ll be nice to study and teach, we haven't really done either of those in the last two weeks, so it'll be nice for a change. Well, hope all is well, the yard sounds nice and it looks like everything is going well. I'm super bummed that the year I'm gone, BYU hockey is on TV... That would have been super fun. Well, hope all is well at home and have a good week!

Elder Okazaki