Well, it’s been a good week so far. Quite the interesting p-day. This morning and this afternoon we were at a funeral which is why we're writing right now... there was a little girl from the Beira 2 branch that had had a brain tumor and Sister Packard got news of it, and so the church paid to have this little girl flown out to South Africa to have brain surgery. She had the surgery and all went well and she was recovering slowly, but out of no where, she died. She died on Friday. Super Sad. Yesterday at church, Fiallo and I got pulled out of church to drive the Relief Society to the airport, because the mother was landing at the airport,(the church paid for the mother to stay with the little girl).President Packard wanted to have the Relief Society present, to welcome the mother home, and so we did that, and then just today we had the funeral. Tons of people showed up, and so we had to take all of them from the chapel to the cemetery, to bury the little girl. It was a super nice service but super sad. The little girls name was Andrea Pires. She was 6 years old. It was so sad to watch the funeral. Way sad. It happens all the time here, and it’s not the first time that I've been to a funeral, but for some reason, this one was really sad. It’s funny, I think we detach ourselves emotionally a lot, from what happens around us, but at least everything went well.

Tonight the waves on the beach were huge! It was fun to walk by them. They were up to the sea wall and there was a ton of wind. We stopped for a few minutes and watched them come in. It was pretty fun.

This week is zone conference. I'm pretty excited for it all. We'll have interviews on Thursday and then on Friday, the actual conference. The AP's ought to come up on Thursday or so, and we ought to do our divisions with them that night. I'm looking forward to walking with them. They're both really nice guys and its fun to hang out with them a little bit. Zone Conference ought to be really good this time around. I'm excited for our presentation. We're talking about studies and we've made a couple of videos that we're going to show. It ought to

be good.

We actually were aware that it was Labor Day back there... we found out when Elder Abraham called us this morning, telling us that there was not any money in our mission accounts... the first day of the month we always get our monthly allotment put into our accounts... well to do this, the secretaries e-mail a request to Salt Lake a couple days before; well the internet went down in Maputo. No one had internet, and so they couldn't send the request till

Thursday night or so, and somehow Salt Lake didn't do anything on Friday or Saturday and Sunday no one works (obviously...) then Abraham informed us that it was Labor Day back there, and so no one was working today... and so hopefully we'll get money tomorrow... we'll see.

It was a ton of fun to see the Klomps. They took us out to a super good meal that both Elder Fiallo and I enjoyed muito. It was fun talking to them and hearing all that was going on at home. I really like the Klomps. Super good people. It was weird seeing them. You know you had a life before the mission, but you don't really remember what it was like, so when they came, it was like a visit from this other life that I had. It was super weird. They were asking me about how much time I had left and I surprised myself when I said 9 months... I couldn't believe that. I couldn't believe that I've been out here for 15 months... super weird. I've been in Beira for 13 months now. Elder Featherstone’s group ought to be coming in, in about 3 weeks, so he's still got some time, but President Packard has already started thinking about who his trainer will be. That transfer will happen in 3 weeks, we'll lose 3 Elders (1 AP, 1 ZL and 1 DL... pretty big hits to the mission...). However, we'll pick up 6 new Elders. 5 coming from the MTC in Provo(Elder Featherstone being one of them) and one Mozambiquan that ought to go to Brazilian MTC any day now... So it'll be a pretty big transfer as they'll be a bunch of new leadership along with at least 6 trainers plus all the DL's in Beira are looking to leave their areas... not to mention a bunch of new senior companions... So there's a lot of anticipation for this transfer MTG. As for me, I'm expecting to stay where I am but gain a new companion. Elder Fiallo has been ZL for 4 transfers now and so I figure he's leaving. However, 4 is pretty much the minimum transfers to serve as a ZL. So ya. Transfer MTG is in 3 weeks from last Sat. It ought to be good. Super stoked.

I've also been thinking a lot about college... well not a lot, but when i go to bed at night I have a little time to think sometimes, and so I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when I go home. I still don't know for sure but I don't think I'm going to play hockey at BYU after the mission. I'd probably have more fun just hanging out with friends and dating than I would on the ice and I think I'd be able to concentrate on school a little more that way. So just let me know what you guys think. So I guess we'll see. What could you guys see me doing? I'm starting to get to that point where I'm going to have to make some decisions. We'll sign

up for housing soon, and then after that, it'll be time to sign up for classes and so it’s coming up soon. Elder’s Porter, Richards and Nelson are all doing well. All of us are now ZL's... Elder Porter is in Japan, Elder Richards in Malaysia and I hear that Elder Nelson is in Wyoming. However that might have been some time ago and so who knows, maybe he's an AP by now. But it'll be fun to room with the 4 of them and swap mission stories.

I didn't send many souvenirs this time... sorry. There are a couple of things I think you'll

really like though. Now that X-mas is coming up... I'll work on the picture. I'll have to see what I can find. I'll look through my pics sometime. We'll see. Well, it was a good week. Hope all is still going good!

Elder Okazaki