Oi,

So, wow, that was a huge e-mail!!! You guys had a lot going on this week. This week was jam crammed for us too. Transfers and all that jazz to do. We sent off Elder Fiallo this Thursday and that went well. I've talked to him once, since he's been down there. He seems like he

likes it and doing well. He was a good comp. and we had fun together. I'll miss him. Elder Smoot is doing well. Still a little shell shocked and not exactly sure whats going on but he'll get into the swing of things. It took us about 3 hours with 2 cars to do transfers on Thursday. Elder Fiallo and I split up and went around taking Elders from here to there

and back again. It all turned out well though, and in the end, everyone got to where they needed to be. Ever since then, it hasn't stopped. The zone took a pretty big hit as we lost 3 of our 6 DL's, the 3 new DL's are fairly experienced and so they ought to step into their roles quite nicely. That one kid in my district that just went senior this transfer also went DL, so he's now our youngest DL. Everyone else is older than him. I was happy to see him go senior and DL. It'll be good for him. I think he felt like he was getting a little left behind. We did some training for them this week, and that went well. Just talked about some stuff and shared some experiences. It was a little unique because Elder Smoot has never been a DL so it was a little interesting.

This week President Packard was up here to do a special training with the Priesthood leadership. He spent all of Friday with the District President. Started Friday at 9:00 and then at 4:00 they invited the rest of the District Presidency, and finished up the training

with a dinner at some restaurant. I think it turned out pretty well. Then on Saturday we had a Baptism. Everything went well at the Baptism. At the end, President got up to say a few words, so I had to translate for him. Man that was hard, then an hour after that, we had a

huge meeting with all of the Branch Presidencies and Elders Quorum Presidencies and I had to translate the training he did there. 2 HOURS.... I almost died. No joke. He spent 2 hours talking about the Oath and Covenant of the priesthood. I think I used every word I know

and then some. It was a huge language challenge and a good reminder that I need to study the language more... I remember looking down at my watch after an hour and wondering when this thing would end. One of the hardest parts is that it takes more time to say something in

Portuguese than it does to say the exact same thing in English, and President Packard was really excited about what he was talking about, so a lot of the times, he'd cut me off before I'd finished translating the whole thing, and other times he'd get so excited about something, that he'd say a ton of stuff and I could remember what he said, but not word

for word, and so it was a challenge. Not to mention when he talks, he talks in his normal educated English, where I was trying to translate that to my simple portuguese that I speak.. so ya, great experience, good challenge, but horrible head ache after it was done. I just hope that the audience was able to understand. He talked a lot...

Update on Elder Featherstone, he arrived in Maputo and they are staying there for a few days until they can get all of their legal stuff sorted out. They arrive in Beira at 9:10 AM on Tuesday morning. We'll be picking them up at the airport with their new fathers here, on the

mission. They did orientation down there with the Assistants and Sister Packard. President wasn't able to be there to greet them, as he was up here doing his trainings and he is currently in Nampula organizing a branch there. He won’t even see the new kids in Beira

until zone conference this transfer. Elder Udall is very excited and very nervous at the same time. He takes the training responsibitly very seriously and will do a wonderful job.

We'll be headed down to Maputo this Wed and planning on coming back up on Thursday. It'll be fun to be down there and see the Packards new house. It'll be very different from last time, however, as there are now 3 zones and 6 zone leaders. It'll be a more crowded house, this

time around. We're still looking forward to the trip. It ought to be a good one.

Sounds like Andrew is doing well for himself. Looks like the homecoming festivals went well and that they did a good job on that float. I was fairly impressed by it all. Glad that Sister Spendlove gave you a call and that she is good. She was a really nice lady with a crazy history. Super nuts but a nice couple that have been greatly missed here in Beira. I'm sad that I'm missing the BYU football season. Don't see Elder Buckner that much as he's in Morromeu. We call him every week to check up on how things are going but not much chit-chat. Quality guy. Well it ought to be an exciting week. Hope all goes well for you guys. I'll let you know how Maputo is next week..

Elder Okazaki