Hello,
Well this week was a good one. Zone Conference went really well. Our presentation went super well. All the guys liked it. At the end of it even Pres. Packard got up and commented on it. We talked about Comp. study and Language study. He got up afterwards and commented in Portuguese... It was horrible Portuguese, but I think it motivated him to study the language a little... so ya, Good zone confrence. Dr. Heaps was there. He's the area medical representative. He works out of South Africa where our area HQ is. He told us a little bit about tropical diseases, was pretty funny, but also scared the living daylights out of us. It was a good meeting. Pres. Packard also spoke. What happens a lot in our mission is this: we have the best retention rate in the entire area (81%).. Which means 81% of the people we baptize stay active for 2 years. However when looking at other stats, it tells us that the retention rate after 2 years drops to 31%. President thinks thats its because people aren't getting ordained, and so there's going to be a greater focus on gettting people ordained. I thinks he's right on this too. We'll see how it goes. I think with the decision of school coming up and what not, I've been a little more attentive to the educational aspect of the gospel. People here are not well educated at all, and because of that, they don't really understand the gospel, at all. No one really understands that this is the one true church and it's the only true church... If you read the history in the Bible of Moses and what he had to deal with, with the children of Isreal (they really were children...) it's exactly like the people here. Like I understand what Moses went through with those people. Being a 24 hour babysitter. I feel bad though, because it's not really the Moz. fault, they just aren't educated. If they were, they would understand the gospel and be more faithful and the missionaries would not have to be babysitters. They don't, and I think it will continue until education improves. In Maputo, where the church is stronger, there is better education and in Morromeu, where education is far weaker, the church is far weaker too..
Well, thats about it for this week. it was good. Next week will be crazy. A lot to do. Tuesday we have staff mtg then Wed. and Thur. we're in Maputo and Sat. we have a huge African wide service project along with TRANSFER MTG!!! So we'll see how those things go. Well hope you all have a wonderful week!!

Elder Okazaki.