Hey!
This week has been another good one. Things are going well in some
areas and not so well in others. We’re finding some new people that are
pretty cool and one of our investigator families is doing really well.
Their names are Joao and Julia. They’ve been investigating ever since
the beginning of my first transfer with Elder Lundgren. We’ve been
working a lot with them concerning marriage. At first they had a lot of
other stuff they wanted to do before they got married, so it was a
little frustrating like that. However, last time we visited with them they decided to start working on their documents this month. So we’re
really excited about that. We still could run into problems with their
families but at least we made some progress. They would be such a great family too. They’re already really strong in the church.

Interviews with President went well. He just asks how we’re doing and about our investigators and gives us little pointers.

It was good to hear from Bapa. His letters are so funny, I love getting
them. That sounded pretty funny about the prank you played on Bro.Bailey. He’s gonna get you pretty bad now though. And I’m sure Bro.
Lyons is more than willing to trade sides and help Don. So look out. I
would say your only hope is to enlist the help of Bro. Adams. Good luck
with that.. I’m glad I’m not home right now..

So about the calling thing..I was thinking the morning of the 25th for me and the night of the 24th for you. Like at 6:30 my time and 9:30 your time. Let me know if that works for you. Our number here is:
011+258+843989231 The 011 is the country code, 258 is like our area code and the other one is our number.. Hopefully that will work. If not it’s not that big of a deal because we can just try again some other day. But this is what the mission gave us so I think it ought to be pretty safe.

I’m glad you got my package. I was worried that it wouldn’t get there. I thought you’d know immediately once you saw the tape job. Its actually fairly inexpensive to send a package home. Its 200 meticalis
every 500 grams. Which is $8 every 500 grams. I think that might have cost like $16 so ya, not too bad. I’m excited to see that card. Glad it
turned out good. I can’t believe Andrew actually went on a date. That’s
crazy to me. I still don’t believe it. Sounds like Will had fun
skiing with dad.
The shoe’s have been doing good but we’re wearing them less and less. We’re starting to switch over to the Mud boots.. The 6 days after Elder Buckner arrived it rained everyday. A lot of times we were really wet and walking through some pretty deep stuff. Apparently Dec. Jan. and Feb. are the rainy season, as well as the hot season. So we’ll see how things go. I’ll be here for at least half of the season. The next transfers will happen around January 15th or so, so I’m not leaving before then. There’s still even a chance that I could stay one more or switch sides. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Well, it’ll be fun to talk to you all on Christmas. I can’t believe its already here. Elder Buckner had his Birthday last week and is now 20. This week he was talking about how crazy it is that he’s been 20 for a week. That got me thinking and I’ve been 20 for 4 months. That’s already 1/3 of a year. Time is really going by fast here. Once Christmas hits it’s gonna go by even faster too. The 21st we have a branch X-mas party, on the 22nd we have a District X-mas party and then the 24th we’re having normal P-day and then to the church for a testimony meeting and game thing. The 25th we’re doing a service project in the morning at an orphanage way out in a place called Dondo and then that evening we’re getting together and hanging out as missionaries. The 24th they want all the missionaries in a general location so the guys out in Manga and Inhamezwa are going to come in to the city and sleep at the chapel, so I think one of the companionships is going to come over and sleep at our place instead. They’re fun guys and we like to hang out with, so we’ll probably play some games or something. It ought to be a good time. I’ll be looking forward to those packages. Elder Buckner is
expecting one too, so I think I won’t have to share much.. Thanks for
the last one. I don’t know if I told you or not but I got it! It was
so good. We like to make rootbeer shakes. Those are always nice to
come home too. We’ve also really gotten into making our own juice. We
buy Mango’s off the street and make juice out of that. It’s really
pretty fun. The candy is nice. Just something to snack on. Those cool-aid packages you sent in the other package were so good. I think that is the best stuff we drink our here. When we had them we would always make a pitcher for lunch and drink it all. But everythings going good.
Believe it or not I’m learning to cook a little, so tell Will to look
out, because by the time I get home I’m gonna be pretty good! Well,
have a good week. Hope that works out with the calling stuff. Love you all and miss you!

Elder Okazaki