Hey!
Sorry about this week.. We were e-mailing on Monday and I got my letter
to president off and those pictures but then we had to go and do
something and by the time we came back to finish e-mailing all of
Beira had
lost internet connection. Everything was down so we didn’t get to
finish e-mailing so we’re doing it now.. The same thing happened
last
Monday too. We did our e-mail in the morning but the guys who went in
the
afternoon couldn’t e-mail because the lost internet that afternoon
last week too. So ya, things are sometimes kinda sketchy with
technology
up here.
But things are going really well. The big news this week is that
Shoprite (our only place to buy groceries) had milk. Its been like 4
or 5
weeks now that they didn’t have milk and this week, the entire store
was
just full of milk. So that was nice. We’ve been eating a lot of
cerial. But ya, you don’t realize how much you use milk for until
you
don’t have it. We had to watch what we cooked because we didn’t
have
milk for a lot of stuff. But its back for atleast a little while now.
Other than the milk thing we’ve been eating great. We cooked your
spagehti and that was good. The Mac and cheese is pretty good as well.
Plus
just yesterday we made sloppy joe’s. they turned out alright too. We
can actually make a lot of things here. Its just a little different
because we make them completely from scratch. For example. All the
missionaries are crazy over French fries. Everyone loves them, so we
cook them
a lot. They don’t really have nice pre-cut fries and our oven
doesn’t work too good so we make them by peeling and cutting the
potatoes
and then cooking them in oil. So ya, just stuff like that so if you
have
any recepies that you have that you think might be good that are from
scratch that aren’t to complicated or don’t involve items that
aren’t very common, it would be nice to get those. So we eat very
well.
We have a Brazilian in the house and he can cook so good! So atleast
once a week he cooks for us and then we usually eat out 2 times a week
so
we don’t have too cook too often.
The family that mom asked about is doing really well. We taught a
really good lesson on recognizing the spirit and answers because I
know that
they’re receiving an answer they’re just not recognizing it. So I
really think they’ll get baptized. Next lesson we’re planning on
talking to them about marriage and try to get them married. We
haven’t
really given them any commitments that they have to sacrifice for yet
so we’ll see how they end up taking it. I think it will go over
fine.
About having people pay for the marriage thing.. that’s really nice
of people so tell them thanks but I’m not so sure it’s a good
idea.
Money is handled really carefully because if people know that the
church gives out money people will come just for the money part. Plus,
it
would help a lot of people get baptized but I thinks its good for them
to
sacrifice for the church. Right now what we need is strong families
that will be the foundation for the church here in Mozambique. If you
remember the Pioneers, things were defenately not easy for them. The
reason is because the church needed a strong foundation to build on.
They
needed only the best members that would build the church. Not the
members
that would depend on the church. The same is true here. The church is
not strong enough to have members that depend on the church. We
already
have too many of those thanks to the slap missionaries who came before
us. Right now we need the members who the church will be able to lean
on. We need to find them that will be strong and baptize them and then
later we can baptize those who need the church. So this marriage
things
is actually a blessing. It weeds out those who will need the church.
This sacrifice of getting married is a test. Those who make it through
for the most part will be strong or atleast have the potential to be
strong. The others just need to wait for a time. Their time just
hasn’t
come yet. It will, just not now. The work is not ready for them. So
that’s why I think that this marriage thing is good, but thanks for
the
support. If they really want to help the best way would probably be
through this care for life thing.. I don’t know a whole lot about it
but
I they aren’t affiliated with the church really so they can give
away money, we really can’t.
I’m glad Dick Hansen liked my stars story. I don’t really know if
you can see the north star either. There’s this one star down here
that is super bright and it starts out directly above our heads. Like
right above our heads. And so when it gets dark it moves west. So you
just
find the star and you know which direction west is. Its really simple.
However when we get cloud cover, I’m in trouble. We usually carry
the
GPS though so if we really needed it we could. By now though I pretty
much know our area. But ya, it’s a fun mission.
Elder Pierson is doing well. I like him a lot. He’s a really funny
companion. He’s got a girlfriend back home that’s waiting for him.
Apparently she’s the only reason why he actually came on a mission.
She
wanted him too. So they write everyweek and are just crazy over each
other. But he’s a good missionary. Speaks well and we work well
together.
OH! So out here its totally normal for guys to hold hands. It just
signifies friendship. So one night we were walking out of our area
after a
lesson with this guy. Well, we were walking and all of a sudden this
guy like grabbed my wrist. And I was like uh.. ok.. then he slid his
hand
down and like interlocked fingers with me! It was SO awkward. We held
and hands and walked for like 5 min. until we said goodbye. Elder
Pierson was just dying. I was to creeped out to say anything. So
Awkward. So
that’s my funny story for the week. I’m sure Andrew and Will will
like that one..
Well, I’ve written a lot. I’ll get going now. Hope all is well and
that things are going good back home. Thanks for the e-mails! Love you
all and miss you!

Elder Okazaki

PS. So I don’t know if you guys have my missionary plaque yet but I
kinda wanted to change my scripture to D+C 123:12-13,16. If that’s
too
big of a scripture just leave out 16. No big deal. Thanks, and if its
already ordered or whatev, not a big deal ether. Cool, thanks!