I can't tell you how much I love getting the letters from the Stankowski elders. They are super good and I always feel tons better after I read them. Still super jealous of Kyle because he actually gets to see snow. By the way, tell Kyle that jacket he is wearing makes him look buff, either that or I need to start lifting some weights so he doesn't beat me up when we get back. As for Britton, enjoy the good food while it lasts.
Well, anyway this week was pretty crazy and we got off to a strong start. We started off in this new area call the Mahotas, which is probably dialect for rich people. These houses that we are contacting are huge. Yes, we are doing door to door, the people over here love to receive house visits and regardless of if they don't want hear your message. So that's always cool. We have got this guy, well, actually a couple of people, but let me start with this guy, Ujembe. He works in the agricultural department with the nation's President Geybuza, who is like the head honcho in all of Mozambique, so that is cool to have that lesson coming up because he seems really interested. The next guy we talked to is in a wheel chair which makes him perfect to teach because he can't run away from us. ha ha ha. It kind of makes sense why Jesus taught the sick and afflicted now. Not only because they were humble and maybe poor in spirit, but also because they were easy to contact and set up lessons (just saying as a missionary, you know). ha ha. So we taught him the first lesson and he seemed really receptive to it. He said he would read and pray because he told us that he has nothing better to do all day, so we will see how that one goes. The next guy we found this week was a guy who was just standing in the middle of this bus stop or parragine, and he was holding a Book of Mormon. He didn't know what it was or who we were and he thought it was a Bible. Needless to say, the Lord put a big neon sign on this guys forehead that said, "teach me". Later in the week we did and it turns out he is studying to be a pastor along with his five other friends that joined the lesson. That was super sweet. The lesson was long and we talked a lot about reading, praying and receiving an answer. While we were talking about that stuff a quote came to my mind that was in Preach My Gospel. I think it was given by Elder Holland, but it basically says that eventually everyone will be backed up to the wall of faith, no matter what their circumstance is and have to either take that leap of faith and do what has been asked of them or falter in unbelief until they do so. But the good thing is, that this guy Alberto seemed pretty much up to the task of finding out for himself. I don't know about the other four people, but our focus was on him. This last past week has really been just a week of trying to find more people to teach since we went for a while without trying to find anyone else and most of the people that we were teaching either told us not to come back or just didn't want to progress. We still have a select few left, but you always want as many as possible.
Last night, though, was really quite hilarious. We were out in this place called cmc, which when they say it sounds like semse. Anyway, we were teaching this lady we have been trying to get baptized for a while now and the lesson went really good, but we were in a rush for our next appointment. Usually we try to get a chappa ride out of the area, but they were just packed to the brim. I'll take a picture of one sometime and I'll send it to you guys. They are justridiculous! ha ha ha. Anyway, so we were trying to get a ride in a chappa and this police car comes up out of no where and stops and asks us if we want a ride. Two things I need to explain here. One, in Mozambique image is everything and people think that white people always have to ride in the nicest cars and the nicest stuff so this kind of thing happens more often than not. Personally, I could care less if we rode in an animal cage to our next visit... anything with wheels beats walking. The second is that the police here are really more or less highway robbery professionals. They just stop cars, find something wrong with them and won't let you go until you pay them off. Anyway, Ihadn't realized to what extent the corruption in the system had progressed until after this fun little car ride. We got in this cop car and we started off going kinda slow.... like really slow.... like 20 kilometers an hour and I was trying to figure out why when one of the officers threw a bottle out the window. He was in the passenger seat and obviously drunk. He started talking to us and you could definitely smell it on his breath. I didn't figure out the driver was a little buzzed until we almost went full speed over a speed bump. It was really kind of funny because the whole time they were trying to speak English to us. Then the other guy got a phone call and he kept yelling like he couldn't hear what the other person was trying to say on the phone. So he told the driver to pull over and stop the car so he could hear what was going on. The truth is that my companion and I could hear the person on the phone perfectly. ha ha ha . We finally got to our lesson about a half hour late and thanked them for the ride. The whole experience is one that I will never forget and really quite funny. Anyways, that was my week and it really had a golden ending to it but I will write another letter about that.
Thank you for all the support this week and all your letters. Thank you for sending the package. They are always greatly appreciated. You don't need to send them, but they are very nice. I always love to receive letters. In fact, I think I prefer those. Oh, and thank you Grandma Proksch and Grandpa for sending those letters. I love to get them and it makes my trainer jealous a little bit. It's good for him because he likes to remind me how green I am. I just like to remind him that my grandparents love me more than his! ha ha ha. Anyways, I always enjoy receiving letters and pictures. If it's possible for you to mail some of the pictures of Kyle and Britton in a separate envelope and some other pictures too that would be great. They don't really allow you to print pictures here because their printer isn't that great. If you can, that's great, but if you can't that's o.k. too and thank you again for sending the letters from the Stankowski elders. They are super good. Please pass these on as you get them.
Here's a picture of my first ever baptism here in Mozambique and, yes, I was in the font with him, saying the words in Portuguese. Yes, I know he's white, but hes really black. I swear he is just albino. It's funny, the first guy I baptize inAfrica is a white guy... ha ha ha. I hope this image goes through. His name is Belito and he is 25. It's really funny, we call him Li'l Wayne because of the way he acts. It's kind of funny. Enjoy and oh and by the way, I am almost done with Jesus the Christ but I still want to talk about it as you go through it, Mom. How far have you gotten since we last talked? I also heard that Obama won again. Well, I guess the second coming is a little closer than we thought... ha ha ha ha, that's life.
I love you guys,
your elder
Elder Proksch
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