Oh, man. It has been a long week and I am excited for the next one. It's raining outside and we had to take a kysha berta (a truck) all the way to this Internet cafe. So we're soaked, but ya it's all good. This week on the menu we ate pigeon. Yes, pigeon... and it was gross. I can't lie about that. The only reason we ate it was because this guy was so nice and we had just had an awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation. It just seems like this week has dragged out a little bit, between the multiple divisions that we did this week trying to show all the new elders their areas and all the lessons that just seem to keep falling through. It really is a large test of faith. Last Monday we received 3 more elders into our house and one of them didn't have a bed, so that was interesting. They are all really good guys and usually always happy. I am really just kind of spent and want people to start showing their faith and read the Book of Mormon. I think if they would just do that, largely all their problems would be solved and I have told them that, but it takes a little bit of faith to believe the words of a 19 year old, I guess.
The baptism in the picture was a while ago and we baptized the two girls in the picture. The taller guy was the one who actually did the baptism. He's a member in our branch. The whole shining your shoes thing here is not really a thing. You can do it, but your shoes will just get destroyed anyways. (by the way, my shoes are holding up good). Really, I think it is a contest between some of the older elders to see who has stuff in worse condition. ha ha That baptism was outside. It never really gets any colder than 60 out here, so the outside font is not a problem (the water is cold though).
There are a lot of potential baptisms here, just the problem is the whole marriage thing and people like to have humongous festas when they get married and the trick is getting them to just sign the papers so they will get married. :P. The weeks move on and my companion and the other elders in the house just think I say weird things, like how I just want some good honest craziness to happen to shake things up because it seems like we're stuck in a rut and if that happens, I'm going to loose my mind. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again without any success. I am also kinda stressed out about shopping today because we only get about 8000 meticais a month and we have to use that sparingly and even more so this month because we have an extra Monday this week and that tends to make things hard on the wallet. I usually don't have a problem with this kind of stuff but this was just explained to me last week. I only have about 700 meticais left for this week (I still have a lot of food left though) but it just stresses me out right now (the conversion for meticais to dollars is , 27 meticais to every dollar). After today things should pick up. Sorry if this letter is kind of a downer. I just need to put my faith in the Lord again and try harder because I can't fix these things in my area by complaining about them.
To answer some of your questions: We don't usually get fed by the members. In fact, we are not supposed to. It's just when these people decide they are going to give you something, you better take it or they get offended. It's kind of a hard line to play. Oh ya, we have beds and pillows so it's just like normal. The only difference is that the beds are a lot smaller. ha ha. I'm staying dry, warm and cool so everything is working out. We have a/c in our room so that is nice and I have those sweaters, so when it gets cold we are good. I think we will be getting the conference talks in the Liahona. I am not sure, but we saw them at church this week and that was good. I still haven't seen them all yet, but I am able to hear them in English.
Sorry this letter is so short, not much happened this week, but I am looking forward to this next coming week.
Love your elder,
Elder Proksch
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