House Guest

Hey Everybody,

Well, it's another week in Mogaonine and I am tired after the week we had.  Lot's of work and very few results.  Anyway, that's just how life is out here sometimes. Saturday night was interesting though.  We had just gotten home from walking around and we were planning in our companionship's when we received a phone call from the assistants. They said they would be over to our house with Pres. Kretly in 20 minutes!!!!!!!!  Holy cow!  So we had to do some make shift cleaning really fast before he got there because, let's be honest, six young men between the ages of 19 and 22 in a house with no particular motivation to clean, can get a little dirty.  After we cleaned, we realized that it would be practically impossible to have this clean of a house in the middle of the week.  We all just kinda laughed.  President came into the house with another elder and the assistants.  The elder that came with him grabbed some stuff that was in the house (that was his) and then left without hardly uttering a word.  President seemed happy to see us and talked to us for a minute, then he asked if anyone in the house spoke Creole.  We have three elders in our house from Cape Verde that speak the language.  He asked one of them to look at something on his phone and translate the message.  After which he gathered us in a room and told us that there is no room for missionaries that break rules on this mission.  I was like, "OK, wow, what happened???!!!!"  Then he told us to have a good night and left. So needless to say, we talked after he left but could not arrive at a good conclusion of what happened or why. So I guess we can only listen and obey what he said: Follow the rules.

 

So that's important.  I also came to the conclusion this week during a lesson that there isn't just two people in a companion ship.. there are three: your companion, you and the Spirit.  The one who should be explaining the most is the Spirit.  It was just kind of a thought that came to me after wondering why we weren't making progress with some of our investigators. I sat there wondering why it was so hard to get someone to act or to understand and I thought about the way we teach and that the conclusion that I arrived at.  So I'm going to keep that in mind while I teach so we can be more effective during our lessons.

 

To answer your questions:
 First, our standard door approach is pretty standard.  We walk to the door, knock on the door and say "Com licensa", which is basically like saying "excuse me" and the people get to the door and we say Boa Tarde (good afternoon) and we tell them we are missionaries form the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that we have a message that can change their lives or we ask them if they know where they are going after this life or how they can have happiness in their life.  Just some standard questions and then we ask them if we can talk now or if we can come back and visit them another day.  If they are busy, generally that's how it goes.  As for the second question, no, not really any at all.  I am doing good and don't have any health problems, so that's a blessing.  I know some elders that have had malaria the first or second week in the field.

 

I am super excited about Conference this next week even though I won't get it till after a few weeks, so that will be fun and interesting to see what direction that we receive from the leaders of the church.

 

I am in 2 Nephi right now, but I should be able to finish it up by the end of the week. I haven't spoken in Sacrament meeting yet and I don't know if I will, but if I do I will tell you guys.  The new Angola mission doesn't really affect me.  It's just that President Kretly has more time in Mozambique now, so that's cool.

 

Anyway, that's really all I have for this week.  Thanks for writing.

Lots of love,  Elder Proksch