Taking Mental Notes

What a crazy week!

This week, to start off, the zone leaders planned to walk in our area.  Both of them were doing work in my area with me and my companion.  That was nuts!  64 qualified contacts (a qualified contact is a man and a wife who wants to hear about our gospel message).  That is almost double the number of contacts that I would get in a week and we did it in a day!!!!  Needless to say, I took a few mental notes and now were doing a lot better, not to mention finishing off the week with a solid 113 contacts for the entire week.  Whew!  This week has been infinitely busier, with more lessons and more people and a lot more problems.  The sad news is that Regillio returned to the bar.  He isn't showing desire to change so that's troubling for him and his wife.  We are out of options and I don't think that the situation is going to get better if we continue to pressure him to stop.  We are going to stop visiting them as frequently, which is hard because his wife needs a lot of support in the church.  On the other hand, a new couple, Oscar and Claudia, are soaring to new heights.  Claudia says she can actually see a difference in here husband. She said she never saw him pray before or ever talk about religion, but now that we are here, he is doing all of that and more.  An example would be when they were at a party and before they started eating food Oscar offered to bless it, even though there was beer there she said, it's good to know he's trying.  We had the opportunity to meet with her and those were some of the things she said.  We told her that she might want to say some of those things to him so he knows that she is seeing a difference.  Other than that, our other couples are doing fine.  I still don't know what to do with Sergio and his wife because they haven't been at church the past two weeks and they are in danger of being dropped.  We are finding new people and seeing big differences in this area all thanks to directions from leaders and others and of course, the Lord.

The zone leaders are extremely impressed with my companion and his language skills and his over all ability to do work.  That made me extremely happy to know that.  I also heard them talking about him training here in a transfer or two.  We do have a lot of new elders coming in.  My companion isn't that excited about that news because he wants to finish out the next transfer with me and see the families be baptized.  I am game for anything, if they want me to stay I'll stay or I'll go.  I really don't mind, just as long as the people that I am working with get baptized and see the fruits of their labors. 

On the flip side of all this productivity are the other elder in my district.  They are not completely unproductive, it's just that the zone leaders push me to get them to do more and it gets a little stressful when they more or less reject what is asked of them.  It stresses me out because I am worried my leaders don't think I am trying to motivate the people in my area or do anything to change it.  That's another thing that the ZL's said to me while they were here is that T3 is more or less on my shoulders because I am training and the rest of the missionaries in the house need somewhere to look to to get direction.  It feels like sometimes I am giving direction in the best way I know how, butnobody is picking up the phone and answering (rebellious teenager status).  I have hope for this week.  Maybe we can see a change in the balance of work. 

So that's the life right now, not much else going on.  I am excited to say that on Wednesday I will be hitting my one year mark in the country.  My, how time flies!  It seems as though a few weeks ago only I was hitting the year mark on my mission and after this month I will have gone through a fourth of the year, only three parts left.  What is happening to the time???!!!!  It seems to just slip from my hands without any way to make more use of it.  Every day is loaded to the max with things to accomplish and I feel exhausted at the end of every day, but satisfied.  The satisfaction of this week has been something that I relish in.... to know that so many miracles and so much hard work has been accomplished due to our work and the help of the Lord.   It has given me such joy, I can't describe it. 

I also thought of some package stuff.  Fruit roll ups and some Doritos, also some Starburst.  

Doing great here in Mozambique!

Elder Proksch

PS. I love you guys!