Week 6 Mozambique

*Don't forget to read the funny story after the pictures!*

Bom(a) Dia, Tarde, Noite,

I finally got to watch conference this week.  I understood one talk, the one by sister Wixom, so for now, I am gonna have to say that it was my favorite.  They translate them into brazillian portugues, which is really different, and so it is difficult to understand because of that as well.  I think we should get the Liahona in the next few weeks though, so that should be good.  

This week started out really difficult.  We tried super hard to hit our 5 contact a day goal, and it just was not happening.  Wednesday rolled around and we had one contact.  We either were not encontraring any men, on we were talking to ones that didn't have wives, or phones.  It was so frustrating.  We tried to maintain our teaching and just could not find any men.  Finally we were able to to find another contact and then two. But saturday came around and because of our struggles at the first of the week, we were 22 contacts short for the week.  We prayed, and set our schedule up to have the most road time possible, and went to conference.  We went out afterwards, and just talked to everyone.  6hours later, by some miracle we were able to not only have 22 contacts, but 24.  We were also able to get 4 lessons that same night.  It was truly a miracle.  I have never been so tired in my life, but I do know that when you set an inspired goal, and have an attitude of doing anything possible to reach that goal, you will have success.  I did, and I am so grateful.  To make this miracle even better, I had gotten sick Thursday, and felt as if I could barely walk.  As soon as we stepped out of our apartment, I felt 100x better, and made it through the whole day.  As soon as I stepped back in the apartment, the sickness came back, and I slept very well again that night.  Angels are among us here in the field, and God takes care of his missionaries.  Don't ever doubt miracles, because we see them everyday.  Thank you for your prayers, they are a huge part of the reason we hit this goal this week.  I am so grateful for all of your support, and hope you all have an amazing week.

Love,

Your Maloongu de Xikwembu

Elder Holt & Elder Keck's place of residence

Wall Decor

Elder Holt's Bed, "with my animals, they keep me safe while I sleep!"

More Decor...

***A MUST READ***

In reading from Elder Holt's companion's blog (elderkeck.wordpress.com), I came upon this great story about Anthony.  Funny, he never mentioned this to his mom.  When asked about it, he simply said, sorry, it slipped my mind!  Oh My!

"Another funny story is about Elder Holt’s and mine recent convert Gina. Gina was baptized 3 weeks ago and this past thursday I was finally able to bring her a picture of her baptism. She took it and kissed it and was super happy. The best part comes next. Elder Holt’s mom had sent him a bunch of CTR rings to give to the people he baptizes. Well we wanted to give one to Gina and we showed it to her and she loved it. Gina is really funny and she wouldn’t take it from him. She made him put it on her finger. As he was trying to put it on her pinky finger she moved her ring finger in front of it and he almost just married her. Then the next day at church we say hi to her and we notice that she has moved the ring to her left ring finger. Elder Holt now has a fiance here in Mozambique."

Week 5 Mozambique

Tudo Bem,

Ola from here in mozambique.  It has been a good week here.  Everyone here said it was a really cold week for here.  On sunday everyone was wearing parkas, and everywhere everyone has been telling us how cold it is.  I on the other hand am just here in the internet cafe wiping sweat off my face constantly.  I don't know though, it seems like it has cooled down a little bit.  I guess that we also had the supposed end of summer rain storm.  It was basically a torrential downstorm for like 15 minutes, i was soaked though, and it was kind of a nice curveball.  We worked hard throughout the week.  We have had lots of good stuff happen, and also some stuff that kind of sucks.  We have a family that just started to come to our chapel every sunday, and told us that they had decided to "frequent our church"  Elder Keck and I started teaching them this week, and they are already gathering marriage papers, and preparing for the 23 of May for the marriage and baptism.  We have another family, who finally received there papers necessary to open the process which is super exciting.  This week we will teach law of castidade to another family, and they will hopefully be able to get their process started, unfortunately, she is from swaziland, and it could make it fairly difficult to get them, we will pray for the process to be easier though.  We are still working on finding more families, and I have faith that as we continue to hit our contact goal, we will be blessed with families who are ready for our message.  

This last saturday as a finding activity we as missionaries for the ward here had a ward easter egg hunt.  It was a lot of fun, we spent all of saturday painting easter eggs, but because the eggs here are brow, we couldn't dye them.  what we ended up doing was painting them with nail polish.  It was a lot of work between 4 missionaries and 5 dozen eggs, but it was a little easier than 12 miles and 5 qualified contacts.  Unfortunately, with the activity, we lost an entire day, and were only able to teach one lesson.  It was also really frustrating, because of everyone that came to the activity, not a single person brought any people that aren't already active members.  We were really upset as missionaries, because we lost a whole days worth of work, and we got absolutely nothing out of it.  It is really difficult right now, because with the formation of the stakes, the church is now supposed to function independently of the missionaries.  We are supposed to assist in the transition, but we are trying to diminish so they can grow.  It is nice, because we can focus a lot more on the work, rather than the ministration of the wards, but it is very difficult, because right now we are getting little if any support from any of the ward leaders, and they are doing nothing to get the members doing work with the missionaries.  To all of those that are members reading this. We missionaries need you.  It is hard enough to do regular missionary work, when we have help from members, it makes things a million times easier, it is hard to share testimony sometimes, but you must not forget that every single person you see, is a child of our heavenly father, and because you have a testimony already, there is no reason why you are not responsible for theirs.  I am fearful for all the people that will ask me after this life is over, "you saw me this day, and you knew this message was true, and I had to wait for a long time before someone else brought me the truth that you didn't share with me before, why was it so hard to use your testimony to give me salvation."  You all have greater power than any of you realize.  I wish the best for you all, and send my love from here in africa.

Love,

Elder Holt

Extra Something:

In one of his letters he stated that the people make fun of white people, so I asked him exactly how they make fun of the white people...his response...

"They call us maloongoo or branco.  One is portuguese the other is dialect for white person.  Most people assume we are chinese though and then they just start calling us cheenezz, or they yelll ching-chong-wong, and other racist stuff, haha its mostly the little kids though."

Painting Easter Eggs with Nail Polish

The result of 4 Missionaries, 5 dozen brown eggs, and nail polish! Not too shabby!

Week 4 Mozambique

Bom Whatever Time of Day it is for you all,

Things here in Africa are going great.  Lot's of hard work, lot's of new investigators, and lot's of people who like to make fun of white people.  Anyways, we have been doing a lot of work here with growing our area.  In our mission we try to focus on always finding, always teaching, and always baptizing.  This week we have really focused on finding new investigators.  We were able to have 12 new investigators this week.  There are serious blessings when you set hard goals and work hard for them.  We started teaching an amazing new family this week.  They are two brothers, and their wives.  The brothers are both copradurs, the people who take the money in chapas, they are pretty much the rough and tough people here in Mozambique.  It was great to get to teach them the restoration and watch them feel the spirit.  We unfortunately have struggled with them, because of the ruffian lifestyle of the men.  We will be teaching them  the word of wisdom this week, and it will hopefully help alleviate the problem, especially because they know that our message is true.  One of their wives is past due on her pregnancy with complications, and was very concerned.  Yesterday, as Elder Keck and I were leaving their house, we both had a strong feeling that we needed to go back and ask her if she would like a Priesthood blessing.  We did so, and she accepted.  It was great because of how strong the spirit was.  Afterward we asked her how she felt, and she said during the blessing she felt a good force move throughout her whole body.  I am so grateful that I have the Atonement to make me worthy of the priesthood, especially when I have the ability to use it for good here in the mission field.  

We haven't had any crazy adventures this week.  I guess, though we were in Matola for a Zone Training this last friday, and because it is like an hour away we decided to eat lunch at a restaurant.  It was so funny because we ran into a guy that Elder Larsen had met on his plane down here from Beira, and this guy ended up buying all of our meals.  After he left another lady walked up and asked us if she could buy us some dessert.  So we ended up getting 4 meals and 4 desserts for free.  It was pretty naisse.  I was on division that day as well, and Elder Larsen and I ended up getting a free 5 foot stalk of sugar cane as well.  Everything here is great, I sleep very well, and work really hard.  We put some food in between, and it makes me a pretty happy person.  I can not think of much else interesting, and I don't have any pictures, I will be better for this week though. 

I Love You All,

Elder Anthony Holt

Week 3 Mozambique

Eu Não Lembro Qual Semana

Boa Tarde Tudo,

Well it is Tarde Here, I think it is like 4am for you all.  Haha, how is everyone doing?  I am still here in Africa in case you didn't notice my absence.  Haha, just kidding.  Anyways, Elder Keck and I had another good week here in T3.  We were able to start teaching 2 new amazing families, both accepted baptism, we just need to set a date.  I have just been trying my best to work my hardest, because we are always so busy.  We average 7-8 lessons a day, and we try for at least 5 qualified contacts, because of this we never have any kind of downtime.  On the brightside I sleep really good at night. We have had rain three times this week.  Twice over night, and then once while we were out working.  the storm was nothing like the ones I have had described to me by the people here, but I probably won't get to have one of those for about 7 months until the rainy season starts again.  I still came home soaked though.  It was kind of difficult to get investigators to come to church this week because our church doesn't do anything super extravagant for easter, and they want extravagance.  We did have two families though.  One of the families Jeque and Raquel are super awesome.  Jeque already has such a strong testimony, he called us the other night and asked what tithing was because he read about it.  We explained it to him, and his response was,"I will bring the money to church tomorrow, can you help me submit it?" His wife is a little harder to teach however, because she is from Swaziland and doesn't speak Portuguese... or English.  Thankfully she speaks the local dialect Xichangana, and we can bring members on splits to help translate.  I am super excited for them.  I am still getting adjusted to the local stuff, but it is coming.  The other night Elder Keck and I decided I would try sugarcane, it is a treat that a lot of the locals love.  Basically you bite would and suck the sugar out of it.  I would describe it as eating mouthfuls of slivers that have been soaked in sugar water.  It was pretty decent though, as well as painful.  We have a lot of local drinks that aren't common in the states, my favorite is Guarana and Litchi.  Almost everything is super cheap.  We can get any drink for like 15 Metacais(50 cents).  Because of this we don't have to carry water with us, which is super nice because we are walking like 12 miles a day or more.  We went to the city this week for a training which took all day between the training and travel.  It really sucks missing days of work, it just doesn't feel right.  My hair got too long this week, and I had to cut it this morning, I feel like a little kid again because of how short it is, but Elder Keck did a good job.  We are progressing well out here, and I am so grateful to be a part of this work right now.  I love this easter season and reflecting on the life of our savior, I have grown so close to Him, because He is the only one who knows what I am going through right now, the mission is very hard, but I feel His support every moment of every day.  There is no reason this feeling should only exist for me as a missionary though.  I pray that all of you would strive to yoke with Him every moment of every day, because He makes everything easier, even the things that seem stupid.  He is my Savior, my brother, and my best friend, and because He lives, there is no thing in this life that is impossible, even leaving the ones I love for two whole years.  I am so grateful for Him, and I hope you will all recognize His atoning sacrifice for you.

With Love, and No Diseases... yet,

Elder Anthony Holt

Other things he had to say:

On P-Days we just shop and email, and play some soccer.  I will watch conference in about a month, and then  I will understand it a month later when we get the  Liahona in english.

Elder Holt & Elder Keck eating Sugar Cane, a treat loved by the locals, "it's like

eating mouthfuls of slivers that have been soaked in sugar water!"

Elder Keck giving Elder Holt a haircut!

Extra Details from Week 2

So I found the blog of Anthony's current companion, Elder Keck, and it was fun to read what he had to say about this past week and the baptism of Gina.  This is what he said:

We were blessed with another miracle this past weekend. We were able to baptize Gina. I don’t know if I ever talked about Gina but she has a cool story. She used to go to a bunch of different churches and they never made her feel any different so she quit going. Then one sunday she got up, took a bath, got ready, and decided she was just gonna find a random church and go in. Between where she lives and our church there are about 5-6 different churches, and the Lord just kind of directed her past all of them and brought her to the right one. She went for about 2-3 weeks when finally a member showed her to us and we started visiting her. 2 months later she was baptized. It was a really cool experience and I feel like it was a good way to get my new companion excited about the work. What better way to end your first week of missionary work than with a baptism?

He also told of another neat story that happened last week (2nd week in Mozambique for Anthony) some of the events happened prior to Anthony being in Africa:

The other cool story of this week actually started about a week and a half ago. When Elder Mochaki and I were still together we were going down to visit Mercia, when a man stopped us. He was named Jake, and he told us he wanted to start attending our church and where he could find it. We started explaining it and then we felt prompted to ask him where he lived and who with. We found out that he lived close by with his wife. We took his number down determined to call him the next week. Now I am with Elder Holt and we call him and mark to visit him on thursday. We mark to meet him by a store-esque thing that’s hard to explain. His wife actually comes and gets us (which is a really good sign) and we go and visit them. We actually found out that they had been to church the sunday after we had invited him. He also told us he’d never been to church before and he figured he would try ours to see how church is. It truly is amazing to see how the Lord prepares people. I will try my best to keep you all posted on how Jake and Rakel progress.