Dear People at Home (4-25-16)

So this was a good week here.  It was kind of a blur.  But we did a lot of good stuff, at least I think we did.  Sorry, I got here to the internet cafe and my mind kind of blanked.  But we had a man come up to us last sunday and he said he wanted to be taught by the missionaries, so of course we jumped on that.  It was cool, we got their to review the restoration and we tried calling him and he didn't answer his phone, just our luck.  So we were calling a member that lives near him and we dont know the members house, so we were trying to get him to come and meet us, but as soon as he picked up the call dropped, so we were super confused, turns out the phone died, so we were super concerned because we couldn't get to the house we didn't know where it was at.  We went to all the members that we knew to ask for help, but no one in that area was home, finally we were just going to leave and apologize later.  When we hear someone say, do you need some help?  we turned around to find a member who took us to the other members house, and when we got their the investigator was at his house as well waiting for us to teach him.  The lesson went well, he had already been taught by the missionaries and decided not to get baptized, but that was 6 years ago and he said he regretted that and so we started again. it looks like the teaching will go well so we are excited for that.  Then on sunday we had a family come and talk to us.  They said they were from Pemba, a city 5 hours to the north where there are no missionaries and no church, and that they had been in tete, another area in the mission where we have some missionaries, and that they had received the lessons, and they had all their documents ready and that they wanted to get married and baptized.  That is like the dream for missionaries, thank goodness for miracles.  It will still be a little difficult because they live really far away and they come to church as often as their money permits which is about once a month.  But in the next few months we will get it done and so that is super cool.  But yeah, miracles are the best, I love them.  I am super tired, but that is ok too.  I am doing well, everyone seems to be worried about my weight after that picture, but since it was taken, I have put on like 10 pounds so that is cool.  I am super good though, tired but good.  We had a member that I knew in Magoanine that I helped get to the temple come up here to Nampula to do some work, that was super cool to see him.  In a few weeks I will be down in Maputo for a leadership council so I am excited for that.  Elder Mejia goes home on Friday, and my new comp should get here on friday as well, if not, I will be with a member for a few days, but president is trying to get him up here asap.  We are going to do big things up here, I think we will be able to split the Branch, but we will have to see.  I love and miss you all.  I hope you have an awesome week.  Miracles are real, missions are the best.  

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Elder Mejias and I with a member from Magoanine that I helped get to the temple, he came up here to work for a little while.

A normal Mozambiquan house

A melon that a member gave us.

Elder Holt & Elder Mejias with a family who will be the first family from the city of Pemba that will baptize in a little bit.

A Minha Familia Querida e tambem meus amigos (4-18-16)

Hey everybody, how are you all doing.  This has been a good week up here in Nampula.  I am really liking the area, it is super big, but I am learning to navigate myself.  Just to clarify because a lot of people asked, I dont know that I explained it super well.  So we are the only missionaries for 300 miles.  But that entire space is not our area.  We are supposed to stay within the boundaries of the city of nampula.  All of the little towns between are basically just little villages and no one speaks Portuguese there, so it would be difficult as the church has told us not to teach in dialect.  I am grateful for that protocol, I know how to greet in dialect but anything else would be to much, the languages are as complex as they get, but there is no way to learn them other than by being taught by someone.  No dictionary, no grammar books, nothing.  But this week was nice, I am still getting to know our investigators as well, but the ones that we have I really like, they are all progressing really well.  This week was kind of tough though because of time.  Because we are in an independent branch, everything here is under the keys of the mission president.  Which means we as missionaries have to help a lot as the members learn their responsibilities and what not.  We dont have anyone here though that really knows how to use computers or that has the money to go to the internet cafes, so this last sunday our branch president asked us to download all of the sessions of general conference for this last weekend.  The best internet place here downloads at a speed of about 1.5 mb per second, and it hardly reaches that.  So ended up spending like 4 hours a day this week doing nothing while we waited for these sessions to download.  It was worth it though, I really enjoyed conference.  I hadnt seen any of it in english other than the first session, but I understood it all.  I would get super frustrated at the translation though, because when they translate it we lose a lot of emotion and such, so be grateful to speak the language of the prophets.  But yeah, I also was having cravings for my families conference crepes, and I experimented a little bit and figured it out, so I got to have crepes for conference as well, i didn't have any fancy fillings, but I did have sweetened condensed milk, and that is all you really need in life.  But yeah, that was my week, thank you all for your emails of support and I hope that you have great weeks wherever you are.  Be safe and remember that God knows and loves each one of you individually.  I hope you all feel His love and if you dont, look for His tender mercies, they are everywhere. 

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Here is a picture of me and cotton candy, we found a place that makes it, so of course I had to buy it.  They didnt have cotton candy sugar though so they just used plain white sugar, it was very sticky and heavier than normal, but it was cotton candy so who cares.

I am going to make a trunky comment just be warned!!! (4-11-16)

So i was talking with my comp this week, and we realized that I hit 9 months left on my mission.  I was going to make some joke about someone getting pregnant and then have a race to see who gets their first, me or the baby.  But I couldnt think of an appropriate way to phrase it, so I will just let you use your imagination.  But yeah, that was my trunky comment, I shouldnt be making any others.  So I really enjoyed hearing of all of the other missionaries who got to watch conference, I have not though, its all good, I think we will watch it next week, so sorry that I couldnt make any cool spiritual connections, but they should come.  This week was filled with me learning the city.  Thankfully I have an ok sense of direction, I think this area would drive most elders nuts.  IT IS SO BIG!!!!  My proselyting area consists of an entire city, and we are the only missionaries for some 300 miles I think.  So that is cool.  But it is also really hard.  I feel like we could do so much, but then we dont have the time because we have to divide our time evenly between the areas or else some areas dont get worked.  But I believe that it is possible and we will work hard to make it happen.  We do have two families thought that should be getting baptized.  The difficulty this time isnt the marriage traditions or anything, just the money.  But it is all good.  One of them lives one hundred percent off of what they grow in their house, but they are super cool and are going to succeed their names are Sergio and Rosalina.  They are super funny they always ask the missionaries to take a picture with them, and then they ask for the missionaries to print the photo and give it to them.  My camera died this week and I was too lazy to recharge it so it was a good excuse, but I apologize for the lack of pictures.  It has rained every day this week.  Not a ton, but it will sprinkle one morning and then be sunshine the rest of the day, or it will be hot all day and then rain all night, but it is fun.  We always get a little nervous when we go into certain areas on cloudy days because some of the areas will just turn to rivers if it rains enough and then getting out is impossible.  I am enjoying it here though.  I definitely need your prayers though.  I want to be the best missionary I can, so please pray for that for me.  I will pray for you all too.  I usually do.  I love you all a ton though and Miss you even more. 

Love,

Elder Holt

Quick Changes (4-4-16)

So I dont remember if I mentioned that this could happen in my last email, but if I did or didnt, I can at least confirm it now.  On Monday night I recieved a phone call letting me know that I would be flying.  On saturday afternoon I got on an airplane in maputo, and I left maputo for the first time since I got to the mission.  I am now in Nampula.  It is the northernmost area in which missionaries serve in Mozambique, I basically flew all the way up the mozambiquan coast.  I think someone said that it was about the distance of san diego to portland, just to give you all an Idea of the size of my mission.  Plus there are still two provinces north of us, but we dont go there because there are too many muslims, and their family is required to kill them if they get baptized.  I think right now the church prefers we do baptisms for the dead, rather than having our baptisms die.  So yeah.  I was made a Zone Leader, and my zone is basically the size of the entire mission.  Our zone is all of the outside areas.  Those are the areas in which the church has a branch and needs missionary support, but where the church is still very small.  Our branch is the biggest, we have about 160 people that come weekly, hopefully we can get it divided soon, and we will be on our way to a district here, but that is still a little ways down the road.  But yeah, my new companion is Elder Mejia, we lived together for a transfer in Magoanine, he is a homie, he is from the bay area in california.  The last couple of days it has been three of us up here, Elder Moreno who is from Mexico City.  But he will fly down to maputo tonight.  It is Elder Mejias last transfer, so that will be fun, and we will only be together for about four weeks because of it.  But it will be a good time.  I dont know much about the area, I have only gotten a few hours in it, but the place I went to was sick.  In maputo it just felt like I was in a little bit of a ghetto city, but here it is like real freaking africa.  The place was all jungly and we were almost bushwhacking, we also crossed like three of these sketchy bridges, it was a good time.  It has been overcast since I got here, but the sun is shining so that is good.  There are a lot of muslims here so we have to be careful here as well, but african muslims are cool, they are kind of like sunday mormon mormons.  They go to church, but other than that they dont do much of anything.  I have seen so many muslim women without there headcoverings and stuff.  I was in a muslim store one time buying soccer jerseys, but the same store sold burkahs and stuff and this muslim lady walked in in front of us and took her burkah off and was trying on others.  I dont know if that is allowed but it happened.  It is a good thing I know this church is true because if we were wrong and they were right, I would probably get burned by Allah or something for that.  But yeah.  Sorry I dont have any super cool missionary stories to tell, the flight was good, really quick too.  I dont really have any other cool news, this kid from hurricane(he kept saying st. george but I corrected him, he wishes he was cool enough to live in st. george, hahah just kidding he´s a cool guy) came into the mission, my good friend Elder Payne is training him, so we went to lunch together before I left, the guy made me st. george trunky though, i never thought i would say that haha.  but have a good week I miss and love all of you.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Mozambiquan Ambulance

my new waistline looks like something off a subway commercial