Elder Anthony James Holt: Week 2 Mozambique

Tudo Bem all,

Today is monday here in Africa, and things are going great. I arrived here a week ago, and we have tried to be as busy as possible since. Tuesday we unfortunately had to spend the entire day in the city working on immigration documents, you got to love beurocracy though, because after waiting for a day nothing got done. This meant that I had to come back into the city again on Wednesday, thankfully we got stuff done, and I am finally legal to be here. It also meant that we lost a whole day of work for two days, which really sucks. Wednesday night was awesome though because we got to go to dinner with President Kretly. He is an amazing man, we went to a rodezio(brazillian food on giant skewers) for dinner, and it was really good. It was the first bacon I have had in a few weeks, and probably the last. It was really cool though to sit down and discuss the goals of the mission, and how we will work into them with President. Thursday we finally got to do a full day of work and it was really good. We walk everywhere which isn't a bad thing, and I am really living in Africa. Everyday we see green tropical trees, and we are the only white people around. Because of this we get a lot of attention from everyone. Unfortunately for Elder Keck and I, most of it comes from the mocas(young women 14-18) They try and take pictures if they have camera phones, or else they just stare, it is kind of funny, but hey its Africa, so its cool right. Friday we had another full day and I got to meet some more of the people in our area. Our days are very full, we usually teach 3-5 lessons a day, and had 4 new people commit to be baptised this past week. Unfortunately because of Lebolo and documentation for legal marriage, it could be another month and a half before they are able to be baptized. I got to watch a video about our mission this week that explains the whole process with marriage, it is called "E Um Miragle" or "It's a Miracle" I am pretty sure it is on youtube and I encourage you all to watch it when you have some time, if you wonder what we are teaching the people here, this is it. We would love your prayers to help the people with the ability to find the means and documentation to be married. Saturday was a special experience. I had my first baptism. Her name is Gilda, but here house name or preferred name is Gina, so it was really special because she has the same first name as my mom. I was the one who got to baptize her thanks to my amazing companion, and it was an amzing experience. I will attach pictures to this email or the next one. Sunday I bore my testimony in church in Portuguese, it was pretty scary but I survived. Gina was also confirmed and it was super awesome. I can not wait for the good things we will do this week, we will have to go to the city for some trainings but shouldn't lose nearly as much time as last week. But things are going super well in Africa. The women all wear these things called capelanas and they are basically universal clothing. They mainly wear them as skirts, but ive seen them as shirts, and as padding for anything they carry on their heads. And the woman carry EVERYTHING on there heads. Except for their babies, which are carried in a capelana on their back. I decided when I am married and have kids, my wife will have to carry our child on her back in a capelana, it will be one of those questions that make or break the whole proposal thing. I seriously love the people here, they are all so amazing and faithful, they don't have much, but they love everyone with their whole hearts. I love the kids especially, they are the funniest kids I have ever met in my life. I wish that everyone in the world was as happy as these people.

Com Todo da Amor em Meu Coracão,

Èlder Anthony Holt

Some other things he said:

Elder Keck is super cool and is teaching me a lot. I am eating pretty well, my diet is mainly cereal, rice beans, and chicken. We don't have a ton of time to spend cooking. I am used to the time by now, and the house is one of the nicest on the mission. We have some short power outages at times, but its not a big deal. We have AC, and filtered water, so we are great. We haven't had any bad weather, but the humidity is real, i haven't stopped sweating since I got here, but it is all good. I shower twice a day.