African Avocado Toast
I never quite know how to start writing. I want to start with something cool but I usually can't think of anything. So I just start writing. This week was actually pretty solid. We did a lot of good work and learned a lot. At the beginning of the week we got A LOT of pressure from our District Leader and Zone Leaders to step up our less-active work. Our zone leaders even scheduled a special study session with us basically to just tell us to do more less-active work. Before this we hadn't done anything because we were getting help and information from our ward leaders. But it became clear we needed to start now. It was really good we did and we already have made good progress.
The highlight of less-active work this week was meeting with our bishop. Elder Alberto (who is Mozambican) did most of the talking but, I did understand most of the conversation. Basically our ward leaders don't know any better than us which less-actives to work with. And a lot of our ward leaders aren't doing very much. Our bishop is not getting a lot of help from them. Now this might be because they don't know what to do but, it is still a problem we should help with. By the end of the meeting we were definitely on the same page as the bishop and we knew what we should be doing to help.
And we already made some good headway. Just by asking some of our active members if they know any less-actives, we have gotten quite a few names. This week we were able to make a few calls and visits and are making more plans to work with these people in the future.
Our work with our friends has been pretty good too. This week we met two new people that were both pretty cool. One of them called out to us from his house so we went and talked to him. His name was Hélder (which sounds the exact same as Elder) and accepted a pamphlet and we got his number. Well when we returned he started by saying us "I have a lot of questions about Mormon." I was immediately worried that he was going to argue with us. But as we taught it became clear that he just wanted to learn more. What was really crazy is that he read the entire pamphlet and is really good at reading. Generally people can read but not very well at all. Like I can read better than them and I barely speak the language. When people are that proactive at reading and learning it is super cool.
Our other cool new friend was pretty similar. We met here at another friend's house and Elder Alberto accidently left his scriptures behind. When we came back she had read the entire page from the scripture we had shared. After giving her own Book of Mormon she was excited to read it. And even called us that night to ask what page we had asked her to read.
I don't know what I expected but they have avocados here in Mozambique. They look way different than the ones I had seen in the states and when someone is selling them on the side of the road it is easy to assume it is just some weird African fruit. So this week my companion insisted that we buy some (using the Portuguese name for avocado). He was talking about putting it on bread and how good it was, so I agreed. I was very surprised when he cut into it to see that it was avocado. Then we mixed it with some sugar, salt and lemon juice and dipped some toasted bread into it. It was literally avocado toast. The best part is that it is super cheap. Here are the numbers:
2 pieces of bread: 10 MT
1 avocado: 15 MT
2 limes (you only need one): 5 MT
Total: 30 MT = $0.50
Crazy right. Anyway it was pretty fun and tasted quite good.
Saturday was kind of a bummer this week. Earlier this week Elder Alberto had gotten some dust in his eye, we didn't think much of it but his was pretty irritated the rest of the week. So we had to go to the clinic. Apparently the actual hospitals are kinda sketch so as missionaries we go to clinics. We also discovered that at the clinic in the Nampula Central Hospital they only have one doctor. So we spent a really long time just waiting around. After we got back and were ready to leave to go work it started raining. So we had to wait. Then the rest of the day it was super overcast so we ended up not leaving the whole day. We still made some calls but it was a bit of a bummer.
I am not totally sure what more to say, it was a pretty solid week. I feel like I understand the work here in Napipine a lot better.
The highlight of less-active work this week was meeting with our bishop. Elder Alberto (who is Mozambican) did most of the talking but, I did understand most of the conversation. Basically our ward leaders don't know any better than us which less-actives to work with. And a lot of our ward leaders aren't doing very much. Our bishop is not getting a lot of help from them. Now this might be because they don't know what to do but, it is still a problem we should help with. By the end of the meeting we were definitely on the same page as the bishop and we knew what we should be doing to help.
And we already made some good headway. Just by asking some of our active members if they know any less-actives, we have gotten quite a few names. This week we were able to make a few calls and visits and are making more plans to work with these people in the future.
Our work with our friends has been pretty good too. This week we met two new people that were both pretty cool. One of them called out to us from his house so we went and talked to him. His name was Hélder (which sounds the exact same as Elder) and accepted a pamphlet and we got his number. Well when we returned he started by saying us "I have a lot of questions about Mormon." I was immediately worried that he was going to argue with us. But as we taught it became clear that he just wanted to learn more. What was really crazy is that he read the entire pamphlet and is really good at reading. Generally people can read but not very well at all. Like I can read better than them and I barely speak the language. When people are that proactive at reading and learning it is super cool.
Our other cool new friend was pretty similar. We met here at another friend's house and Elder Alberto accidently left his scriptures behind. When we came back she had read the entire page from the scripture we had shared. After giving her own Book of Mormon she was excited to read it. And even called us that night to ask what page we had asked her to read.
I don't know what I expected but they have avocados here in Mozambique. They look way different than the ones I had seen in the states and when someone is selling them on the side of the road it is easy to assume it is just some weird African fruit. So this week my companion insisted that we buy some (using the Portuguese name for avocado). He was talking about putting it on bread and how good it was, so I agreed. I was very surprised when he cut into it to see that it was avocado. Then we mixed it with some sugar, salt and lemon juice and dipped some toasted bread into it. It was literally avocado toast. The best part is that it is super cheap. Here are the numbers:
2 pieces of bread: 10 MT
1 avocado: 15 MT
2 limes (you only need one): 5 MT
Total: 30 MT = $0.50
Crazy right. Anyway it was pretty fun and tasted quite good.
Saturday was kind of a bummer this week. Earlier this week Elder Alberto had gotten some dust in his eye, we didn't think much of it but his was pretty irritated the rest of the week. So we had to go to the clinic. Apparently the actual hospitals are kinda sketch so as missionaries we go to clinics. We also discovered that at the clinic in the Nampula Central Hospital they only have one doctor. So we spent a really long time just waiting around. After we got back and were ready to leave to go work it started raining. So we had to wait. Then the rest of the day it was super overcast so we ended up not leaving the whole day. We still made some calls but it was a bit of a bummer.
I am not totally sure what more to say, it was a pretty solid week. I feel like I understand the work here in Napipine a lot better.
Editor's Note:
He also got a hair cut for the first time and discovered that the barbers in Nampula don't use scissors and the longest blade he had was a #3. His cut is awfully short, but looks pretty good.
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| Andrew with Elder Alberto sporting his new hair style |
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| Walking the streets of Nampula |
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| When it rains a lot of the paths end up looking like this |
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