Walking Like 500 Miles (And Probably Walking 500 More)
Well, it was a good week. Working with Elder Alberto has been fun. We have been figuring out who more of our friends are as well as finding a couple new ones.
This week was pretty rainy, it rained almost everyday. It is pretty annoying when it rains here because missionary work almost stops. The "roads" become small rivers and people don't really want to talk. Plus if they have a metal roof (which is pretty common) you can't hear anything because rain is super loud when it hits metal. Basically the only thing you can do is teach if you are already in someone's house (assuming they don't have a metal roof) or make calls.
It is nice having a native companion because I can ask him what it is like living here. Elder Alberto was telling me that you could make a "nice" house (like the house I live in) here for about $3,000-$4,000. You also make money in one day working minimum wage in the United States than you do working one month here.
Twice this week we scheduled a lesson with one of our friends and then found out they lived way far from where we wanted to work that day. It was pretty fun. In order to find their house we meet them at the church to go to their house together and then you find out they live 2 km away.
We had one day where we couldn't find anyone to visit so we decided to visit some of our ward leaders. We scheduled to visit our Relief Society President. After talking for a while we found a place we could meet her husband and then walk to their house. Well where we met was already in a part of our area I had never been in. We had walked about 15 minutes when it started rain. We waited for it to lighten up and then we walked another hour to there house. We did not expect them to live that far out. Like they were barely in Nampula. It was super far out. As were walking in the rain with nothing but thatch roof, cement houses and small crop fields around us, I was hit with this super surreal thought, "dang I am in Africa." It was pretty cool but super weird.
I figure I should talk more about the missionary work this week. It was pretty solid, nothing to crazy happened. I have been using Area Book, the app missionaries use to log their work and track everything they do, to place pins exactly where our investigators live. This will help us a lot because then we know exactly where they live and won't have to find out when we walk 30 minutes to there house. Also missionaries will be able to use them same data in the future to save them time and effort too.
But yeah, we have had a lot of solid lessons, met a couple new people, nothing extremely crazy. It is crazy compared to the States but here it is just how it is.
On Sunday we had Stake Conference and I was expecting to get a lot out of it. It was pretty interesting because they rented out a big event center to do it in. So many people where there that the main room was filled so people had to go to the auxiliary room which was reserved for children. But the sound system in the auxiliary room did not work very well at all. It was super muffled and quiet so nobody could understand anything. It was a pretty big bummer because we had investigators there and they just sat around for two hours. But afterwards we got to talk to a bunch of people which was pretty nice. Our Mission President and an Area Seventy was there so that was pretty cool. It was definitely way better than just sitting around for two hours.
Yeah, we did a lot of walking this week, Elder Alberto doesn't like taking chapas so we do a lot of walking to and from our area. It is a little rough but also pretty fun. With time I am know I will become stronger. Another struggle is still my Portuguese, people struggle a lot to understand me. It is really rough because sometimes I am saying the right words but people still don't understand me. There isn't much to do except practice more. Eventually, all my struggles will go away, and then I'll probably have new ones :). But this is how it goes and how you learn and grow. I talk a lot about this in my emails but it is what is important right now. Learning and growing everyday so that eventually one day, I can do all these hard things.
This week was pretty rainy, it rained almost everyday. It is pretty annoying when it rains here because missionary work almost stops. The "roads" become small rivers and people don't really want to talk. Plus if they have a metal roof (which is pretty common) you can't hear anything because rain is super loud when it hits metal. Basically the only thing you can do is teach if you are already in someone's house (assuming they don't have a metal roof) or make calls.
It is nice having a native companion because I can ask him what it is like living here. Elder Alberto was telling me that you could make a "nice" house (like the house I live in) here for about $3,000-$4,000. You also make money in one day working minimum wage in the United States than you do working one month here.
Twice this week we scheduled a lesson with one of our friends and then found out they lived way far from where we wanted to work that day. It was pretty fun. In order to find their house we meet them at the church to go to their house together and then you find out they live 2 km away.
We had one day where we couldn't find anyone to visit so we decided to visit some of our ward leaders. We scheduled to visit our Relief Society President. After talking for a while we found a place we could meet her husband and then walk to their house. Well where we met was already in a part of our area I had never been in. We had walked about 15 minutes when it started rain. We waited for it to lighten up and then we walked another hour to there house. We did not expect them to live that far out. Like they were barely in Nampula. It was super far out. As were walking in the rain with nothing but thatch roof, cement houses and small crop fields around us, I was hit with this super surreal thought, "dang I am in Africa." It was pretty cool but super weird.
I figure I should talk more about the missionary work this week. It was pretty solid, nothing to crazy happened. I have been using Area Book, the app missionaries use to log their work and track everything they do, to place pins exactly where our investigators live. This will help us a lot because then we know exactly where they live and won't have to find out when we walk 30 minutes to there house. Also missionaries will be able to use them same data in the future to save them time and effort too.
But yeah, we have had a lot of solid lessons, met a couple new people, nothing extremely crazy. It is crazy compared to the States but here it is just how it is.
On Sunday we had Stake Conference and I was expecting to get a lot out of it. It was pretty interesting because they rented out a big event center to do it in. So many people where there that the main room was filled so people had to go to the auxiliary room which was reserved for children. But the sound system in the auxiliary room did not work very well at all. It was super muffled and quiet so nobody could understand anything. It was a pretty big bummer because we had investigators there and they just sat around for two hours. But afterwards we got to talk to a bunch of people which was pretty nice. Our Mission President and an Area Seventy was there so that was pretty cool. It was definitely way better than just sitting around for two hours.
Yeah, we did a lot of walking this week, Elder Alberto doesn't like taking chapas so we do a lot of walking to and from our area. It is a little rough but also pretty fun. With time I am know I will become stronger. Another struggle is still my Portuguese, people struggle a lot to understand me. It is really rough because sometimes I am saying the right words but people still don't understand me. There isn't much to do except practice more. Eventually, all my struggles will go away, and then I'll probably have new ones :). But this is how it goes and how you learn and grow. I talk a lot about this in my emails but it is what is important right now. Learning and growing everyday so that eventually one day, I can do all these hard things.
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| Elder Alberto and I out walking |
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| Elder Alberto and I with Presidente and Sister Moraes |
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| Elder Alberto makes great fried fish and rice |
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| An amazing view! |
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