Jesus Mountain

April 19, 2022

Jesus Mountain

Wow it was a long week, the work has been fun but not easy. It is pretty normal missionary challenges but it still stinks.

This week we did have the opportunity to work with both of our ward members who are preparing to serve missions. They both have their papers in and are both really solid, working with them now is only going to make them better missionaries in the future. Plus, they both know the area well and often are decent friends with some of our investigators. Also as a Mozambican missionary your odds in where you serve are about 80% Mozambique, 15% Angola and 5% Brazil. So there is a decent chance I will get to see them more in the future.

Tuesday we started in our pretty far area. We decided to visit an investigator that lives pretty far away (we do have about three of them). Anyway along the way there was this mountain with "Jesus" written on the side. It was a little bizarre and I took some pictures and it was just far enough away our phone couldn't get a great photo. But that day was pretty solid.

The next day we went to our other area that is far away and had a pretty solid day there. As we were leaving we met a friend and a less active (they work together) as we were getting ready to leave. We were having a nice conversation with them when some random guy walked up and started talking to us. He was a preacher from another church and really wanted to meet with us. Now in the United States this meant he wanted to argue with you but here he honestly probably just wants to learn more. It got weirder when he started talking in English to me. His English was actually pretty solid but it was super bizarre. You could tell he had taught himself because his vocabulary was just odd. He would say stuff like "how are you doing brother?" or "I really want to be your friend dude." All of it was solid but just not things a native speaker would say. He would just mix pretty formal phrases with random slang and it was just awkward. It also solidly interrupted the nice conversation we had had but serves as just another reminder that Africa is just confusing.

You know something that is terrifying to missionaries? President randomly showing up. Friday morning we were scheduling lessons when President called and just said "I am here, can you open the door?" We all scrambled to get ourselves ready, we had no idea why he was here and he was supposed to be leaving Nampula that day. I let him up and he told us to go back to our studies. So Elder Alberto and I went back to planning and President talked to the other Elders... for about two hours. After we found he had just joined them for their studies and it had been super cool. Elder Thornock even taught President Moraes some English for language studies.

I have hit that stage in my language learning where I can understand just about everything that is said (if I pay attention) but really can't talk about much. My vocabulary for talking is way less than the total vocabulary I can recognize. It is a really annoying spot to be at because when I get told something I can understand it but can't explain or expound much on it. This week Elder Alberto and I also had a lot of miscommunication that was pretty frustrating to deal with. The best part is that he would lecture me about some relatively unimportant topic and I would understand all of it, but couldn't explain myself more than "I understand." Yeah it has been pretty fun. But we are working to communicate and explain better so it should be solid.

This week was a good reminder that even small and simple things can be frustrating at times. Simply not knowing something can make things very difficult. But the answer to literally all of our problems this week was just talking and listening. Explaining and talking with your "companion" is the best way to avoid confusion and problems. So just do it.

This week was Easter and I should talk a little about that too. Jesus Christ's resurrection is a perfect example of overcoming obstacles. He literally overcame death, something that everyone else had had a 100% chance of failing to overcome. But he did it. And because he did we will be able to too. Remember that. Believe in that. Strive to live worthy of this gift.