Missionary PTSD
What doesn't kill you makes you fatter (expression here in Mozambique). Writing the first sentence is always the hardest. It was a good week, a lot of pretty different stuff happened this week.
One of the days this week was just weird. A lot of unusual things happened all the same day. Rather than explaining them in chronological order I will put in order from the most to least interesting (at least to me).
One of the days this week was just weird. A lot of unusual things happened all the same day. Rather than explaining them in chronological order I will put in order from the most to least interesting (at least to me).
First when we were going home a train was parked right in our path, we wanted to walk around it but a security guard wouldn't let us walk into the train depot to do it. So we waited but it didn't budge. So we hopped over it.
Second was actually just kinda tough. We have a friend we have been teaching for a while that is basically ready to be baptized. Well we were getting ready to give her a date and we asked if she was married. She said yes. I asked if she had a record (if she was legally married) and she said no. Elder Jeremias and I were both surprised and sad to hear that. To be baptized you have to get legally married if you are living with someone. You know to follow God's commandments. Anyway that stunk.
Wow halfway, anyway the third one is actually about something Elder Jeremias likes doing sometimes, which is giving Chastity pamphlets to dating teenagers or giving Word of Wisdom pamphlets to drunk people. Why? Well in the wise words of Doctrine and Covenants 131:6 "It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance" and because it's funny. So we gave a chastity pamphlet to these two teenagers and then left. Well 10 minutes later the girl called us! We told her we could meet her and talk about it and she said yes, so now we just have to find a time.
And then the craziest of all... We were teaching this girl we had met, then suddenly her cousin showed up. Even crazier we already knew her, we had met her once street contacting. Anyway then we found out the two of them are pretty active in another church but the cousin was really hardcore while the other was chill. Anyway we pull out a pamphlet to start talking about the message and they were like "Is that a picture of Jesus Christ? That's idol worship." Well we explained that we don't worship the picture and it is just a representation and it helps us think about him. Well the cousin wasn't having it and pulled out Revelations where it talks about how idol worshipers go to hell and were like "okay." Then we pulled out some of our own scriptures. I pulled out one in the Book of Mormon talking about prayer because she made some comment about how she doesn't pray. Well after Elder Jeremias read it I looked up and she was being super weird. She had her eyes closed and her eye lids were fluttering and twitching like she was angry or possessed or both. I legitimately thought we had broken her. Then she started mumbling and then shouting stuff like "he doesn't want this" and "idol worship is bad." She did this for about 20 seconds then she started crying and soon after ran off. The whole time I was trying not to laugh because it was really weird and surprising. And her cousin (the one we were there to teach) was completely chill through it all. We were like "sorry for that" and she was like "no it's fine." So we said a prayer and left. It was a good day.
Then the next day we had to stay inside because there would be some protests and it might be dangerous. Yeah absolutely nothing happened here, but you know obedience. Other cities did actually have some protests but probably only Maputo was really dangerous enough to need to stay inside. But it is okay, it was just a very long and painful day. It reminded me of my first transfer where we would decide to stay inside on our own and just call people. Yeah I hated it. So doing it again was not fun.
On Saturday we had exchanges again with our district leader Elder Higgins. He was with me in my area and it was just really fun. He is going home in about a week and the day was just great. We had a lot of great lessons and people understood us pretty well. And then to finish it off when we were going home we had to wait for the train to get back to the house. It was just a great day.
On Sunday we taught a new guy that was pretty cool. He lived pretty far away but we managed to get to his house. During our short lesson no less than 5 drunk guys came up and said hi to us and asked for pamphlets to read. Two in particular were very annoying just hanging around as we were trying to teach this guy. We found out afterwards that right next to his house is a house that sells alcohol. But the guy was super cool and already really wants to come to church.
I think that is about it for this week. I hope you all have a good week. This P-day we are going to Mount Nairuco again (my 3rd time going). It will be pretty cool.
Elder Andrew McDonald
Second was actually just kinda tough. We have a friend we have been teaching for a while that is basically ready to be baptized. Well we were getting ready to give her a date and we asked if she was married. She said yes. I asked if she had a record (if she was legally married) and she said no. Elder Jeremias and I were both surprised and sad to hear that. To be baptized you have to get legally married if you are living with someone. You know to follow God's commandments. Anyway that stunk.
Wow halfway, anyway the third one is actually about something Elder Jeremias likes doing sometimes, which is giving Chastity pamphlets to dating teenagers or giving Word of Wisdom pamphlets to drunk people. Why? Well in the wise words of Doctrine and Covenants 131:6 "It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance" and because it's funny. So we gave a chastity pamphlet to these two teenagers and then left. Well 10 minutes later the girl called us! We told her we could meet her and talk about it and she said yes, so now we just have to find a time.
And then the craziest of all... We were teaching this girl we had met, then suddenly her cousin showed up. Even crazier we already knew her, we had met her once street contacting. Anyway then we found out the two of them are pretty active in another church but the cousin was really hardcore while the other was chill. Anyway we pull out a pamphlet to start talking about the message and they were like "Is that a picture of Jesus Christ? That's idol worship." Well we explained that we don't worship the picture and it is just a representation and it helps us think about him. Well the cousin wasn't having it and pulled out Revelations where it talks about how idol worshipers go to hell and were like "okay." Then we pulled out some of our own scriptures. I pulled out one in the Book of Mormon talking about prayer because she made some comment about how she doesn't pray. Well after Elder Jeremias read it I looked up and she was being super weird. She had her eyes closed and her eye lids were fluttering and twitching like she was angry or possessed or both. I legitimately thought we had broken her. Then she started mumbling and then shouting stuff like "he doesn't want this" and "idol worship is bad." She did this for about 20 seconds then she started crying and soon after ran off. The whole time I was trying not to laugh because it was really weird and surprising. And her cousin (the one we were there to teach) was completely chill through it all. We were like "sorry for that" and she was like "no it's fine." So we said a prayer and left. It was a good day.
Then the next day we had to stay inside because there would be some protests and it might be dangerous. Yeah absolutely nothing happened here, but you know obedience. Other cities did actually have some protests but probably only Maputo was really dangerous enough to need to stay inside. But it is okay, it was just a very long and painful day. It reminded me of my first transfer where we would decide to stay inside on our own and just call people. Yeah I hated it. So doing it again was not fun.
On Saturday we had exchanges again with our district leader Elder Higgins. He was with me in my area and it was just really fun. He is going home in about a week and the day was just great. We had a lot of great lessons and people understood us pretty well. And then to finish it off when we were going home we had to wait for the train to get back to the house. It was just a great day.
On Sunday we taught a new guy that was pretty cool. He lived pretty far away but we managed to get to his house. During our short lesson no less than 5 drunk guys came up and said hi to us and asked for pamphlets to read. Two in particular were very annoying just hanging around as we were trying to teach this guy. We found out afterwards that right next to his house is a house that sells alcohol. But the guy was super cool and already really wants to come to church.
I think that is about it for this week. I hope you all have a good week. This P-day we are going to Mount Nairuco again (my 3rd time going). It will be pretty cool.
Elder Andrew McDonald
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In front of the cultural center of one of the neighborhoods, "Namicopo" Elder Jeremias and I out working  Our district  Roommates near our apartment |
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