But it was a conference week for us as well! Except we had zone confernce here in Matola. Elder Brandao and I had a lot to plan in preparation for the conference, but it ended up turning out great! We heard a lot of counsel from our amazing mission president and his wife. He showed us the progress of the mission, and helped us remember the importance of our calling. He showed a missionary video, and the song playing was ''I hope they call me on a mission." I realized that ever since I was young, I looked to this time of my life. And it goes by so fast, I really am living my dream. I am doing my best to live it up the best that I can. I feel like I am doing my best to serve this people and live my dream without any regrets.
I was able to see and meet some new missionaries that I had never met before during the conference, including my MTC companion Elder Porter. I had not seen him since our first transfer! It was amazing how much time had gone past.
As for us in our area, we had a very busy week. I did 2 splits this past week. One with Elder Martins, and the other with Elder Evans. They are 2 elders in our district. I am doing my best to try to balance my responsiblities as district leader and zone leader. The splits will continue as well. This week, we are doing a division with the AP's and then we will do splits with the District Leaders in the zone. Then, towards the end of the transfer, I will do 2 more splits with 2 other Elders in the district. I have a big opprotunity to help others with the experience I have gained. We have seen a lot of growth because of the splits we do. Many missionaries think splits are a chance to "be away from your companion'' but it is way more than that. If you go into it with the right attitude, you can real help the missionary change his mission. Depending on what his needs are as a missionary. I believe that the growth we are seeing in the zones are because of the effective splits we have done. Hopfully we can continue the pace!
More Elders have opened more processes this week! We had two marriages, and a a family baptism this past weekend. This transfer, Matola is on pace to baptize more families than it ever has before! And more families are getting found and ready for next transfer. We recognize the hand of the Lord in the work. It is because we hav e some really good Elders in the zone that are working hard to find, teach, and baptize.
One thing that is improving a lot, is the way we work with the members. We had a very good meeting with the branch presidency, and with the auxiliary leader after church yesterday. We planned to watch "The work of Salvation'' on Saturday, and that will help them get the fire to shre the gospel and to work together. The frequency continues to climb, but we need to hang on to these people that we bring. Our companionship alone, brought 6 complete families to church on Sunday. 20 investigators in total. I was very pleased to have a member sitting with each of those families at church. This is what we want! As we continue to teach with members, and have them sit with our investigators, the work will explode. Even more than it is now.
We found a super nice new family this week. Jasinto and Joaquina. They had been to church before, but stopped for some reason. Well we went over there, and they accepted! They came to church with us on Sunday. It was a cool experiecne on working with old investigators. They will for sure be getting baptized! We also started teaching a 20 year old chinese kid! His name is Ivan. He was a reference from our recent convert Joao, who is the son of Sara. Ivan will be getting baptized here in a few weeks.
We continue to find, drop, find and drop! We have quite a few families that will get baptized for sure, but we don't know when! Most of the families we are teaching, and pretty poor, and don't have enough money to get married, or need to viajar in order to get documents. We are working with Elders in Beira and Quelimane in order to get these documents. But until the end of this year, our area should have a lot of families baptized! We are doing our best to strenghten the testimony of these families and hold on to them, as we continue to find more!
It is starting to get a lot hotter down here in Maputo as well! I don't know how i got through the last summer! I come home just soaked everyday. One of the best feelings in the world, and taking a nice cold shower at night. I have grown a true love for the cold shower at night. Some people think we are crazy walking around in the heat like this. I have no clue how hot it is, but with the humitity, it feels a lot worse!
We have a good house, and all the Elders are working hard. There is tension sometimes with a few Elders, but Im doing my best to be the peacemaker. The house gets dirty easily, and it is frustrating. We made goals to always have a clean house. I think I am starting to turn into a clean freak. Haha!
Jose and Sandra are doing alright. They didn't go to church, so we were really worried. We went over there last night, and he was sleeping. I asked Sandra if he had been drinking and she just stayed silent. I knew they he had been drinking. We received a text from him this morning saying that he is frustrated these days because no one pays him for the work he does. He said he fell into temptation because of the stress. Because of these work problems, he is unable to tratar a single documento. We will see the progress with that this week. We are going over there later today to try to help him with his problem. I want nothing more to be able to help them with this problem. I will let you know how it goes.
Well I hope everyone has a good week! I will have a good week as well! I Love you all, and dont forget to do family scripture study!
Love Elder Williams
