Sunday in Quelimane

We discovered frogs today on our lawn—Debbie was grateful that that the cockroaches do not get that bulky.  Actually, the roaches are not many, but the ants are, and they make Debbie, well, antsy.  She will learn to become one with them as I have—though I do try and rinse them off my toothbrush before I brush. 

My Portuguese alternates between being very proficient and very very bad.  I’m not sure what the relevant  factors are, but sometimes I am really on top of my language game, and other times not remotely so. 

I have been asked to lead the small group of saints in Quelimane (for my catholic friends, saints are what we call members of the church and it corresponds to biblical usage of the word).  There are only seven baptized members of the church here (the church has only been here about 4 months) but about 30-40 others who are being taught or otherwise are investigating the church also attend.  It is a fascinatingly different mission from elsewhere in the world—there is no shortage of people wishing to be taught and wishing to join the church.  We mormons however are big on long-term commitment and genuine change of heart—we hold out for that here and that slows down the numerical growth somewhat.  The numbers are far fewer than when I served as bishop in Anchorage, but the principles and concerns and issues are largely the same.  I may have massacred their language in my conducting of the service but folks were generally fine (we actually had an excellent spirit-filled service and Debbie spoke well (if briefly) without the aid of a translator.

Tonight Debbie and I were able to join a couple of younger missionaries in teaching a couple of young women (one a Muslim and one a Catholic).  Such a great experience it was—the likes I have really not had for decades.

We have this fascinating thing here in Mozambique (and I have heard that it exists to some extent in many parts of Africa).  We have scores of congregations of “fake mormons”.  They are people who have had some contact with church doctrine and materials (often 2^nd or 3^rd hand) and have created congregations of adherents calling themselves by our name but not really affiliated with us in any particular way.  There are many of these groups and some report many hundreds of participants (one over a thousand).  We don’t know much about them and some express skepticism about the degree to which their real beliefs mirror LDS teachings, and whether or not they are actually interested  in “the real thing”—but I have met this week with  three representatives of three such congregations (most are very very rural and distant and speak native languages other than Portuguese) who appear at first blush to be sincerely seeking further teaching, leading to real inclusion in the church (and they do seem to recognize that they are missing some essential things).  My task is to figure this out—it will be interesting to do so.  It is a logistical/operational challenge in addition to a spiritual one.  They are begging for us to come visit them in their remote locations—which leads to a sad but real issue of scarce resources (mostly human).  We simply cannot move forward or even survive using a geographical shotgun approach.  I believe that we will focus on just one of these groups for now.  It’s interesting that  they seem to possess a loose affiliation and communication among them—which led three of these leaders to show up together  to talk to me.  We are not bored.