April 1

For non-LDS readers who won't know of this: this is the weekend of "general conference" in the church where the Mormon prophet and apostles speak to the whole church--to the hundreds of thousands gathered in Salt Lake City and also to the congregations around the world via radio, satellite, TV and Internet. It is a big deal for us and most Mormon faithful try and tune in in some fashion--though the conference sessions are all available on the Internet for download and watching anytime thereafter. The church members and investigators of Quelimane are not steeped in this tradition obviously, but we managed to find sufficient bandwidth to obtain the Sunday morning live session of conference and showed it live on our little computer screen in our chapel (though it was night here instead of morning). Plenty attended despite the late hour. I believe that this is the first live broadcast of conference ever in the northern half of Mozambique. It was really very exciting for us here. I know it identifies me as a back-woods hick perhaps, but I am moved and technologically impressed to be able to watch here at the same moment the same thing that my grandchildren are watching in Utah and Alaska and Arizona.. It was fun to be able to show these people the living prophet, about which we have taught them, and have them listen to him speak to them.

Debbie and I taught this afternoon in a poorer section of town and arrived there just about 15 minutes into a very heavy rainstorm. The first thing that we happened upon as we wound our way between mud homes in our little truck was a nude soccer game amongst the neighborhood boys. As we have noted before, when the heavy rains occur, dress standards and clothes often go away--many people, especially the very poor, making use of the rain for a bath. We have seen it on the highway between cities, and now find that in the more rural neighborhoods it is also the case.

We arrived at the house of Funal and Hortencia to find that it was entirely surrounded by a lake of water. We were in regular clothes and shoes and debated briefly what to do--finally concluding that we were missionaries--and so we just slogged through the water, filling our shoes and soaking us to our calves. I suspect that more difficult sacrifices have been made for the gospel.

These children below are the kids of Hortencia and Funal and patiently sat through our lesson (Very cute we thought them). It seems that whenever we teach in this particular area, someone else is also present, either invited or just a neighbor who happens by and sits down. Such was the case today as well as we had a very interested brother in law joining in.

And these are neighborhood children gathered at another lesson. Pretty good looking kids we thought.

Our good turn today was in this same area. We happened upon a large truck stuck in the mud--the driver and countless occupants begged for some help and we stopped and hooked a strap (filling my shoes and pants with water again) to my truck and theirs and shifted into 4 wheel drive. To my surprise and their delight, we yanked it right out. They were very grateful and we could have performed 35 baptisms right there in the lake on the road--but we decided against it.