Beauty, Beasts, and others

The child on the right is Lozina, 7 year old daughter of Rui and Bendita and among my favorite people here.

Quelimane has an enormous population of large fruit bats.  They are truly rodents of unusual size.  They can always be seen flying around in the duskish hours but we have never seen them in repose, until we came across this tree in the city this week.

Abel and Adozinda were among the first people to join the church in Quelimane and Debbie and I are working with them to prepare for the temple (for non-lds, this is a significant rite of spiritual progress) and will go with them to Johannesburg in February.

If you have read this blog for a while, you will have noted that I often speak with some pride of our creative effort in the design of our local baptismal font.  It has served us well and actually is being considered by the /Area leaders as a possible economical solution throughout Mozambique.  This time however, for the baptism of George above, things went a bit awry.  Neither the performer nor recipient of the baptism was instructed well on the technique to use and both slipped, went under (shades of Alma and Helam) hit a head on the edge and got cut.  In the end, we did not have to send in a dive team to recover bodies--there was blood, but not too much--but it was not the most graceful nor spiritual of moments. 

I don't know what to say to describe this view, but it seemed photo worthy at the time.

This is what a full mango tree looks like, the mangoes hang from long rope-like stems.  Mango trees are big, and there is no picking equipment, so most every mango that you can buy has fallen from a great height and gotten bruised up pretty badly.  Nevertheless, I love them.

Let it be noted, that when I am thoroughly lost, I do ask for directions.  These women however, did not speak Portuguese, but only the dialect of Sena.  But determined people can usually figure out a way to get a message across and we did make it home in the end.

Look please at page 66 of the November Ensign Magazine. Published at last!! Actually, it is a very sweet thing for us to see our little group's picture go out to the world.