Hey, every week flies by for me its crazy, two weeks ago feels like yesterday to me. But ya the baptism went well, couldn't get her under the first time but got it the second time. The water was just above my knees so it was pretty low. We also gave the Priesthood to a lot of people this week which was great as well. I'll get a new companion on Thursday, Elder Nascimento from Brazil. I'm way excited to be serving with him, and he's not in the branch presidency so we will be able to focus more on missionary work now. Also this will improve my language a lot having a native speaker. He doesn't speak any English so it will force me to speak only Portuguese. Ya we hear a lot about Zimbabwe, that's been going on for a long time so we have a lot of people from there who just ran for safety. Also South Africa went on a killing spree not to long ago and killed anyone who wasn't a native (mainly blacks) so they killed a lot of people from Mozambique.

My area is mainly apartments but there are a few houses and huts in my area. Other missionaries have mostly houses or mostly huts, depends on the area. The apartments are usually 3 rooms, bedroom living room/kitchen. All cement floor no carpet, wood or tile usually. No one has a stove or anything so they have these makeshift stove things that they cook outside their apartment in the hall way with coals. All the hallways run along the outside of buildings.

The Branch is good, these last two weeks haven’t been so good we've only had 3 but everyone else is doing good. For the first time we are going to open the over flow next week so it’s growing really well.

So I found out that people here are scared to death of chameleons. They believe that if a chameleon bites you, the wound won’t stop bleeding until you bleed to death. So one day I wasn't in a particularly good mood and a group of about 10 kids started yelling some racist stuff at us. So I walked up to them and put a scared look on my face. Pointed in the middle of the group of them and yelled "CHAMILIAO!!!!" Oh my goodness it was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life! They all started screaming and running around with their arms above their heads. One kid just fell down on his butt and started bawling! I was rolling on the ground I was laughing so hard! Needless to say we don’t see much of those little kids anymore.

Everything here is going great and I'm way excited to start my third transfer already!! Wow its flying by!
But ya I don’t have a lot of time I have to go buy food for the week so I better go but everything is good, I'm safe, healthy and everything is great! Have a great week!

Women gathering sticks (Click on the pictures for a better view)

Wow this week has flown by for me, it feels like yesterday I was here emailing, but ya things here were much better this week. We spent a lot of time knocking on doors but no one let us in for like 3 apartment buildings so that kinda sucked but oh well. We will have a baptism this transfer on the last day of the transfer however. She is a great lady who just needed to figure out a house situation. Her name is Luisa, she's in her 30's I think and she's great. She said in her baptism interview that she wants me to baptize her so I'm way excited about that.

Here's the questions. I put the answers under the questions:
1. How is the Language is coming?
I have my good days and my bad days but over all it’s going pretty well. I can understand every word from some people and almost nothing from other people just depends on the person. But in Beira everyone talks really fast and everyone mumbles so it’s really hard to hear them as it is. But I can communicate well.

2. How's the food? Have you tried anything unusual? Do you ever eat with members?
The food isn't bad, I miss fast food and milk but it’s not bad. We eat occasionally with one member family and they cooked this fish last time... you know how much I like fish... and it was the ugliest looking fish I had ever seen! It was about the length from my elbow down to the tips of my fingers and almost just as wide and about 6 inches thick... but it was so good!!! I loved it which is way weird but it really was way good.

3. Have you seen any unusual customs?
Nothing too bad, whenever you eat anything in their houses they bring out a cup of water and a bucket and pour it on your hands while you wash them that's kinda weird but not too bad. And when you knock on a door you yell "excuse me" into the window after you knock. Everyone has a cage type thing made of rebar around their doors so there is about a 4 by 4 foot area between the door and the cage. Usually people will just talk to you through the cage but if there is a young girl who lives there they have her answer the door because they hear a young man’s voice. She comes out, opens the gate and will get right up within inches of you sometimes just to talk. The personal bubble thing doesn't exist here.
I think that’s about all that happened this week. I love you! Thanks for everything!
Love Elder Brown

(click on the picture, there's a lot of interesting things to see!)
Hey Mom, Hey Dad, Happy Father's Day! I hope you had a good one! That's cool that everyone is so busy this week. Our investigators are doing pretty good. Only one of the families came to church. The other family and the college student didn't but they are good. The family that comes to church their names are Guilda is the mom, Artur is the dad and I don’t know the kids names they are way young. The other family the dad's name is Luis and his kids I don’t remember right now. The college students name is Chandi.

The technology here is about 10 years behind. They just got cell phones not too long ago ha ha. It’s like living in the 70s here. It’s going to be a whole new world when I get back. It’s weird to think about home now. Clean streets, no drunks, no beggars, WHITE PEOPLE!!!! Every time I see a white person it’s really weird. It’s going to be strange coming home. The transfer meeting is coming up, its crazy I've been here 2 out of the 16 transfers already! It’s flying by. I will probably get a new companion.

We had a pretty ruff day at church yesterday, let’s just say if the missionaries weren't here the church would fall apart quickly. Everything started off normal in sacrament meeting. Then our Branch President got up to speak. He started to get a little excited, he started raising his voice a little bit. This lead into yelling, which lead into pounding the pulpit a little, which lead into pounding the pulpit harder and harder, which lead into a little bit of waving of the arms and moving around, which lead into some audience participation, which lead into him having the audience repeat "I will come to church activities" starting soft, then louder, then yelling it back whenever he pointed to them. All to the dramatic climax of yelling, "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!!!" which lead to an applause from the congregation. All the missionaries stood up and shut it down pretty quick but man it was bad. I just felt sick afterward. I thought I was back in San Fran visiting that crazy Methodist church all over again. In other news I was approached by a drunk guy who wanted me to kiss him. So I punched him and we kept walking... No just kidding I almost did though, seriously thought about it but decided that it wouldn't be worth an interview with the president. Other than those things everything is great! Anyways I better go but thanks dad for everything and happy fathers day again! Thanks Mom! I love you! Love Elder Brown

Everything here is great! We just found a bunch of really good people this week and they are doing great. 2 families which is HUGE for us and one guy who's a college student. They are all doing really great, they all know the Book Of Mormon is true. The college student asked how he could tell other people that he found the true church of Christ. I've never heard a better question from an investigator. A lot of our old investigators are starting to progress. We have a family that is coming to church now which is a big deal for us. Also we are teaching a guy who lives with his kids who is divorced. He wanted to know the second time we sat with him when he could be baptized which is great! One of the families the father asked how long it would be until he could get baptized! We also have a guy who just needs to get married and he'll be ready and he's doing his marriage papers this week! It’s going really good. Things are going great and our branch keeps getting stronger and stronger its very exciting!

I’ve been studying the D &C a lot. I really like that a lot. It talks a lot about missionaries and the Lord makes a lot of promises to missionaries in there. My health is good everything is great!
Here's a hour to hour day of my life but its not as cool as you think its going to be:
900- wake up
ha ha just kidding
630-wake up
700-eat/get ready/ shower/ study/ exercise (depends on if someone is in the bathroom)
900 - proselyte
1200-cook and eat lunch
200- proselyte
900- come home, eat
1030- go to bed
Sometimes Elder Okazaki has meetings or something for the Branch so we are at the church a lot but that is pretty much my day.

We went golfing a few weeks ago. The golf game was ok. I lost all my balls on the first hole so it wasn't very long. The grass was like green wire about 6 inches long, because the lawnmower is 4 guys with machetes walking around swinging at the ground.

Steal the flag was good. It wasn't exactly in the jungle but it was still cool. There are some pigs that kinda wander around there. We killed 2 pigs and cooked them and ate them. Anyways I better get going but thanks for everything!

Everything here is good, I've almost hit 4 months which is crazy, it has flown by. and I hit my graduation from High School a year ago. I feel kinda old now ha ha. This week has been busy. We had mission tour which was where the President and our area autority seventy, Elder Palmery came and we had a meeting. I was asked to speak on the importance of the morning schedule. Things went really well and it was a great meeting. Also this week, we decided it was time to clean out our teaching pool. We have a lot of investigators that we are teaching but they don't come to church. We went and visited them this week, taught them a last discussion and told them that we couldn't teach them if they don't come to church. None of our "last lesson investigators" showed so we dropped like 10 people so we have a lot of time to knock doors. But knocking doors in our area is kinda hard cuz no one wants to listen but they feel obligated to let you in so we teach a lot of "worthless lessons" is what I call them, cuz they don’t really want to hear it, but who knows maybe one day they will come to church. We plant a lot of seeds here instead of baptize. So hopefully one day they will pick up that Book of Mormon Elder Brown and Elder Okazaki gave them 5 years ago and be converted. We had a family come to church last Sunday that we were really excited about. It's hard to get entire families to teach. We went and visited them this week. but that family didn't come to church but we do have another investigator that is progressing really well and he came. Today we are going to play capture the flag in the jungle I'm way excited! It should be way cool. We are going to eat some pigs too my comp hit his year mark with 10 other guys so we are having a party thing. Anyways not a whole lot else to talk about this week but thanks for your prayers. I'll see if I can’t get more to talk about next week sorry ha ha. Love you!
Love Elder Brown