Hey Fam! All the pictures I send home and all the descriptions don't do the real thing justice. Africa is incredible! The sights, the sounds, everyting! Walking around in the jungle on a dirt path with slacks and a white shirt make me feel like I'm in a movie or a dream. This place is so much different than anywhere I have ever been. I feel like the missionary from "The Other Side of Heaven" all the time.

Everything here is good. I've started learning one of the dialects called Messena. It's going pretty well and sounds pretty cool. It's getting way hot here but the jungle provides a lot of shade so it's nice.

Anyways I'm out of space, I love you all and I'm so grateful to have you as my family. It is a blessing I never realized until I got here, now I know how amazing my family is. I love you all!

Love, Elder Brown

This week was a little ruff for me in our new area. We are white washing it so we don’t know where anyone lives, who's progressing, or anything. And it is still in the jungle so it’s not an easy area to learn. We just wander around in the jungle following an arrow on the GPS until we find the house. Also it has rained almost none stop every day and night since Tuesday. Our area is full of water!!! Paths are now rivers and the water is often up to our ankles. But the boots we got are doing a great job. Tell Pres. Christensen that the boots are great! As far as appearance goes, the new area looks exactly the same as my old one. But we just don’t know anyone in it. Because it rained no one came to church so we didn't get to mark with anyone who we would normally teach. Oh well, hopefully it gets better.

I'm excited to hear the kids reaction when you guys pull out the package so don’t show it to them until I get on the phone That's good to hear that you guys got the package! ya it kinda got beat up and crushed before I sent it. The lady was being really picky about the box I wanted to send it in because it had writing on the outside. It was a flat rate box and I guess she didn't like it so she made me switch. But then the box was too big so she cut the sides and pushed the middle it so it looked pretty beat up. That would be great if you want to open it on the phone. I hope everything is in tact still.

I wish we had a temple here, I would love to go and pray about investigators and stuff there, but it’s hard to even feel the spirit in this country. Church is always hectic and impossible to feel the spirit! People even have all out arguments which drives the spirit away. Oh well, hopefully one day the church will function here.

Kevin and Jenny came! wow that's way cool that they would do that! That's way cool to hear that they came! They are great! Out of all my friends they are some of the ones I miss the most. That's cool to hear they stopped by there.

Thanks for all the help and spiritual advice you give me, I'm so grateful that your my family. I love you and I cant wait to talk to you in a few days!!!
Love Elder Filho.

Here's the questions for this week:
1. How's the new Comp? Where's he from. Do you have much in common? Tell us stuff...
He's cool, it’s Elder Jensen from Nevada. He's a good guy, ya we have a lot of stuff in common, he's a pretty old missionary, he's only 3 transfers from going home so he has a lot of experience. He's cool though we get along great!
2. Who's in the Manga house now? Where are they all from?
Elder Naylor (my old comp) from Iowa, Elder Sodre from Minas Gerais Brazil and Jensen.
3. Are there lots of Mangos in Manga?
Well Manga is the Portuguese word for mango so yes it lives up to its name. A lot of the trees here are mango trees.
Thanks fam!!! Talk to you in 3 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a story for you guys that I think you will like. So a few weeks ago some of the young women in my old branch (Beira 1) wanted me to bring some pictures from home to see pics of you guys and stuff. So Saturday I brought them, they were going through it and then they got to a picture of Tyler...they went NUTS!!!!They all started fighting over looking at the picture screaming yelling I think I even saw some elbows thrown. They all think he is the hottest guy they have ever seen! They all told me that they wanted to marry him then they started fighting again about who would marry him. So Tyler pretty much has his choice of girls here in Mozambique. They made me take pictures of them to send to Tyler so he could "choose" as they said it. Then I told them that he might come with you guys to pick me up and they went nuts again. They asked if he spoke Portuguese and when I told them no they just said "that’s ok I speak enough English just to say I love you." It was pretty funny. I'll work on that picture and then Tyler can choose which one he wants.

We went to go find inactive members and we found one named Joaquina. Her husband died and she was left to take care of the kids and because of her work schedule she couldn't go to church and after she was able to again it had already been a while so she didn’t come back. But we taught her and got her coming to church again. I talked to the Branch President to get her a calling in the Primary as one of the teachers. So this week she was sustained one of the primary teachers. She did great! She is already working wonders in the primary here. Its great to see things like this happen.

Ok so transfers. I did get transferred. I am going to the other side of the branch so I still stay in the same house and same branch but it’s a new area. Also the 2 missionaries there were transferred so me and another missionary from Maputo Elder Jenson will white wash the area. I'm pretty excited, from what I hear Elder Jenson is a good guy and I'm sure we'll get along great. I'm kinda sad to leave my area because we have 3 people with baptism dates and many more progressing. But at least I'm in the same branch so I can still see them.

Anyways, thanks for the letters and insights. I hope that everyone is doing good back at home and that everyone is happy, healthy, and enjoying the cold weather. I'm very excited to talk to you guys and we can talk for a lot longer this time so buy a lot of time on that phone card! I love you and I'm so grateful to be your son!
Love, Elder Filho

This week was another good one. Everything here seems to be going more smoothly. One thing I've learned here is patience... big time. It’s good for me as I wasn't a very patient person before but now I'm getting a lot better with it. I'm a little frustrated with our branch and the Christmas party that they want to do. They want more than 16000 meticais to do a party which is more than $600. They want like 50 chickens 5 goats 15 liters of oil tons of drinks and a whole lot of other ridiculous things. I saw it this morning and I just laughed. So we are going to take it to the Mission Presidency and President Ross is going to chew them out. People here think the church has more money than it knows what to do with so when they get permission to use church money they go nuts.

Transfers are this week and a lot of stuff is going to happen. I am way excited! There will be 2 new areas opening and 5 new missionaries coming in. Our mission is growing a ton! It’s way cool to see it grow this much. I could stay or leave, go senior or not, it’s cool not knowing what will happen. I'll let you know next week what happens.

Right now I'm working with the primary... IT SUCKS! Well it’s not that bad. Be grateful you have a primary that is functioning. Ours right now is just a day care. The teachers don’t do anything and I'm trying really hard to get them to do even the little things. I'm really working hard to get them to have presidency meeting but I'm not sure how that will go.

Oh ya I forgot to answer moms question about the baptism if it was the first time I had baptized someone, no it isn't I've baptized a few of them. I always like to baptize people. I haven't confirmed anyone yet though. That’s about all I have this week. Thanks for all the news as well, I really like to read it. I can’t wait to talk to you guys here in a few weeks! I love you and I'm so grateful to be your filho! Have a good week!
Love Elder Filho

Questions of the week:
1. Kaylee and I are wondering if you've given out blankets?
Ya I have given out a lot. I've taken a picture of every one too.
2. Do you have a microwave?
ya you could call it a microwave, it sucks but we have one.
3. Do you have machetti armed guards at your house or the church?
Ya we have one at our house, his name is Elder Brown. There is a guy at the church who has a night stick but he's from a security company.
4. How's Big D the Chameleon?
Well Big D, we kinda trade him out. When he dies we get another one so some times we don’t have one other times we do, we do right now though but he's kinda small
5. What movie did you watch for Thanksgiving?
We watched Pursuit of Happiness and the Other Side of Heaven.
Thanks fam! love ya'll!

Thank you so much for the extra prayers for me, I know that they are helping me a lot. I had a pretty good week this week. Thanksgiving went great! The only bad part was that cleaning the turkey took FOR EVER! but it turned out really good. I got a bunch of pictures of it. That’s cool to hear about all the stuff that Tyler and Kaylee are doing. Oh also I got the Christmas package on Thanksgiving Day! I'm so grateful for it! Thank you guys so much for sending it. All the wrapping had a bunch of holes in it so I can pretty much see everything that is wrapped but I'll still wait. Thank you so much for all the stuff you guys send!

I had the opportunity to baptize Joana. Everything went really well and I'm sure that she will be a strong member for life. Elder Naylor confirmed her yesterday. I like to baptize people it’s a cool experience. Zone conference and the interviews went pretty good as well. The best part of Zone Conference was the lunch that the couples made. They made a turkey dinner and it was really good even though we ate it 2 nights in a row.

We are working to try to find the inactive members here. There are a lot of them so it’s going to take a lot of work but I'm sure we can at least make a dent in it. We have 2 returned missionaries in our branch and so they are showing us to houses of members who were active before they left that have been all but forgotten. So we are working with them and trying to bring them back. I'm happy to say that it seems to be working. The people that we have visited a lot of them came to church yesterday.

Today we are having our turkey bowl and I'm way excited to play football. It’s my favorite p-day activity because it reminds me of Sunday family dinners playing football with everyone. I'm excited to get home and to do all that again. I'm so involved in the work that time is going by way fast for me. I'm excited to come home but I can tell already that I'm going to miss this place. Thanks again for everything you do for me. I'm so thankful to be your son. I'll call you here in 24 days!
Love Elder Filho