It really is crazy that another week has gone by, the time is flying for me! Everything here is going great! My new filho is awesome!!!! His name is Elder Chimica He's a super good missionary and I'm sure we will have a good transfer together. I'm super excited to work with him. He really is a great guy. He is a very simple person and very easy to teach. It was kinda funny when we sat down today to start internet, he just kinda looked at me and asked for help cuz he's never used a computer to get into email before. So I've been helping him write president and stuff and he's just super easy to teach and willing to learn.

This week was pretty good. Everything in our area is going good and our branch as well. We are still giving most of our attention to reactivating members, however we do also have some investigators that are progressing. We have one of our families that are just about ready to be baptized. Paito's (who I baptized when I first got here) family is doing great. We are going to give them a date this week I think. His father passed away and the thing that really got his mom and his 2 sisters into the gospel was temples and being sealed together with their father. I'm super excited to see them all get baptized!

We taught one lesson yesterday that was really cool. We were teaching a lady that lives with one of the members that we reactivated. She's from another church but said she wanted to be taught. She is such a smart lady and she knows the Bible super well! It was really cool, we talked about prophets and how they could talk to God face to face like Moses did in Numbers, Then she said "wow we talked about that in my church today!" Then her pastor called her and she told him that she was sitting with the missionaries. He quickly asked what we were teaching and she said "They are talking about Numbers and how Moses talked with God just like we did in chuch today!" Then he "oked" us to be there I guess cuz I though he was going to tell her to send us away but she didn't. Then we talked about the Book of Mormon. Her eyes got big and she said that that day she had read a scripture that talked about how there are other prophecies and acts of Christ that aren't written in the Bible and that she was wondering where they were written. She was really excited and kept saying "you brought me the answer to my question!!!" It was really cool how the spirit helps us with little things like that. Kowing just what to say and when to say it.

I also got that package this week THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! The M&M's are awesome and the Oreos too!!! Thanks so much! I'm super glad to hear that Kaylee and Tyler are doing well also. I'm glad that Tyler took my advice, I still pray for him every night and Kaylee too. I'm super glad to see that the Lord is answering my prayers. Anyways I better go, thanks for everything! Oh and will you do me a favor? Will you call Gma Platt and just tell her that I love her? Thanks. Have a good week!

Love Brady

Questions:
1. What language does your new comp speak? Does he speak Portuguese well? Did you learn some of his native language when you were in Beira? Are you going to try to learn some of his language?
He speaks portuguese without any problems. He's a smart guy. He speaks Massena which i learned a little bit but not much. But yeah we have no problems teaching or talking.
2. It will be awesome to have more Elders in your branch! Did they move in your house? How many Elders in your house now? Are you crowded?
Yeah we have 6 in our house now!!!! Very crowded, and there is never hot water.
3. How's things in your branch? How is your branch compared to other branches in Mozambique?
Really well actually. Our branch has the best retention rate in the mission.... however it's still really bad, just a little better than the other ones ha ha!

Hi, Sorry we weren't able to do internet this morning, we had to get ready for a zone bbq at our house. It went really well though. We did hamburgers! They were good. Anyways, the news you've been waiting for! Elder Dunn will be leaving. He's going to T3 and I will be training again. This time I'll be training a missionary who comes from Morromeu a little village where the church somehow made it to. I'm pretty excited to be his comp. I heard he was really cool and it will be good to have a native comp again. However there is a chance that he doesn't even speak Portuguese well at all. In fact he probably doesn't speak well but oh well. It should be fun anyways. I don't really understand why I'm training again. It seems to me that there are so many other missionaries who could do a better job than I could. Oh well, it will be fun, I'm excited. I'm way happy that I stayed too. I really love my area and our branch. We will also get 2 more missionaries in our district which will be good cuz we will be able to work with the branch more. It should be a good transfer. I'm super happy. I'm super happy that I didn't leave, I wanted to do one more here and I got my wish! My 2nd filho gets here on Wednesday so I'll let you know next week how things are going. I'm glad that you had a good experience at education week and that you are enjoying reading about the history of the church. It is so true what you said about knowledge and faith. People here always say that they want more faith, but no one wants to read their scriptures or study. Then when the sun comes out, it burns the crap out of their little plant of faith and they go inactive. It's very frustrating to me. I explain to people so many times how important it is to read the scriptures and study. I tell people if they don't, they will end up going inactive for sure, and sure enough, those that are inactive never ever read or studied. But they don't do it still. uhhhg! oh well. I just have to keep trying.
I'm glad to hear that Dad's trip went well and also that my prayers are being answered. I am super grateful that they Lord is taking care of you guys. I make a special effort to thank him so much for doing that for us. It is amazing to see the many blessings the Lord has blessed us with. One of the things I have learned for sure is to always be thankful for what I have. With all the poverty here I'm so very grateful to have what I have. And one thing that I was always grateful for but now I'm more grateful than ever, is the blessing that we have to be from America. I have such a new devotion to our country. Everywhere else, not just here but even in Europe and Brazil, most people live in houses made out of cement blocks and things like that. I always thought that everyone built houses out of wood like we do but no one has a house of wood, it is absurd for people here to think of someone living in a house made of wood and sheetrock. We have anamazing education system where as here, graduating the 12th grade is like getting a bachelors back home. and most people never do graduate. Our streets are clean, people are kind, we take care of the sick and the needy, and many other things. Just hearing about Afganistan today was another testimony to me as to how blessed we are to not have to fear about being killed just because we want to have a say in who runs our country. We live in such an amazing country and I will be forever grateful for it.

This week Elder Dunn has been sick, so we weren't able to get a ton done. But oh well. I'll get a new comp and we'll get right back where we were finding members and trying to strengthen the branch. Anyways I better get going. Thanks for the letters, Always remember that I love you all and that I am always praying for you. Have a good week! Love Brady
Questions:
1. How's the weather there? How hot and humid is it?
We are in the transfer from winter to summer now so it is hot some days and cool others. It's always humid though. But we haven't had too much heat yet but here in a few weeks I'm sure it will be super hot.
2. That's amazing you had to give a talk with that short of notice. Have you done that much?
No not a ton but it happens everyonce in a while.
3. Do members there ever get the chance to go to the temple? Do you have endowed members in your branches?
Yeah, its pretty easy to go for them. The church has 2 trips a year where they rent a bus and ship everyone who wants to down. They have to pay what they can and the church pays for the rest. People just aren't willing to make the sacrifice though. We do have a few but not many who have been.
Thanks fam! love you!

This week things went well. Our families are still doing well and came to church as well as some of our inactives. I gave a talk this week in sac about the sacrament. The problem that we are having is that people don't show up on time and most don't take the sacrament because they are late. One of the speakers didn't come so they asked me to do it about 10 min before the meeting started but it was good. I think they understood a little better how important the sacrament is and how important it is to come on time.

Thanks for sending the package! I'm so freakin excited!!!!!!!!! Thanks again for sending that! Ya transfer meeting is actually this Friday so I'll let you know what happens. I kinda hope I stay one more, I really love this branch a ton. But who knows, I kinda want to go back to Beira too. We'll see, I'll let you know next week!!!!! Ya its weird that I will be one of the oldest, I still don't feel like it. I still feel like I'm in my 6th transfer and I'm going into my 13th! its super weird.

This week we've been looking for lost members, one day we spent 2 hours looking for 2houses just to find out that one moved to another province and the other died like 5 years ago. Oh well, at least we know what happened to them. We also taught a lot about temples to some of the families that we are teaching. They really liked it and they really have a desire to go there. I kinda wish I could be here to see them go all the way but oh well. I guess the only place I'll be able to find out will be after this life. That is one thing that's bad about serving here, is that I won't be able to keep in touch with almost anyone who I taught! oh well, I'll miss them but I'll see them again.

Anyways I better go, thanks for the package and for the love and support. I love you! Have a good week!

Love Brady

I'm way happy to hear that you guys had a good trip to Nauvoo, and I'm glad you guys all made it back alright. I'm way happy to hear that Tyler and Kaylee both learned a lot from EFY too. That's funny that Tyler was nervous about going through the airport with without you. I remember when I got dropped off that the airport from the MTC, I was pretty much the only one out of us 3 who had any travel experience when it came to airports and stuff. And we had to pass through 2 of the biggest airports in the world ha ha! I almost died too! I was way nervous! but I'm glad I made it.

That's cool that you and Dad are studying church history too. It really is amazing how much they went through. I have a Joseph Smith movie that I LOVE watching with members! It really is an amazing missionary tool! It shows the members here who are going through ruff times that members from all over the world go through hard times, and especially in the early days of the church. One thing I hear a lot here from members and everyone is "here in africa". A lot of people think that Africa is pretty much the only place in the world that has problems and that no one else suffers. So it's nice to show that movie so they can see that the saints suffered a lot just to spead the gospel.

It's crazy to think that I only have 6 months left! Here in 2 weeks, there will only be 4 missionaries who have more time on the mission that I do. It's super weird that I'm one of the oldest missionaries already. All my senior companions have gone home too! Time is flying by for sure!

Anyways, this week not a whole lot happened. We did do one activity that was pretty cool. We wanted to show some investigators and members how much love the Savior had for them. So I remembered a story I heard in Seminary and we tried it with them. It was an awesome experience. We took cookies there, and we told them that the cookies were special, so special that someone had to pay for them. So for every cookie, I had to do 10 pushups. They laughed and agreed to it. So one by one they were offered a cookie, if they said yes, I did 10 pushups so they could have the cookie. But after about 7 cookies, I started to get tired. After they saw that I was struggling to do them, some one said, that they didn't want the cookie. Then Elder Dunn would say "will you do 10 pushups for the cookie that Victoria doesn't want?" and we kept going and going, I was super tired and couldn't get up, I just laid there on the sand dripping with sweat, trying to do as many push ups as I could but always having to do 10 even for those that didn't want the cookie. It was all to show that the Savior loved us all so much, that he suffered for all of our sins. Even though he knew that there would be many who wouldn't repent or not take the cookie, he still suffered for them just because he loved them. It was an amazing experience for them and also for me. I gained a new appreciation for the love of the Savior. The only down side is, is that now my whole body is sore but it was worth it.

Work with the branch is going great! We had 112 people in sac meeting this week. We are getting a lot of things done and the branch is doing awesome! Some of our reactivated members are going to get callings next week which I'm way excited about! I'm so glad that I was able to be here to see members who I found drunk and passed out in their houses come back, repent, and get callings in the church. We are also working a ton with family history. I was talking with some of the members who said that they aren't sure if they will be able to go to the temple any time soon but they really want their parents to be baptized by someone that they at least knew instead of just sending the names to the temple. Then Elder Dunn said "Well you can give their names to Elder Brown when he goes home and he can baptize his family for your family!" They thought that was a good idea so I may be bringing home a stack of names that we need to do the temple work for! I hope you guys are excited to do that!

I'm so glad that we have the Lord that we can trust and know that he will take care of us. It is something that most people today don't have. I can't even imagine what it would be like to not be a member, living the commandments and not knowing that no matter what happens, God is guiding it and he will take care of us. It really is amazing to me how blessed we are to know that. Anyways, I better get going, I hope you have a good week! I love you!

Love Brady

Swimming in the Street

This week it rained.... the chapel in T3 flooded but our area wasn't too bad, so no one came to church. We only had like 80 people which isn't too bad for a rainy day here. But almost none of our investigators or less actives came. So I went to their houses looking for them and the excuses I got where pretty weak. "it looked like it was going to rain and I didn't want to get wet." or "I had a head ache" Apparently rain here kills people! I could see girls in the states saying they don't want to get wet becuase of their hair but black people's hair doesn't even change when it gets wet! Oh well, they just can't understand the importance of these things. It's frustrating sometimes but then I just think that I'm sure Heavenly Father looks at me almost the same way and all of us for that matter. It's impossible to understand everything about the gospel, how the atonement works, the true importance of the sacrament, things like that. If we really understood the importance of everything I'm sure we wouldn't even comit sin because we would realize the importance of all of it! So that is one thing that helps me keep my cool with stuff like that. One day I think people will understand, it will just take time and countless testimonies from missionaries and other members who do understand.

But we did have a visit! We have been working with a family called the Dimene's, they are great but the problem is, is that they like going to church in the city and President Packard wanted them to go to Matola where they live. So that has been my goal for the past few months that I've been here and this week they came! He said that he would stay here so that was a really good sign.

We've been spending a lot of time working with MLS this week. It's the program that is baisicaly the book of life for the church, it has everything all organized, all the records, callings, and just about any list you can think of that has to do with members. Well at least that is how it should be, however no one updates it so there are a ton of things that should be there that aren't. I've been trying to get the branch sec to do it but he doesn't seem to have time. That's fine though, I don't mind. I like working with it, unfortunately I think the Lord may be preparing me to be a secretary for something.... dang.... oh well ha ha i'm sure whatever the Lord has in store for me I'll like it ha ha!

I had some Beira flash backs this week though ha ha! This week we had a lady get up to bare her testimony, only it wasn't so much a testimony, she started singing some hymn from the Jehova's witnesses church! oh man..... it wouldn't have been so bad if she could sing but it was terrible! I was sitting next to Elder Peterson and he couldn't stop laughing he had to leave! I just felt like I was in Manga again ha ha oh well. I guess I can't escape it! Anyways I better get going, Thanks! I love you!!

Love, Brady