Christmas-Time in Angola

Nothings new, just doing the usual work and having fun. I had a couple

of cool divisions this week in which i learned a lot. Its always fun

to be able to head off with other missionaries to learn from them and

to see what they have to say and how they teach. The christmas season

is here in angola and all the branches had super fun branch parties

which might be one of the best things about serving here in angola..

the members love christmas a ton so its easy to miss the season back

home with snow, lights, and all the goodies but its all good. FOr

christmas ill be calling home around 19h my time... which i have not

idea what time that is for you guys.. i think maybe 11.. if it doesnt

work out youll have to email president and let him know.

WE are having a ton of fun finding new people and working together..

this transfer is flying by and elder mills is a boss. i have had a ton

of fun with him.. though at times it can be a little trying to hvae to

head out in the burning heat to go and talk to some people but its all

worth it and we find ways to make it fun.

Other than that i dont really have much to say.. nothings new and we

are just donig our thing.. ill talk to you guys on sunday and give you

the more detailed scoop then.

Elder Webber

And "Lovin' It..."

This week was a blast from the past, it was super cool to go around and see a lot of the old members and investigators that i taught over a year ago... CRAZY!! My companion is super cool, Elder mills.. if i could use a few words to describe him i would say chill, hippie bro.. hes super cool and super easy to work with. Just likes working hard but having fun while hes doing it. I am also in a house with Elder Dube from South africa and Elder Bradshaw.. yes thats right its the same bradshaw that was in the MTC with us. He might be one of the funniest kids i know. Theres nothing like coming home after a long day of work and coming home to him and laughing about something, it keeps life interesting and fun. When i first came in the first thing i heard was that Marilia my recent convert is one of the strongest members in the branch and that she is one of the best recent converts that elder mills has ever taught... it was awesome! There is truly nothing better than hearing that your recent converts are strong and helping the church out. 

I also got to baptize Fernando this week... and of course as it was a group baptism a million things had to go wrong. Turns out he had to go to work in Musulu an island off the angolan coast and that he was gonig to be about 2 hours late.. it was all good though because even though we cleaned and left the font to fill in the middle of the night it ran out of water so when we got there, there was only about 1 foot of water.. so we had to cut the top off of 2 water containers and fill it up mannually. It took about 1 hour and a half to fill it up to a level that was satifactory. The baptism went super well though and we got our traditional jumping pic so everything is all good. I saw benficas branch president, Nataneil, there and he is a boss.. i got to be super close with him in benfica and i didnt get to say goodbye to him before i left, but i saw him saturday so it was a nice little reunion. Zone leader work isnt anything special here in angola.. over rated id say.. but its been fun to help other missionaries out. 

Also a lot of missionaries who are going home around the same time as i am and who are studying at BYU are already about to choose classes and what not, im just curious on the process on this and when we should start worrying about this stuff, and how you guys did it with josh and zach. Its always good to get a nice head start on things

Elder Webber

Late, Short and Sweet...

Well transfers are finally here and i'm going to be heading back to the first area that i served in here in angola. I'll be going back to Nova Vida, and will be serving with Elder Mills from Arizona as Zone Leader of the Luanda Zone. 

I'm pretty excited to be heading back and to see the progression of the area from the time that i and elder conde opened to now. 

Since the last time that i wrote you nothing happened, just a lot of good byes and finishing up my work here in the office and in Benfica. Its been real and its been great. 

Busy, Busy Stress, and a Cryptic email

Well this was probably the most stressful 2 weeks of my life, for reasons that I cannot say at the moment but will be revealed soon. Lets just say Elder Mitchell and I had some great life and marriage training these last 2 weeks, training that was once in a live time and is better than any other kind. These last two weeks we cried laughing, balded a little, fell asleep in lessons, saw things no other man wants to see. Its also been a long time since ive emailed, but it feels like a emailed yesterday because these 2 weeks have flown by. Last week we had an awesome baptism with junior! He loved it, he might be the funniest kid I have met here in Angola, and it was awesome being able to teach him with his brother Taric. We had a ton of fun teaching Junior and seeing him grow from a shyer kid to having friends and a huge testimony. Its very interesting how the gospel helps us in more ways than just spiritual. Also Taric has grown to be one of my great friends here in Angola and I will miss him dearly as I am leaving this area here in a couple of days. It makes me terribly sad to know that it has finally come but I am ready to go and be a normal missionary. I loved being in the office, I learned a ton of live long skills that will be very helpful after the mission. I have loved serving in Benfica and being in this area. I also love love love the recent converts here.. my only wish is to see them all get sealed  or go on missions, that would be amazing! It will be very heart aching to have to say goodbye to all the great members here in Benfica. I hope I have a chance here in the future to come back and visit with them all. Many have already offered places to stay, Valdemiro and Vanusa said they want me to come back with my something something “wife”.

Another reason why it was so stressful this week and why we didn’t have p-day on Monday was that a auditor from the south Africa area office came in and did an audit. That was a very stressful very tiring 4 days.. we would get to the office early and leave late. Thing was that we still tried to get some lessons in, which we tried our best, but didn’t do really well. Fernando however is progressing really well and is being interviewed today. It feels like I’m ending one of the bigger chapters in my life. I feel like i've learned more in this area and calling than I have the whole time I was in high school. Elder Mitchell I will probably miss the most however, these 2 transfers have flown by and I would have to say it is all because of him and his help and fun. Its been a really fun and exciting way to end my time here in Benfica and here in the office. Happily, I already know where i'm going and where im serving.. I am very excited, even though it will be a little bit of a déjà vu.

I have a lot to say but not a whole lot of time to say it, this will just have to be all explained when I go home or when I see you guys in a couple of weeks. Ill let you know where i'm going on Monday, I send a small email to say hello and inform you all what the transfer is. For other news theres not much, im alive, working, sad, but very excited!

A Wonderful Mother...

Not a lot happened this week, just more of the usual work. We really didnt do anything special other than junior, tarics little brother, is prepared and ready for his baptism next week. We are all pretty excited for that. Other then that i really have no other kind of news or anything cool that happened this week.. more of a ho um kind of week as we just did our usual lessons and helped our investigators we currently have work and progress better. Maybe the coolest thing that happened this week was the love of a mother we saw for one of her kids. After we visited this potnetial missionary we later started speaking to his mother who began to express her desire for him to serve the lord and go on a mission.. after almost 10 mins of her venting and telling about the problems facing this young man i started slowly seeing my own dear mother in her eyes and i could have sworn hearing moms voice.. it was pretty crazy.. it was a nice little slap to help me remember how much love mothers have for their sons and how much they wish and hope that their children do what is right. After you are on the mission for the long time you slowly start to forget more and more about your family and the feeling its like when your with them, but it seems that heavenly father every now and again puts a little reminder into our lives to help us remember that we have a loving family back at home and that i have a great mother who wants the best for me and who has taught me what to do and how to do it correctly... and for that i will be eternally grateful.. Thank you mother.

I have nothing else to report as we are finding new people, helping less actives and working great together.. im another week closer to leaving this area and its heartbreaking knowing that ill never work here again and that ill have to leave my great companion.. this last month has flown by.. All else is well here in Benfica.. all is quite and the work continues.. Also thank you for the report on honey, it was very sad to read and i almost shed a tear... almost.. 2 kittens you say? that would not have been my choice but thats just me.. i would like another dog again.. maybe when i move out ill get a nice little puppy.. hahahahah just kidding mom

Elder Webber

Interesting Supermarkets

Well this week was a quick welcome to the hot season here in Angola... every day this week was a battle against sweat and the heat. I cant believe i forgot how hot it gets here in Angola. Its all good because we but the foot to the pavement and went to work and found a lot of new investigators and the members were making it rain with referrals. We are teaching a new family, Job and Graça who are doing really well. Job is a boss and has a ton of questions, Graça is a lot more quiet but still loves to learn more. We had family night with them last week and once again family night comes in for the win! every time we passed by they asked when would be the next time for family night... it was a ton of fun esspecially because job taught us this weird african version of sorry and trouble... it was a ton of fun 10/10. We are also teaching the uncle of WIlma and Yolene. Hes a bit slowler but understands really well when he understands... its been fun teaching him and trying new ways to describe and explain confusing things. We are also teaching a man named Nelson who is also doing really well... he works for he Angolan CIA i guess you could say. Also Antonia and Junior and Ciara are all donig really well. They all came to church this week and Junior is really excited for his baptism. 

This week also was a tough one because the super markets here in angola are very very unreliable.. one week you could have everything you could ever want.. but the next week there could be absolutely nothing... last week was one of those weeks.. We had zero protein in our house and a whole lot of carbs.. zero veggies and fruit but a whole lot of milk.. so engery was 0% and health was also 0% but as always we can always find some kind of reserve energy that can get us through the day.. its always a mircale and seems to be the biggest miracle. Also this week Manual was baptized. His brother in law did the baptism and it was great, a lot of members came out to support him and it was a great day all around. He was taken out of our area after dawson came in since our area split so we only saw him on sundays, but this sunday he wanted us to participate in is confirmation which is always a great experience that i love. Not much else.. we dont have much time to write so i try my best to give you the scoop on what angola is like and what the mission life is.. 

Elder Webber

Lots of Driving...

This week was aight. Nothing new really happened. We did a whole ton of driving around again and trying to find some random electrical part for the mission office. Being angola it made it about a million times harder to find that piece. It took about 4 hours driving from store to store looking for this little thing that without it the whole mission office doesn't have energy. We would get to one store and they said that they don't have it and send us to the next one.. 5 stores later we end up wayyyyyy out in Viana, we finally buy it and head back home with just enough time for the condo handy man to come over and put it in. It was pretty sweet though, we just had a nice little chat just elder mitchell and i because we received another missionary this last week so a duo split up and one of them, Elder Dawson, is now here in benfica with elder mashalaba, so in other words.. NO MORE TRIO!!! yipee!! It was only a week and it was already making my eye twitch go out of control! 

Also Carlos and Eduarda came back from visiting their daughter in england so it was super nice to sit down with them after 15 days. They are almost done with the book of mormon and carlos yesterday just received the aaronic priesthood, so everything is going very well with them. They also had a chance to go to church there in england which was super nice for them to see how big the church can be and how nice all the chapels are. 

Other then that nothing really happened here, we had an awesome lunch saturday where we went out and bought some frangueté, its just some dang good chicken roasted in a paper sack over an oil drum with onions and other spices. We went and bought 3 whole chickens for our whole house and cooked up a ton of noodles and had a nice little feast before fast sunday.. which is the hardest day of the month.. its so brutal.. At church there was no space at the inn so elder mitchell and i just went and sat on the floor in the back of gospel doctrine, and for elders quorum we stood outside the door not hearing a single word... go ahead and ask if i learned anything this sunday.... NOPE i didn't.. but its all good cause our investigators enjoyed it a lot. Elder dawson rolled up this week on tuesday and brought with him a chess board.. so in a house with 6 missionaries you can bet it gets a little heated.. Top 3 reasons for companionship problems here in angola... #1 debate if powdered milk or boxed milk is better #2 chess #3 and beating your companion in the game at family night

all is well here in angola and benfica.. just trying to ignore the fact that my time here in benfica is winding down to a close... sad day

Elder Webber

photos of the drive... 

this is suppose to be a 3 lane road but in traffic it quickly turns to be 6

the crew