Elder Chipman's Adventures in Africa: Week 11 - Chamanculo A

Feliz Dia de Independencia!

June 25th is Mozambique's Independence Day and with the end of Ramadan yesterday there is some good partying going on down here hahaha.

This week was another great one. We had the chance to visit with Junior to get him all prepped for his baptism and everything went so smoothly for his baptism. The best part was that his family showed up too to be with Junior on his special day. He was super scared to get in the water and then it didn’t help that the water was pretty chilly. His testimony was great that he bore and it just solidified the fact the Junior will be a solid member and priesthood holder here soon.

Other than that, we had a couple of improvisations go down with a division with the AP's on Tuesday. It was very nice tho, I was able to walk with Elder Smith. It was our first time walking together since Beira and it will probably be our last time until August. But we are teaching some really great people still. Elder Griffeth and I found Sheila this week knocking doors on Tuesday, taught her on Friday and she came to church on Sunday. Sheila is an older lady who just recently moved backed to Mozambique from South Africa because she divorced from her husband after 25 years being together. She said that she has been looking for something that can bless her and her family’s life after many hard years of trials and problems. She told us that it seems like she found it right off the bat with our message and the feeling she had a church. We are also teaching Benjamin who is probably the closest thing to the Mozambican Ryan Gosling haha. He is a super smart business man and has been loving what he has been learning so far about the Church and the Priesthood being restored in these later days. On another note, all of the recently baptized members are doing great. Lurdes is participating in seminary, Nelio gave a talk in church on Sunday and will be receiving the Priesthood this Sunday, Shanaya gave a talk at the baptism which she was super nervous about but did a great job. So Chamanculo is really being blessed right now. And since I am hitting close here to 50 days the motto for these next couple of weeks comes from the homie, 50 Cent, "Find elects, or die trying."

For this week, I would love everyone to read, Elder Neil L. Anderson's talk from the past conference titled, "Overcoming the World". It is a simple message of how truly we can be in the world but not of the world and the things that we can do to always press forward in what the Lord wants no matter how much the world is changing around us.

Estamos juntos! Love you guys!

Elder Chipman

Shoutouts... Happy Bday to Ez on Tuesday! And shoutout to the homie Bubs for killing it on his homecoming talk! Miss ya boi!