Elder Chipman's Adventures in Africa: Week 5 - Liberdade A

The following pictures are from the Fairview B area in Swaziland where 2 "Mulungoes" (white guys) found Santa Suits to be Papa Natal at the Makholweni Mercy Center.

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Ye ye ye ye what’s up ya eskimos? Just thinking about being in weather lower than 50 degrees at this point just makes me want to curl up in the fetal position next to a fire so I have no idea how you guys are handling the negatives! But, I hope the weather starts turning around for you guys! Other than that, tho it sounds like everyone at home is doing good! Every week I am just more and more excited to hear the news about the new babies! I cannot wait to see the pics of baby Rue and baby Mads!

As for the week, down here it was a really good one. Elder Bindanda and I were able to get some good work in finding new investigators and having some investigators come to church with a pretty busy week so we are happy with it. This week I headed out to the famous area of T3 to do a division with the one and only Elder Burchett! It was a super fun day talking about the good ol' 801 and working out in his area. And then also on Saturday, I had a division with Elder Dutra just on the other side of Liberdade, and it was such a good time working with that dude. On Saturday, we headed out early though to go to the church to clean and prep for the baptisms of Carolina and Malika. The baptisms went super well! It was the first baptismal meeting that went way smooth with no complications so it was nice. I had the privilege to perform the baptism of Carolina and President Goncalvez baptized his granddaughter, Malika. So, it is always a bonus to the day when you start with some baptisms. We were able to visit some of my favs in Lib. B and get some other baptismal interviews done.

Sunday, we had a really cool experience with 2 investigators that came to church. First, with Telez, who we have been teaching all this transfer and promised us this week he would come. He always tells us how he knew the church in Beira and knew Brother Mapenda who helped bring the church there and also President Goncalvez who helped bring the church here in Maputo. He showed up super early and was just sitting by himself waiting for the meetings to start and I kid you not every single member that walked in knew him haha. So now we have lots of members that are going to be working with us to help get Telez, his wife Maria, and all of his kids baptized. The second comes from Manuel. We started teaching Manuel (16 years), all of his sisters, and his mom this week and they have progressed super well so far. Manuel was the only one that was able to come to church this week but when he got there it was showtime baby. The kid got up during sacrament meeting and bore his testimony like a champ and then participated in all the classes, saying prayers, asking and answering questions! The kids good so we got lots of hope for him and his family this next transfer.

So, with the big update I won’t leave a long spiritual thought but I would just like to invite you guys this week to study the talk, "The Blessings of Worship" by Bishop Dean M. Davies. I love this talk and learned so much studying it this week. Love for our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ should be the center motive of everything thing we do. When we are able to do that, we will truly be built upon a sure foundation which is our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And its upon that rock where we will feel the security and joy that Heavenly Father wants us to feel in this life.

Love you guys! I hope everyone battling sickness' start feeling better and that you guys have a good warm week! Miss all of you tons! Thank you for the prayers and love!

Love,

Elder Chipman