Jonathan's Mozambique Mission 2017-2019: The Office: "Camping Edition" Luaha

Another great week and another crazy adventure hahahaha. I love the mission.

The first couple days in the week we were just doing a ton of Office work to try and prepare for the weekend outside of the office, but when Friday came we woke up early, went to the airport and we flew way up north to a place called Nampula.

There are three major cities where the mission has zones and areas and those are Maputo, Beira, and Nampula. Now I have officially been to all of them which was pretty awesome. Nampula is a lot different than Maputo and Beira but in some ways they are similar. The biggest difference is that Nampula is suuupppeerrr clean. They even have little trash cans in the city to throw your trash. I was one hundred percent blown away. Also, tons of motorcycles so that makes it a little scary driving around. But also Nampula has MOUNTAINS! hahahaha At times I felt like I was back in Utah; it was so great to see the mountains again.

So we flew up and pretty much just got dropped off in the city to just explore and do contacts while the Zone Leaders were preparing everything. We met up with our guys, the Assistants, and they showed us the city better as they both had worked there for a long time. Then we had a family night where we talked about how we can receive personal revelation and answers to prayers. We talked about how just like a manga tree we will notice the small growth of revelations and answers when we start to see the fruits of the gospel in our lives. We also were fed amazing food, so that was a huge bonus.

Then we started our trip, We had 11 people and two trucks..... so one had president and all the leaders and then the other had the 6 missionaries in it. hahahaha wow 5 hours in the back seat of a truck with 4 people hurts pretty bad, but it was way worth it.

When we got there we were welcomed by some of the members there with some cool chants and songs and then we had a small meeting where President Senna spoke about the people of Luaha (the district to which we went) and how great it was to see the church so strong in a place so far away from everything else. We also then learned about the backstory to Luaha and how everything happened.
The whole thing started with a guy named Presidente Bento. Apparently about 20 years ago he got super sick and went to Portugal to try and get better. There he started investigating churches and ended up finding the church and being baptised. Then he came back to Mozambique and found out that the Church hadn't yet made it to Nampula. It was in Beira and Maputo, but way up north in Nampula the church hadn't even been heard of. So he started to teach his family, and from there the church grew and grew. Today Presidente Bento has 80 years and the church in Nampula has 4 Branches and the group in Luaha with over 1000 members. It's incredible! Plus the dude is super awesome and all the people of Luaha were so humble and kind to us the whole time.

When we finished with the meeting, we set up the tents and set up some stuff with the new Solar Panel that the church bought for Luaha so that they could watch conference and stuff like that way out there. So we set up lights and stuff like that for them and figured some glitches out with the Solar panel and then we went hiking.

All of the missionaries and the Branch Presidente that went with us - we went to visit people. We walked a ton. There really only exists trails that go through the brush along side a mountain and so we just followed the trail until the end, inviting people to come to church and teaching small lessons.

We had plans to baptise a couple that got married the last time Presidente went to Luaha but they weren't quite ready so the baptism will happen in about a month. Sadly we won't be there haha but yeah we spent the whole afternoon just walking and inviting, It was super fun and interesting to try and communicate with the people. About 6 people there spoke Portuguese and the rest only spoke Dialect so we had to struggle and try and learn a few things to say to them but it was super interesting.

Then came Sunday with church and we had about 115 people at church that day with 10 of them being people that we invited. We helped teach lessons and direct discussions with the help of translators and we showed them the normal 3 hour block of church and how it works.

I got a chance to help give a young man the priesthood and also to give a blessing to a woman who had recently lost feeling in an arm and a leg of hers. As I was out there I just felt like I could be a missionary forever, the love I felt and the way that the messages that we shared touched the people was something I will never forget.

The only bad part of the trip was that there is a missionary rule that you can't sleep on the same bed as someone else, super great rule right? True, it just worked against me this time, We didn't have enough room for 4 pads in our tent so I ended up just sleeping on my side on the ground..... took me back to the days of Scouts when I was always too lazy to bring a pad so I just suffered on the ground.... hahaha (now we have to think if it was laziness or divine preparation ;) hahaha But it was incredible.

Then we drove back and ate in this Hotel called Seasons, where I had an Alfredo de Shrimp. Probably the best thing I have eaten in a long long time, then we flew back.

The trip was definitely 5 stars and 2 thumbs up, I learned a lot and I saw a lot. I found especially interesting how the people were able to love life so much. They live so simply, and yet they find happiness in the simplicity. I hope that we can all find time in our lives to slow down and enjoy the simplicity of the Gospel in our lives and let it run freely, alleviating a lot of the stress and worries in our modern lives. I also learned that to disconnect is a great way to reconnect with the things that matter most. I love the church and the opportunity I have to serve God building up his kingdom in all corners of the earth. I know that God loves the people of Luaha just as he loves each one of us. The church really is progressing to reach each and every individual I hope that your week goes great and everyone stays good!

-Love Elder Thornton

Luaha - camping out!