BUSY weeks make for BUSY days.

Okay here is the recap. The internet isn't super reliable but its working for now! Here it goes:

Monday- Went to the funeral of one of the women from the Maputo II branch that we had met at our line dancing activity. She died of an Asthma attack, and it was interesting to see how funerals are done here in Mozambique. Everyone there was very friendly and one of the men was nice enough to give us (the girls) a ride back to ADPP which is like a half hour out of his way, people are so nice here. Then for family home evening we were in charge of the treat and activity, so we made tin-foil desserts with fresh apples, pineapples, bananas, and coconut...they were amazing.

Tuesday-Went to teach in the morning and then in the afternoon went to go meet Mia Couto, a very famous writer within the lusophone literature community. He was so down to earth and had some great stories to tell us, he is an ecologist as a formal profession but is a writer on his free time...basically like superman, well kinda.

Wednesday-Taught during the morning again and then in the afternoon went out to go visit an orphanage where most of the kids parents had passed away due to AIDS. The kids were all so fun and taught us some dances and games that they like to play, which was awesome. Then we started taking pictures of them and they wanted to use the cameras, it was the funnest thing for them, so we have like 100 pictures of random things now, but it kept them entertained!

Thursday- Went and taught in the morning again, which went well although the kids have trouble really getting what I'm teaching and with 60 students and only 45 minutes that doesn't really add up to much progress, but they at least pay attention most of the time. In the afternoon we went and met a congress woman who works at ADPP and is from Portugal. She has a HUGE house down the street from ADPP is a poet and her late husband was a very famous painter here in Mozambique, and so she let us go hang out at her house and swim in her pool, which was almost surreal. I had gone by that house so many times wondering who it belonged to and now I know!

Friday-Dr. Williams asked me and two other students here to make a 1 and a half hour drive out to Shangalane, which is still in the Maputo Province to go teach for the afternoon at One World University, which is a 4 year institution giving bachelors degrees in Education. So I went and rode to this super rural but lovely brand new university in a 4x4 truck, taught college (weird, I know)for the afternoon, and rode back in the same truck this time out in the back of it. It was so fun because it looks so rural, just like you see on the movies, it was sunset, and absolutely beautiful.

Saturday-Got up ate breakfast and went down town for a day of shopping. We went to the artesanato fair, meaning it was a fair where people displayed the crafts they had made and got some sweet souveneirs for people. Then we walked up to the main street and went to Mimmo's to celebrate Kailey's birthday, she turned 18 today, yay! Then a man recognized us as the white people from ADPP and gave us a ride home in the back of his truck which saved us from having to catch a Chapa, the little VW busses that they cram 30 people into during rush hour, we are blessed!

Tomorrow-District Conference, which means we get to sleep in a bit! Yay, Okay and here are some more pics...
Me and Christina, a woman I met in the Province of Gaza, you take a 40 Km. dirt road out to her hut and she will be there. Doesn't speak portuguese but Shangana, the native dialect. She was so nice and kind, even though there was a language barrier there, I could tell she was a warm and loving person, som


Lana and I having lunch of Xima (a paste made from ground up corn) Hortela (pumpkin leaves mixed with peanut oil) Mandioc root, and chicken. It was really good, simple and good.


When we were leaving the community they gave us some Cashew fruit, which is what I am eating in the picture, and to tell you the truth, I hate the fruit as much as I hate the juice, big surprise there! But I smiled and ate it anyway....


When I say we ride around in the backs of trucks a lot, I'm not joking! It's actually a lot nicer for us because there are less people stepping on toes, pushing into you etc. I just try not to think about what would happen if we crashed!


A market, just wanted to picture what we see every day here while driving around.


Sunsets here are awesome, this was on the way back from Gaza, which was about 300 Km away from where we are living, it was an experince getting there!

PICTURES!!!

Here they are....well some, but I'll keep'em coming!


1. Half way through "gettin my hairs did" it took like 12 hours and hurt like a mo-fo.
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2.The end result of the hair, the guys took to calling me mermaid for the time I had it in. I agree it does look pretty mermaid-ish. This is at the natural history museum of Mozambique.

3. Teaching Line dancing to the Maputo II branch, we will be teaching the entire distrct line dancing again on june 14th if anyone else wants to come you're invited:)

4. Going out to macaneta beach, in the Chapa, thats Kailey, Blake, and Paul. Love those kids!

5. We had to cross a river on that ferry boat, the river was filled with with floating lilly pads, and a local also explained that they get hippos and crocodiles sometimes through there, anyone wanna go for a swim?
6. Everyone, the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean, this is everyone. I LOVED this beach, absolutely beautiful.

7. The cutest little boy, Junior that we met last Sunday while out on an afternoon walk, his mother was so nice and spoke amazing english, she sells vegetables she grows herself in her yard. I want to go visit them again soon.

I will post more soon, its lunch time but there are some for the meantime, love you all!

My time in the Hospital in Mozambique...

So This week was going just fine until tuesday aftenoon, but before I get into that big old story let me give you a wrap up of the weekends activities...

Saturday-We rented a big car, mom it was like the "30 seconds of sheer terror" Mercedes from last summer's europe trip and we all headed out to this beach that is literally in the middle of no where called Macaneta. We had some hired drivers take us and it was sucha beautiful beach, white sands, no other people there, just us. It was perfect.

Sunday-This week we went to yet another Branch this time in Matola. Also watched conference this weekend since the district here (they don't have a stake yet) hadn't seen the Sunday sessons yet. President and Sister Packard were there along with a member of the Area presidency. We went and said hello and introduced ourselves, and Janae the Packards say hello to you and your fam! They said it's so good to hear your are doing well:) Then in the afternoon we went walking with a boy here from the matola branch into some neighborhoods. He is 18 and getting ready to go on his mission and will be great, he already brings entire families to church with him. We met some super cute kids, took pictures of them which they thought was AMAZING digital cameras are a new thing to them and seeing the picture immediately always made them giggle. I also talked with a girl about my age who had a 4 month year old, and that baby was abosolutely adorable. They were all so kind and warm, and had us take some raw sugar cane home as a treat. We decided that we would go do that more often, it's a great way to start talking about the church because at some point they all ask "why are you here so far from home" and then "serve your fellow man" and all that comes into play...

Okay now for the crazy story...

So Tuesday I woke up fine, but by 11 am I was feeling queasy so I cut my tutoring session short, which by the way that girl is doing amazing, I honestly think she is the reason I came here. Anyway I felt sick so I went home and slept until I woke up with a fever, and then I started throwing up then I got a huge hedache that felt like someone had hit me in the head with a baseball bat. My body ached all over and I could barely get out of bed. I thought this was like maybe a 24 hour flu but it wasn't getting better only worse. I couldn't sleep all night because I either was running a fever or freezing cold.

Wednesday I woke us even worse with a bigger fever, and I hadn't been able to eat or drink anything and get it to stay in my system since tuesday morning, so our study abroad director took me to the Sommerfield Clinic which is basically the outpatient hospital that the embassaries and their families use here in Maputo. I guess I looked pretty bad when I got there because they took me straight to a bed and took my vitals. I was dehydrated and still throwing up with a fever, and a high pluse and other medical stuff that I guess was serious so they gave me an IV of saline and some medicine to stop me from throwing up. A few hours later they decided to send me home with some anti-biotics to take over night and see how I would do with those. Well, I promtly threw that up as soon as the medicine they gave me for nausea wore off and kept throwing everything up all night, I could feel myself becoming more and more dehydrated.

Thursday I woke up to the director telling me he had called a cab and they were taking me back to the hospital, since I was worse and couldn't take my medicine. My roomies later told me when they looked at me when they got up and looked at me sleeping in my bed that I was seriously yellow. Um, not normal. When I got to the hospital they said I would have to get my antibiotics interveinously since I was too sick to take them orally. They put me in a hospital bed, drew lots of blood, gave me my second IV line in 2 days, and for those of you who know how much I hate blood and needles know that this was not fun for me. Thank goodness I was too out of it to really care. My tests came back negative for malaria for the 2nd day in a row and also negative for Dengue and some other crazy deseases which was good news. They knew I had an infection but couldn't figure out what it was. So they kept me on an IV and told me they were going to admit me to a nearby hospital and keep me there for 48 hours while they figured things out and when I looked good enough I would be allowed to go home. I was sad because I am so far away from my family and friends and spending the night in a hospital alone didn't sound like a good time. At the same time I knew that if that's what needed to happen that that's what I would do.

So then I fell asleep...and when I woke up I felt SO much better, my roomie Kaylee who was with me said I looked better and all the nurses and doctors said the same...Anyway 9 hours later they said I was in good enough shape to go home since my vomiting had stopped and my fever had broken and my vitals were normal again! So after an IV bag of atibiotics and a few bags of saline I was back in my "home" in Machava at ADPP. My brazilian friends who I met here (love by the way that no matter where I am I seem to find brazilian friends:) gave me a welcome home present of a hot shower up at their house, those girls are wonderful!

Anyway long long story longer...I am feeling much better now, not 100% but for sure good enough to sit here and write all this up. My rapid recovery I atribute 100% to the blessing I was given when I got sick that promised me that I would be healed promptly, I am so thankful for priesthood blessings and for the power of prayer. I am finally eating again today, some soup and plain white toast which after 3 days without eating tasted amazingly good! I missed work and my students were asking for me, guess they like me after all:) I'll start again on monday hopefully.

BTW-ADPP got our group a computer and internet so I can upload some pics and stuff when I feel up to it. They will be here soon! Okay I Will write more soon, thanks mom and dad for your prayers and support, they help even when they are coming from thousands of miles away, I love you both!

maybe some pictures today...

Hello everyone from downtown Maputo. I have today off, well kind of, I taught some 5th graders this morning a little bit of English for an hour and a half. They were so cute! We learned some colors in english, taught them the ABC's and also learned "head shoulders knees and toes".

So this week...

We had a crazy big rain storm complete with thunder lightning and everything. I got one National Geographic style photo of the lightning.

We went Saturday on a tour of the city where we saw the place Elder Scott dedicated mozambique for the preaching of the gospel, then we went and ate lunch at the Holiday in Maputo Which is a 5 star hotel here, very very nice. Then I went and laid on the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Sunday we went to church in Bemfica, which is different from where we went last week, we were just visiting that branch. We watched conference instead of having sacrament meeting because the saints of Mozambique are just now getting to watch it. They were kind of clueless as to what to do during the sustaining of President Monson, as was I when we had conference about a month ago, glad to see somethings in life are universal!

Monday- that was food poisoning day for me. I guess our cook had been pouring the new yourgurt she would buy into se same container as the old yougurt so it was going raincid at the bottom, and everyone kept eating it not knowing that was going on. So, I woke up that morning aroung 6 am threw up, and continued that for the rest of the day with a fever. But we talked to the cook, explained why layering new yougurt on old yougurt isnt a healthy practice, and we're all good now.

Tuesday-Teaching. This week the kids learned the imperative (the command form in english) and used "Irreplaceable" by beyonce as practice with it, as well as help on pronunciation. It was a big hit. Next we we'll do the "th" sound and use Chris Brown's "with you" for that...good times!

Wednesday-More teaching of course! I also had a girl as me to start tutoring here after she is done with school, I agreed and we started that on thursday. We also wento down to the corner to buy some fruit and stuff aroung 10 pm and noticed that the police were down there in full riot gear with m-16 machine guns....needless to say we hurried home when we saw that! Later I found out that is how they dress when they are breaking up the clandestine fruit vendors. Oh, okay...makes no sense to me seeing as how those fruit vendors are mostly older women, but whatever.

Thursday-Taught the same thing and also started tutoring the girl. She is probably like 16 or 17 and cant read or write anything but is a fast learner, I think I'll be able to help her a lot. Then we had a really good class on one of the short stories we had to read for class. I love the literature from this country, it is so beautiful!

Well really quick, Mom and dad thanks for signing me up to go white water rafting with Tisha and Dad, I am excited! And mom it was good to talk to you on the phone last saturday, happy mothers day again! Jill, thanks for passing along "J-money"'s letters, glad to hear things are going so well for him in the MTC!! Nuh...I am glad that you enjoyed Mexico, it is a beatuiful country isn't it! I am stoked to see those pictures!

In closing I tried to upload some pics but to no avail. I can't see which is which on this but soon!

The Day the Cobra Died

Lets see...

Monday I went to work, and lemme tell you I learned two things about myself. First, that I really like teaching but really have no clue what I'm doing (that comes with practice I guess) and the second thing is that I can chew kids out in Portuguese just as well as I can in English, which was surprising even to me! I had some kids during the afternoon that were being disruptive while I was teaching. Then I found out they really weren't in my class. I guess kids isn't the right term to use, most of them were about 20-22 years old. I told them to get up and get out and none of them moved an inch. Then I told them "seriously, you have ten seconds to get your butt off that chair and get out, I'm not playing" but in portuguese...and that did get them out quick. Before shutting the door I told them they wouldn't want to find out what would happen if they tried that again. Hmmm...good times

Tuesday-That was a good day, the kids I teach in the morning are younger and they are all so cute, they call me "teacher kris". None of the kids have books at this school because as one of the other teachers puts it "they are much too expensive, they cost 100 meticais" which translated into american dollars is around 4 bucks. So, sad as that is, I will have to be creative with the kids in giving homework when there is no book. Most just come to school with one notebook and a pen or two. But teaching on tuesday went well for the most part, no kicking anyone out of class and it went well.

Wednesday- I was done teaching around noon and I walked up to the house where our food is prepared for us, as I was walking up there in my flip-flops and capris one of the grounds keepers stopped me and said "don't walk any further, there is a cobra in the grass" and sure enough as i looked a bit father there were some other men throwing stones at a straight up cobra, not a regular snake, but a cobra-like the kind old guys from bangladesh hypnotize in baskets and stuff...it was hissing a ton, obviously not too happy! They got close enough to smash its head with a stick. It was obviously venimous and they showed it to me after it was dead, I thought the whole scene was surreal.

After that adventure we went (well me, Kaylee, Heidi, Jessica and Paul) put on our swim gear and headed to the nice part of the city where the UN, all the emabassies, and rich people in general are to go to the beach. It was absoultely beautiful and not I can say I have swam in the indian ocean!

Then Me, Lana, and Jessica taught country line dancincing as a young adult activity at the branch we attend here in Maputo. There were probably close to 100 people there and it was cool getting to teach dancing in a new language. Then we turned on some Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Chris Brown, and Usher and lemme be the first to say that everyone there got up to dance. even the litte 5 year old kid that stuck to my side like glue all night busted some sweet moves. And this other woman how is 6 months pregnant danced too. It was awesome! Everyone had a good time and Elder and Sister Davis took us home again to our house. They are truly angels for us, because catching a chapa (the little VW wagons that they squish up to 30 people in) at night isn't exactly super safe.


Today-I went to teach this morning after finally getting a shower. We have had no running water for the last 2 days, but it is back! Hooray, I will enjoy a nice warm shower upon my return to the US, of that I am certain! So, anyway I went to teach and 15 minutes into my lesson a teacher shows up at the door and says "I'm supposed to me teaching right now" which I guess he was. The schedule me and Blake, the other BYU intern I work with is all messed up and I have been kicked out of class 5 times now! I will talk to someone tomorrow to try and get this straightened out...

Right now I am in an internet cafe in the mall here in Maputo. The mall is super nice, just like one in the US complete with a multiple screen movie theater. It is nice to know where I can go if I am going absolutely crazy here in Mozambique, I can come here, get some ice cream, and see a movie. good to know. Anyway the time is almost up and we have to go fight to get on one of those Chapas during rush hour, wish me luck!

I'm working on the photos thing. They'll be up soon!

Sunday, Sunday, Suuunnndaaaay!

The title is to be read in the monster-truck derby announcer voice...just for fun.

Yesterday we went around the city down town and toured some of the major sites here. We have been really blessed to have Elder and Sister Davis, a missionary couple drive us around for some of the time here. They are so nice and Sister Davis and us girls are going to go shopping some time soon in the city, which will be great! The downtown area in some parts is very worn down, it makes me so sad sometimes to see the potential of the people here and the conditions they are living in, but that is the reason we are here, to try and help make a small diference in the lives of those around us. Speaking of why we're here...

Friday I went to the school where I will be working and it will be interesting for sure. None of the children have books to work out of, and it is up to me to create lesson plans and activities to help them learn english without any materials. We went and met every class that I will be working with and I introduced myself to all 12 classes. Yes, I will be teaching around 12-15 classes of english during the week, and their ages range from around 12 all the way up to 30 years old. This will def. be a challenge! I'm up for it though.

Thursday was the national labor day, so we watched two choruses that sang songs in Shangana, the native dialect here of Ronga, an African Language. It was so beautiful! After that we watched one of the schools teams play soccer against a visiting schools team. It was fun and I have some good pictures of both events, I will post them once I get a chance, I am sans camera at the moment.It was nice to have a day off to continue to recover from jet-lag and also sleep of a cold that I caught in the plane on the way to London. It is almost gone, and I am so glad!

Also, we have been getting to know some of the people who are around are age here and they are all so much fun! We had a girl teach us a dance last night that is from Beira, and also us 5 girls are going to get weaves and braid our hair HA! We have a friend buying the extensions for us, and another girl that we met here is going to braid it. Yes, I'm not kidding...so watch for pictures soon, it will be awesome! We decided when in Africa, do as the Africans do! The girls from here think we're crazy for wanting to braid our hair but oh well...it should be fun!

Today is obviously Sunday, and so we went to Maputo 2nd Branch, which will be our branch while we are here. Everyone is nice, and I sat with an investigator during Testimony meeting. The people here are so ready for the gospel it is amazing to me. I learned that the country was deiciated for the preaching of the gospel only in 1998 by Elder Scott. In 2000 a Mozambique mission was opened with only 6 elders, and now there are 2 missions and so many people are willing to talk to us about the gospel. This week alone we invited 3 people to church and all three are going to come next week. It is so nice to be able to share the gospel with people and live the "every member a missionary motto". And just so you don't think I am sitting in an interntet cafe paying to use the computer on the Sabbath, I am sitting in the mission office writing on their computer. The missionaries were kind enough to let us all come in and check out emails etc. Yay for kindness!

Tomorrow I will start teaching, and I still have to write a lesson plan for what I'll be doing for my first 5 classes tomorrow. I hope those kids don't eat me alive, some of them are pretty active and have lots of energy...I just hope I can keep up with them:)

Thanks to everyone for all the emails, comments, etc. that you send. It is always nice to open up my inbox or my blog and see your nice encouraging words. I hope you all have a wonderful sunday and a good week. Next time you hear from me I hope to put up some pictures and write about my first day of teaching.