Here are a few pictures shared by the Osbornes of the areas they visit each day, with Lane's camera being stolen this is the best thing we have.

Elder and sister Osborne sent us this clip of a baptismal number you will recognize the tune and maybe the language. We think elder Steel is far left in the video but really not sure! enjoy!!

The good Elder finished his house and was promptly transfered. but, as luck would have it, he is a zone leader over the area that he just came from so he is still in touch with those areas! He had a companion that he came into the mission with but has since had another transfer and got a new companion. here is a photo of the latest companion and lane in their area. We only wish he still had a camera to photo journal his days and weeks! What experiences he is gaining!

well as all knows, one of the many times elder steel has been robbed, they finally got his camera! bummer for all of us and him, so we never got to see the house finished! but, here it is thanks to the goodness of elder and sister Osborn who will send us photos once in a while! That house looks good huh? keep it up elder!!!

So the young Elder Steel is been working extra hard on the house. His deadline is april so he is feeling the crunch! but as you can see he is making great progress. He said goodbye to another companion in his words he killed another one! Hang in there Elder your day will come!

Our adventuresome elder writes: so we come home one night and we walk down the hall to go change and the zone leader elder barlow he almost stepped on a snake so he ran back and started yelling cobra cobra cobra!!!!! so i ran to the other room and grabbed my camera but the problem was that he was right infront or my door to my room where my machette is so i didnt have that to kill him with so i grabbed a broom so we filmed it and I stopped him with the broom and elder barlow tryed to crush his head in but he missed and now the snake was dang mad so he stricked and the force of the strike got him out from under the broom then he started to come after me at full speed so I started to scream like a little girl and just beat the broom against the ground hopping that i would hit him jumping up and down so that if he did try to strike he might miss! well in my fit of joy I got the snake pined under the broom and this time it was with all of my force so i yelled at the top of my lungs at elder barlow who was like.... 2 feet away from me in a pirate caption voice to kill the lad now mate!!! im not sure why i just got feeling like jack sparrow at the time so after he poounded his head in with a tree branch i picked him up and took pictures! but he was still having reflexes when he was dead so i was still really scared to pick him up! but i did so me and my comp took pictures with our kill of the day!

I finally got to see one of my investigators baptized today, that is a big payday!

He also writes that last week was carnival and everyone was in the streets dressed in anything, everything, and nothing! Glad he didn't send those photos! He sent a picture of a shower where he is at! He says "the people are so poor here that when it rains they run outside and shower in the run off from the roof!". Those are fun pictures! Also he wanted us to see his food mainstay Rice and something on top! YIKES anybody ever think Elder Steel would have eaten that prior to mission life! I wonder if he will still hate hot dogs?!! Also he said this lady with the braided hair had the coolest mowhawk he had ever seen! And how about that house He says I don't know how much longer I will be here but I hope I can stay long enough to see this house built. I have built, and laid every block in that thing and I would like to see it finished!

He is almost half done now! and NO the time has not gone by fast!

More good news from Elder Steel.....I'm still alive!! thats good to hear. Dad worries alot about that, since the good Elder states"everything that can kill you lives in Mozambique" I keep hoping they will transfer him to the city where there might not be so many poisonous snakes!! A few recent pictures for all to enjoy.

There have been hurricane warnings and lots of rain, which has caused flooding. Lane is wearing boots and the water is over his boots in some places. This is monsoon season, so they will have lots more to come.

So, in the words of the all famous and much missed Elder Steel, so good and bad news we have my team and a team in the congo that are trying this project so the team in the congo decided that it cant be dont its to hard! so just my team is the only one working on it so now were starting to draw attentino so on jan 23 they are coming down to look at my progress and see if it can be done so, thats kinda cool but kinda scarey at the same time so now the weight of all the churchs in africa is resting very squarly and heavly on 4 elders shoulders and one married elder! but it feels good! i think I work better on the hot spot! but because we are on the watch now they can get us stuff that we need so this week they bought me a welder! with an auto darking helment! so that was like a tender mercy I get to weld again! well thats the work on the house!

The pictures are of his most recent trip to zone conference. 4 hours by vehicle (in the open box of a pickup on dirt roads and a long boat trip up the zambizi river) The adventures never stop! The Monkey is named Sharira but sounds like Shakira she is a pet monkey. He said everyone has a pet monkey. He thinks she was killed though he said she pulled off an abu and stole some fruit and they killed her! sad day. He still has an infection that causes severe itching and makes life generally miserable his shower has very little water pressure and the house has no doors, or windows. But even through all that he says he ;oves it here and would not want to be anywhere else! Go Elder Steel

Christmas is Coming....but not in Africa

First off i wouldn't want to go to any other mission!! This one is the best one hands down, I mean yeah it has its down falls but for the most part I love it. Every single time I get a new sickness or something bad happens to me you can pretty much count on the fact that i'm on the ground laughing cause i'm so happy i just keep thinking you can lay as many sicknesses on me cause i'm not breaking my spirits and it's only going to make a great story when i get home! So i'm not crushed about it I love it, I mean it stinks that i have to eat rice everyday but you win some you lose some! The work... well it pretty much stopped because we are just working on the house but when we went up to zone conference this weekend in Quilimoni, President said that he wants us to be more balanced, so just 4 hours of study, 4 hours of teaching, and 4 hours of house work, so hopefully this week our teaching will pick up cause i feel kinda left out of that group right now! I didn't get a new comp, that is why i was sent here though. Cause the kid before me got sick, not my comp, so last transfer the kid got sick and went home so then Presidnet moved me in, in his place. My staff, it is on and off some days it's not bad and other days i cant stop itching it! And it looks bad but for the most part I think it's pretty calm right now. I'm really not getting any sleep, and not very good nutrition, but oh well i'm still getting enough, and that is 8 times more than any other person in Africa.

The house is slowly coming this week or maybe next week we should have the floor laid with concrete, so moving along on that part!

So i was shopping for light bulbs for my house this week which i couldn't find, but i found a christmas tree so i now have a fake 2 foot christmas tree with lights! i got to do something to keep me sane, or what little sanity i have left!

(This is wear they drive to get the sand)

I get up at 4 in the morning, jump in the back of a pickup drive about an hour out into the most jungle part of Africa, dig 4 tons of sand out of the ground then place it in the truck, then drive back to the church and drop the sand off then drive back and repeat.

(After their 4-hour drive in the back of a pickup)

Thursday we traveled to zone conference, so to get there we got on a boat to a town called Luabel, which by boat on the zambie(which i drove by the way) is about 2 hours. Then from there we waited for a car, we waited for 4 hours then one car finally left our town but the car drove back in the same way we came in, so we past Marromeu! So we drove for like....4 hours on dirt roads inn the back of a pickup but getting rocked like a rag doll! Then finally we got to a paved road so we then drove the rest of the way to Quilimoni where we had conference.

(Dreaming what skiing would be like in Africa)

Well that was my week in a nut shell, hope everything else goes well at home only one more week till transfers here, next week we find out! com Amor, Elder Steel

October means summer?

photo update from elder, (110 degrees, snakes everywhere, rats the size of cats, no power therefore no a/c, could someone send me a translator that does conjugation)...Steel He still loves it and loves what he is doing, and we love him. Nice golf course?, mamba jamba snake charmers, looks like spinach dip??? but not sure

Water system, turn on the water grab two buckets run to the well fill till full return to house pour water into cups and yahoo you have water

Balanca Kids

Balanca pets