Africa Week 2

well yea so i made it to balance ok im alive um... so my house is the chapel and yes its just me and my companion living out there we have a nice little place its sitting on like 10 aches and its all gated in its sweet in are front yard in a pineapple field in the back is mango and banana trees on the side are cashew trees and then all over we have coconut trees thrown in so its a nice little place i like it i would say if you could find the worst house in garden it would maybe be a little nicer than this house but for the village we live in its like a mansion! so the village is called balanca and yes it is out in the middle of nowhere, where the only house in the town is made of concret the rest are made of rocks or mud so we have it nice. um church... well my companion is the branch president i dont think he has counselors, there are about 40 people that come to church just a few of them are baptized and active! but were working on that i teach the young adult class and then church is over we only have 2 hour church so thats pretty nice! my companion is elder Peterson so far he is just like ryan seger to the T he is the state champ wrestler of utah he was in collage wrestling and pretty darn good, he has malaria right now so we just sitt around the house all day but he is feeling better so i think we will be out by tomorrow! yea the time difference is crazy here! it sometime hard to go to bed on stay up in the middle of the day but i am getting use to it! so the first day i got to my area in balanca if it will help explane how getto we have it we had to hunt a goat then we killed it then ate it for dinner that next day so its pretty crazy! its a wild city but because im white everyone is super super scared of me because here white only means two things money and power so every time you confront someone they are very very shy and just want to leave so you have to be extra open and make sure they know your a nice guy! the work is pretty hand right now just because i cant speak the language yet so its coming supppper slow but its coming i hope well i dont have much else cool that happened that i can tell you with out you freaking out so i will just save those stories from when i come home! needless to say its a crazy crazy town here and its everyman for himself! well im off but hope you are having a great time i love it here!

love elder Steel!


well i wasn't all alone on the bus! the presidents daughter is adopting a mozambique girl who is like 10 or so, so the president had her go with me because she needed to go back to beira to get her adoption papers! so i had a little friend! but it was at night so i just sleep most the time. yea your lucky you got that email off cause i dont know if you would have caught me but i heard that some times you can caught me online then we can chat back and forth so if you ever get the right timing on a monday morning maybe! my week has been good my companion has malaria so i didn't do anything yet just got to my house unpacked just messed around in the yard chucked some coconuts and just cleaned the house a little but he is pretty much better so were out in beira today to email and shop so i think we will be ready to go tomorrow then i get my real first lesson. so sunday i just got up my house in the chapel so mopped the floor and set up chairs then we had church about 40 people showed up which is about normal for that branch then the people who were going to speak bailed so my compaino and a sr missionary had to speak but my comp said that happens almost every week so just have a talk ready! then afte sacrament we split into young men young women's and primary and the old people class the sr. missionary taught primary my comp taught old people and i had a kid about 15 teach are class because i wasn't there and prepared but he did a good job! so after that we went to the next town of dondo the other elders have a house there and we stayed there so that the trip today wouldn't be so long and busy other wise we wouldn't do to much email in are little jungle out there! so its kinda true that were not baptizing because we can baptize but it has to be after at least 5 weeks and they have to be living every commandment with exactness, because the week before i got here they had to x comunicate like 10 members cause they were baptized just because it the missionaries asked them to and then they went right back to sleeping with everyone and smoking and selling drugs so we dont baptize much unless they are really ready, president said it best what is more importrand the wedding day of planning the marriage so thats what we work off of! and they to get the members more involved they baptize them so even if we had someone ready they members will baptize them not us. so that kinda cool! and that will be in effect till i get a new president at least! im to help you visualize just think of Hawaii with crazy amount of trash and naked people running wild! that is were i live! and i think i will be able to get pictures cause they said packages are good to send and come in! so i will be able to do that no letters just packages so i will try to send you some cool stuff! nothing will get robbed because if you rob in this city they beat you till your limp stuff you in a tire and light you on fire its a pretty nasty thing to see! crazy place but good new cause im not getting robbed! haha! well talk to you next week i hope your having a great time dont worry about me i have the lord on my shoulders plus they pray for me in every temple and in most mormon families so im in no harm pray about ryan and tayler! love you miss you bye
Amo, Elder Steel