The elders showed us a new internet cafe and we are trying it for the first time today. It seems to be quite fast – but that might change at any time – and so we might be able to actually post some pictures. It is our P-day so we can spend some time reading and answering e-mail as well as posting to this blog.

Yesterday was great. I attended PEC meeting for the first time and was impressed how they got things done without spending a lot of time on talking things to death. We then went to block meeting and I was asked to bear my testimony. It is nice to sit in a meeting 10,000 miles from home and understand most of what is going on. They do tend to pray very softly and in their native language. But that is OK because their spirits are so strong that I can feel what is being said.

The Priesthood lesson was one of the best I have ever been to. It was on missionary work and the teacher told the members that it was there duty to do missionary work because it was their branch and the missionaries were just visitors who would go home someday. So they needed to work harder at introducing their friends and neighbors to the gospel. He told how he was doing that and some others talked about their positive missionary experiences. All of us missionaries – there are 4 elders serving in the branch – were certainly happy to hear what he had to say.

In the afternoon we went out with a pair of elders – one is actually a priest who is serving with the zone leader elder Wright while his companion is recovering from a soccer injury – and taugh a young woman. I ended up telling her the Joseph Smith story and about my own conversion. I bore testimony that if she would ernestly prayed to find out if this was the only true and living church on the earth she would get an answer. I am not sure she will do that but as I looked her in the eyes and bore that testimony I knew that she knew I knew what I said was true.

The Young Single Adults in the different branches held Valentines dances. They were great success. One young lady who is investigating the church we met with on Saturday night said she had a wonderful time and made a lot of friends. They hold their dances in the afternoon or early evening so people can get back to their boardings before dark if possible. Transportation is a big problem here – as it was in Indonesia – and most people like to get home before the sunsets.

We are really enjoying our mission. It is much different from our experience in Indonesia. Just being able to drive ourselves around is a great change. We are still rather timid about going off the main roads with our car because we are not sure of the quality of the dirt roads. We have been on some roads with the elders in their trucks that look more like streambeds than roads. But even having a truck does not mean you will not get stuck. Just last week a pair of elders managed to get their bakkie – think pick-up truck – stuck so deep in the mud that they had to abandoned it until they could find a member with a tractor to come pull them out.

We know we are where we should be and doing the work we should be doing. It does not seem possible that we have only been on our mission less than a month.