3rd Stake Conference

3rd Stake Conference choir

3rd Stake Conference nice building

3rd Stake Conference choir and Stake Presidency

  One of the goals of the Mission President, President Koch, was to help create a new stake in Munga.  That should be complete soon.  We are also hoping a new Stake in Swaziland and in Maputo will be created before the end of our mission.

I wanted to show you this nice building.  This is the only building the church has built here in Maputo although there are 4 wards in Matola and 5 wards in Maputo.  These wards make up the Maputo Stake. 

There is a new building to be dedicated next week in Maputo.  The wards that will be attending that building are the Polana Ward and the Sommershield Ward.  We attend the Polana ward right now so we will be attending the new building. 

The church has had to really watch their properties they have purchased here in Mozambique.  If the owner does not improve their piece of property, the Government will confiscate it.  Elder Ellis was here a few weeks ago to argue our case on confiscation to see if we could get the properties back that the church had purchased.
Our participation in stake choir has been quite an experience.  You know I love to go to choir and sing.  Stan is a great singer and musician but does not have the same drive I do to participate.  When we first were invited to sing, we went to practice and waited around for 1/2 hour for more than 3 people to show, even the choir director.  Then we didn't even open a piece of music for 45 minutes.  Then we practiced for 4 hours.  I was very tired but Stan was irate.  When I went to choir without Stan the next time, the member of the Bishopric that is a great musician approached me on why Stan was not singing any longer. I referred him to Stan to explain.  Stan explained that choir should start when the starting time is and he won't sing longer than 1 1/2 hours.  After that, the choir was there (Interject: Someone was just hit on the street.  I heard this screeching tires and a baby crying and lots of commotion.  We ran down to see if we could help.  We saw a Chapa driver out over loudly talking to a mother with a baby of about 1 year and 1/2 in her arms.  She was rubbing his head. They finally pulled over out of the traffic.  I hope she takes him to the hospital. Traffic in Maputo is horrendous.  I am surprised there are not more accidents.  And kids....how do they survive.  Amazing!!)on time and we were late.  Stan has supported the choir without complaining.

This past week, we had an assignment dropped into our laps.  Both the Stake Choir Specialist director and the musician mentor were going to be gone for the performance today.  They said to Stan and I that we needed to help the Stake choir director and the Stake pianist for the performances.  At practice last Sunday, our last practice before we performed, we went thru the songs.  They sounded pretty good on one song, a Sally De Ford arrangement of "I Need Thee Every Hour".  The other 3 songs were not good.  I suggested they just sing the hymns strait out of the hymn book without anything fancy.  We were able to get those songs pretty good but another arrangement of "Whenever I hear the Song of a Bird" needed some help on the final verse.  I suggested we just have a duet with two people who knew the parts instead of trying to teach everyone their parts in this one practice.  We chose one Mozambiquan who is a soloist and a sister missionary.  I worked with them this week on one extra practice.  They sounded good!

Then, President Koch, our Mission President told the missionaries they could only sing on Sunday, not for the Saturday session.  Wouldn't you know it!  "Whenever I hear the song" was to be sung on Saturday and we had chosen a missionary to sing.  No one would give.  Pres. Koch's directive stood and Pres. Castanhiera's directive that this song be sung on Saturday rather than Sunday stood.  So, Saturday comes to sing this song and we fell apart at the part the duet should be.

However, the Sunday performance of "I Need Thee" was so amazing!  I felt like the angels were there singing this song.  It was so amazing.
Talking of driving, I remember a chase scene in a movie that shows the one being chased going down the wrong side of the road and eventually driving on the sidewalk and thru little tiny alleys.  I saw that now that I have experienced Maputo driving and found it amazingly similar to daily driving here, although not at those speeds.  Even this morning, there was someone driving down the wrong way as we went to church.  You are not safe walking on the sidewalk.  People drive on the sidewalk and park there too, forcing the walkers to walk the roads.  Crossing traffic is wherever you want to cross.  I call it challenging the gauntlet.  People cross one lane at a time and stand there while the next lane charges past you until that lane has a little opening and then cross one more lane.  The problem with that is that there are motor bikes that charge through the traffic unaware of lines or lanes at all, so just when you think you are clear for one lane, you need to watch for the motorbikes.  There are many alleyways, mostly not paved that are used for roads too. 

vendors selling to passing cars.

Here is a picture of streets in Maputo.  Parking in the median, vendors selling to cars driving in the street.

Parking job

Parking is amazing or not at all.  Very little space to park.  We would rather leave our car in the apartment garage and walk.  Often it is faster and more fun to do it that way.  If we don't have to carry too much.  I haven't got the "wrap it up in a capulana and put it on my head" syndrome yet!  Hum!

At one point, Maputo was known as the City of Acacia trees.  You can see one of these old Acacia trees in the median that has caused a challenge with this guy's parking!!!  Poor tree.  The city is just not set up for the amount of traffic it has and the traffic is growing!  Even at the church building this morning, the parking was totally crazy.  The architects have not allowed for the members who have cars.  The number of members who have cars is growing but the parking lots are not.