Mon, 30 March 2009

Hey Fam,

Another week in the Record Books, We are doing really good here we are having a lot of success at the moment and we are staying really busy. Our days are full of teaching appointments. I feel that i am learning a lot especially from Elder Sodre. He has been helping me out a ton these last three weeks. He is a really awesome person he loves music and he teaches me Brazilian music. I am having a great time with him.

This week we invited another couple to be baptised. We have 2 couples with baptismal dates they will all four be baptised May 30. I am really excited for them they are also really excited as well. The work is amazing people can change so fast , and i know the gospel is what helps people to do that. Some people are just ready to hear our message and they are way excited when we start to teach them.

I am going to try and start taking more pictures it is so beautiful here the people are awesome and i am having the time of my life. Everything sounds great back home. When i get home i won't even recognize the house because you guys are doing so much to it. The mail situation here is it gets sent to the mission home than they deliver it to us. I got a letter from Uncle Billy 3 days ago telling me that he was thinking about me. it was a nice letter.

Well i guess that's it for me today i love you all and cant wait to hear from you again thanks for the letters. Love ya

Elder Edwards

Mon, 23 March 2009

Hey Fam,

You guys are really lucky!!!!!! My new companion likes to
stay at Internet for 2 hours so that means my letters will be pretty
fully. Hope you all had a good week. sounds like it was pretty event
full. Before i forget HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope you had a good one.
This week for me was great! Our area is starting to
explode and me and my new companion are doing great too. my language
skills are coming along very quickly now but they have too because i
have to speak the language all day every day. it is awesome. We are
doing a lot of work are days are packed full of lessons and people are
giving us referrals like crazy.
I think that we will have a lot of people with baptism
dates by the end of this transfer. Yesterday at church we had 13
investigators at church. It was awesome they are mostly all moving
very quickly with their learning. I think by the end of this transfer
we will have 2 marriages marked and about 7-9 baptisms marked. I am
very excited to see what happens.
I am very grateful for the chance that i have to be here
at this time, I am so grateful to know the people that i do here and
i know that these people that i am teaching were prepared for me. I am
grateful for the chance to serve and i am grateful for the examples i
have.

Hope you all have a good week, i know it is hard to find time but id
like to get a letter from the Scott and Rachael Family and the Kurt,
Julie, and Ainzly Family and even you Kraig. I love to hear from you
guys it helps a lot. Until next week. Love you all tons.

Elder Edwards



Love you grandma have a good week and know that you are in my prayers
love you lots and miss you. Have a great week. And thanks for the
prayers.

Mon, 16 March 2009

Hey Fam,

It was good to hear from you guys, (mom and dad) and even you too sadie. Sounds like your having a good time Sadie the trip to Washington D.C will be awesome. Especially because you will be with alot of your freinds. My band trip was probably the funnest thing that i did in highschool. It is crazy it is already your birthday the big 17. Well i guess i'll tell you now. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! Write me back and let me know how the highschool team did. Did they win state. Did you go with the band to Boise?

That was quitethe shock to hear that Uncle Billy had died, I have received 3 letters from him since i had gotten here. That is a big shock. At least heis with grandma and grandpa again. I am glad to know that we can return to live with the ones that we love again after this life. It's funny alot of people get really excited when we tell them thatthey can see their loved ones who have already passed on. I know that this is true because it is what i teach and it is what i study and that is why i know.

In response to dad's question about when i kew i wanted to be a missionary... It isa hard to say when io knew i wanted to be a missionary. I always knew i would serve a mission but i think i really knew i wanted to be a missionary when i had the examles of my older brothers. They really showed me what it's like to be missionaries. The stories and the way they changed on their mission was a big influence on my decision. I think alot of my decision was veryu simple because i was always told that a mission was the right thing to do and i knew that everyone would support me in this decision. Another thing was the stories about dad's mission. it always sounded really fun and he always had good things to say about his mission.

This week has been awesome. I am finally out teaching alot more because we are not at the church all the time anymore. My new companion is awesome, He dose not speak a lick of english. But it is awesome, it has helped me to know that i speak alot more than i thought i did. Elder Wade really didnt like to let me teach and he really didnt like to teach either. Me and Elder Sodre are staying busy. I have been knocking doors and doing contacts with people this whole week. It is so much fun to have a native companion. But it is fun. Since we have gotten together we have 8 new investigators. Thats how many me and Wade had in 2 transfers. I am going to learn alot from my new companion and i am very excited for the next 5 weeks.

But this week was awesome i didnt have a companion tuesday and wednesday so i walked in another area with a different set of missionaries. I worked in the city these 2 days. alot of big buildings and what not. I took a few pictures to send home but i dont know when i will be able to send them. Ya i went and bought my camera i bought the Samsung L100. It is pretty nice and it was the cheapest one they had. It was 220 dollars. and they gave me a memory card for free. But now i will guard my camera with my life. It is frusterating that somebody would take it from me at the church but i guess they needed it more than i did.

We have been teaching alot of lessons the last few days i get home and think wow that was a good day. It's fun speaking the language in the house all the time i enjoy it a lot. I have a feeling that i will learn a lot this transfer. I have been teaching alot more inside the lessons and am starting to feel comforable around the people i talk to. I can see the Lords hand in the work that is being done here and i know that he is helping me... who wouldof thought i would be able to learn a new language. Going into the MTC i would have thought that is impossible, and that is excatally what i thought. When i said goodbye to you guys and walked out the doorit hit me... not only do i have to learn to teach but i have to learn to teach and converse in a different language. man!!! But it is going well and i know that it's gonna be hard but who said it was'nt gonna be.

Thanks for sending the package i look forward to the socks desperetly those thin ones i got are falling apart. But i sm sure i will manage until the other ones get here because quite frankly i have to wait. I also look forward to the other things in there. Everyone loves the Madagascar toys especially the "I like to move it move it" everyone here knows that song.

Well i hope you like the long letter i tried to fill it with love and detail. I hope everyone has a good week and i want you to all know that i love you all. this work here that i am participating in is the work of God. I am a servent of him. I wear the name of Jesus Christ daily and know that he is our Savior. He suffered for all of our sin and if we repent and live the commandments we are promised eternal life. I know this church is true and i am grateful for the example of my father and my brothers who showed me what was right by serving their missions. Love ya lots and miss you.... The work goes on.

Elder Edwards

Grandma love you lots and i hope that you have a good week . i want you to know you are in my prayers always and i miss you alot. Until next week.

Mon, 9 March 2009

Dear Family,

I hope you all had a good week this last week, I had a terrific week. This transfer just got over and i am sending Wade home. He is not very excited to leave but it's his time to go. I found out saturday that i will be getting a new companion. I will recieve an Elder from Brazil who dosent speak english Elder Soudre. President said that he thinks this will help me improve my Portugese and i am very excited for this. My house will have Me and Elder Cordano, another American and my new companion and Elder Cordano will train a new missionary from Lisboa, Portugal. My house will be speaking a lot of Portugese. All of us have less than a year in the mission so it will be pretty fun.

This week for me has been fun and it will be hard to see Elder Wade leave. We have made a good relationship and i will miss him alot. Oh ya by the way he is going to try and come to Shelley in the next month to drop off some things to you. I've got some ideas for something that might keep you a little busy mom. I have a bunch of faberic i want you to make a bed spread out of and maybe even some pillow cases. He will bring these things to the house, i told him how to get there and i will give him mom's cell number in case he can't find it.

About the camera i think i will juist buy one here I will pull out $200 dollars next week so please make sure there is enough money in my account. Thats awesome i will be getting that much money back, it makes me not have to worry as bad.

I have a feeling that i will be teaching alot more with Elder Soudre because we don't have any responsibilities other than being regular missionaries. This is going to be awesome. I am super excited as you can probably tell. This last week we gave a baptismal date and we will have a baptism the 4th of April. I want to let you know that i love you all very much and miss you. I can feel the blessings of being a missionary, IT is very hard i am struggling but it is making me a stronger person. I know the church is true and that this wonderful work is of God and will change anyones life if they give it a chance.

Love,

Elder Edwards

P.S. Grandma i just wanted to write you a quick note and let you know that i love you and am grateful for all that you do for me. Thanks for the prayers, they really help and keep throwing them my way. You would love it here it is so beutiful and the people are so nice. I know that we are all children of our heavenly father and that we will all return to live with him some day. I love you so much and miss you tons. I hope you have a great week. LOVE you!!!!!!!

Mon, 2 March 2009

Dear Family,
Everything here is awesome i am doing great and continuing to have a blast here in Mocambique. The people are awesome and they usually let us talk to them no problems so thjats pretty nice. I think this past week was a great week we got a lot done missionary work wise. We were out teaching alot and didnt have to be cramed up in the church that much this week.

We are teaching some really cool people, we have two 20 year olds who just got back from vacation and we taught them twice this last week they are Imundo and Tony. I think that we will see alot of success with these 2 i am excited to see what happens. This last week we had something really cool happen to us, We went to this guys house to teach him the first lesson. When we got into the lesson he had alot of questions about family and he was a smart guy. He has been prepared by the lord to be taught he has a wife and 4 little children and i think he really likes us. It is amazing to see how someone can be so ready for the gospel. It is just like he knows what is right but he didnt know where to find out these things. I am really e3xcited to go back and teach him about the importance of families and that he can live with his family forever. I can tell my testimony is growing tremendously and i want to share this gospel with as many people as i can.

I've got some bad news too. Mom your gonna be mad at me but guess
what? My camera got stolen. I am super sorry and i feel horrible
because i had just gotton all the pictures off my three cards put on a disk and they took my camera and the three cards. I am lucky that i got all the pictures off of the cards before they were stolen. The sad thing is was my camera was stolen at the church when i was in a meeting. And we had a power point and i think when we turned the lights off for the power point it got stolen then. So i don't know what to do. The cameras here are expensive they are $200 and i don't think i have the money for it. So if you could let me know what you think i should do please write a lettter. They said you cant send cameras in the mail either because people will steal them. But just let me know what you think and i am very sorry. I got a couple of things i want to know about mom. My personal card expires Dec. of this month so just thought i'd let you know i'm gonna need you to send one about dec. time. Also if you could i would like to know how much i have in my accounts. i have spent a little bit on some carvings and things.

The work is good though and i'm gonna try and connect some photo's so you can see what it is like here. I got some of the people and the church and our house and me of course. I hope you all have a good week and i miss you all alot and can't believe tomorrow i hit 6 months i love the work and wouldnt rather be doing anything else right now in my life, I hope that you guys have a great week anf i look forward to the letters. Love ya lots,

Elder Edwards