Elder CJ Rees

Thomas’ dad, Steve Hogan sent me an email.  He was so grateful and tender toward your love and effort.  How neat that a scholarship can go to a Davis runner because of all the generosity of so many people and that it is named for Thomas Hogan.  I told him there are prayers for his family coming from Africa. Baptisms of Felizberto, Amisse, & Gracio                                  N acala is great!   We had another baptism this week, kinda cool.  Day after day we teach a bunch of lessons.  It is the same every day; walk, teach, try talking to people - mission life.   I’m feeling pretty good.  We have been running at night!  We have a bigger house lot so every night the Nacala Squad runs -  way cool.  Elder Thornton is a lifesaver.  He gives me a calf massage every other night. My shirts are getting really dirty like way bad. ...

Sad news about Thomas Hogan.  I knew Thomas really, really well.  He was like a younger brother to me.  I use to drive Thomas home from practice everyday and pick him up in the mornings sometimes when we lived by Trey and Ben because his house burnt down and they moved near by us.  We would always chill in the locker room together and just talk about life, school, running, idk lots of stuff.  He also loved to play basketball with us.  Please tell his family that he was a quality kid and a great friend.  All I remember is good about him.  Please tell the team that I love them like brothers.  -------------------- So Nacala is pretty fun still… We have been doing tons of work, but just this last week we flew to Maputo! We had Zone Conference - it was pretty great. I also had my first interview with President Senna that was a bit intimidating, but it went well.  I asked him some questions about the mission field and he gave me some grea...

Its been a pretty good week! We are headed down to Maputo this week, very excited! Well we had 60 people this week at church and 2 baptisms, the work here is just going well.  I baptised a man named Andre, a really cool guy in his 20's. I don’t knock on doors for tracking because no one has a door.  We stand at the edge of their property and call out, “Com licenca.” (excuse me) to the people.  That is how we get their attention and hope that they will speak with us.  Not sure how to describe what it looks like here, think Africa, haha.  There are lots of trails to walk and brick buildings (different from our brick) with straw roofs.  We teach an average of six lessons a day.  That is probably the same as Elder Thornton & Elder Latu.  On P-day we shop for like 2 hours and then email for like 7 hours because the internet stinks - it is snail slow.  At night we go out to eat at a restaurant, that fills our day with t...

Thanks to Elder Thornton - We have Pictures of CJ and the Nacala Squad!! (It took over 12 hrs for his family to receive these pictures!)   Well, the internet stinks and is not that great!  Still very slow and still no photos. This week has been lots of lessons and tons of walking. My feet have tons of blisters on them, and now my shoes are getting holes in the sides because of how much we walk.  I have been way tired and I am always hungry, but it’s been good.  I’m picking up on understanding the language, but still very difficult for me.  Please keep me in your prayers. Thanks for all the pictures and advice I love every one of them.  I’m trying to offer lots more prayers.  It has definitely helped.  I haven’t done a prayer silent or out loud in english since the MTC, so I hope they are still sincere and God knows I’m giving my all. About Nacala The Nacala Squad (4 Elders) is sweet!  The four of us get along so well...