One Down, One to Go - April 10, 2012

Hello Family! We meet once again. Sorry for the late email, everything was shut down yesterday for Passover. Apparently the way to celebrate Christ's suffering and Resurrection is through a week long party. It seems like Malagasys have a different way of doing everything. It's going to be weird going back to America where everything makes sense.

This week was pretty good. Lots of teaching and such. Every day I read and study the scriptures I see more and more of God's love for us. It makes me so happy. That's what keeps me going through the mission. When times get tough. When you see someone you've been teaching for a long time just stop progressing and don't want to learn anymore, it's saddening. But God is always there for us. He is always there to comfort us when we need him.

Right now we haven't been baptizing a lot of people, because we don't just want to baptize anyone and then have them go inactive. It is very crucial to have a good foundation for the church here in Toliara as it is starting up. But this Saturday we have four people getting baptized. They are going to be a good addition to the church here.There are some really solid investigators that are going to be awesome members soon. Some of them are super far away from the church, so hopefully they will be even more excited to come to church when they don't have to walk for two hours or so. The people here in Madagascar are really diligent. Sometimes I feel like the long time members of
the church start to get prideful in some way and start to slack off in some areas. We see it all the time in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. We need to be careful and be sure to stay humble before the
Lord. We cannot justify any sin. And also to remember to pray daily. Prayer doesn't just bring blessings because we ask for them, they come because we are following a commandment, also it reminds us of what is expected of us. We need to be sure to not make vain repetitions. We need to be thoughtful in every prayer. That is what keeps a latter-day saint true and faithful to the Lord.

We have some really cool people preparing for baptism right now. One is a family that me and Roney started teaching. They are super awesome. At first the father with his two twin boys (future
missionaries) came to church. They love to sing the hymns. But then we kind of "challenged" the mom to come to church and she did! I was so happy to see her when she walked in. The funny thing is, is that she is friends with one of our longest members here. She will be a great example for her. Right now we are working on them getting baptized. The paperwork system is really frustrating. They don't use any computers, just typewriters. They don't even have filing cabinets, just stacks of old, weak paper tied together by year. Hopefully we can get it done before their baptism.

This last Monday was "Monday Passover" (If the holiday lands on a Sunday, they have a Monday party too...) And since the cyber was closed along with everything else we had a lot of time to hang out with some members. So we went with some members to the beach to throw the football around. We got there and turns out that everyone else in Toliara decided to do the same thing for their day off of work. It was really funny to try and teach some Malagasys how to play American Football. Turns out, I have no idea how to teach football in Malagasy. All in all, it was a good day.

All the people at the beach!

Now the bad part was that we had to walk there and back, and it was actually a really far walk. So by the end of the day our feet were really tired from walking there, playing football and walking back, all in bare feet or sandals. The next day my legs, calves, feet, back, sides were all sore. I didn't know I had so many muscles that could get so sore. I feel like a fifty year old or something :) ALSO, I forgot to put on sunscreen... I haven't put on sunscreen once while I have been here in Madagascar and now my body decides to betray me! My calves, feet, arms, neck and face were all sunburned.  It is not fun to wear a dress shirt with a burnt neck, but hey you reap what you sow.

The result of my fun in the sun.

Well it was a very good first year of the mission, hopefully its an even better second year. Please keep praying for me and sending me dear elders and what not. I love all of you and wish that you work hard to reach that Celestial Kingdom.

My year mark breakfast.

My favorite new shirt.