New building? - Feb. 27, 2012

I'm sorry about the pictures. The cyber here doesn't have a card reader so I have to use the cord. And it is slower here so I have to load the basic version of Myldsmail, so it loads pictures differently too. It is really frustrating. Could you help me figure out how to do that Costco thing again. Maybe that would be easier. I'll try and find a card reader for next week.

This week has been normal. Full of teaching sharing and working hard. We have been teaching this one guy, Oliver. He is so super funny and always teases me because I speak the Tana dialect. So I just make fun of him for the things he says, great relationship, haha! He has been coming with us to teach a lot lately. He doesn't really say much but he is a great help sometimes to make the investigators feel at ease. We mainly take him with us so he doesn't have an urge to smoke. But lately he has been going out of the times for long periods at a time... And now every time we go over to pick him up he has been too
busy playing poker with his friends. We are really worried about him because he could be a really great member. His wife is super super nice, his daughter is just the cutest thing in the world and we just don't know what to do to help him progress. There comes a point where the investigator has to pull his own weight. But on a good note, we are teaching his brother and his wife and they are progressing a ton. The only problem is that he works during the same time church is but that can be changed usually. Hopefully it won’t be a problem this time. And Oliver's nephew who is sixteen comes to church every week and really wants to learn too. So maybe after some of his family gets baptized he will too. We have a lot of those situations here. There is one person in the family who is a member who was baptized somewhere else a long time ago and then came here. So they help us to get referrals :)

We have kind of reached the capacity of our church building. We have some where between 60 to 80 come to church and we don't have enough room in our little church. We have a new building already picked out but we need the approval from the people higher up before we can move in. It is more in the city and a lot bigger. We are hoping that it will bring more attention to our church and people will start wondering what it is. That is one thing that is hard right now, getting people to church. Maybe it's the location right now but even if it's literally right across the street it is sometimes hard for people to come to church. We get a lot of people that come just one week and then never come again. I think that it is because they are used to the loud yelling, "praise the lord!" kind of churches and then they come to our peaceful church and just get bored. Satan has a huge hold on people here on certain things. It is so tough to get a Malagasy to change their routine. But once you get them to have the right routine, then they stay in it pretty well. haha!

On Saturday, we had an activity at the church. A lot of the members and investigators came to it. Some members talked about the "kilaza effect" a kilaza is kinda like a scythe. It is used to cut down bananas or any kind of fruit that is way high. The blade is compared to the missionaries and the members are compared to the stick. The bananas are the investigators. If you only have the blade you only get the bananas at the bottom. If you only have the stick you might knock some bananas off but it's not really effective. But if you have both you will get a lot of bananas. So it is very important to have member
help. After that me and Fryer taught them musical chairs. I think that this is the best country to play musical chairs because the grown ups are actually fun when they play it. It got really competitive but no one got hurt so it was just fun. I was the one that was starting and stopping the music and rigged it so the guy beat the girl. Boys rule, girls drool!

So that's the news from Toliara. Nothing special but worth a read when your sitting at home when it freezing outside, nothing to do. I wonder what its like to be cold? One year and a month to go to feel that!

Don't forget who you are and what you stand for. Yesterday we were walking home and got called some not so nice names for no reason. I got a little frustrated because after a while it just builds up. We got home and I decided to read my scriptures and in 3 Nephi... something (I can't remember the exact reference) it said that those who are persecuted for my names sake, the kingdom of God is theirs. It really helped me get past the bad name thing. Just remember that you are members of the only true church. And if you get teased or "persecuted" it's just because they're jealous of how happy you are. Don't give up.

Love,
Elder Walker

 Questions:
1. Do you know who your new mission president will be yet? President Adams, He is some kind of oral surgeon. Served in the French/Belgium mission. Married... Sister Adams who is from Switzerland and also served in the French/Belgium mission. Sounds like another one of your stories ;) They are coming here in July.

2. What do you love most about Madagascar so far? Of course the people. That's what first comes to mind. There are for sure A LOT of people who are not nice but there are some way cool people too. Saturday, one of Fryer's investigators came to the church right after the activity and started to clean all the weeds that were on our property. He worked about two and a half hours straight while us four missionaries switched off helping. He hasn't even come to church and decides to clean our whole property like that. Super nice!

3. Have you seen any lemurs yet? Nope, they are only in the reserved National Parks.

4. Are you enjoying being back with Elder Fryer?[One of his MTC companions] Yeah of course? Fryer is way fun. We just have a blast being in the same house.

5. What do you do for P-days in your new area? What we have done is fix holes in the font tarp, find new church buildings, buy little souvenirs down buy the beach, do service buy digging wells for members, go back to the house and sleep because it is just unbelievably hot, fix our bikes, and look for seashells on the beach. (Disgusting by the way, at least by the city. Roney says that it gets a lot cleaner further away from the beach.)

Sorry about pictures - I'm trying to figure it out.