Happy French Mother's Day! - June 4, 2012

Hello everyone!!! This week was amazing. Tena mahafinaritra! (I just wanted to be cool like everyone else and speak a language that none of you will understand.) This past week we have been throwing out baptismal dates left and right. We decided that we weren't following Preach My Gospel fully and so now we have started to give people a bap date in the first or second lesson. It is amazing how the spirit works on people when you are bold and try to bring them closer to Christ. 

So I'm basically going to talk about the last two days of the week. On Saturday, we started our fast and to be adventurous me and Smith decided to try something new for our last meal. We ordered this Misao special. And the regular misao is just noodles with meat and carrots and other vegetables. But the Special is all of that plus shrimp a special sauce, an egg on top and to just make it the best thing ever, OCTOPUS! Unlike the octopus Mom and Dad had on their mission, this was cooked. And actually not that bad. it kind of tasted like shrimp but that might have been from being cooked with it. Other than that it wasn't that chewy and kind of tasteless. It was kind of weird when you eat a tentacle with the suckers on it. Spiders are still creepier. Altogether it was delicious. 

On Sunday we had a pretty good testimony meeting. So I have talked about this person before. He is someone who is really passionate about the gospel sometimes. He got baptized on the 26th of June [does he mean May?] and when he came out of the water he said "I am resurrected". It was pretty funny but kind of killed the mood because his wife was after him. And then when he bore his testimony he ended by saying "amen, amen, amen forever!" After he had received the Holy Ghost we have seen him calm down a lot. I mean a lot! It has been like a whole different person. It seriously amazes me every time I talk with him. But on Sunday the Holy Ghost just got him too energized and he literally started to pound the pulpit with his Book of Mormon at the end of his testimony. We're still working with him :) 

110 year old Bible

After the meeting we taught a investigator who is getting baptized this Saturday. She told us about when she prayed and asked God when people were going to come to her house and bring the gospel. That was ten years ago. And she took us missionaries as her answer to prayer. It was so cool to see her faith in God. She also showed us a Bible that came from her Grandpa. He received it from the first missionaries that came to Madagascar. She said that it was 110 years old. I definitely believed her especially when dust spurted out when we closed it. It was exactly like Harry Potter style. Then we went to a members house and they offered us food. We had noodles with shrimp and then rice with shrimp and tomatoes. It was quite filling. Halfway through we got a text from some investigators that they needed to move the time from 5 to 2 o' clock. So right after eating with our members we went over to our investigators who were also going to feed us. There we had rice with chicken, steak and pasta. And for dessert we had pineapple and flan. It was so delicious! This has been the first time where I have wanted to eat so super bad but couldn't fit any more in! I was so frustrated that I couldn't eat more. As the famous Aaron Lloyd would say I was "Stupid full!" So that was super nice from them especially because they are only investigators. 

After that we went over to these new people that we have only set up a time with. It is this couple that has been married for so long and have had five kids. The mom has gone to church all her life but the husband hasn't been to church since he was a little kid. We taught a simple First lesson and at the end I committed them to be baptized when they come to know that this church is true. The mom hesitated but they both accepted. After the dad said that he believes in the Apostasy and that he is going to follow us and that he trusts us. It was so cool! I love it when people say stuff like that. 

Then we went to a less active time. They were baptized in Tana in 1984. The father has already received the Melchizedek priesthood but after that moved to Toliara where there was no church. So obviously the father and one daughter went less active kind of by force. Now in September the missionaries started to teach them again to try to bring them back to church. It was hard because he used the excuse of him being in the military as why he doesn't have time for church. The daughter has come back to church and has no problem, just the father was a little hesitant. But when Pres. Donnelly came here, that was the first Sunday in 20 years that this father has come to church. It was a miracle to say the least! A huge step for this man. But sadly that was the only Sunday he came. Then today we got to their house. I knocked on their gate and yelled "Oh dee-oh!" (Which is normal by the way, you normally don't knock) I looked inside and saw that he had a cigarette in his mouth, and suddenly my heart sank. Turns out that there is a conflict between him and his daughter and he also had already drunken some beer too. I felt so sad for them and started to tear up a little bit just trying to plead with them to just drop whatever got in-between them. We can't judge others. I think Elder Holland's talk mixed with Elder Uchtdorf's talk is basically what I was thinking of and trying to express to them. At the end I just told them to pray together as much as possible. It ended well because after the lesson they offered us mofo balls (kind of like scones) and soda. 

Malagasy Book of Mormon - 1985ish

 The next time we taught these investigators about the work and responsibilities of the prophet and the apostles. And at the end of that time they fed us this delicious bread/cake. We were really fed well that day. It was Mother's Day on Sunday for the French and whoever has French influence (Madagascar). But apparently it ended up also being feed a missionary day!! Woohoo! I love it when that happens! 

I love this church and the miracles that happen every single day. Sometimes more than you can handle or would ever believe COULD happen in one day. With God, anything is possible. Believe it.

Love,

Elder Walker

PS: I hope this email made up for the last short email.

The new hymn books

We cooked a chicken from a member.

Another baptism - May 28, 2012

Yes, we did have a another baptism. It was only two. It was a couple that have six children. Sadly none of the children got baptized because they are fisherman. Which means they are kind of the laid back people that always swim and just hang out with their friends. But at the baptism some of their family came and then came to church the next day after that. Hopefully they continue to come closer to Christ.

But with the baptism, we bought a new hose because the one we had was super small and was a hassle to hook it up to the faucet and also could not handle the water pressure. We bought one and was actually almost too small to reach to the font, but luckily it was perfect length. We turned it on Friday morning and would usually leave it on for the whole day and just come back to turn it off at the end. But with this hose it was a lot faster so we decided to come back after two hours and when we got there it was already overflowing! And since the font that we have is already semi broken we used the duct tape that you guys sent me to reinforce the sides. If we didn't use it, it would've broken and we wouldn't of had a baptism. It must of been inspiration or something to send that. That is actually really useful so in the next package could you send another one.

This week was pretty slow, nothing really happened. We need to do some serious finding to fill up our schedule. Because we are baptizing some long time investigators, we are starting to switch out some people. 

Well I love studying the scriptures. Right now I am reading the New Testament. But am reading the "four gospels" in order according to the harmony of the gospels in the Topical guide. It is really cool to see the different perspectives and changing of words. I advise you to try it out on just a little bit of the New Testament. 

Well I think that is my short email today. Sorry there is nothing too exciting, hopefully next week's email will be jam packed full of good stuff!

I love all of you and hope that you build your faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Love,

Elder Walker

Same old family - May 14, 2012

Well it seems like we are just the same old family. As for Phil, I will remain mad at you for approximately four and a half days. I guess once you get a promotion and such, the power just goes to your head. I guess I still have to love you because you're my older brother.

This week was good. Me and Elder Smith taught a lot. I read other peoples blogs saying that they tract all day, and I am not bragging but grateful that I only have to do that every once in a while. Its just not what I like to do. What I hate the most is deciding who to go to when an appointment falls through and you pick one, you go to their house and they are gone and then you go to the other and they are gone too! As for baptisms, we have three planned for this coming Saturday, and then three more the next Saturday and then two more the next. Elder Smith and I are going to get some good practice with giving the gift of the holy ghost to people. Like I told you guys over Skype, it is a real privilege to work with the future leaders of the church. Because that is exactly who they are going to end up being. the Lord and guided us to the right people at this time to become leaders later one. I see it every once in a while in their faces when teaching. I see Branch presidents, Young Men's presidents, Relief Society presidents. It is such a blessing to be here at this time. I sometimes think that it is not fair that I can't give back to Heavenly Father as much as he gives me. I am grateful to my heavenly father every single day for the family I have, the opportunity to serve and the many many blessings I have already received.

I'll send a good email next week. My bottom really hurt because I have been sitting on this chair for a long time already. I love you guys. Thank Heavenly Father for everything. Ask him for everything that you need, and you would be surprised of what you get. A miracle can happen everyday, I promise.

Love,
Elder Walker

Mendrika and me

My best friend and his mother

Tour de Toliara

We're off!

Rest period

First place!

Sunset over "salt lakes"

Mother's Day call - May 13, 2012

Skype call with Brad

What a great way to end Mother's Day by being able to Skype with Brad at 10:30 at night! It was his 7:30 on Monday morning so Melissa said we were talking to Brad in the FUTURE!

It was great to see his smiling face, hear his laugh and watch all of his fun expressions! We made him perform and speak some Malagasy for us. We were even able to Skype in Natalie in Minnesota so we could all see each other. It was wonderful! Brad got to share with us his feelings for the great up and coming leaders of Madagascar. He did say that he misses a few things: carpet, real ice cream, etc. I hope it didn't make him too homesick to talk to us. It really boosted my mood and it was hard to fall asleep after the call.

We love our missionary!!!

Marriage, baptism, conference - May 7, 2012

This week was pretty good. No it was actually way great!
So on Tuesday I interviewed this couple to be baptized this past Saturday and the Father has been ready for the longest time but we held off until the wife was ready too. SO the interview went well with the Le Grand (the father) but when I interviewed Monique (the mother) at the end she said that she wasn't going to be baptized, just her husband. ?!?!?!? ???? UH?! The weeks before this, she said that she was completely ready to be baptized. I heard her say that this church is true and the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. So you can imagine my surprisement when she said that she wasn't going to be baptized. I was pretty bummed.

On Thursday I interviewed this young woman to be baptized this last Saturday too. She passed with flying colors. She was taught with Roney and Slater (his first companion here in Toliara) and she always shut down when we brought up baptism, and wasn't really progressing. So when the area got combined with me and Fryer, she got cut out of the schedule. But then she started to come to church again and so we went back to teach her. The first time back in a month or so, I just decided to give her a baptismal date and she accepted it. It was amazing. Then later that day we went to visit a recent convert but she was out of town so we decided to teach her son. He has also been taught for a really long time. He has come a long way from where he was when he first was taught. But he has come to the point where the next step is baptism. So I simply asked him what was keeping him from baptism and he was still wondering if he was allowed to be baptized more than once. I knew that we have already taught this before but I guess it wasn't clear. So I showed the scripture in Ephesians 4:5 "One Lord, one faith, one baptism. I told him that there is one lord who is Jesus Christ, but there are many "anti-christs". There is one true church but there are many false churches on the earth. And there is one baptism that is true and valid, but there exist many different modes of baptism. At that point we decided to give him another baptismal date for the 19th of May. To our surprise he said that that was too far away and said he wanted to be baptized this Saturday. Well me or Smith couldn't find anything wrong with that so right then I interviewed him and got him ready for baptism. Also, Smith and I are asking every member and investigator for vezo words (the dialect here) so that we can make a dictionary for the future missionaries. MAN, there are a lot of weird different words! We have almost 200 words. It's fun to learn a different language, and then learn another.

Le Grand and Monique's wedding

On Friday the people I talked about earlier (the husband getting baptized but not the wife) got married!!! Getting people married here is so frustrating! They require all this paperwork but their filing and record system is not really up to date or organized. Anyway, they got married, it was awesome and it went well. The marriage in-charge person talks for about one minute and then signing papers takes about two minutes and that is the wedding. They didn't even kiss! Malagasys don't show affection that often. A random photographer walked in and started to take pictures. After he tried to get them to buy some but then I told them not to because I took some with my camera and they can have those for free. :)

Elder Smith, their three baptisms, Brad

Saturday was the baptism. I baptized all three and it all went well. I was a little worried after because I forgot to bring a towel to dry off after so I just had to use the part of my clothes that weren't already wet. haha!

Sunday we had conference and because I prayed really hard the power stayed on the whole time we were at church. It went really really really well! I love the choir too. I love the song "Come thou fount of every blessing". It reminds me of when I sang it in high school. My brain was pretty tired after trying to understand the conference talks. But I understood a lot more than last time. It is kinda cool to see how much I've progressed since then. Then after we went over to a member's house to teach a referral but they weren't there. So we just talked about the gospel and just had a good time. After she gave us a little rice because she is practically the nicest person alive. She runs an epicerie (little store) and always gives us free juice and bread when we stop by to teach other people. But of course we sneak in the money for it when shes not looking.
Well the mission here is going great! I love it! I hope all of you are studying the scriptures and goin to church every week. Remember, the church helps us live the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must be converted to the gospel and not just to the church.
Love,
Elder Walker

What do you usually eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Breakfast: at least two oranges if not three, and cereal if I have milk. Lunch: Riz cantonnais with pineapple juice. Dinner: Riz cantonnais again, or Sedaap with cheese. Which is kinda like Top Ramen but a lot better. Or rice at a members house.
How often do you get invited to someone's house to eat? Not often because people are extra poor here. But sometimes we get a nice surprise from someone and get served right after we are done teaching.
Tell me something funny that happened this week? So as some of you know, missionaries always pray before they go out to work. I was praying in English and I kept messing up, especially at the end. I must have repeated myself three times before I could say it right. Elder Smith was laughing pretty hard. No more English for me.
What was the best thing that happened this week? Gino wanting to be baptized this last Saturday.
So far, what do you like best about your companion? He is way organized and clean. And he can cook really delicious bread/cake.
Will you send a picture of you and your companion? Maybe... if you love me lots.
Do you meet for the full three hours of church or only 2? Just two. Sacrament and then split into Sunday school and Primary.

Do you get an English edition of the Ensign, especially the conference issue? Yes, but it sometimes takes long. Last conference, none of the missionaries got a conference issue. No one knows why...

Event Filled - April 30, 2012

This week was pretty dang full of experiences. Let's start off with "Pancake Mittens." So Elder Smith was telling me all about his delicious recipes he has made while being here. So I wanted to make his banana pancakes. The recipe goes something like this: some flour, some eggs, quite a bit of sugar, vanilla, baking powder, milk, salt, 8 bananas and MY addition 3 white chocolate bars and 3 milk chocolate bars crushed up to make little chocolate chips. And if that wasn't sweet enough, there was some left over syrup we found and threw some of that on. They were delicious beyond belief! I'll get the real recipe so we can make some when I get home. Now the mitten part. Lately Toliara has cooled down. Actually to freezing sometimes! It maybe got into the 70's one time, I'm not sure. And I was cold while making pancakes so I put my hands in-between two of them and it got me through the cooking.


Next event; "King-size Bed!" So in our house there used to be four missionaries but got put down to two because there is just not enough to go around. The whole time with Fryer I didn't think of this but Me and Smith decided to take the four beds and make two big beds. We grabbed some tape and some extra sheets and bada bing bada boom! Mega beds! Even though I have gotten used to not rolling around (or even rolled around in the first place) it is nice to sprawl my legs out. Plus it just looks cool.

Next event: "General Conference" We had a successful conference on Saturday. We set up two big speakers so everyone could hear and then unexpectedly our group leader Pres. Edaly brought a projector so everyone could see. It was perfect. But this being the first General Conf. not a lot of people showed up. Plus kids go to school, parents work so it's hard to take time to go to church. But it was really good because some investigators showed up that have never come to church. So that made me really excited for Sunday. But Madagascar being Madagascar, the power went out in the morning. And decided to not come on until later that day. So we had to hurry and run home to grab bread for sacrament and then buy some water because no water works without the power. Elder Smith did a talk and was awesome as usual. And then Brother Jules who is a long time member was asked to lead the meeting and give a talk also. He is a life saver sometimes. So half of conference was this week and the second half will be next week.

Last event: "Birthday party!" One of the families here is way awesome. The mom was in the first baptism here and now all 21 of them except three are baptized. And Sunday was the birthday of one of the two sets of twins in their family. Saulnah and Sauldah. They turned seven and just got even cuter! They are so fun to be around, it is a blast whenever they are together. Me and Smith made a cake for them. It was chocolate and had two different types of frosting on it because there wasn't enough. Maybe it was because we put extra amounts just to see the Malagasy's face when they had that much sugar. Anyway, it ended up being a hit!

The master bakers - Elders Smith and Walker

Well since I've spent way too long on the computer trying to send pictures it is time to go. PS. I couldn't get photobucket or picasa to work, so no pictures. Next week will have a lot. I love you all and hope you grow your understanding of God.

Love,
Elder Bradford Walker

Transfered? - April 23, 2012

No I did not get transfered. I'm still staying in Toliara for another month. As for Fryer... He is now serving in Tana.  My comp down here is Elder Liam Baker Smith. He is from Sandy Utah. He lives only about five minutes from our house. I think he lives really close to Sarah our cousin. So yes he went to Hillcrest... But that was only a little bump in our relationship. He is actually really cool. His dad was a mission president in Chile so he is perfect at Spanish too. He has been in country for only two months and is awesome at the language! I'm still better at the dialect here in Toliara though so ha!

The work here is going just as much as it has been before. We started having a mini priesthood meeting after church just to let the members know their responsibility. It has been helping a lot. President Donnelly is coming down in May to see the progress of the church here, and possibly make it into a branch! I hope it does, that would be awesome. We as missionaries are really pushing the members (who are all recent converts) to further heights. We just really want to have people ready for when Presdient comes. The work here would go so much faster if it was a branch. I think if people have a calling they are more willing to come to church too. Right now, we cannot find a new building but we keep looking. We will not give up! Our church right now is ridiculously small, maybe we need to stay there to find some family, I don't know. I guess there is always a reason for something, I just hope we are looking hard enough to absolutely know if we need to stay or not.

We had an activity this last Saturday. It was awesome. First we opened with prayer and then Me and Elder Smith taught a new song to them because I was tired of singing the same four songs over and over. so we taught them the Spirit of God and We thank thee O God for a Prophet. Elder Smith and I demonstrated by singing alone in front of everyone first before so they knew what it sounded like. It was a little tough after a while because I have a little cold right now so I couldn't really sing but I tried my best. Haha! After that we had a wonderful lesson taught about the Book of Mormon from one of the members. And then after that we had a game. It was like soccer but on a table with pingpong balls and straws. It is two on two and you blow the pingpong ball into the goal. Pretty basic and way fun!!! It was so fun to see people get red faced from blowing so hard! And yes, even Malagasys can get red faced. Haha! I'm laughing right now as I'm typing, it was so funny. We also before the activity made a bunch of cookies. So that was a nice little treat at the activity. I'm a cooking master now, of course it was just with the premade stuff but still, I'm pretty good at it.  It was a hit. People love me because they think I can cook really good cookies. I even tried to explain to them that all the ingrediants are already in one thing but they still don't understand. So I just give up and let them think what they wanna think.

People are really sad that Fryer left. They get so attached to the missionaries when they come that they kind of get mad when thy leave. I hope that people here don't get baptized because of the missionaries, because it is not good to see the aftermath when they go. That is why we make sure that the people are absolutely ready for baptism before we do it. And then they are super solid after they are baptized. Even though Toliara is the newest area here in Madagascar it is going to be the leader of the church. They are going to have the coolest members here. Toliara is just awesome, I never want to leave this place!

I hope that all of you have a wonderful week! I love all of you. Even if you don't email or send letters.

Love,
Elder Walker

• Did you get transferred or did Fryer? ...Fryer to Ankorondrano
• I just sent another package to you this week. Let me know when you get it. Yay!!!!!! I love packages! I imagine them as boxes full of love. I'll be sure to let you know.
• Have you gotten any letters from anyone besides us lately? I'm still getting caught up on DearElders. I'll try and do more tomorrow.Yea I have got some from Shai, Miranda, Maddie and you. That happens to actually be  the same people on my "extra awesome people" list. That's weird how that happens sometimes. I just got a bunch two weeks ago when they sent us some stuff.