June 27

June 27, 2016

The guy on the left is Elder Ncoyo the one on the right
is Elder Tshetu who is also from south Africa
 and came in at the same time as me and Elder Ncoyo.

I got Elder Ncoyo this week! He is a great guy! We came in together, but I haven't seen him in 5 months because he has been up in Tamatave his whole mission (Fun fact: I am his first white companion and he is my first black one). He is from East London, South Africa. He joined the church in 2012 and is the only one in his family who has accepted the gospel. His English can be hard to understand because his native language is Xhosa, but he also knows Zulu. It's really fun to hear him and another guy in my district named Elder Mshweshwe, who is also a native Xhosa speaker, speak to each other. Xhosa is one of those languages that you have to make clicking sounds with your tongue.


So fun fact about yesterday: it was Malagasy independence day! The vignt-six is how they refer to it. We had to go home early on Saturday and Sunday because everyone gets drunk here on holidays. So Elder Ncoyo and I went and slept at the rest of our districts house and made tacos and played Crazy 8's (I guess crazy 8's is a super popular game in South Africa). It was fun, and the first time I've had a taco since I've been on my mission. I love Malagasy food, but I still miss Mexican food.


So yesterday some members invited us over for lunch and a few games (Uno). I told them I was surprised at how few people were out and about, and they told me it was because everyone was afraid of something bad happening. They said everyone was scared of korotana which is a hard word to translate but it roughly means crazy, messy, or unorganized. It makes sense in Malagasy, but I don't know how to translate it to English. I didn't think much of it until we got a call this morning making sure everyone was alright because apparently something happened somewhere and a couple people died and some others got hurt. I really don't know anything else, but it doesn't seem like a super big deal because life today is completely normal. So don't worry!

Well that's it for my week. We have a couple people that are getting really close to baptism which is exciting!

Word of the week is feti-pirenena which is how you say independence day here. Literally fety means celebration and firenena means country, so literally its the celebration of the country.

June 20

June 20, 2016

It has been a good week.

So I've got exciting transfers news. I'm finally getting a black companion!!!!!!! His name is elder Ncoyo! He is way South African. He and I came to Mada (Madagascar) at the same time and both started up in Tomatave! He is really cool!!! His English is sometimes hard to understand though, but it's gonna be really fun. I can't explain how excited I am!!!!!! My district is literally gonna be half African!

I don't think I've told you about this guy, Tahiana, we have been teaching. He is a really cool guy. He has been coming to church off and on for a while with his family. His cousins and aunt are really active members, and one of his cousins got back from his mission not too long ago. I don't really understand why he hadn't been able to learn from the missionaries until now. He is practically the perfect investigator. His family are already members. He enjoyed going to church with them and he really wanted to find the truth.  He even sings in the choir.  Long story made short he wouldn't accept a baptism date the first time we invited him, but last week I told him to read a talk from the November Ensign about answers to prayer. This week when we asked him [to be baptized], he accepted!!! He is going to get baptized on July 9th, along with Christian!! I'm pretty sure I told you about him. Unfortunately his wife couldn't come yesterday because her new born baby was sick, and it was too cold. She should be able to get baptized a few weeks after her husband.

Word of the week is Africa Atsimo which is South Africa in Malagasy (atsimo means south), however we hear people say Afrique du Sud more often then Africa Atsimo because that is how you say it in French.

June 13

June 13, 2016

Sorry no pictures this week. Hopefully Wesley sent some.

It has been really cool seeing Wesley, especially when we get to go see people that he knew. I thought it would be weird, but it's not. It feels really normal. It is fun serving in one of the wards he did.

This week has been a pretty normal week. We have some investigators that are really progressing, and we are really exited for them. They should get baptized sometime in July. One of them is a family with 2 little kids. The dad has come for two weeks, but it had been too cold for the mom to come with her less than a month old baby. On Wednesday we explained the importance of church attendance before and after baptism, and she was able to come!!!!!!!!!!!! It was really exciting!!!!

So today all the missionaries here in Tana (Antananarivo) had a basketball tournament. I've easily played more basketball on my mission then I have in the last 10 years of my life. It has been fun, especially because there aren't too many elders that are taller than me, (there are a few that are really tall though) so I do OK. My team lost in the semifinals, but it's really fun to see all the African elders play. We have a lot of elders from all over the world, and we keep getting more and more from Africa, specifically South Africa. It's really neat. Most of them touched a basketball for the first time here in Mada (Madagascar). Apparently basketball isn't very big in Africa, but Malagasies seem to love it.

On Thursday I got to go on a split with Elder Tambula from Uganda. He is a really cool guy. He became a member only 3 years ago!!! He also lives in the middle of nowhere, 27 kilometers from the nearest church building. when he left his home town still didn't have electricity, and he only gets to talk to his mom when we call because his mom lives to far from a cyber. I was way impressed with him. One last fun fact is that Uganda has like 56 different spoken languages. Malagasy is his 6th language!!!!!!!!!!

So that's it for the week.

Word of the week is zazakely which means baby or little kid.

June 6

June 6, 2016

I saw Wesley today!! It was really cool!!! President Foote is the coolest mission president ever!!!!!

My companion and I had a really neat experience with prayer on Thursday. We were waiting for a taxibe to Ambohipo because we had one last lesson planned there. It was already getting dark, and usually after 5 it is pretty impossible to get a taxibe. In fact up until Thursday I never had. We were hoping to catch another taxibe that got us sort of close to where we need to go, but they were all very full. Well long story short, my companion made a comment about needing to pray if we were going to ever catch one. So we both said quick individual prayers and then sat down. We didn't really expect much, but then something really cool happened. After about 5 minutes a completely empty bus heading to Ambohipo pulled up. We were in shock, truly an answer to a prayer.

Other than that it has been a pretty quiet week. My zone played ultimate frisbee this morning which was a lot of fun.

Word of the week is zoky which means older. When referring to Wes, I always say zokiko which basically means my older sibling.

May 30

May 30, 2016

I have a way cool story this week!!!!!

We were on our way to an appointment, but we were running a bit early so we stopped by an épicerie for a soda. (An epicerie is a little shop like thing. Hopefully next week I'll send a picture of one.)The lady looked at my name tag and said, "Elder Smithson", very clearly, which is very unusual because most Malagasies have a hard time saying my name (90 percent say "Simpson"). We started talking and it turns out she is actually pretty good at English. She then really surprised me when she said "I have a friend with the same name as you. He is a missionary like you. He taught me how to pray." I pretty much immediately knew it was my older brother and I was right! I confirmed so by showing her a picture of Wesley. It was sooo crazy!!! I knew that I would meet members that knew my brother, but I never thought that I would run into a random person on the street who knew him! It was a very neat experience. She is a very nice lady. Apparently she never took formal lessons, but Wesley used to stop there and get drinks and talk to her. We definitely plan on going back! We will see what happens!!

So every week I choose a Christlike attribute from Preach My Gospel and try to improve on it. This week was patience, and I realized I'm not very patient. However, I had a neat thought. We were teaching an older guy named Pascual. He is from the countryside in the northern part of Madagascar where we don't have the church yet. However he is spending a few months here in Tana (Antananarivo) and has been learning about the church from us. He was first introduced to the church years ago, and he is probably the best investigator I have ever taught. Anyways, on Tuesday, he asked a really good question that struck a chord in my mind. He asked, "Did Lehi and his family know that they were going to America when the Lord told them to leave Jerusalem?" I knew the answer was no, but as I started thinking about it I had this thought: They had no clue where they were going, but they trusted in the lord. It wasn't 'til after they left Jerusalem that they learned they were going to a promised land, and even then it took another 8 years of traveling in the wilderness before they reached the sea. They still had to build ships and sail across the sea. They had tremendous faith and patience. Our lives are very similar. We don't always know why things happen or why sometimes things don't happen when we want them to, but Heavenly Father does. In Preach My Gospel one of the definitions of patience is trusting in the lord and in his timing. Heavenly Father knows each of us personally. He knows exactly where we are going and when to help us (as he did for Lehi and his family when He gave them the Liahona to guide them). So far on my mission I've had some cool experiences of being in the right place at the right time, and often times leading up to those experiences there was a lot of failures and disappointments. I know the Lord knew what was happening and helped out with the timing. I hope as I continue to serve that I get better at trusting in the Lord.

So word of the week is faharitana which is how Malagasies say patience. It more literally translates as enduring (for example, we say faharitana hatramin'ny farany for enduring to the end) which also happens to be another definition of patience in Preach My Gospel.