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.