February 27

I have great news!!!! On of our investigators this week named Arlain quit smoking this week!! I'm so excited for him!! He is totally going to get baptized on his date in April!! 

Also, we have a couple that has been wanting to get baptized for 8 months that are finally getting married this Thursday! So - yeah - they are going to be getting baptized real soon! 

We also have some other people I'm really excited for!!! 

I also have a new plan. My new comp and I are going to go visit every single part member we family we can find in our area. I was thinking about it and realized that a lot of the people who I've been privileged to teach who actually got baptized had family who were already members. So - yeah - I'm going to see what I can do there. The hard part will be finding all of these people. Ward lists don't work here like they do in America for several reasons. 

We got transfer news yesterday and I'm getting a new companion as expected. His name is Elder Jordan, I've lived with him before, He is a good guy, from Utah of course, and fresh out of high school.

Madagascar gets a lot of lighting, but this week I saw a storm off in the distance and it was absolutely crazy. I've never seen anything like it before. It was just constant lighting up in the sky, It literally looked like a superhero battle in the skies. I was awestruck.

Well I love you all! 

Word of the week is finday, that is how you say cell phone in Malagasy, though most of the time people just say telephone in a a Malagasy accent.

February 20

So kind of a quiet week. Though we had some really good things happen.

One of our investigators quit smoking!! which was way exciting!! His name is Arlain.

Another cool thing is that a couple who have been investigating the church for nearly a year were able to finally get a copy of the wife's birth certificate so they can now get married legally (officially) and get baptized!!!

Other than that not much to say. There has been a lot of rain, which is good for Mada! I love you all. excited to hear about my soon to be nephews! 

Word of the week is afaka sigara, which roughly translates to quitting smoking.

February 13

 So the internet is back up and running! That is nice! It sounds like everything is going well as you head towards the end of Winter. I'm realizing how long its been since I've seen snow. In my mind it isn't even winter time right now, but summer. Winter doesn't happen til like June. I realize next year I'll be home for snow, which I'm excited for and a little scared for. I've become kind of a baby when it comes to the cold.

I know Orson is going to be home really soon, After him, I'll be the next one. I'll beat Spencer A home by a few weeks.

So this week I ate something really gross. Just so you know - Wesley at something grosser. I'll just leave it at that. However, I also found frozen yogurt!! Though it was only okay and cost 7000 Ariary ... so I probably wont buy that again.

We have a quite a few investigators that are really doing well and will hopefully be getting baptized here soon. They all have some things they need to overcome first though, like smoking or getting legally (officially) married - but I am confident the Lord will help them. They are doing what they need to do!

Well cant really think of anything else to tell you guys, I love you!!! 

Word of the week is mandresy which means to win or to overcome. literally it kind of  means to cause to lose

February 6

The Internet is kind of working this week! Its really really slow, though better than last week when it didn't work at all. Word on the street is that some cable broke between Madagascar and South Africa for the biggest internet provider in Madagascar. Hopefully they get it fixed soon.

So I don't know if you know but Sister Wooley (the mission secretary) and her husband had to go home because Elder Wolley had a stroke. So currently they are trying to help out with things from their home in Utah. Our mission nurse and her husband who have been here for 2 months also went home last week because her father is about to pass on. They should be returning soon though. All in all the mission office is very short staffed right now and it doesn't help that the internet doesn't really work.

The last few weeks summed up: 

We had a baptism for a girl named Mitsinjo. Hopefully I can send you the picture. By the way Mitsinjo means 'to look after'. 

There was a night we got caught in the rain on our way home. We were about a 30 minute walk from home, so we took a taxi. Half way there the taxi went through a puddle and the engine died. We had to get out and push the taxi out of the puddle until it started again. It didn't really matter though because we had already gotten soaked on the way to the taxi. When we got home I just got straight into the shower because lets just say we don't live on the cleanest of paths with the best drainage system.

Other than that, life is good. We have some people we are really excited for. We had 3 of the less actives we have been working with come to church on Sunday and had a total of 6 investigators.

So word of the week is Mamono Which means to kill, beat up, or fight. We were teaching a man about the 10 Commandments and he started talking about how he was doing pretty good at most of them - but he had broken the 6th one when he was 11. I got super scared because that is the "thou shalt not kill" one. In reality all he had done was beat up another kid during a soccer game.

Love you!! Thanks for your emails!!