February 15

February 15, 2016

On a mission, for your first two transfers you are in training and typically when you are done being trained you get a new comp. So Monsen and I were totally expecting him to leave and me to get someone new. On Saturday though we got a call from President Foote and he told us we were staying together for another transfer. So yeah nothing new.

Last night we got caught in a rain storm and there was a big van that got stuck.  We tried to help them for like an hour and got completely soaked, it was fun. When it rains here it really rains, the roads/paths here become rivers.

We taught a family yesterday about families and the temple and it was really neat. I showed them a picture of the South Africa temple and of BrookeLynne, Eric, Avery, and Dakota. They first came into contact with the church 3 years ago, but he has been struggling and there hasn't been missionaries here consistently. Hopefully we can help them progress!!

On Wednesday we got to go out to the country side and visit a member. We are planning on going out there again this week. It was way beautiful, I have some pictures, but they don't do it justice.

I got a bunch more letters last week. I'm now only missing letter 10 from mom I think and I got a couple from Katie. 

This is for mom,  (FYI: Cyndi/Corey's Mom has been sick)

You woulds say "mirary fahasalama" to someone who is sick, it means to wish healthiness, it's like saying I hope you get better! 

I hope I didn't miss anything from the letters I forgot to review them this morning so I don't remember everything.

Word of the week is mandrakizay which means forever.

love you!

Elder Corey Smithson

February 8

February 8, 2016

Wow, sounds like Katie is going to have a fun summer! [We told him Katie might be going to EFY in Navoo.] I’m looking forward to those months here because I miss the cold, the only plus is that it isn't as humid here in Tana as it is in Tamatave.

So not much happened this week. Just another week in the life. I did get to feed pigs which was pretty cool, I never realized just how huge they are!!  They weigh a whole lot more than me. (side note, I weigh a lot more than most Malagasies, it was funny while I was in South Africa someone told me I was a pretty skinny boy and literally a few days later when I came back to Mada I was told I was a pretty big boy. To Malagasies I'm fat, and even most of the missionaries here are skinnier than me too).



Other than that not too much has happened. We currently don't have any progressing investigators which has been a bit tough, but hopefully things turn around this week,
I did break or lose 5 pens this week which has been fun. I just keep fiddling with them a lot and they are not exactly the best quality. It reminded me of all the remote control covers I've broken.
I love you!

Sary means picture in Malagasy.

I hope you have a great week!

February 1

February 1, 2016

So I'm doing fine, feeling great, way glad to be back in Madagascar!! I love it here, I understand why Wesley misses here so much. 

So I'm back with Elder Monsen he had been working with the office elders for the past few weeks, but now we are back working together. 

We opened up a new area called Sabotsy Namehena. It's a branch on the northern side of Tana. It hasn't been its own area for almost a year, there have been elders working there every Friday though. 

Since our building wasn't built by the church they have these make shift fonts. We built it inside because they were worried someone would steal it, you have fill it up overnight cause it takes awhile. It turns out there was a leak in it and it kept flooding the room. but it all worked out fine. There was no carpet so we just sort of pushed all the water outside. It was quite the experience

We actually had a baptism on Saturday, but this week has been spent trying to find people to teach and we honestly haven't had a ton of luck, but the branch here is way cool!! We have an awesome BP and DMB(branch mission leader).  They help us out a lot and they also each feed us once a week which is way nice because Malagasy food is way good!!! I'm still waiting for something gross, so far I've loved everything. Something really nice about Tana is that there is mofapota which are these way good little loafs of bread. They don't have them in Tamatave, but I eat them everyday for breakfast here. I love you! Please pray for missionary work! 

that fruit is greanadlle and makes the best juice ever

Word of the week is sakafo which means food.

Well that's my week. I need some pictures of the family I lost mine.  I got the rest of the letter you sent at thanksgiving and a couple more from Aunt Tana and Mom. I am missing letters 9 and 10 from mom . I have through 8 and number 11. Next week I might get to go to a lemur park!! I also have a lot of random pictures from the last few weeks that I will hopefully be able to send today.

Some of those random pictures from past weeks

 The temple in South Africa!

This is one of Wesley's mission companions that Corey ran into!  
Elder Andriamanganoro 

If someone reaches Corey's chin they are really tall!

Corey playing Frisbee with some kids.

January 25

January 25, 2016

This week was a bit crazy for our family.  We got word that Corey was on his way to South Africa to see a doctor.  The email below is from Corey this morning.  We also received an email from the mission home last night which is included.

From Corey:

So there isn't a lot to share, my chest was sort of hurting, (pretty sure because I was trying to do push ups) so they flew me to South Africa to make sure everything was okay. I stayed in the hospital there for 2 nights while they did tests. They said everything is fine, so I got to come back to Mada. while in South Africa I got some McDonalds and spent Sunday with the APs there, it was kind of a cool experience, but I realized just how much I love Madagascar!!!!! It feels great to be back!!!!! 

Love,

Corey 

From the mission Secretary:

Brother Smithson-

Elder Smithson was experiencing some discomfort in his chest last week which he reported to the mission nurse.  With Elder Smithson’s fairly recent historyand out of an abundance of caution, the Area doctor in South Africa wanted to have him checked out there so he flew to SA on Thursday.  Elder Smithson spent some time in the hospital, was checked thoroughly, and cleared to return to Madagascar.  He will be flying back today.  Again, out of an abundance of caution, President Foote will assign him to serve in Antananarivo—the capital city— for a while where he will be close to the mission office and medical care if needed.

I will  have him email you today after his plane arrives so he can give you more details.

He is such a sweet young man.  We will be very glad to have him back serving with us again.

Thanks-

Sister Woolley

January 18

January 18, 2016

So I got letters this week!!! One from mom, one from Avery, one from BrookeLynne and Jeni, and one from Tana!!!!!!!!! Thank you!!!

Not a ton has happened this week. Mostly a pretty normal week.

On Wednesday night apparently there was a kidnapping and a murder in our area so we had to come in early and the next day Elder Snell and I went on splits with other elders because president didn't want us to work in our area, it was pretty interesting.

So fun, we were just walking 
and there was a kid with
a lemur he found out in the countryside
 so he let us hold it

Other than that it was a pretty normal week. We have some pretty mazotoa(diligent) progressing investigators, with some of them, I was here when he found them and it has been cool seeing them progress. I hope I get to see them baptized too.

I have been reading "Jesus the Christ" and I'm closing in on the end, less than 200 pages left! I have learned a lot. Christ truly was the perfect teacher and he knows all of our pains.

I love you!!! Have a great week!!!

January 11

January 11, 2016

So still no letters. hopefully they start coming soon, I probably won’t see the president or AP’s though for at least like 5 weeks. Emails have been way nice though. I have as much time as I need to email usually.  No one here knows how to get a frisbee so I’d love It If you sent me one, hopefully It gets here!


This week was pretty great. Elder Snell and I are doing fine. people are saying I'm a lot better at Malagasy than I was when I first got here and that I’m learning super-fast. Other people still have no clue what I’m trying to say and when they talk I feel like I have a blank stare on my face because I literally understand absolutely nothing they said. That being said I had my first conversation in Malagasy this week!!!!! I actually had 2!!!!! My first was a guy on the street my comp was talking to this guy In English (he said he wanted to learn English so he talked a bit in English and I invited him to English class) so I sat down next to this guy and we started talking. I think I understood about half of we said (sort of). But it lasted like 20 mins, it was way cool. Then my 2nd conversation happened while we were in a posiposy.  My comp wanted to try bringing it so the driver got in back with me and I talked to him and invited him to church on Sunday! In general, though I still don’t really understand people, but I’m getting there.

Not much else happened this week. just sort of a normal week for a missionary in Madagascar. I’ve really come to be grateful for the opportunity to serve here though. I love Madagascar!!!! I understand why Wesley misses it so much. Every time we start complaining about how hard it is living in Mada and we talk about how easy it would be to be a missionary in a first world country with air conditioning and couches we remember how much we get to teach and how lucky we are to be able to share the gospel with so many people. We literally teach more lessons a day than missionaries in our home ward teach in a week. It is hard, but great.

I love you!!! I’ve learned a lot here on a mission. Do whatever you can to help the missionaries there,

Missionary work goes so much better when members are involved!!! Word of the week is mpikambana which means member.

January 4

January 4, 2016

So I know this is a day after I usually email, but we spent yesterday at foul pointe and Pres Foote let us email today instead, I hope you haven’t been freaking out too much. but I’ve got a lot to tell this week!

So I’ll start from the beginning. Last Monday after emailing we went and played ultimate frisbee on the beach. It was way fun!!! I have missed that game, afterwards I tossed it around with a few little kids and it was a lot of fun. hopefully I‘ll be able to upload pics cause I’ve got some good ones. I seem to have lost my frisbee so if there was anyway to send another one in a future package that would be absolutely wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Tuesday it was raining which was way nice because it is a bit cooler when it rains, granted you also tend to get soaked when it rains and the puddles here are huge. I have a pic, but it’s not even close to the biggest one I saw, there are plenty of places where the whole road is just one big puddle. I haven’t had to wade through a puddle quite yet though.

We had a really cool spiritual experience on Tuesday with prayer:
Last week there was a really cool family we tracted into. We taught them a lesson and set a return time for the following week (this past Tues). They seemed like they were genuinely interested in our message and not because we were two white guys trying to speak Malagasy. So anyways this past Tues we were trying to get to our appt with them and it was just pouring. We had a problem though, we couldn’t remember where exactly they lived, the paths here are way confusing and I honestly still don’t know where we are half the time, It’s literally basically a maze and addresses don’t really exist. Anyways, we knew the general area we had been in that day so we headed there and walked around for a bit hoping we would remember. We even asked a couple people sitting around but they had no idea. They did say they saw us last week.  So I probably should have mentioned Elder Monsen was really not feeling well Tuesday. We decided to say a prayer and spend a few more minutes looking before we were planning on just heading home cause Elder Monsen was not doing well. We started walking one direction for a few minutes and then all of the sudden Elder Monsen remembered exactly where that family was and took us straight to them. Our prayer had been answered. We didn’t end up teaching them a lesson then because my companion was sick but we got their number and talked for a bit. So that was Tuesday. Sorry sort of long, basically our prayer was answered,

Wednseday: My companion was still sick but we tried to head out and we taught one really cool guy named Paul. This was our third time teaching him. Usually his wife is there too but she wasn’t then. I didn’t really understand where she was exactly though. I remember the first time we taught them I didn’t think it would go anywhere. I was pretty sure they had let us in because we were white, but I have seen a change in him on Wednesday. He talked about how our visits always make him happy and how he wants to feel it more. It was really a great lesson. He had some really great questions. I’m really excited for him. After him we just went home again because my companion was still sick.

Thursday: My Companion was sick so we spent the whole day at home. We didn’t really do anything for News Year’s Eve - just another night.

Friday was fun. We stayed in all day because mu companion was still sick but we did try to do one lesson. We had a lesson planned with a really mazoto investigator, his daughters and a member family at the member house. We were pretty excited for it, so we went to it but just after the opening prayer my companion {was very ill} so we headed home just as soon as possible. It was quite the way to start the year.

(side note: everyone here is drunk on news year’s, more things are closed on new year’s than on Christmas)

Saturday: President Foote and the AP’s came up and we had interviews. It was my first time seeing Pres Foote since I left for Tamatave. It was good. My companion was still sick so all we did was go to the interview on Sat and stop by Shop Rite to get some food. (I found tortillas and had burritos. It was amazing!!! I have missed burritos!!!)

Sunday: My comp was sick so I went on splits with another Elder Randrainavalana. It was way fun and hard because he is from Tana and knows about as much English as I know Malagasy. Sunday night was when life got really interesting. My companion was really not doing well so we took him to the hospital (by we, I mean the AP’s and me). The hospitals here are kind of scary. There was one doctor  and one nurse on duty and they couldn’t really tell us much so we just took him to the AP’s hotel where the air conditioning worked really well and Elder Herrin stayed with him. The other AP, Elder Covey and I, headed back to our house. On the way home we rear ended a posiposy though (it was a mission driver who was driving). That was not fun. Some police showed up which complicated things because they are sort of corrupt and one of the passengers was way drunk, so we weren’t sure if he had a head injury or not, we ended up taking some people to the hospital and they got some bandages. It turns out nobody got hurt really bad (we were completely fine, just a dent in the van). So that was way crazy and I didn’t really understand much that was happening. We didn’t get home until 1:30 though.

Then yesterday we went to foul pointe. My companion was still sick. He came up with Pres and just sat in the car. The rest of the missionaries took a bus. The country side in Mada is absolutely amazing!!! It was way cool. I have some pictures. Anyways, that’s why I didn’t email yesterday - because I spent the day at the beach!! I didn’t get to swim but I did get to stick my feet in. I also had some sort of crab.

So that was my week. Transfers are this week. Pres Foote is taking my companion back to Tana. He seems to be a bit better but he has been really sick. I have a new comp named Elder Snell. I’ll send a picture of us.

That was basically my week. I got sunburned yesterday! I hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for the emails!!. The Book of Mormon is true!!!

love

Elder Corey Smithson