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!!

Madagascar - Communications down !

Dear Mada Parents--

This is Sister Woolley for President and Sister Foote, writing from my home in Provo.  Apparently, an underwater cable has been damaged in the Indian Ocean which has taken out Telma, the phone and internet provider in Madagascar.  The consequence of this is that your missionaries will not have access to email either to receive or send until the repairs are made which may be as long as 15 days.  President Foote was afraid you would be concerned when you didn't hear from your missionaries this week, and ask me to send an explanation.

I hope I have email addresses for all the Mada parents.  Please spread the word to any I may have missed.

Madagascar is a wonderful place to serve despite some occaisional difficulties--we miss it already.

Sister Woolley

January 23

I'm sorry to hear about Bro. Ellsworth. I'm not wholly shocked, but it is sad to think he won't be there when I get home. He was a huge influence on me as I was growing up. I'm doing fine though. Death is a part of life. I teach people everyday that if we live the gospel we can be with our families forever. Bro. Ellsworth and his family live the gospel and I have no doubt they will see each other in the Celestial kingdom. Spencer Avarell talked a few weeks back in his email about a couple elders that died in his mission. He talked about his mission president as saying something like our message isn't just a lesson, its real, We don't just tell other people about it but we can use it too. (That is not even close to a direct quote, those were just my thoughts as I read what Spencer wrote.) The pain of death is swallowed up in the joy of Christ.

Well my week has been really good. We got to teach a lot of really cool people and a lot of investigators and less actives came to church! Its always wonderful when people say they will come to church and then actually come! I feel like I should be used to people saying they are coming and then not coming. It has happened a lot on my mission, but for some reason I just cant get used to it. I always have such high hopes and then Sunday comes and they don't show up. That is how Sunday started out for me. When we started the opening hymn there were only a few of the people we are teaching there, but when I looked back during the intermediate hymn I saw more that had come in a little late, It was so exciting! 

The good days are always the days you remember, the bad ones usually just kind of fade form your memory. Also this week we had an investigator pass a bap interview. She will be getting baptized this coming Saturday which is really exciting.

So as of late it has not been raining here in Tana, which is good for us as missionaries because it's much easier to talk to and teach people when its not raining. It means we don't have to walk through gross water. However, its not very good for the people here. There is a lot of talk of water being shut off if it doesn't rain soon (not just like running water because most people don't have that but also the wells where most people get their water from. Our Bishop yesterday told everyone to pray for rain. Another reason we need rain is so two of our investigators can get baptized. It is a couple and all they need to do is get legally married in order to get baptized. However that is pretty difficult because the wife was born very far from Tana and needs a copy of her birth certificate from her birth town in order to get married. Well her mom went out there to plant rice, but she needs it to rain before she can plant the rice. So basically it we need to rain so she can plant the rice, get the birth certificate and come back here so they can get legally married. Its strange, but literally they will get baptized as soon as it starts raining.

Well that's about it. I love you!! 

Word of the week is fahafatesana which means death.

January 16

Well there was an earthquake this week! It wasn't too big. I don't know of any damage that happened, but it certainly shook up a lot of Malagasies, Apparently, earthquakes aren't very common, and word on the street is that this was the biggest one ever recorded. I slept through the whole thing.

I met two girls both named Jenny this week and they said they were sisters, found that pretty interesting.

I tried something called trondron-maina; Which is this dried fish that they then make into a soup like thing and serve with rice.  Today we went out to Sabotsy Namenah (my old area) and just sort of hung out in the countryside, it was a lot of fun.

We are teaching some really cool families right now, though in general most of our investigators are struggling with regular church attendance for various reasons. Hopefully that changes soon though. One of the guys we have been teaching named Rija is trying to make it so he doesn't have to work Sundays, he could use some prayers!

This week I read Ch 5 of Alma. It is a really great chapter. In vs 45-48 Alma bears a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ. It really hit me that Alma knew that Christ would come and redeem him from his sins.

Well that's about it for this week! Love you guys! 

Word of the week is horohoron-tany which means earthquake.

So things id like in my next package Mac and cheese, refried beans (its okay if its a small can), smarties and life saver gummies.

I was also hoping Mom and Dad you could start thinking of anything you guys would like me to bring you from here and maybe ask the kids too what they want. I'm starting to to think about souvenirs so I don't have to buy them all at the end. I love you!!!