Madagascar...Finally!!

We made it here finally! Madagascar is the coolest place ever. Our first day or two were spent in the main city, Antananarivo. Then, after all the meetings, we got our companions and headed to our new homes. 

Antananarivo- Madagascar's Capital (view from the Mission office)

My trainers name is Elder Morgan, he's been in the country about 8 months. (Check out Elder Taylor Morgan's blog listed under Missionary Friends on the side bar. He says some fun things about Elder Moulton!!) We live with two other guys from Utah, our house is sick. Lots of fun, and way bigger than I thought it'd be. Two stories. 

Our workout room, nice eh?

Our Backyard

Our area is called Analamahitsy, we're out in the sticks, or Ambanavohitra, as people here call it. It's the coolest place ever! We get to walk through rice paddies every day. And it's legit mountain hiking everywhere. We live in the town, but the area is way out on the other side of the mountain. I'm making an online photo album so you can see, because I can't describe it nearly as good as the photos.  

Elder Taylor Morgan

Pineapples

The very sturdy bridge to our next house!

But this place is awesome, the kids are all insane. We get like 12 kids in every lesson, just cuz they follow us inside and everywhere we go. The kids are puny too, even the older ones, so I can just toss them around, it's fun for everyone. Oh, and the drunks, the drunks are hilarious, they love talking to us. I find I get my best language practice with the kids and the drunks. 

These kids are nuts, they live right by the office. They were shooting us with their guns. 

They LOVE digital watches.

Surprisingly, I haven't gotten sick yet. I eat street food every day. The food is awesome. The people we teach will sometimes give us food, a lot of food. I feel bad cuz I get stuffed and can hardly finish, but I pound it down, cuz they like to watch me eat until I'm done haha.

My first dinner in Analamahitsy, at a nice place called Atlantis.

Some of my first streetfood

1500 Ariary= about 75 cents!!

It's so hard to understand most people. I felt like I had a good grasp on the language until I got here ha, but it's coming along slowly. Pray for me, cuz it's really difficult.

Everything is still pretty new, but it's not as hard to get used to as I thought. 

This place is so different from home, every house is one room, probably half the size of a bedroom back home. Dirt floors, sometimes cement. But it's crazy, I'm so glad I got to come here, coolest place on Earth.

I love you guys!

Taylor

PS- (Sorry if my spelling is ever messed up, the keyboards here are messed up, letters all in different places, kind of a hassle.)

Halfway around the world in MADAGASCAR!!

It was awesome to talk to Taylor in Chicago!! The first flight was rough! He got to be good friends with the barf bag!! One of the other Elder's was nice and offered Taylor some of his motion sickness medicine!! Taylor sounded good when we were talking with him though. Hopefully he doesn't keep getting nauseous and the turbulence is nicer to him on the other flights. One of the passengers said she was scared they were going to die, then she looked around and saw all the missionaries on the flight and knew they were "good"! My favorite part was listening to his cute little laugh!!

Hey everyone! We got to Mada a few hours ago, and they're giving us a few minutes to write.

First off, the flights...insane...48 hours straight, but so good. I got a few chances to teach some people in the airports, I'll talk more about that in another email. We ran into some bible bashers too, always fun.

Madagascar is so awesome, I don't even know where to start. I'm so stoked. I love the kids.

Anyway, I'll write more when I get a chance. Love you guys!

Taylor

On a jet plane...

So...we're just hangin' around today waiting for our boy to call from some random airport. Since we won't get an email from Taylor 'til next week (I think), I decided to share some of Taylor's MTC videos with you. You know...Taylor and videos go hand in hand. Have fun watchin' and I'll post again when we hear from Elder Moulton!!

                                                                   

                                                                   

                                                                     

                                                                 

                                                         

                                     

                                                             
Enjoy!!

It's still a go!!

Hey! So I thought that last email would be my last, but we have the rest of the day to pack, so a bunch of us came to do laundry. This'll be a short one.

We had our last lesson and class today, it was so sweet. All day culture day just to get us pumped to leave. I'm getting so restless. Thanks for getting that package to Ben. (P.S. Ben, this is the shoutout you wanted on my blog, love you man.)

Anyway, just letting you know that everything is still a go for Monday, I'll try to call between 8:30 AM and 3:45 PM on Monday. So just try to be around, otherwise you'll get a nice voicemail to last til Christmas ha. Thanks for the last package, both of the notes from you and Dad were awesome. And Mom, in my letter home I mentioned posting photos from Mada on Photobucket, so I'll post the last bit of MTC ones when we get there.

Thank Grandma & Grandpa for both writing! Happy 83rd Birthday Grandpa!! Happy late birthday to you too Grandma! (I won't say how young you are, ha!) The family party sounded awesome!!

Not sure what else to cover, I'll talk to you all soon. Love you!

Taylor

PS-- Here is another fun Malagasy phrase for you..."Ny olombelona tsy akoho" which means "A person is not a chicken". So random, I quess you use that phrase when you need to go to the bathroom, and they'll show you where it is, ha!

6 Days 'til our Mada Adventure begins!!

Hey everyone! We're finally getting down to the end. Not that it's too bad here, but compared to Madagascar... I want to leave! This is our last P-Day here. We're doing our last temple sesh today. 

We leave the 20th. We fly from Salt Lake to Chicago, then have a 2+ hour layover. Then Chicago to London, then a 12 hour layover. Then London to JoBurg, South Africa, then a few hours to kill until we take a puddle jumper to Mada. I AM SO STOKED. It'll take about two days to get there. (Family: I'll call you guys from the Chicago Airport, wish I knew the specific time, I'll try calling a few times if no one is home, it'll be too much of a hassle calling from London.) Oh, and we're traveling in two groups. Six guys in one group, and me and two others in the other. I'm the travel leader, haha, no pressure. Luckily even though we're all in different groups, we'll be together a big chunk of the time.

So last Wednesday we got to host. So much fun. It was kind of weird to see new people come in and how sad a lot of people are, especially after we've been here so long. But it was fun, you have to kind of baby everyone because they're so freaked ha. I was the same I'm sure. It was so nice to get to do something out of the ordinary, especially after 7 weeks of the same thing. We get to do it again tomorrow.

We still teach almost every day, but it's hard to remember specifics after doing it so much. I'm starting to love teaching, Bro Sell says we've gotten really good at teaching to needs. I love going into a lesson with a plan, then not even being able to teach it because the investigator has other questions. We were going to teach one investigator, Tahiry, about the Plan of Salvation, but while we were getting to know him, we randomly started talking about his family, and spent like 40 minutes just talking about ways to help them accept the gospel. That's just an example, we have stuff like that all the time, I love it. Can't wait to do it for real.

We got a new teacher this week, he's replacing Bro Pixton, and he speaks Malagasy. It's so nice having two teachers that speak the language, not that Pixton wasn't cool. The new guys' name is Bro Burton. I guess he knew Brittany at EFY? And he knows our cousin Drew. Random. Anyway, he's super cool, and he's a way good teacher. He's able to clear up some grammar stuff that has never made sense to me.

Oh yeah, so I missed my haircut appointment because of hosting, so my hair is still pretty long. Trying to get it cut again today. Pretty exciting huh? 

Another bit of info before I talk about the week. This is my last time being able to email for 2 weeks. My next letter will be from Madagascar! Mail is crazy slow in Madagascar. And if I am anywhere outside the capital, it can take weeks longer (or months) to get it. So I would prefer to email everyone whenever possible. So email me instead of writing from now on everyone!  taylor.moulton@myldsmail.net  I'll do my best to write back when I have time. Oh, also, tell Conner sorry, I wrote him, and a few days later, the letter came back all messed up with a big return to sender thing. No idea what happened. But tell him I'm sorry and to try to email me! I'm stoked for him and Jesse to get here in the next few weeks.

Yeah, that thing with all the names on it is a shirt that all the Orem High Elders sign when they go through. I gave it to Lane, who gave it to Peter, who gave it to Kyle, who gave it to Chariton. That's
just in the past 2 or 3 weeks. It's way cool.

I realized that I had a ton of pictures of us laying on the ground during study. Ha, I promise that doesn't happen as often as it looks. It's not nearly that layed back.

Sometimes Taylor doesn't even need to lay on the floor...haha!!

See...he does really study!!

I'll talk to you when I get to Chicago, and I'll write again in a few weeks! Thanks for the family stories, from both you and Mom. I love you guys. Talk to you guys soon!

Taylor

P.S.  A good Gasy phrase for you guys: "Aza mirarotra saka be loha." It means "Don't rip me off". But the real translation is "Don't sell a cat with a big head." We all enjoy that one, ha!

Flight Schedule to Mada!!

Taylor leaves for Madagascar on Monday August 20th!! Here is the flight schedule (all times listed are local to the places he will be):

Salt Lake City to Chicago, Illinois        Dep: 11:05 AM      Arr: 3:05 PM            
Chicago to London, England                Dep: 5:15 PM        Arr: 6:55 AM
London to Johannasburg, Africa           Dep: 7:10 PM        Arr: 7:00 AM
Johannasburg to Madagascar!!            Dep: 10:00 AM      Arr: 2:10 PM


Taylor is ONE HAPPY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 Weeks Left 'Til the Big Mada Takeoff!!

Two weeks left, the wait it killing us. Last Friday, we had culture day. We looked at pictures, listened to stories, and possibly best of all, we got to listen to Malagasy music. They have some super crunk underground rap, let me tell you. I am so stoked to buy some of that. Culture day was sick, it's a bummer though, because it was Bro Sender's last lesson here. He left Saturday to go home to Ohio for two weeks, so we either won't get to see him again, or we'll see him on our last morning here. So it's been Bro Sell teaching all day every day now, but he's one of the coolest guys ever.

Kabosy- Mada guitar

Today and next Tuesday are the last time we'll be able to go to the temple for 2 years, so nuts. I'll have all the family names you gave me done by then though, so I'll send them home soon. It's basically the only planned part of our P-Days here, ha, we have so much free time on Tuesday's. So we just nap it up. And last week, Mitchell, Eppich and I had a slingshot war in the hallway with our rubber exercise bands.

So, last Thursday we had our first SYL day. (Speak Your Language). We spoke only in Malagasy all day. It was hard, but super helpful, we've been doing it a lot more now too. I think I can officially say now that I know more Malagasy than Spanish. I finally stopped slipping Spanish in when I talk, ha.

Sunday was the best. We had mission conference, so between meetings we had a few hours to kill. We watched almost every video on Mormon.org. Johnny Lingo, The Phone Call, FInding Faith in Christ, etc. It was so nice watching movies...I miss it. I've already heard a ton about the new Batman, definitely the one of the first things I'm doing when I get home, not that I'm constantly thinking about it or anything ha.

What else.. It was a crazy fast week, so I can't remember a lot. Oh! We get to host new kids tomorrow, for a few hours. We're officially the oldest district in our Zone now, the Indo's left yesterday. So crazy, it went by so fast. Also, we get flight plans on Thursday, and I get my very first haircut tomorrow. The dreaded MTC haircuts, oh man..

Anyway, like I said, this week was quick, Next week will be my last update for almost two weeks! The P-Days in Mada are on Monday, and we leave on a Monday, so I'll have lots of sick stories for you then. Love you guys, talk to you soon!

Taylor