Mada adventures- weather, animals, and kids!

It's burning hot here. Holy crap. I hope you all are enjoying the fall time back home, I'd kill for that right now. Rainy season is definitely starting to hit here. Nothing too bad yet. We had a solid rainstorm on Wednesday, then again of Friday morning (way too early I might add, got to love tin roofs). Then last night we had another storm with tons of lightning. Lightning was striking all over. One hit way close, I seriously went blind for half a second.

Anyway, that aside, haha, we got our new Elder in the house this week. His name is Elder Hamm, he's from Granstville, UT. He's still just a little bit shellshocked I think, but weren't we all? We took him to the lemur park today. Oh, and we had some fun stuff happen there.  Outside the lemur park, there is a little village where people sell chickens, and we got one for way cheap, and they told us to go feed it to the crocodiles, because I guess that's what they eat. So we took it in, gave it to the cage cleaner guy and he threw it in the cage. I'll save the dirty details, but it goes without saying that we saw some crazy crap go down in the crocodile cage today.

Also, unrelated to carnivorous animals, we also found a random school in the middle of nowhere with like 200 kids running around. We rallied them up, and their teacher had them sing a song for us. Then we had them repeat back English phrases to us, I got a video of like 50 of the kids saying "I love Taylor Swift". That should win her over eh?

With Elder Lane Mitchell in Madagascar

Some random things I observed this week. The following all happened to me in a matter of like an hour or so on Friday.

-I was walking to our area, when I large spray hit me in the hand, snot rocket from the guy in front of me.
-I was walking in a little alley between two houses and I saw a bright blue bucket full of water. Along with several pieces of human poop.
-I was walking through a courtyard when a huge goose started chasing me up a dirt hill.
-By an epicerie (a little one room store) a drunk guy walked up to me and told me that I looked exactly like his favorite American actor. Turns out his favorite American actor is only in French movies. So I guess I'll never know who that is.

It's all good fun out here, you never know what kind of weirdness will go on. Oh, and I also decided to test out our water filter bottle this week. It's supposed to be some souped up filter on steroids. So I filled it up out in Manazary with some water by where everyone was washing clothes. Tasted like smoke and dirt, but my body is feeling fine, so I think the bottle works.

We were walking home last night when we felt like we should visit our old EQP, we'd never visited him before. We had a member lead us to his house then we walked in, shared a thought, talked forever, played guitar, ate dinner, and he drove us home. DROVE US HOME. That never happens. I felt like an American missionary, getting free dinner, a ride home, and he also invitied us to come play tennis with him on our next P-Day is his private court. He's loaded. I still don't know exactly why we felt like we should visit him. I think he had some not so good experiences with missionaries before, but things seemed way good by the end of the night. He was pretty weirded out when we first showed up.

Let's see what I can whip up about these investigators. Keep in mind that what I say is just highlights, everyone has a more full story than what I write. 

Voary and Hiaingo, we still teach them. I'm really hoping they get diligent again. They were really good at first, but they've kind of slowed down, and aren't home a lot. We'll see.

Lydia, she's still a go for baptism soon! She has to get legally married, but that should be easy because she works for the gov. Valdy is her son, haha. But I made that mistake when I first got here with some kids. A lot of kids look like they could be either until you get used to it. I'm usually right 90 percent of the time haha.

Lanto, she is already baptised. She is a less active we were trying to get back to church. But she's having a rough time finding work and is having a hard time believing that if she comes to church, she'll find work. We keep promising her that.

Ernestine and Aiena, WAY diligent. We're teaching them twice a week now. Way awesome. We've only taught them twice and we gave them a BOM and the first thing they asked was why it didn't have D&C and Pearl of Great Price too, ha. We picked one up for them today. I have no doubt they'll be baptized in the next month or two. Our focus with them is getting their husbands to learn with them.

The guitar is way cool, but it's way different than the one back home. That one is way better, but I expected that. This one is still a good one to have to play so I don't lose all my skill haha.

Misaina was teaching me some tricks on the guitar.

Sorry, not much organization to this letter haha, but I just noticed a ton of random things this week. Thought I'd share them.

Talk to you all soon!

Taylor

General Conference and Awesome Investigators

Well, I'm not throwing up anymore. The sickness moved on to Marsh. He was fevering it up the past few days.

Sick & burning hot in the back of a truck, packed with 9 people.

Anyway, things went slow again this week, but not too bad. Every single person we visited all week, we made sure to tell them about General Conference. It was this past Saturday and Sunday. We were telling everyone. 

Sadly, we didn't have a huge investigator turn out, but the people who came are all really solid investigators. There are these two girls, that we didn't even know were investigators for a while, because we saw them at church every week. Then we found out that they heard about our church from their sister, a lady we teach every Sunday with her husband. After conference, they both told us they wanted to be baptized. So sick! We've only visited them once, but obviously we'll be moving that up.

Also, two brothers came. Hermin and Jean Claude. I love those guys, they're both close to our age. Every week we go over and talk for a while, and have sick lessons. They have so many good questions. So yeah, not a lot of times, but a lot of way diligent people, I'm loving it.

Oh, funny thing. You know how in conference, they have the congregation sing with the choir sometimes? Yeah, that's the only part they don't translate into Gasy. It was pretty funny being in a room with 200 Malagasies trying to sing along with the words on the screen. I made sure to belt it for everyone around me.

Lunch between Conference Sessions

Lydia, she is getting baptized in a month or so!

Valdy, our investigator's kid.

Transfers this week too. Marsh is leaving me! Gosh dang it, my boy is going to Tamatave. And Taylor is training. Pretty sick. That'll be three people in a row getting trained in our house in Analamahitsy. The new kid gets to the house Thursday night.

Anyway, it was a good week. I got my guitar too! I almost forgot. Way sick.  It's no American guitar, but I love it so much.

My guitar. The body and neck is boabob, and the fretboard is hazomena.

Talk to you all soon!

Taylor

Madagascar is sick...and so am I!

Arighty, buckle up, it's a short one this week. I blame it on last P-Day.

So last P-Day, we ate at this little hotely in Analakely, called Trios, and I ordered some chicken cordon bleu. Thinking it might be at least a little but like the Costco stuff back home. It was alright at the time, but my stomach was pretty ticked off at me when I got home that night. I literally had nightmares about plates of that chicken being put in front of me, one after another. It was rough. I woke up and threw up a ton, all over the bathroom.

Then at 11 the next morning, we had interviews at the office. 45 minute bus ride, burning hot, in a suit. So awesome. I was gonna die by the time we got home. I slept all day. The next day, luckily we only had a time or two, English class, then a soiree (probably spelled wrong). After English, I came home again and crashed. Diarrhea and vomit every day, there's a nice picture for everyone.

But I started feeling better toward the end of the week, and we had some awesome times. We're working hard on FLF's (father led families) out here, and while we were waiting for the father of one of our families to get home, I got to pass some time by showing one of our investigators how to use Photoshop. Just like the old days, it felt so good. Except it was pirated, and in French, but I managed. 

P-day at a recording studio in Analakely- Elder Taylor

Most exciting thing today.. Getting my guitar.. So excited! 

Haha, I love Rep so much, glad he has some pictures. I heard Sheide still has my Christmas card on his door too haha. Tell Rep to plan on a big turtlenog party in 2 years, he's got a VIP invite.

Oh, Elder Taylor gave me a phrase for you guys to use when you send me stuff so it won't get broken into. Type this up and paste it on your packages to me. "Ho an'ny zanakay, misionera, irak'Andriamanitra any Madagasikara any mba hanampiana azy hanampy no olona gasy amin'ny filazantsara." That should help so people don't try to steal stuff.

Anyway, sorry it's short, but I spent most of the week lying on the couch. I'll try to have extra adventures this week to make up for it. Talk to you all soon!

Taylor

A few more pics to enjoy:

Malagasy kids...gotta love 'em!!

We always have a good time on splits- Elder Marsh

Random Happenings in Mada!

Alrighty.. where to start. SO everyone is freaking out about the mission age being changed haha, thanks for the spoiler alert everyone! But it really is crazy. We don't get to watch conference til the 21st and 22nd of this month, everyone had a little freak out when we heard, but yeah, we still have a while til we can see it. So how it works, on Saturday, we watch all six hours in English, then on Sunday, we watch the other four in Gasy at our church. But that's only Tana missionaries, everyone else has to watch it all in Gasy.

Anyway, it was a quick week. Funny story: So I carry 3 or 4 pictures with me in my scriptures, just of family and friends, so we can always have a good way to get conversations going with investigators. One of our investigators was looking at a picture of the family, and she was freaking out when she found out Brittany is 23. Whenever I explain Brittany or Kaesi to people I just tell them my sisters are foy be, or pretty much, stinking short. Most people here are probably about my shoulder heighth. But a few random people are taller than me.

Oh, and I bought my guitar. So stoked! I pick it up in a week. The body and neck are baobab (a tree that only grows here) and the fretboard and bridge are hazomena (I'm assuming rosewood from the name). All I need now is that set of American strings and I'll be set. I'm definitely considering getting a kabosy here too at some point, I heard a guy playing one in the shop and knew I needed one. They only have them here, and they sound so sick.   

Ordering our guitars (w/ Elders Marsh & Taylor)

Last week we helped a lady move, it was good to help, cuz all she had was her and her kid, but it was rough. We had to move everything she had across the rice paddies. At night. I used to love the rice paddies, but they're starting to become my enemies. It's like walking on a balance beam, while carrying someone's furniture. Good times. I may or may not have fallen in to the rice paddies once. Not bad, but my freshly shined shoes got dirtier, faster than usual, that's for sure.

Another random story. Last Monday, after we moved the lady, we were having trouble getting a taxi, and I saw a car barreling down the road. So as a joke, I starting jumping around like a maniac, flailing my arms and screaming a bloodcurdling scream. I was screaming for help, in English, so I didn't think they would care, especially because we're white. But the car pulled over, and this Arabic guy was stoked to give us a ride. He turned out to be this high up guy in a cell phone company in Africa, he was loaded, such a nice car. He spoke English too. We scored a free ride from an English speaking Arabic in Madagascar. Normal yeah.

Not much else is new here. 4 missionaries come this month from the MTC, 1 missionary comes in December, then I don't know after that. Malagasies come too, but I'm just counting people coming from the MTC in Provo. People come every 2 months. The investigators are slowly progressing, people learn well, but we still struggle getting people to church. Even after our good turnout last week.

Talk to you all soon, Taylor.

Random pics of the guys..Enjoy!

Elder Matthew Taylor

Andry, looking fly as ever.

Elder Taylor Morgan

Elder Hayden Marsh

Got some good Malagasy Mexican food at Tex-Mex

100 days in!!

This week was really good. Understanding people is so huge.. obviously. I can feel my teaching getting better though, now that I'm slowly catching things that people say. Malagasies are so blunt. If you're bad at something, they'll tell you. People tell me I stink all the time haha, but on the other hand, they are also way nice when you do good. I hear that I'm way good just as often. Even just walking up to a seller and saying hi and asking how much something is.. some of them freak out, so excited that a vazaha is speaking Malagasy. It's fun stuff.

Yeah, this week was so much different than last week. Night and day. Morgan and I had a really good week. Yesterday we had 16 investigators at church, the most I'd seen before that was six or seven. It was so awesome. And it was the Primary Program, we didn't even know it would be when we got there. But everyone loved it. It's exactly the same as the programs back home. You've got a ton of kids, trying to sing over each other, trying to see their parents, and kids that talk really loud in the microphone when it's their turn to recite a scripture. So funny. And I'm sure Mom would've been crying.

Cool story. So a few weeks ago, one of the guys we teach in Manajary said he wouldn't come to church because his daughter was getting surgery on her ear, plus the fact that he hasn't really been wanting to come anyway. But her ear was in pretty bad shape, so we prayed for his daughter a lot, and went back on Saturday. He was so happy to see us. We asked how the surgery went and he said that they went to the doctor and there was nothing wrong with his daughter. Ah, I was so stoked. He was so happy, he told us he knew it was a blessing from God, and he was way more open to hearing our lesson. Hopefully that kicks him into gear.

Anyway, lots of good stuff this week. We played with kids a lot this week. So...you know the scene in Daddy Day Care where he's throwing the kids in the air and then they all want to keep going? That was us for three days straight. We played a bunch of games, every night I came home and I was covered from head to toe in red dirt. So much fun, plus the kids parents love watching us. We got a few new investigators too, just from playing with like 25 kids every day. Kids love playing with arm hair too. It's strange, they love twisting it in their fingers, I guess most people don't really have it here.

One of my favorite kids out in Manjaka, he just finished crying.

I'm way lucky to have such a good house, we're already way good friends. Taylor is from Florida, and Marsh's name is Hayden. He's from Tree Mountain (Tremonton?) or however it's spelled, in Utah. He's been in Mada 3 months now, he's right ahead of me. And people come in every two months. So we have people coming the middle of this month, then the middle of December.

The conference we had was Tana, Ft Dauphin, and Mahajanga. Steele is in Tamatave now, so I haven't seen him. But me and Mitchell have both talked to him on the phone. Everyone here is in the loop on everything. We don't live too close to other missionaries, it's just that we all meet at the office from wherever we live. Like I live an hour or so from Mitchell. But I think there's like 40 missionaries in Tana, I haven't met them all though.

First planner finished!

Anyway, that's about the update for now, things are going up now. Investigators are seeming to learn better, and we're getting people at church, way exciting. And, I'm ordering my guitar today. We'll see what happens this next week. Thanks again for the letters. The pics of the house look way good! I think it's a mix of it looking way good, and seeing home again, haha. It's good to hear that people in the ward ask about me, haha. Anyway, thanks for everything. Talk to you soon! 

Love you. Taylor