Jacob 6:2 And the day that he shall set his hand again the second time to recover his people, is the day, yea, even the last time, that the servants of the Lord shall go forth in his power, to nourish and prune his vineyard; and after that the end soon cometh.

Cutest video ever!

Cutest video ever...At the very beginning you hear Elder Morgan tell the kids to go find a chameleon (the Malagasy are afraid of chameleons because they think they’re poisonous so it’s always a big deal when the missionaries touch them). Taylor then tells the kids to smile “ Tsiky tsiky tsara”. That cute little boy in the front left is asking, “Is it a picture? Who? Who? Who?” And you hear Taylor tell him it’s a video.

More cute kids!

Ha, when I was talking to all the kids, we were just naming a ton of different "laoka" that they like. Laoka is toppings for rice, they have a ton of kinds, so we were just naming a bunch.

Stories, Comments?

If any of you have received any letters or great stories from Taylor and would like to share it, we'd love to have it and post it here. When Taylor is done we are going to make this blog into a book for him. So we would love to have any additional stories that he may send to you. Just email them to moultonfamily1@msn.com. THANKS!!

Feel free to make comments to the posts below, and they will be emailed to Taylor. He would love to hear from you. Even if it is a small comment.

Letters from Elder Moulton:

Monday, January 21, 2013

Random life of a Mada missionary!


In response to the constant downpour of rain lately, I actually decided to start using my umbrella instead of just getting drenched. Something funny I've noticed, if it's raining, and you have an umbrella, people become your best friend. I've made a lot of new friends the past week or two from people jumping under my umbrella when I walk around. I had five people huddled under it on Sunday..

Last Monday night, we had a dinner at a member's house with all the guys from our house. We love the quality, free food. And we played UNO. Malagasies love that game, they think it's the funniest thing ever when someone plays like.. a "skip" card.
Mofo akondro (Banana Bread)
American sauce!

Also, our yard is completely overgrown with weeds. You've never seen weeds so bad, I promise. So the landlord hired some guy to come chop it all down, and now we have a ginormous pile of dead plants in the backyard. We tried burning it the other night, but it was still too wet. We keep getting close to burning it, then it rains for like 6 hours. So still no luck. But we had fun tearing down the dead trees to get a blaze.

Another observation, it's very nice to be friends with seamstresses. My pants seams keep breaking, so I decided to send the load off with a member and she's gonna fix them for me. Not exciting at all for anyone reading this, but it's big for me, when you are held to a ridiculously strict dress code.

I can already tell ths letter is very scattered.. I seem to have a problem with that. It's always a race against the clock in these cybers, they close whenever they want.

Anyway, the members we helped hit rice with last week had us over for dinner the other night. We ate rice, go figures haha. They have like 10 100lb  bags in the back of the house. Apparently, rice grows all year round, and gets harvested every 3-4 months, and whenever its time for harvest, everyone is out of rice. I'm beating a dead horse... but people love rice.

I saw my first baptism this week! It wasn't an investigator, but a little girl in the ward ha. But it was still way cool. It was kind of like an American style baptism in our church, except it wasn't just the kids pressed up against the glass to see. EVERYONE was. There were a ton of chairs set up, and everyone chose to get as close as they could to the water without falling in, it was so funny. I just stood off to the side, so technically I didn't really SEE it. But I heard it.




I was introduced to a new sport this week. I always saw kids doing it, but I never joined in until one morning after the person we were supposed to teach wasn't home. Kids here like to make skateboards out of random scrap wood and wheels. Very simple little things. Then they push each other down bumpy dirt hills. I did it a bunch, I got like 12 kids to push me around. I was a bit too big for the thing, but they didn't let that stop them. I was stoked.

Skateboarding in the dirt

One last cool, more serious thing that I've noticed even more than usual the past week or so. I know people always talk about how some members will walk miles to go to church, and back in America, when people hear stuff like that, it's like the biggest show of faith.. But it's real. The other day, during one of my "under the umbrella in a rainstorm" conversations, I was talking to this 14 year old girl, a member, who walked 2 hours to go to the little girls baptism in our ward. Her parents aren't members and don't really support her. And her parents tell her to be home at 4, but she wanted to go to the baptism. It was around 7 o'clock in the pouring rain when she told me that. And she didnt have the 300 Ariary (15 cents) to get home, so we walked to her a bus stop and got her on a bus. There are tons of people like that in our ward. It's just my personal opinion, but if anyone back home ever uses the distance of a church or the inconvenience of going out of the way to get to a church.. that doesn't mean anything. People here set aside full days to go to church. We have it easy in America, it takes no effort to do what we need, go to church, to the temple, etc.

I love these people so much. If America wasn't the most amazing country on Earth then I'd chose to live here. Talk to you next week!

 Taylor

More random pics to enjoy:

Stinkin' long bus ride
Rakotomalala

A million crocs eating rotten eggs.


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