MISSION MADAGASCAR!!: Unexpected Transfer...mixed feelings, but lovin' it!

Pretty crazy hectic week.

So on Tuesday night, as Worthen and I were walking up the sidewalk back to the house after work, I got a call from Steele. He told me that they had some unexpected transfer news for me. He told me that I was leaving on Wednesday morning at 7:30 to go to Tamatave. I was freaking out. It came out of no where. I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone, kind of a bummer.

I was up all night packing, then the AP's picked me up, and dropped me and Gaul off at the bus stop. (Gaul got transferred, too.) We chilled at the bus stop for like an hour playing kabosy, then settled in for the 8 hour bus ride north. I didn't get a wink of sleep. The seats were awful, and the music was blaring. But the sights were sick. You would never see any of the views here back home. Cruising on the same path for 8 hours over rain forest covered mountains as far as you can see. And random groups of houses every half hour or so. It was a cool ride, but I was way happy to get it over with when we got here. It rains here a ton, too. I didn't think you could get more humid than 100% in Tana, but apparently they do it here. It's so humid.

Sickest part, I am comps with Marsh. We are having a blast. I love it up here. We live just a few minutes from the beach. We played soccer with some members the other day right off the Indian Ocean. That sounds kind of cool to say.

It is way different here as far as how the church is running. Ampefiloha was an organized ward, as far as Mada goes. This branch is only a few years old, and the building is puny. We got asked to teach two lessons, on the spot during church. We also got asked to teach a lesson at a youth activity last night. They like to kind of snag us last second here. We're getting really good at pulling lessons out of nowhere. It's fun. The members here are way sick.

We were playing a game with the youth last night, some weird Gasy game that I'm too lazy to explain. Long story short, if you lose, you get water dumped on you. I was the only one who made it to the end, and a bunch of them attacked me as I was packing up my stuff, throwing water at me and yelling "tonga soa" (welcome).

The dialect here is different too. I love it, but it's weird to get used to. They mainly just use different words for a bunch of things, the actual accent isn't too bad. The dialect here is called Betsimisaraka. The dialect back in Tana is Merina. But I'm catching on.

Marsh will have been here for 8 months by the time of the next transfer, so we're pretty sure he's leaving. So we only have like 5 more weeks together, but we're having a way good time.

They have a funny tradition here that I never heard of in Tana. It's called alavolonjaza or something. When a baby is three months old, they give him his first haircut, and they say that whoever cuts his hair will pass on his hair to the baby. Like the way it grows or something. They chose Marsh a while back to do it. It was so funny.

I'm not sure what else to go over.. Oh yeah, Mampionona got baptized (The girl in Ampefiloha). I wasn't able to do it obviously, but I was stoked. I also found out that Rivo, the guy I taught in Analamahitsy for a few months got baptized a few weeks ago as well.

Oh, I haven't ever mentioned. Yeah we don't have toilet paper, we just have a way high pressured fire hose. It's dope. And our showers here are usually okay, but the one in our house is just a giant tile floor with a shower hose. No curtain or anything, just an empty room with a drain we have to drag all the water into when we're done.

We don't have a dryer either. I might just start having people wash my stuff for me. Hand washing does so much better than machine washing. Right now we just hang everything up on racks, but it takes forever to dry because it's so humid here.

I really feel fine. It's just the fact that all people eat here is rice. It's not a parasite, pretty much every missionary has it. Your stomach just grows accustomed to lighter food. Americans eat really heavy food. It's not the fact that it's dirty food, it's just different and the stomach gets used to it.

We didn't teach English back in Ampefiloha because people were drawing on the walls in the church, so we had to stop. But we teach it here. To be completely honest, teaching English is pretty boring most of the time. Just a lot of weird questions. So I usually just sit off to the side talking one and one with people in English so they can practice, but as far as actually teaching.. I get burned out fast ha.

Yeah we still tackle patriarchal blessings. That was our on the fly lesson we got asked to teach yesterday. There are patriarchs here. I've never met them. I think there's one or two. It's hard here in Tamatave, because it's a branch, so we dont have any here. They have to go to Tana to get one I think.

Things different about the church here.. everything. America is organized down to a tee. If someone doesn't show up. it gets taken care of pretty flawlessly. Plans are made for things. Here, the church is only a few years old. EVERYONE is first generation. So we have to correct a lot of little flaws, but I'm not too worried, it all just takes time. As far as people being more teachable.. true kind of. People are willing to hear the lessons, but as far as applying things, not so much. Humans in general are just lazy. So when we bring this new lifestyle of being actively serving and stuff, it's usually kind of rejected at first. But like I said, it just takes time. I'm sure the church in America was the same back when it was first restored.

Being out in province is way cool. Marsh and I are going to the beach to skip around in the sand in just a little bit. Love you guys! Talk to you next week.

Taylor

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