Lovin' it here in Mada!!

We are getting a late start to emailing today because we went on a road trip this morning with all the guys here in Tamatave. We called a van driver to come to our house at 5 AM, and we took a two hour road trip up the coast to a beach called Foul Pointe. I think people talk it up more than it really is.. but whatever, it was fun. We played soccer and climbed some trees and got swarmed by children selling necklaces. It's such a tourist beach, but it's always fun to kick it with some malagasies.

half of the MTC group

eating a live oyster thingy

climbing a tree

sand beard from soccer

Funny story. We teach this one family, Jeff and Natasha, and their kids. We found them tracting and they were way outgoing and cool. Their youngest kid, Stefan, is like 2 years old. We gave them a book of mormon, and stefan calls it the "bokin'i moulton" because he still hasn't learned how to say mormona ha.

It's way nice having all the guys in our house. It was fun and all being one of like 4 Americans in tamatave for 6 weeks, but it's nice to have some americans back in the house.

I went on splits with Jensen this last Friday. MTC comps back together. It was way fun. It was nice teaching together and NOT stinking at gasy like we did last time we taught together.

The training is going good. I know everyone always talks like training is the craziest thing ever.. but it's really not too different. Well.. except for some things, but it's legit.

I'm stoked that Mr Brown still tells the kids about our videos. Even after all the smack talk between us, ha.

Ah freak, we are getting snow back home? that just made me sick.. People always want to see snow, so I have a picture of me boarding with my friends and they always geek out. 

Anyway, we started a new thing this week. On the district, the mission training videos, the sisters mentioned a few times that they used a meal calendar thing with families. I mocked it my whole mission up until this point because I assumed it would never work in Africa.. but I made one and gave it a shot and we got 4 families to invite us to come teach a lesson and have dinner with them this week. Way dope. I'm for sure gonna keep doing that. We're hopefully gonna start raking in referrals. My goal is to visit all the members homes in the next few months.

Check out pictures and videos. Love ya'll.

Taylor

Here is a bonus pic for ya. Just something we see all the time, ha!

Road Trip!!

It was a way long week. On Monday and Tuesday, Webb and I ran around teaching some last few lessons, then got everything packed to go to Tana. On Wednesday morning, we all met at the other guys' house and got a taxibe that took us to Tana. We left at around 7 and got to Analamahitsy in Tana around 3:30 or so. It was a rough ride. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and the food was way cheap. I got 18 bananas for 300 ariary, they were so good, I ate them all. About an hour later it all came out on the road. I spewed pretty good.

Threw up 4 hours in

I saw Ludwig for the first time since we got in country, too. He's training. 

I saw Ludwig for the first time in 13 months

Training meeting lunch

My trainee's name is Elder Mumford. He's from West Jordan, and he is about 4 feet taller than me ha. Cool dude. We had kind of an interesting first few days, because our first day back in Tamatave, we went out with Jensen and Austin, 'cause i had to show them around Ambolomadinika. 

Mumford, eating some rice with some members

Pikar

Back in the old stomping grounds

Jensen and Austin

The the next day, we had Zone Conference with President. So we didn't even get a regular day of work in together until yesterday after church.

Morley...stinkin' tired 

Mumford's doing good, just learning the ropes and getting used to the language. But he loves the people a ton, he'll get the hang of things here soon.

Oh, I forgot to mention, when we stayed the night in Tana, I went on splits with Smithson and Andrimanganoro. It was way weird being back in Tana. I won't lie, it was kind of uncomfortable. In province, we never hear anything from the capitol, like who's where or what's going on. We just live in our own little world here. So being back there was way weird. I prefer just chilling out here for sure.

By the way, whitewashing is like a missionary term. it just means that an area is getting 2 new guys at the same time, so no one can lead the area. That's why I went out with them to show them around to a lot of members houses.

Not too many people get to go to the temple. It's always a big deal when people do. The church here makes good use of the church's program to send people to the temple one time as a family, otherwise no one could afford it.

Check out pics. I'm getting a video up too. (Check out Taylor's videos on the Mission Videos link on the right).

Love you!

Taylor

Playing some kabosy in my malabary

Big week ahead...I'm so stoked!!!!!!

So it was an outrageously big transfer last night. Elder Jensen and Austin (from my group) are whitewashing Ambolomadinika, Dimby is training, and so am I. Elder Eppich from my group is coming to Tamatave, too, but he'll be in the other house. I'm so stoked, I didn't think I'd be seeing a change this transfer, cuz Elder Webb and I have only been together for 6 weeks. He's my 3rd comp in a row that only lasted 6 weeks.

I'm so stoked for this week though. 9 of us missionaries from Tamatave get our own taxibe on Wednesday and get to do the 8 hour roadtrip through the jungle back to Tana. And we get to stay the night in Analamahitsy (which is where Webb is moving, and was my first area obviously). It's gonna be a way fun week. Tons of other changes too, but I'm too lazy to go over them. We get our trainee's on Thursday afternoon, and will probably get a bus back to Tamatave that night. So that's the excitement in my life.

Anyway in other news.. we have a few investigators getting married soon. Marriage problems are the biggest problem in this mission, and I have never seen anyone even try to get legally married my whole mission, so I'm pretty stinking happy. Two families are working on getting their papers done soon. It's kind of sad, because is costs 30,000 Ar. (15 bucks), but to them that's a ton.. so we have goals with them for them to save 3000 a week and to get married in like 2 or 3 months. Way diligent families, I love them. One family is a whole family that got baptized back in february, and she had to kick out her husband so she could get baptized and because he was drinking, but in the last month or so, he's completely changed. He comes to church every week, hasn't drunk in a few months, and they are planning on going to the temple a year from the day of the wedding. The other family is a family who has been learning from the missionaries for 4 years and never got the papers done, but they told me on Sunday that they want us to help them organize the wedding because they're ready to go. it's pretty rare to actually see the fruits of other people's labors it seems.. the whole mission seems to always just be planting the seeds for the guys in the future, so it's cool to actually see some things coming together.

Gotta love when stuff like that sunday miracle happens, huh? It's cool how much stuff like that happens, we have "coincidences" like that all the time, like running into people on the road that got baptized 10 years ago, went inactive, and moved to Tamatave and didn't even know there was a church here. That happened a few weeks ago. It happens all the time. I promise a lot of cool stuff happens, I'm always just too lazy to write ha. I haven't missed a day in the journal though.

Love you guys!
Taylor

PS-Yeah, I'm still a sucker for the kids.  People here love it when you play with their kids. (Taylor uploaded pics, but for some reason they didn't come through today. Here are some repeats...some of my favorites!)

Another week flies by...

First of all, I'm way jealous of that huge storm that went down. I for sure would've been right out in the middle of that. That stinks for the people who got flooded, though.

Last weeks excursion to Ivoloina wasn't too far, it was like 15 kilometers all together. I was on a split with Horman (the zl) on wednesday and we had to bike way far away to do some stuff for when President comes. We biked like 12k then, too. We bike so much now. I prefer just walking and teaching close to the house, that's how most of our program is, but I like getting out and going to new spots on P-Days.

Tapakala

Yeah Morgan extended cuz his parents are coming to pick him up. Extending is an option sometimes, I don't really know how it works.

Um, so what else is new. I've found in the past month that my road rage hasn't gone away. Traffic back home was always my weakness, immediate anger. It's the same on the bikes. Getting stuck behind a crowd of slow bikers.. My road rage is just as bad as it was at home in the car ha. Hopefully I can learn to control that here soon.

My favorite thing about the mission so far.. Good question. It's hard to sum up the past 15 months like that.. but my favorite thing, probably learning Malagasy. It's an awesome language, and getting to know these people in their own language. Almost no foreigners learn the language because all Malagasies that learn in school are required to take French. So people just assume that Malagasies will learn their language, but not many people will learn Malagasy. So getting to know these people in their own language and actually seeing the real culture, not just the tourist spots from a tour bus.. That's been my favorite.

ravinmangahazo with coco

way dumb picture with Rahery, ha

Lesson with the branch pres and the Caron's

Things in the area are still going good. Transfer news comes next Sunday night, so I'll let you know the changes coming to Toamasina next week.

The Malagasies pic in the ghost outfits last week...I don't know what the point of that was, they were trying to scare us when we walked in the door, but we just stared at them weirded out, the whole idea didn't really work, but they tried. Points for effort.

Love you!

Taylor

Another exciting and awesome week in Mada!

I'm way tired, and covered in mud. We went biking this morning, for our P-day, way out to a place called Ivoloina outside of Tamatave. It was dope. I took pictures for ya.

Ivoloina, the park we biked out to

the Mada bois

a big river

a guy fishing

a lemur

we talked to like 60 kids at this thing, it was chaos

people washing clothes

a waterfall

This is the part where I try to remember what I did this week.. I can't remember as usual. The weeks are going by way fast, but to be honest, they're all pretty much the same. Day after day, wake up, study, eat rice, work, eat soup, plan, go to bed. Repeat. Over and over. It's fun, the schedule is coming together, Webb and I are having a way good time.

Yeah I don't feel sick anymore in the legs, I'm all good.

President usually comes here every few months, other than that we just email every P-Day. He's coming again in a few weeks to do a conference, he just came a few weeks ago to take care of some stuff for one day. He usually doesn't do that, I think. But no, he didn't say anything about transfers. We never know anything about transfers. It always comes out the Sunday night before, but other than that... nope. No idea about anything. Especially being outside the capital where all the missionaries talk. It's just us 12 up here, we never hear anything, we just wait for people to talk to us.

I don't think I ever got the Muslim article you sent..but yeah, I think American's are just scared of them. I've had more problems teaching Christians than Muslims. Most everyone here is cool though.

Pikar's family is doing really good. I only get to see them at church, but I'm hoping to get Pikar to come help us again. Most Malagasies don't go right out on a mission at 18 or 19, even with the age change. Most of them need to graduate first, so it might be a few years before Pikar can go, but he's planning on it.

We went back to the family that said their Mom was possessed. We taught them a few times this week. They're way cool, their mom is still way sick though. We're going back in a few days. 

I'm not sure about the family who is in Lane's area now, we never get to talk to other missionaries anymore, I never hear anything. Sorry, ha, I'm sure it's great that I can never answer any questions, but I don't hear anything ever except for what goes on in Tamatave.

Oh yeah...my package is in the office now, so hopefully I get it soon. Thanks! Love you.

Taylor

A few more pics to enjoy...

eating pizza

larissa, annissa and marco

the gasies