Hello Everyone! How was your week? I hope it was as good as mine! Right now I am in the capital city of Antananarivo and I miss my home in good ole Tamatave. Last night we rode a bus all night to get here to finish up some visa papers. Got here at 3:00 in the morning and running off of about 3 hours of sleep but hey that doesn't stop nobody :) Tana (Antananarivo) is good but it is too crazy for me. Tamatave is way better with the jungle and beach vibe haha. But this week was a good week. Went on two splits; one with our district leader Elder Parraga, which was great. He is very good at the language and helped me out a lot. One lesson he challenged me and said now Elder Shoemaker is going to explain this. I wasn't ready for it but I just started spitting out any Malagasy words that came to my head and went on for a while. Then when I was done, Elder Parraga looks at me and says atta boy and gave me a fist bump. Not quite sure what I said but it was something about the Book of Mormon and how we need to read it I think. But that made me pretty excited and it was cool to see the gift of tongues work a little through me as up until then I had been a little frustrated. But the second split of the week was the real challenge. Elder Bennett and I were on a split together. Elder Bennett was in my MTC group so we both have very little knowledge of the language but we worked hard and taught quite a few lessons actually. It was a great week. There are probably some people very confused right now about what the two white guys were telling them but they will figure that out when someone else that can speak the language goes back to teach them this week haha. I love it here! I love being a missionary. I love these people. I can barely talk with these people but yesterday I was sitting in church thinking about leaving to Tana and then thinking about when I will have to leave Tamatave for good probably and it made me sad. I feel so blessed to get to serve these amazing and humble people. One thing I have thought about a lot, is how I used to say I can give two years or I can sacrifice two years of my life to serve the Lord and these people. I do not believe me serving a mission is me sacrificing or giving anything. I feel as though I am gaining more than I could ever give and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here. Of course it is hard for missionaries to leave their loved ones and all they know but I feel as though we gain more than we could ever give. I love being a missionary especially in Madagascar! I hope you all have a great week!
me with my favorite little kids in the branch
me with some freaking amazing ice cream we found
(Can you tell they like the ice cream? ;) )
a cool view :)
me with the local shoemaker his sign is in french but cordonnier
means shoemaker in french wish it said mpanamboatra kiraro but oh well haha
a pic of some rich French guys house that he called Villa Bel Air
I had to get a pic cuz of my fav tv show Fresh Prince haha
me looking out at the beautiful beach wishing I could swim hahaha
a pic of a lesson we taught that over 20 people piled into this tiny house - it was awesome
another cool view of Tamatave
a pic of me and elder parraga in our comorros t shirts we had made
a pic of the rice patties that I took in Antananarivo today
Tamatave Missionaries with Mission President
Ankirihiry District Tamatave
P day at the mission office (today) - Antananarivo
P day basketball at the mission compound (today)
Snow cones at the mission home (today)
