Manahoana daholo! Inona vaovao am'nareo? I hope this was a good week for all of you! We had a great week. Lots of finding and talking to people. I learned this week that the French don't have the same sense of humor as me sometimes, but oh well they need to lighten up a little bit. Haha. This was a great first full week in St. Marie. Elder Hunt and I are working hard to get this area going and spread the good word. Won't lie...this last little while here has been hard. It has definitely been a different mission experience for me. I came from a place that was mostly Christian and the people loved to talk about Jesus Christ and I could speak the language. Now I find myself in this place where people look like they don't like us just cause we have a shirt and tie on, but then once I try to talk to them and they hear my horrible accent, my assumptions are confirmed and they don't like us haha. I decided my best bet is to just try and make people laugh and smile. It works with some people; others don't like my jokes, I guess haha. One thing I have really learned since being evacuated is relying on the Lord. Even though this is one of the more challenging and patience-trying times in my mission and life I have been able to enjoy every day and wake up and go to bed with a smile on my face. I have taken great comfort in the fact that all I have to do is my very best and somehow, someway Heavenly Father is going to make up for what I lack. It's awesome! That's what this life is. Do your best. I think President Hinckley said this quote and I love it, "All you have to do is try, but your have to REALLY try!" I love that. No matter what it is in life. As we follow Christ as best we can and just truly try to do our absolute best we are gonna end up alright and somehow things are just gonna work out. Larry Bird has a quote that I love also it goes something like this, "I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time, somehow things just work out in the end." It has always been a great comfort to me knowing that we can rely on our Heavenly Father, in fact He wants us to do just that. I love Nephi and his example. When God commands Nephi to build a boat, he says ok and starts looking for tools and things he can use to make a boat. I am sure he had no idea what he was specifically looking for. He just knew hey that's what the Lord has asked so I need to get going and he will start helping me sometime. Sometimes we want to see or know what the end result is going to be if we do this or do that. But as long as we are doing what the Lord has asked, we can take comfort and know that the end result will always be good, even if we can't initially see that at the beginning. I feel so grateful to have a knowledge of my Heavenly Father and my Savior and His Atonement for all of us. Because of this great Atonement and the love they both have for us. We just need to do our very best and all will workout in the end. I hope you all have a great week! Veloma!
View of area
A parade that was going by our house when we went out for work.
My new shirt dad sent me last week vs my old shirt I have been wearing in Madagascar hahaha. This just got out of the wash too.
A pic Stromberg snapped of me with an elder climbing the tree haha.
Our group today in the mountains for P-day.
A view of the cool town up in the mountains we went to this morning.
A dinner with some members from St. Marie branch this week with Elder Hunt, Knudsen, and Shelby.
