Akory aby! Inona vaovao am'nareo? I hope you all have had a great Christmas and a great New Years and hope this new year has lots of blessings and highlights for each of you! Looking back on this past year all I can say is I feel so blessed to have had the great opportunities and experiences that I have had. I am looking forward to another great year. This week was great! We brought our Branch Mission Leader to teach Francois with us. Francois is doing great and has already asked questions about baptism and he is progressing great. Our Branch Mission Leader, Brother Payet, helped a ton in our lesson with Francois. Then on Sunday, Brother Payet stood up and challenged all the Priesthood holders to visit Francois with us and help him feel comfortable to come to church and be baptized. It was awesome! Francois is a way smart guy. He is a Physics Professor and has a ton of knowledge of the Bible and the Gospel. I know that if he truly and sincerely wants to the know the truth, he is going to find it. I am excited for him and his family. This week was another great week of striving to find the elect, hidden here in Reunion. We had an interesting experience this week also. We began tracting one day and 3 of the first 4 people we talked to were Atheist. There is actually quite a few Atheists here. One of them kind of mocked us a little and I tried talking to him. I asked him why he didn't believe in God. His answer was, "Look at all those in Madagascar they are starving, poor, and dying. There's no God." As many of you can imagine, this got me going a little. I asked him if he had ever been to Mada. He said no. I told him my experiences and thoughts after living there 15 months. I also told him just about every Malagasy believes in God. Because they have hope. Hope for a better world as it is said in Ether 12:4. I thought a lot about my conversation with this man for the rest of the day and night. One thing a lot of these Atheists say when I ask why they don't believe in God is that they believe in themselves...I thought so much about that. One of the biggest lessons we learn in The Book of Mormon is about Pride. When the people are struggling or have trials they are quick to remember the Lord. But when things go good they easily forget him. Then trials come and go and so does their faith and testimonies. Sadly this is still true today. As we left the conversation with this man, I stopped and said, "If you lived in Madagascar, you would believe in God. You would remember the one thing you can rely on, and that is God and the Savior." We had a district meeting about hope. Elder Wolfgramm shared these 3 scriptures, Matthew 9:2, Matthew 14:27, and 3rd Nephi 1: 9-13. These are scriptures that show us that our source of hope is only in the Savior and Heavenly Father. Whether we are sick of the palsy, on a ship being whipped around by the storms, being persecuted and killed for our beliefs, or whatever other trials we may face whether little or big. The only thing we can rely on is the Savior and Heavenly Father. Ourselves may not even be enough sometimes, no matter how strong and smart we may be. My testimony and faith has been strengthened from being around such great people. The members in Madagascar have such a great brightness of hope even through their many struggles and difficulties that many of us do not face. They know the source of their hope and who they can rely on. I am grateful for the members here in La Reunion who live in a place where believing in God and going to church on Sunday and keeping your standards high isn't the popular thing to do. They know their source of hope and who they can rely on. I hope we can all remember that we are nothing without the Savior and our Heavenly Father and they are always there for us. No matter what we may be going through. I hope you all have a great week! Mazotoa!! Aza Maditra!
Lets just say President Foote is the best mission president ever and I watched the sunrise from the highest point in the Indian Ocean this morning. After I camped overnight on the side of a mountain. Thankfully there happened to be a lodge unlocked and we slept in there and had some nice beds, so not really camping. It was awesome!
A pic of Elder Stromberg and Itema who is a guy I found in St. Pierre and he is getting baptized in two weeks! Stromberg has been helping him out a ton and sounds like Itema is doing great. Not sure if I will be able to see his baptism since I might be in Mauritius but glad he is doing good and wanted you guys to see a pic of him.
