Week 75 - Tsy Tontan'ny Ela

Salama daholo! Inona vaovao? I hope you all are doing well. This was a great week for us. My last week in La Reunion as I will be leaving to go to the island of Mauritius this Thursday. I am very excited! Reunion was great and I will always remember the many lessons I learned from these unexpected months on this beautiful island. I don't have much time today but I just wanted to write some thoughts about the recent death of our Prophet Thomas S. Monson. As I heard of his death this week I thought a lot about the things he taught and the examples he showed. One thing I will always remember is "Dare to Stand Alone." Many things I think about when I think of President Monson is love, charity, kindness, and courage. I love his example of these Christlike attributes. I love how he challenged all of us to dare to stand alone. I read a great talk today called "Good without Guile". I cant remember who it was by but it was really good. It talked about Shiblon, who is one of the sons of Alma in the Book of Mormon. Alma writes to his sons in the later chapters of the book of Alma and Shiblon gets a small 15 verses written to him. The other sons get a lot more than that. This talk spoke about "Shilblon-like souls." Those that do good and expect nothing in return. Those that simply do good because they want to do good. I thought a lot about that with Dare to Stand Alone. In all of our lives we will have moments when we must choose to do good and stand up for what's right even if no one else agrees or supports us. When we trust Heavenly Father and have faith in Him. We can know that even though we may not be getting praised or supported for the good decisions we make, we will always be supported by our Father in Heaven. There is a poem I love called The Man in The Glass. One line I can remember is this, "You may fool the whole world down your pathway of life and get pats on the back as you pass. But your final reward will be heartache and tears if you cheated the man in the glass." All that matters in this life is that we truly do our personal and absolute best to do what our Heavenly Father asks us to do. If we do that, it does not matter what anyone else may think whether good or bad. We must dare to stand alone and be like Shiblon and expect no praise for our good works. As we do good because we simply desire good, then good will be given to us always. Maybe not from others but from our Heavenly Father. I hope you all have a great week! Mazotoa aza maditra! 

 Goodbye pics with Benjamin and his wife Meline. 

 The Eperronier family who is Malagasy! 

 David, who is an investigator.

Our Branch Mission Leader's family, the Payets.