Salama e! Inona vaovao am'nareo? Haiko fa mbola tsy mahay teny gasy ianareo fa tiako ny miarahaba anareo amin'ny teny selestialy. Ny teny gasy izany e! I hope you all have had a great week! I definitely have! First I wanna congratulate my cousin Justin for getting his mission call to Alabama speaking some Espanol! Muy Bien! Idk all my four words of spanish have left me, so sorry if that is incorrect. This week was great. We got some new missionaries here this week as they returned from their assignment during the plague. It's been great to have them back. This week we got to do a lot more tracting and finding and we found some awesome people! We had some great lessons and stuff and it is exciting! This week I read a great talk from last General Conference. I have set a goal to read each Conference Talk before the next Conference and it has been great. I read them in Malagasy also so it is cool how you think and look at things differently when you go over the talks for a second time and in another language. The talk I read the other day is by Elder Pingree Jr. called, "I have a work for thee." My favorite quote from the talk is this, "Are we living in a way that God can work through us?" That really made me think. Heavenly Father wants to use us to bless the lives of those around us and bring others the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has people he needs us to help and serve. He has work for us to do in His Kingdom here on Earth. Are we doing the things we are supposed to so that He can use us in the ways He has prepared us for and is hoping for? We should all strive to become a tool in His hands so that He can use us to bless all those around us. Heavenly Father is always there for us and we should strive to always be there for Him when he needs us. I know that He needs us probably a lot more than we realize he does. I promise that he has a plan to use you to help bless the lives of others. As we pray and seek for these opportunities we will recognize the hand of the Lord in our lives. I always hope to be someone that is ready to do whatever my Heavenly Father has asked me to do. As we do our best to live the Gospel, we can be sure we will be living in a way that He can work through us. And you don't need a tag and a tie to bring blessings to the lives of others. I am so grateful for this work and I know it is true! I hope you all have a great week! Mazotoa e!
Elder Mshweshwe and I in front of the Rova in Tana. It is an old Palace where the kings and queens of Madagascar lived a long time ago.
A grave of some of the kings of Madagascar. Back in the day, when one of the kings would die, they would kill 5 women slaves also....sad but the guy assured us that they do not do that anymore.
The view of Antananarivo from the Rova.
Inside of the first palace, where the first king of Madagascar lived. He would sleep on top of that bunkbed thing. Back then they were not Christian but worshipped their ancestors (which many still do today) and under the bunkbed thing is a spot where they would do sacrifices. They would even kill Christian missionaries that came to the country back in the day...they would throw them off a big cliff. Glad that's not the case anymore ha.
Place for sitting and cooking food in the first palace of the first king.
When the king had visitors, his wife would go get them and he would climb this huge ladder thing which goes way higher than I am in photo and he would look at them in his house while he is up there to make sure they are not enemies.
A statue of the king's guard. The guide said that if he didn't do his job well, they would chop off his goods....ha crazy man. Talk about motivation to work well.
The first palace of first king from outside. We had to make sure our first step going into the palace was with our right foot as a form of respect.
This rock is 120 kilos haha. The guide told us back in the day if there was someone who could lift this up they could join the military. None of us could do it. Even Elder Kruger who played professional rugby before his mission. We said there is no way a Malagasy guy could lift that and he said there was but some did witchcraft so they could lift it haha.
A pic of the church our ward goes too. It is also the distribution center here in Madagascar so it is a really nice building!
A pic of my dinner last week that I talked about before it was cooked.
