Week 91 - Ny Akanga Maro Tsy Vakin'Amboa

Ahoana zalahy?! Inona vaovao? Man I don't even know where to start about this week! It was a great week. We had lots of awesome experiences and found tons of prepared people just waiting for the truth to come knocking at their door. It was great. We have a very full program and are teaching just awesome families and people. There's nothing better than being a missionary! Rodeo and Paula and her family are doing great. They all have baptismal dates for the 12th of May but we are gonna see what happens. They will for sure be baptized but they are deciding if it is right for them to do it right now or if they should learn more. Which is great! It is awesome that they understand the importance of baptism and they are taking it very seriously. We invited Paula and her kids to pray and ask Heavenly Father to know if they should be baptized on the 12th. I loved her response. She said "Whenever I ask him about stuff like that its always a yes!" Haha I just laughed and said yep there's a reason. They are awesome! This week we had a cool moment with Amboara, who is the 20 year old son of Saholy. They are a great family, we have been teaching for awhile! Anyway we went to visit them and Saholy and her daughters weren't home yet so it was just us and Amboara. He opened up to us a lot and said he doesn't know for sure if there really is a God. He said sometimes he feels there is and sometimes he feels there isn't. We talked a lot with him and bore testimony that we knew there was a God and He is our Heavenly Father. In Preach My Gospel, the first paragraph says this, "God is our loving Heavenly Father. We are His children. He has a body of flesh and bone that is glorified and perfected. He loves us. He weeps with us when we suffer and rejoices when we do what is right. He wants to communicate with us, and we can communicate with Him through sincere prayer." Man, I wish the whole world could have a testimony of that simple paragraph of truth. Just imagine if everyone truly believed and knew that God, their Heavenly Father, wants to speak to them and He wants to help them. I always tell people at the end of lessons, "We are not trying to convince you and we are definitely not trying to force you to believe this and join this church. We are trying to explain to you the truths that we have come to know and we hope that you will trust your Heavenly Father enough to ask Him. God doesn't lie and He doesn't deceive so you can trust any direction or guidance that comes from Him. He loves you and wants to help you. Please ask Him if what we have shared with you is true." I am so grateful for that knowledge. I hope we all can know that God is wanting to direct us but he wants to hear it from us first. If you have any questions or confusions please ask God. If you ask the Mormons if Joseph Smith is a prophet of God they obviously will say yes. If you ask anyone else if Joseph Smith is a prophet of God than they will probably say no. But please just ask God. He's the one you should trust. And you can ask Him about anything. I hope you all have a great week!! Mazotoa!! 

 A pic of our group at lunch one day. 

 A pic of some Malagasy houses. 

 A snack we get sometimes called brochetes. Just like meat shishkabab things.

  Some kids and views of our area with rice patties. 

 And some little girls talking to us out of their window while we were tracting.

 And a pic of Bruno who is a member we visited this week. He's a stud. 

'

 Mother and son who we bought our vegetables from this week.

  Some more views of rice patties in our area and people working in rice fields.

  Another basic Malagasy missionary pic with a lemur ha.

Elder Smith and I in front of our Malagasy "great clips" haha. 

Week 90 - Midororo amin'ny Ace

Salama Daholo! Tena mahafinaritra be ity herinandro lasa ity! Somary henjakenjana kely ny grevy any Analakely fa tokony tsy maninona izany! Haha. Enga anie salama tsara ianareo! We had a great week! First week here in Anjanahary with Elder Shelby, although definitely not my first week with Elder Shelby ha. This is starting our 5th transfer together haha. But we had a great week man, it was awesome! We found tons of new investigators and families that are interested and now progressing. It's been a really fun and exciting week. Looking forward to a new week coming up. This week we had a great lesson with Rodeo. He is a stud. He is changing so much and you can even see it in his physical appearance. He should be getting baptized in two weeks! This week we taught him the importance of the Book of Mormon and making sure he truly believes it is the word of God. We talked a lot and he shared many of the blessings he has received from his reading in the Book of Mormon. Towards the end of the lesson I told him how great it is that he believes and knows its the word of God. Then I asked him if he had prayed and asked Heavenly Father yet. He said no but that he already knew and he has already seen the blessings. I told him again how great that was. But then I asked him to read Moroni 10 and when he finished I invited him to pray about it. He got a little confused and said he didn't feel like he needed to pray but that he already knew. We then talked about the Spirit and how he can get an answer directly from his Heavenly Father.  I then asked if he would read and pray. He said sure I will do it for you since you want me to but I already know it's true. I said no don't do it for me but do it for you. He kinda got frustrated with me haha. He said I don't get it , do I have to pray?? I already know. I then told him that maybe someday he will come across someone talking bad about the church or the Book of Mormon or maybe he will learn something that he doesn't understand fully. I told him that his personal knowledge and belief of its truthfulness is great but when doubts and confusion come it won't hold him steady in the faith. We then talked about the importance and how great of a blessing it is to be able to ask God. And if we know we have received an answer from God, we also know that he never changes no matter what people say or what confusion we may have. We can always fall back on that spiritual witness we received. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that answers the heartfelt prayers of his children. I wish more people in this world of confusion would go to the only source of truth, our Heavenly Father. He will always answer and guide us as long as we truly desire that and are sincere. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I have felt the Spirit witness to me and I know I will never forget that. I hope you all have a great week! Mazotoa!

 Pics of the dirtiest area in Tana, 67h. I think is among the dirtiest cities in the entire world. That river is the famous "poop river" it smells almost as good as it looks!!  

 Pics of me with Mshweshwe and Van Niekerk before they went home to South Africa.

 Some pics of Tana and people working in rice fields.

  A pic of a little truck hauling mattresses haha. 

 We had a meeting with our ward mission leader and ward missionaries than they wanted to take a pic. Sadly most the ward missionaries are missing but we will take another one next time. 

 Me with these two families that are leaving to go to temple today!

 Us with Patrick and Faniry's family! And our investigator Zo! 

Week 89 - Matokia Ny Tompo

Akory aby! The weeks keep flying by too fast. I hope you all had another great week! First and foremost I wanna give a BIG shoutout to my bro-ski!! Big Brax got a mission call to Uruguay Montivideo West Mission! Muy Bien!! Couldn't be happier for you man! But other than that great news it was another tsara be week here in Anjanahary. Highlight of the week was a great family we teach accepted a bap date for May! Paula and her daughter Noela and son Henintsoa all accepted. Paula's husband works out of town lots and so we will try to get him to join the party when he returns. They are a great family that didn't really go to church besides Christmas and Easter because they "wouldn't feel uplifted" when they went and they have been coming to church for awhile and it is great seeing the blessings it's bringing their family! Nothing better than seeing families brought together through living the Gospel. This week in studies I read a lot in the the book "The Infinite Atonement" by Tad R. Callister. The book makes me think a lot haha. I suggest it for anyone who wants to better understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I really love this paragraph, "Does not each of us confront those moments in life when faith and reason of the world are seemingly incompatible and we must choose between the two? We find ourselves at a spiritual crossroad. One path paved with the knowledge and reason of man, the other paved with faith in God. It may come when there is a lack of funds to pay our tithing. It may knock when the Lord calls us to a position far beyond our natural abilities. It may be when we are called to serve at a moment of inconvienence. It may come with the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or a sudden unexpected illness, but come it will. Do not all men, at some time in their lives, face that dilemma..the reason of the world versus faith in Jesus Christ." I love that quote. The point of our lives here on Earth is to be tried and tested. And our faith is usually what is being tried and tested. Is our faith strong enough to trust in God even when the knowledge and reason of the world says otherwise? I know that we can have faith like those in the scriptures. Nephi, Job, Moses, and many others were great examples of this kind of faith. I know that as we place our trust and faith in Heavenly Father and the Savior there is nothing in this life we cannot overcome. Heavenly Father is willing to help us he just needs to see that we have faith in Him first. I know that as we do the little things everyday we will strengthen our faith and as we always trust God, things will workout. I hope you all have a great week! Aza maditra!! Mazotoa!

 A pic of some kids playing music on side of road to make money.  

 People pushing handcarts like this are just part of the traffic in Mada but when they go down a hill they don't slow us up too much ha. 

 Some kids playing soccer.

 Two daughters of a member family. 

 A sunset from mission office. 

 a pic of us and our group of members teachin Paula, Noela, and Henintsoa.

 Me and Mswheswhe with Henintsoa, a son of our investigator family. 

 Malagasies aren't very good at "crazy pics." Ha.

Pics with Paula and her family along with member helps and Saoly and her family. 

Week 88 - Tsy Azonareo ny Dakako. Za Ngeha Mandaka Be

Akory aby?! Inona vaovao am'nareo! Avy nidoladola kely tany Tamatave izahay ary tena tsara izany e! I hope you have all had a great week! This was an awesome week for us! We were able to go to Tamatave and go on splits with Elders there. That was awesome. Tamatave is in good hands. Also we had the great opportunity to watch General Conference! A great weekend filled of instruction and uplifting reminders and messages. I'm very grateful for the great men that lead this church under the direction of Heavenly Father and our Savior. This week we also had a great lesson with Rodeo. Man this guy is a stud. He is very open with us and talks about things he struggles with in his life. This week he talked about how he tries to always do whats right but sometimes things happen and he doesn't expect them and he slips up. I could tell how bad he just wants to choose the right and follow Christ and man, that's all you need in the first place. I told him I love his desire to follow Christ and as long as he holds onto that, the day will come where he will overcome. No matter how many times we mess up, as long as we have that desire to follow Christ we will make it. But when the day comes when we say man this "Mormon" stuff is just too hard or we simply give up, that's when we may not see success and happiness in the end. I loved the talk by Elder Lynn G. Robbins on Saturday morning about repentance and the grace of the Lord. He quoted this “Success,” it has been said, “isn’t the absence of failure, but going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.” Man I love that! The only way we can go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm is if we have faith and rely on the Atonement of Christ. He later said, "Repentance isn’t His backup plan in the event we might fail. Repentance is His plan, knowing that we will." I don't know about you, but that gave me a whole new look on lots of things. Obviously that doesn't mean that sin is ok or should be something we are comfortable with. But it means that as long as we never give up, as long as we follow Christ with all we have no matter how imperfect we are, we are gonna be able to receive forgiveness in the end. I love Gordon B. Hinckley's quote, "All you gotta do is try. But you have to REALLY try!" I'm so grateful for the Atonement of our Savior that allows us to pick ourselves up and learn from each mistake. No matter how big or small. I know we will improve everyday if we never let go of that true desire to follow Him. If we have the desire, we will do all we need to do to live His Gospel and receive His grace. Being a missionary is the best. There are millions of people that don't know that great message and I love sharing it with them. I hope you all have a great week!! Mazotoa! 

 Pics from our drive to Tamatave this week! Lots of the beautiful views. People washing their cloths by the streams and such. 

 More pics of drive to Tamatave. Pics of where traffic just halted forever because they were fixing the road.

  Pics of some fruit stands on side of road. 

 A guy hauling stuff on his bike. And some other stuff! 

 Me with Elders Andrianjakanavalona and Randrianarison.

 Pics of one of the districts in Tamatave. We got that huge burger fries and a drink for 3 dollars. Haha. 

 Some views of Tamatave.

 A selfie with Elder Bariniaina while i was trying to help him pray in English haha. 

  A guy hauling his cart barefoot. 

 And a flooded basketball court. 

 Some action shots of us washing the duster. 

 Pics of me and Eric, who I baptized over a year ago and he helped us teach a lesson and he's going on a mission. Such a stud.

  And a pic of Stromberg, Blatter, and I at soccer today.

A pic of our dinner with Jeremia and Alfredines family and our investigators Paola Henintsoa and Noela.