Akory aby!? Ao tsara ve? I hope you all had a great Easter weekend! I have heard Conference was great and I am looking forward to watching it this weekend! This was a great week for us. Our area is going well and we have some awesome investigators. We should be having some baptisms coming up this month. We had great lessons with Rodeo and Aina, who are just some awesome people ready to change their lives to follow the Savior. It's amazing seeing people make so many changes in their lives when they receive a witness of the Spirit of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Life is great as a missionary! Yesterday me and a few missionaries had a good talk about one of the missionary's experiences during the plague. He was sent to the U.S. and ran into lots of Anti-Mormons. We talked a lot about arguments people had with him and things they brought up to him as he walked down the street or taught them. Man, I think these Anti-Mormon guys strengthen my testimony more than anything. All I know is, I don't hear much about Anti-(other churches). It makes me sad that there are so many people that leave the church and they go "anti." If you feel this isn't true or isn't for you than that is great. Good luck with everything. But what good does it do you to make endless posts on Facebook and social media about your "gospel study" of why the Mormons are crazy and wrong? If you leave this church, try and find a better way to follow Christ instead of finding reasons why the Mormons apparently aren't following Him. In 2nd Nephi 33 it says:
10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.
11 And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye--for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness.
My mission scripture is Helaman 5:12 which talks about building our foundation on Christ. If that is what we are built on we cannot fall, it says. I love the scriptures in 2nd Nephi also. If you truly believe in Christ, focus your attention on trying to follow him. Instead of being led to websites about Brigham Young or how many wives Joseph Smith had, you might read the Bible or the Book of Mormon and you might even, if you truly believe in God and Christ, kneel down and ask God sincerely what HE knows is right. He will tell you through the Spirit. I hope we can all focus our lives on Christ. As we do that I know that we will be taught by the Spirit that The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints is the only true and living church. And it is led by a Prophet of God who is also a man just like you and me and so he has weaknesses and makes mistakes. Focus on Christ and you will find Him. I'm so grateful for this Gospel and the Book of Mormon that help me strengthen my desire to follow Christ. I hope you all have a great week! Mazotoa!
A view of our area.
A selfie of us, our member help, and a member family we visited as one of their family members was sick.
And a pic of a lemur we saw while tracting the other day.
A pic of us at lunch today.
And a pic outside the window of the main city road in Tana. The Monday after Easter is a huge holiday, so lots of people out and about.
Pics I got from Elder Jackson! Dorgivier baptized his mom this last Saturday! Man I love that guy! (Elder Shoemaker baptized Dorgivier last July in Fort Dauphin. He has one shorter leg that makes it hard for him to walk but he walks several miles to church. He just got put in as a Counselor in the Branch Presidency in Fort D in March
