I'm glad you liked my last letter. I liked yours too. But yeah, it's pretty awesome how ready a lot of the people are. Their main problems are living together and living life like they're married, but they aren't legally married cause it cost money to do that, so we have to help them get their papers together and get them vita soratra(the term for the marriage contract here). Their other problem is also understanding me haha But their other problems are alcohol, and getting permission from their parents to be baptized.
We have one girl who's 20 and wants to get baptized but her parents say no, and they're families really close because her mom and dad had 8 kids at one point, and within just a few months, 5 of them were killed off so after that the parents are super protective of them. And also, because of that, the parents drink a lot now because of they're sadness and stuff. And on top of that, the dad's had an accident with something a little while back, and now he's blind and half deaf. Yeah, I know, how are you supposed to teach that. But we decided that we'd only teach them when they're sober, Before I was here, when they'd try to teach him, they'd have to have one of the kids repeat what we said in his ear because he couldn't hear us. But when I went this last time, I was able to just speak loud and in a deep voice and he could here me. Now, the father wants all three of his kids to be baptized, but the mom's a little crazy and she still says no. But we'll keep trying to help her understand the importance of their baptism,
There's also another girl who's 17, who lives away from home and is friends with a member family, And she wants to be baptized, but her parents said no, so she has to wait till march unless they change their minds,
And then there's Miandry. She had a tumor or something on her neck and because the doctors aren't that good here, when they did the surgery to remove it, they messed it up and the poison spread to the rest of the body. So when she tried to walk to church one Sunday, she broke leg because her bones aren't strong enough, And then when she felt like she could come again, she fell again and broke her other leg, So now she stuck in bed. She's been in bed for a month or so now, When that happened at first, she said she saw no point in life and that she just might as well go ahead and die. But then, we taught her the plan of salvation and she finally had comfort. We've almost taught her all the lessons since and we can see how much her attitude towards everything has changed for the better. It's amazing! She actually got the news from the doctor this last week that she's going to die because the cancer has spread so much, and that she shouldn't waste her money on the medicine anymore. And when she told us this, she wasn't even scared anymore about death. She was actually happy. It was amazing to see her faith in the gospel. She's awesome! I think we're gonna figure out some way to bring the baptismal pool type thing to her house so that she can be baptized. And if that doesn't work, then I'll just have to do the temple work for her myself when I get home or send it to you.
So yeah, the people are amazing here! Fianarantsoa is 9 hours south and just a little west of Antananarivo. There are lots and lots of hills here, which is lots of fun to ride our bikes up and walk up. My companion is from around Antananarivo area. The apartment we're in right now is huge, but really old and the power shuts off if you try to run too many things at once. And the problem is, to many things at once could include just the oven, the fridge plugged in, and the shower going and it'll shut off. I had to restart my laundry 5 times before it was finally finished because the elecitricity kept going out haha. But we're actually moving to another apartment in september. It's wayyyyy nice! It's brand new, not as big, but it looks like a beachhouse haha. Oh yeah, and this last week me and my companions have killed like 3 mice in our kitchen. Fun stuff! but gross ha!
So just some random stuff about the mission stuff so far: we teach about 6-8 scheduled lessons a day and then on top of that, random people invite us in so we stay busy. We had 6 baptisms on Saturday. The language still isn't perfect, but it's coming. It's beautiful here. There lots of hills and mountains, and pretty sunsets. We live on 5 dollars a day and that gets us a lottt here. I've fit into max, maybe 4 houses so far. I mean standing up straight. Houses have really short ceilings and are just really really small here. The average malagasy guy is like 5'6" maybe, really short. The mission president came down here this last weekend and he got us pizza. It was pretty good, but not the same as american pizza. I found this little inspiration book at the house. And I've decided to read one passage a day, and make a tiny goal from it each day. I've only had time to do one so far and the passage was, "It's not your aptitude, but it's your attitude, that measures the altitude you'll reach." Something like that, that was off memory. My goal from that one, was to wake up at 6:30 each day with a smile to start off the day with a good attitude from the start. It's been pretty funny so far, making myself wake up with a smile each day.
So those are my random mission facts so far. And they also told us a couple weeks ago when we met the mission president, that a smart thing to do for Christmas is to send the presents to the mission home early and they'll hold them for us there until Christmas. Because the mail people know that when Christmas time comes around, there's good stuff to take usually haha. So the way to trick em, is just to send it early! Just a trick that I thought you'd like to hear, and I like too cause it deals with Christmas haha! :)
A good scripture for you all: Mosiah 2:41: when you keep the commandments of God, you'll be blessed both spiritually and physically. Marina izany (True that)!
I love you all lots, I pray for you each day as well.
Love for eternity, Elder Waters(Ranoralava)
God be with you till we meet again
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