Monday, October 17, 2011

Hey everyone!!!

Inona vaovao(What's new)? I know you've already told me what's new, but here in madagascar you can ask that about 5 times a minute and it's normal in a conversation haha! There's not too much vaovao for me, but here's what I do have:

I found out this week, even though I knew before, but it was reaffirmed, that I have an expert chef as a roommate in my house. His name's Elder Raoilson, he's a malagasy too, and he cooked french toast for me this week and this most amazingly delicious breaded chicken and pomme satte for us. He's such a good chef, I love it!!! He actually worked at the nicest hotel in Antananarivo before his mission as a chef! He's pretty great! Also, I think I'm finally gonna have to handwash my clothes for the first time since I've been here, or hire the lady that does our landlords clothes everyday ha, because we haven't had our washing machine hooked up for the last 3 weeks. And I think everyone's getting tired of my stinky socks/feet because I've already worn pair of socks twice and they already stunk after the first time. And I think they're getting tired of my expert mala"gasy" ha! But I think I am too because I'm starting little by little to become less and less gassy and become just, better at malagasy, the language. I'm ok with that, and I think they are too haha! Also, we're teaching this new really cool family! There's the parents, 1 girl named tolotra(leg), and a guy named Hadja(who lost one leg, up to his knee, a few months ago). They're amazing! He has to lean on this big long wooden cane about his height as he walks from his house about hills and down and then 4 floors in the building where our church is just to get to the chapel for our meetings. And yet, he came the first Sunday after we taught him, early, which the early part doesn't happen very often here in fianarantsoa because everyone has to walk so far, and then he came both days for conference on Saturday and Sunday, and so did his family besides his dad. We actually went and taught them Saturday night after the Priesthood session and taught them The Plan of Salvation. The lesson went great and at the end we were able to give the girl a blessing because she was sick, and we blessed her that she'd be able to come the next morning for conference, and........ she came, and her mom and brother did too! :) Also, we're teaching another deaf person, except, I think this time, the lady is all the way deaf! We didn't know this before we went. She's been coming to church for the last 4 Sundays and she's the daughter of a member and so we finally went to teach her. And when we got there, we didn't realize it at first, but it didn't take too long after that and we realized that she's deaf. The lesson was pretty interesting. My companion knew one phrase in malagasy sign languange, "it's nice to see you" haha! And then the rest of the lesson I tried to speak as loud as I could in case she was able to hear it, if she didn't, that's ok though, because maybe some of her neighbors will want to take the lessons now because they heard it because we taught the lesson outside and me and my companion were yelling the lesson the whole time in case she could hear it, along with lots of made up on the spot hand motions. It was pretty entertaining watching us try to teach her, I wish it could've been videod ha. Also, we had 28 investigators come conference this weekend, and conference was great! Just a little bit hard to understand everything since it was in malagasy ha. But, I'll watch it in English soon. We haven't found the new church building yet. And yes, there are still lots of fleas in the new house, and I have the battle wounds to prove it haha! 

Your week sounded great! I really enjoyed your talk mom, thanks for sending it! I wrote those 5 petals down in my little notepad that I carry around with me everywhere. And dad, I understand why mom may be too much of a distraction for you to have up on the stage with you every week. But I may have to disagree with your "smelling better than your counselors part", I've sat up there before with you and your counselors and you have some pretty good smelling counselors haha jk(joke). Mom is great huh?! I like her lot too! And you're pretty great yourself! I've been blessed with some awesome parents, that's for sure! And mom, and everyone, I found a pretty cool talk in an old ensign that was around the house from Elder Russel M. Nelson who's gonna be here on Saturday entitled "Now is the Time to Prepare" it was given in the April 2005 conference session. It was really good, so you all should read it! I think you'll like it, I did.

And I'm really sorry, but it looks like were all gonna have to wait till next week for phase 2, and 3 because I do not have any time left.

But I love you all very much!

Love for eternity,

Elder Waters

God be with you till we meet again

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Hello family and friends!
This was a very very interesting week, with some stories that I'll probably share for the rest of my life, moving, unpacking, cleaning, seeing beautiful scenary, walking a marathon through the mountains, being the first white person that many people have seen in their lives, almost getting attacked by a dog, long taxibe rides with over 15 people stuff in one little old truck driving over lots and lots of potholes, lots of learning about life and what's really important, realizing that I can actually speak malagasy with the Lord's help and with confidence, decisions on my future career, uno, visits from the AP's(assistants to the president), and sharing the Gospel(ny tsara indrindra-the best). And it sounds like you all had a very interesting/great week too! Thanks for the email with all the updates from your lives. I really enjoyed it! :)
First, you may be wondering why I am emailing on tuesday instead of monday. Well I will explain...
it all started yesterday morning; we woke up at the normal time and immediately got to cleaning the house, we cleaned it from top to bottom because landlord who lived there before, it didn't look like, had ever cleaned the house before and so it was super dirty. Then, we had breakfast, eggs, mouf balls(bread balls), bananas, and yogurt, scrumptious! Then, we had to go do the activity that Elder ----- had chosen to do for his day, because we started this program last week as a district where each week is one of the elders in the districts week. Last week was mine, and we climbed a mountain to try to watch the sunrise from there, I'll send you the pictures from that next week, but yesterday was Elder ----- day and he wanted to go to village in amban'ny voatra(that means, basically, in the middle of nowhere) and receive a kopia, which is needed to get married here, for one of their investigators so they could first get married and then get baptized. You have to receive the kopia from the commune in the town where the person's born. So Elder ------ chose to make that our districts activity for the day, so directly after breakfast we left to go to the area called, "fandrandavo", but the bus that would take us closest to that, only went to "sambavy". So went to the bus stop and found a bus heading to sambavy, and we found one and got on, and there just happened to be an american peace corps girl that we all sat next to on the bus and talked to the whole time and we found out that she actually has cousins that our members of the church and one of her cousins is serving a mission right now too. And then we finally arrived in sambavy about an hour and 15 minutes later. And we all went to lunch together because by that time it was 12:30. After lunch, we were supposed to go with her to commune because she lived right next to the one in sambavy, but when she started to lead us to the commune next to her house we realized that the commune that we needed to go to was in the opposite direction, so we split ways and said thanks for all of your help, and, this is the important part, she said, "the last bus leaves at 4, if you get stuck here, you can just stay at our house." And we were just like, "Oh yeah, thanks,(thinking that in no way that would have to happen)", because by that time, it was still only 1o'clock. So we started on our path not really knowing exactly where we were going or how far away it was but we started on the way. So, there's three phases that I'll break this story into, 1st, the path to the lake hotel and taking lots of pictures, 2nd, from meeting the lady that was heading to the commune too, and to the commune, and 3rd the trip back and the answer to, why this email is being written on tuesday.
Phase 1: We start on the path towards the lake hotel because that's the place that we'd turn at to get on the next path to our destination, fandrandavo. But the first important thing about this first phase, is that I didn't know that that was where we were heading to first. So as we're walking on the path I see this guy and lady pushing a cart thing that malagasy's use to transport things on if they don't have cars. They were pushing a cart that had bags filled with sod. So I decided since we were all going on the same path, I could just help push the cart with them as we walked. So, I started doing that. And since we were putting all our might haha, and getting dirty because one of the bags of sod fell off the back and landed right all over my jeans and shoes and I got all muddy, and I stepped in cow paddies cause I didn't see what I was walking into, but we got way ahead of my companion and the other two elders. (don't be scared that I wasn't within sight of my companion, madagascar safe, and I was just helping push a cart haha). But finally my companion caught up to me after running to catch up and tells me that I passed the spot we were supposed to turn at, but not by much, only like on minute past. Where he stopped me at though, just happened to be a beautiful little property on the lake with mountains behind the lake(that was my reward for serving haha, we found that spot), so we decided to take some pictures. And as we began to take pictures, the other elders came to take pictures too. Well after we were done there, we started back our journey. And by about this time, it was 2:30ish.
And phase 2 is next, but I have to share that next week because I don't have anymore time. But that's a lot of exciting and cool news that you shared with me about back home. Thanks for sharing.
About Fianarantsoa: we haven't found the new building yet, we found some new great investigators, we watch conference this saturday and sunday in malagasy, I've killed over 15 fleas over the last 4 days, and I've decided that I want to be a professional flea killer, not with pesticides, but with my bare hands because I enjoy killing those nasty little things so much myself haha, so that's my new career choice ha, viewer discretion is advised for this next joke; I've realized that I've reached my highest level at speaking malagasy this week, because I'm finnally incorporating the gassy part majorly in my life, there's something about the food here that gives the language the name mala"gasy" ha. Sorry if that joke was too extreme for you mom, but I think it's appropriate for dad since that was the first joke he made when I got my call haha! The package hasn't come yet but that is the right address, and I won't know till I get to antananarivo on october 23rd because they don't actually ship the packages directly to our area, just to the mission home and then when we go to the mission home we can get them. But I'll go to tana on October 23rd-25th because the apostle, Elder Russell M. Nelson, and four other general authorities are coming to madagascar to do a stake conference for the malagasys, to do a conference for the missionaries, and to find the land for a temple in madagascar. I'm super excited to get to see them and to get my package! :)
But that's all I have time for this week. I hope you enjoyed phase 1 of my story and the rest of my letter.
I love you all and pray for you always,
Love for eternity,
Elder Waters

God be with you till we meet again