It's great to hear from you and great to be able to share how great my week in Mahajanga, Madagascar was as well! After finishing emailing last week, and when Elder -- and I were walking back home, we began talking, and we began talking seriously about our goals for our companionship and our goals for the mahajanga branch, and we decided that we were going to take this branch and our work and rule keeping to a whole new level and to go the extra mile in our work here. And one of the specific goals is to split the branch before --- goes home in may through our hard work. And so far, we have definitely followed through with our commitments and we have worked and worked and worked and gone the extra mile, and have kept the rules. In 4 days full work and and 3 quarter days, we taught about 48 times, which is about twice the normal amount of lessons I taught in a full week in fianarantsoa. Half the reason we taught so many more times in those 4 days was because we went out at 8 and didn't come back at 12 to do our studies, but we came back at like 2, 2:30 and would have to leave by 3:30 to go back out to work till 9 at night, so we were working 12 hour days and only getting an hour for lunch and studies and other things of that sort. But we did realize that we need to at least have 2 full hours set apart to get our studying in and a good lunch for now on. But that has been the attitude of Elder ----'s and my work this last week, working hard hard hard.
So, answers to your questions: we did not find a new house yet, but I have gotten naturally used to ducking underneath every door I go under even if it is tall enough. And about fish taste, my second fish dinner was much better. I don't know how they cooked it, but it tasted way good, so good that I even ate the fish head(just so I can say that I did of course, but I really did). I took a big bite right out of its head and just chewed down on the bones in my mouth and almost threw up when I realized what I was doing but the only thing that stopped me was saying allowed to everything, "mmmmm, this taste really good" because it actually did, I just couldn't believe that I was eating fish head ha! Also, while on the note of eating new things, when president came in to town this weekend, he took us out to eat and I got duck with mango's on top and a really sweet honey sauce with potato saute, and I'd have to say, that was one of the best meals I have ever had in this country. It was sooo scrumptious and expensive, but it's ok because my mission president said anything on the menu was fine for us to get and he would pay for it. :) Also, my credit card does work, you just can't use credit cards at many places and I didn't want to take money off of it at the bank. But the reason I was out of money so early this last month was because I still had some of my money in my backpack and when I finally unpacked after emailing you guys on monday I found it, my money. So I ended up doing just fine with money this last week. But I don't want to have to worry about money when I finally find a souvenier that I want to get and then not have enough money for the rest of the month. It's not an emergency for money with me. I will be ok. I would just feel a lot more comfortable throughout the month with a little bit more spending money. The best debit card to get would probably be Visa though. Thanks for working on that though. And about other questions: My head is still attached, like I said before, my body is naturally getting adjusted to ducking when I go under a door. New missionaries should be coming in 2 weeks. And I think I will be training one of them. The area is great though, there are lots of investigators and we had 19 investigators at church yesterday which is a lot more than normal, and that was even with it being a rainy day, so I'm excited to see how many investigators come this next sunday. The branch had about 113 people in attendence this yesterday. Like I mentioned earlier, the President and his wife, and the AP's came this last weekend, but it was great. We had a lot of good times together and a lot of good food. I sure do have an amazing mission president! You guys should order his book, it was a best-seller in Africa. And dad, we walk everywhere, no bikes anymore.
I actually have to get going though. But here's a cool experience that happened this last weekend that I emailed to --- earlier so I'll just copy and paste it to you guys.:
"But according to your other question about cool stories, there are lots, and almost too many to want to share them all, but I'll just share some cool recent ones.
So the mission is amazing just to start off. I should take a journal of all the things, I just hate writing so it's hard ha. But maybe I can make that one of my goals, writing in my journal each day. I need to do that because it seems like miracles and amazing stories happen each day. One cool experience that happened recently would have to be, this last Saturday. This last saturday we had a baptism, and baptisms in my new area, mahajanga, are always done in the ocean, but this saturday it decided to rain(not unusual for this time of the year in madagascar). Are mission president had actually flown up that morning to take care of some things up here in mahajanga, and to have a conference with my companion and I. So we had our opening meeting at the church with the talks and songs, and prayers, and then we left for the 10 minute walk to the beach. And on the way to the beach, my companion and I saw some people who we really really needed to see, the parents of one of our investigators who wants to be baptised, but her parents won't let her, because according to their words, "we're catholic, are parents were catholic, and we'll always be catholic." But we had been trying for a while to be able to sit down with them and talk to them about the baptism of their daughter, who is already 18, legal age to be baptised on her own choice, but we were never able to find them before or get ahold of them. But as we walked and talked with them, we were able to set up an appointment with the parents and talk to them a little bit about here desire to be baptised. That was a miracle in itself, just being able to see the parents and set a time up with them, but then the story continues. We continued on down to the beach and as we were getting close, the rain started to pour down. But there was a member who lived on the beach who we were able to hide underneath the shelter for for a little bit until the rain stopped out of the middle of nowhere, we walked down there, and as we walked down on this beautiful beach, there was a beautiful ray of sunshine just shooting through the clouds. And it reminded me of the baptism of Jesus when the dove descended from above and God was smiling down from above. It was really cool. We got her baptised, went back up to the beachhouse and as we did, it started rain again. That was a way cool experience to me because I felt like the rain was stopped and ray of sunshine shined through just for that baptism, and then as soon as the baptism was done, the rain started pouring down again.
That was just a little miracle to me that I probably would not have thought about or cared about before my mission, but I feel like I'm starting to recognize the small blessings and gifts from God in my life a little bit better. Maybe that's my little advice for you in this email, is: look for the little blessings in your life and the little increases in your testimony and then you'll be able to feel God's love for you a lot more and recognize that he's there for you and wants you to be happy."
Well I love you all!
Love for eternity,
Elder Waters
God be with you till we meet again
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