Sunday, November 13, 2011
November, 7, 2011
Hey fianakaviako!
Vaovao!(what's new; you say that even if someone has just told you whats new; it's pretty funny)
Things are great here in Fianarantsoa, Madagascar! The rain/summer season has started. That's why you saw those pictures that it looked like I was wearing shorts and a short sleeve white shirt. Those were just my pants rolled up because it was raining so bad and we had to run up some muddy hills to hills and lots of puddles to get back to the house. That was Tantely, the Branch President's son, in the picture with me. He was with me that day because my companion was sick. We had fun though. He would speak little tidbits of English, which I didn't neccesarily need because I can actually understand Malagasy mostly now, but he said one phrase which I had to correct him on, "Oh my G""". He didn't know what it meant, but he said it over and over again because he said that his English teacher at school told the class that that's a fomba fiteny(a common saying) in America. But I had to tell him that there are a lot of things that American's say a lot that aren't good haha. And he stopped after that ha. So yeah, the weather here: I came to Fianarantsoa during the end of the winter time, and here in Fianarantsoa it's a little bit colder than most other cities in Mada because it's in the mountains. On the coast it's always hot, but now we're in the summer season because seasons are opposite here. And here in mada during the summer it rains, and it rains a lot, and because they don't really have good gutter systems here, the water builds up and up and up and because fianarantsoa is really mountainy, its a lot of dirt and not really paved roads, so when it rains, we slip and slide everywhere in mud. It's pretty fun. But the other problem with how bad it rains here and is that it rains so bad and there's lot of lightning, so the power goes out constantly. It's ok though, because that's what I expected I was gonna be experiencing here anyways haha. But now because of that, my flashlights dead, and it's not the one that I can just put new double AA bateries in, because I lost that one in the MTC, it's a really good flashlight that I got from the ----- before I left, but it takes those tiny circular batteries which I have seen no where here, so I guess that's one of things that I need in my package is either a new flashlight or those batteries(I'll get the name of them and give them to you in my next email along with the rest of the things I need). So that's the weather here in mada now, rainy and hot, but I still love it!
So updates on investigators: we had 34 investigators at church on Sunday. We should be having lots of baptisms when we get vita soratra(marriages) problems and word of wisdom problems taken care of. Vita Soratra is such a problem here because it's expensive(the people are poor), it's difficult to get kopia(a paper from where you were born that is required before you can get married)i.e. the trip to get the kopia in fandranbava, and they take a lot of time. And then there are people who have still been waiting to get divorced for years so they can remarried to their new spouse, and even after paying lots and lots of money to get lawyers to get it taken care of, it's still not done(the government isn't perfect here, but I'm not gonna talk about that). Our investigators are doing well though working through there word of wisdom problems. And about the dad and brothers: yesterday was the first day the dad was able to come to church, his boys had come before 3 or 4 times, but yesterday the dad was able come with them and they stayed for all 3 hours. It was very exciting. I sat with one of them during sunday school and explained things to him. It was the 2 month anniversary of the first day we taught them yesterday. And the thing about it having already been 2 months, a long time in fianarantsoa standards before they get baptized, is that that is different than most other investigators we have here, but they are also more understanding than most others about how serious we are because there is a common saying here that says "there are many gates that you can enter in, and still make it to that one God and one Kingdom of his." They think, it doesn't matter how I did baptism, just as long as I did it, and it doesn't matter where I go to church, there's only one God, we'll all make it back if we just go to church and get baptized. But, this family is different, they realize that they have to study for themselves and really commit themselves to this church before they do baptism. Last night, after we had taught the brothers, it was really late and it's malala fomba(tradition) to walk with your guests back for a good amount of time until they say that's enough, but we asked them just to take us by their fathers house real quick just to say hello, and that it was nice to see him at church, and so they took us over to his house. And when we walked in, the brothers didn't knock, they just walked in(I say that because it's important to the story), but as we walked in we saw The Book of Mormon in front of him and opened up to 1st Nephi 3 and the reason I said the fact before about walking in without knocking first, is because that means that he definitely didn't just plant the BOM there to make it look like he had been reading haha, but the even greater thing about that is that we hadn't even given him any homework before from the BOM, but he was already on chapter 3 by reading just on his own will. It was a great day yesterday with that and many others. But that's my update for them, they're progressing again, and for Fianarantsoa.
And answers and responses to the other things you asked and talked about: We'll get the conference addresses in English soon in the Liahona, that's the magazine they use here. I'm excited for the notes from church, I remember when I used to feel those things out for other missionaries and now I'm gonna be getting one...weird thought but good haha. I did get the package with all of that in there. Thanks so much for all of the that. The bicycle braclets for my pants have come in handy, the new problem though is that my shoelaces got ripped off in the chain last time, but I had a new set of shoelaces that I brought with me, but now if you could send some new shoelaces in the next package that would be good to ha. I haven't gotten to use the flea bombs yet, but the flea problems a lot better for some reason now, I only find a couple a day now, but I do plan on using it soon. And the candy is scrumptious, I got a pretty nice stomachache a couple times from splurging too much on the candy though haha! This week I'll make a list of things that I would like for my next package and I'll send it to you in my next email. :)
Thanks for your testimony on prayer. I've definitely had my testimony of prayer strengthened lately. My prayers have become a lot more sincere. The mission strengthens a lot of things, and I know there are many more reasons that God has for asking every young, worthy young man to serve a mission, other than sharing the Gospel. I know I have grown so much on my mission already! I really have been pleased with my decision to serve a mission and thankful for your encouragement, and the encouragement of others that have helped me decide to go on this mission. I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be at this time and I'm thankful for the preparation that I did do before my mission, and saddened for the preparations that I didn't but could've done to prepare more for my mission, but I know that no matter what, even if we may not be as prepared as others, if we are worthy and decide to go on our mission, our Heavenly Father will qualify us and help progress more than we ever could if we stayed home. I bet this mission will be the single most shaping experience in my life, for the better ha. I love you all and I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love you all for eternity,
Elder Waters
God be with you till we meet again
My message for facebook: Trials are good for us, if we will but look to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, to heaven, in prayer, to help us through them, in the end, we will see the reason we received that trial and we will see that we have grown for the better. I know this to be true, and say so in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Malagasy: Tsara ho'antsika ny fisedrana, raha ho hitantsika amin'ny Rainay an'i Danitra sy Jesoa Kristy, amin'danitra, amin'fivavahana, mba hanampy antsika amin'izy ireo, rehefa vita ny fisedrana, ho hitantsika ny antony izay no hazontsika io fisedrana io sy ho hitantsika izay nitomboantsika ho an'ny tsara kokoa. Fantatro izany dia marina, sy nataoko amin'ny anaran'i Jesoa Kristy, Amena.
October 31, 2011
Hey family!!
What an interesting, growing, long, hot week it has been in Madagascar for me! It was great! I learned lots of great things and feel like my testimony grows each week as it is pushed to grow in order to help those we teach each week. We have some great investigators, and we had some great lessons this last week.
It all started this week on our trip home, back to fianarantsoa, from tana(antananarivo) when we stopped in ahmbositra to switch buses, but we ended up waiting there for about 2 hours as they tried to fill the bus up. And as we waited there, with headaches, soreness, sweatiness, and carsickness a man came up to us and just started asking all kinds of questions about the church, like, "Are you Christian? How many missionaries do you have in madagascar(I couldn't even remember how to say numbers right, because I had such a bad headache ha)? Where are your church headquarters? Can I interview each of you on my phone(he was a doctor, so he actually had a super nice phone with a nice camera) so I can go back and look at your answers later tonight again and again? Then he interviewed each of us and asked us questions about the church, and how it came about,
and we bore testimonies and then gave him a pamphlet of the restoration to read and pray about if he really wanted to know more. And we gave him our phone number and the phone number of the elders in ahmbositra. Then he walked off and sat down(in our view) and starting reading the pamphlet. One of the elders in the district took a picture of it. I'll try and send it soon.
But I have 000000 more time after doing all of these pictures.
I love you all for eternity,
Elder Waters
God be with you till we meet again
October 24, 2011
Hello family and friends and family,
this weekend was...............AMAZING!!!
It all started with our trip here to antananarivo. We left the house at 6:30 in the morning and left the bus station at 7:30. We drove and drove and drove and drove and finally stopped after about 5 hours at a place called Ambositra for lunch. Ambositra is known for having really really amazing wood carvers, so I bought you some voandalina(souveneirs) for about 2000 Ar, which is $1 haha, but that's also 1/5 of my allotment per day ha! And then I almost bought a big bottle of Givenche cologne for like 8000 Ar which is $4 haha but the bus rushed us back on before I could get it, maybe on the way back. And then we got back on the road, and drove for about another 5 hours while taking lots of smoke breaks for the drivers and then the taxibus broke down because these drivers were a couple of 20 year olds who would drive really fast, which I'm fine with, but then they would run straight over all the potholes, which on the one highway in all of madagascar is a lot of, unlike other drivers who are experienced. And so because of that, our bus broke down two different times and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere haha! It was pretty interesting, but then finally we made it to antananarivo at about 8 o'clock at night after about a 13 hour drive in thank goodness, a comfy taxibus, we made it ha! It was a very interesting trip, but it was definitely worth it after the amazing weekend we had.
Then the next day, my district and others had to get to the mission headquarters early to help clean up the place before the mission conference started. We had to be there at 10 and the conference started at 2, but the plan was, because the house of the missionaries that we had stayed in the night before was an hour and half away by bus and walking, and because we'd be working we thought we'd get sweaty and stuff so we decided that we'd just take our suits and change their after we finished cleaning. But, once we got off the last bus after the hour and half trip the mission headquarters, I realized that I had forgotten my suit at the house haha! But thank goodness, there were still some of the other missionaries at the house. I was soo scared at first though haha!
And then, the conference began. The first thing we did was took a picture as a mission with Elder Nelson and with the other leaders that came, and then we went inside the chapel and each of us got to shake their hands. It was so cool! And then the conference began, and all of the leaders taught some amazing lessons that I'll have to share with you later because there is not much more time today because we did a proselyting activity as an entire mission this morning and now we have to go to a family home evening with our mission president. But Elder Nelson had just a question and amazing answer talk with us and the other leaders were amazing also! I felt the spirit so much in there. And I have a great mission president and mission mom! They're great!
Then the next morning we had stake conference with all the leaders again. And that was amazing too! We sat in the 2nd to the very front row right next to the choir and I'm so happy we did! The choir was amazing! They definitely brought the Spirit and Elder Nelson definitely acknowledged how amazing they were many times. I have a feeling when they do have a temple open house here, he's definitely gonna want to come so he can hear from them again and feel of all the spirits of the malagasy's! It was an amazing meeting! And I have a story from that that I'll have to tell to you about that happened in that meeting later too!
And then today was great too! But I have to head to FHE now, but I love you all very very much!
Love for eternity,
Elder Waters
Oh and answers to your questions:
I did receive the package, but I haven't opened it just yet. I'll have to try to tell you phase 2 and 3 to the story next week. I did finally wash my socks haha! I do remember Elder Squires. He's a previous mission president which is serving a mission again. Tell Brock I love him too. I love you all! And I can definitely already testify to all the boys back home that the mission is definitely the most amazing thing they'll ever do in their lives and it is definitely worth the sacrifices! I know that to be true already, I can't wait to see how much more my testimony of that grows for the rest of my life too though!
God be with you till we meet again
this weekend was...............AMAZING!!!
It all started with our trip here to antananarivo. We left the house at 6:30 in the morning and left the bus station at 7:30. We drove and drove and drove and drove and finally stopped after about 5 hours at a place called Ambositra for lunch. Ambositra is known for having really really amazing wood carvers, so I bought you some voandalina(souveneirs) for about 2000 Ar, which is $1 haha, but that's also 1/5 of my allotment per day ha! And then I almost bought a big bottle of Givenche cologne for like 8000 Ar which is $4 haha but the bus rushed us back on before I could get it, maybe on the way back. And then we got back on the road, and drove for about another 5 hours while taking lots of smoke breaks for the drivers and then the taxibus broke down because these drivers were a couple of 20 year olds who would drive really fast, which I'm fine with, but then they would run straight over all the potholes, which on the one highway in all of madagascar is a lot of, unlike other drivers who are experienced. And so because of that, our bus broke down two different times and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere haha! It was pretty interesting, but then finally we made it to antananarivo at about 8 o'clock at night after about a 13 hour drive in thank goodness, a comfy taxibus, we made it ha! It was a very interesting trip, but it was definitely worth it after the amazing weekend we had.
Then the next day, my district and others had to get to the mission headquarters early to help clean up the place before the mission conference started. We had to be there at 10 and the conference started at 2, but the plan was, because the house of the missionaries that we had stayed in the night before was an hour and half away by bus and walking, and because we'd be working we thought we'd get sweaty and stuff so we decided that we'd just take our suits and change their after we finished cleaning. But, once we got off the last bus after the hour and half trip the mission headquarters, I realized that I had forgotten my suit at the house haha! But thank goodness, there were still some of the other missionaries at the house. I was soo scared at first though haha!
And then, the conference began. The first thing we did was took a picture as a mission with Elder Nelson and with the other leaders that came, and then we went inside the chapel and each of us got to shake their hands. It was so cool! And then the conference began, and all of the leaders taught some amazing lessons that I'll have to share with you later because there is not much more time today because we did a proselyting activity as an entire mission this morning and now we have to go to a family home evening with our mission president. But Elder Nelson had just a question and amazing answer talk with us and the other leaders were amazing also! I felt the spirit so much in there. And I have a great mission president and mission mom! They're great!
Then the next morning we had stake conference with all the leaders again. And that was amazing too! We sat in the 2nd to the very front row right next to the choir and I'm so happy we did! The choir was amazing! They definitely brought the Spirit and Elder Nelson definitely acknowledged how amazing they were many times. I have a feeling when they do have a temple open house here, he's definitely gonna want to come so he can hear from them again and feel of all the spirits of the malagasy's! It was an amazing meeting! And I have a story from that that I'll have to tell to you about that happened in that meeting later too!
And then today was great too! But I have to head to FHE now, but I love you all very very much!
Love for eternity,
Elder Waters
Oh and answers to your questions:
I did receive the package, but I haven't opened it just yet. I'll have to try to tell you phase 2 and 3 to the story next week. I did finally wash my socks haha! I do remember Elder Squires. He's a previous mission president which is serving a mission again. Tell Brock I love him too. I love you all! And I can definitely already testify to all the boys back home that the mission is definitely the most amazing thing they'll ever do in their lives and it is definitely worth the sacrifices! I know that to be true already, I can't wait to see how much more my testimony of that grows for the rest of my life too though!
God be with you till we meet again
Monday, October 17, 2011
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
Sunday, October 16, 2011
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
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
Monday, September 26, 2011
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