Lazy Eyes Everywhere

Well let me paint a picture for you all... The beatufiul landscape of Madagascar, rice patties everywhere, cows grazing in the middle of the streets, free range chickens wandering in and out of houses, and FREAKING LAZY EYES EVERYWHERE. Litterally I've tried to go a day here without seeing someone with a lazy eye and it's impossible cause I think half the popoulation here has one. There are a few things that you can't go a day without seeing here. First is someone with a lazy eye, second is a woman just exposing herself to the world, and third is someone wearing a shirt with a really inappropriate or funny saying that makes no sense. Madagascar is pretty much the DI dumping ground of the world here so every once and a while you'll see a guy walking down the street in a BYU shirt or a shirt that just has the F word written all over it. Anyways that's my Madagascar cultural lesson for the week.

Life's going pretty good here in Ambositra. We finally got a water heater, the only problem is that it doesn't work... The electricity in our house ins't strong enough to support it so they're replacing the wiring in our house sometime this week. So yeah, still cold showers and hand washed clothes... I freakin love it though cause I'll like never have the opportunity to feel closer to the people of Madagascar. I bet 99 percent of the people here have never even heard of a water heater haha. But yeah the house is solid. We don't sleep with mosquito nets or anything cause it's not the mosquitos you need to worry about. The bed bugs and flees are getting more daring... The Malagasies are starting to make fun of me cause none of them get bit, so they think it's way funny that I'm covered in bites. They say it's cause I still have sweet American blood.

The work is coming along alright here. We got two baptismal dates this week, but here it's really easy to get baptismal dates. The hard thing is actually getting them to baptism. The culture here is that no one wants to offend you so they'll accept everything you say and act really excited and then the next time you teach them and ask them if they read the Book of Mormon or something they hardly ever will have. But it is really easy to tell the difference between diligent and not diligent investigators really quick. The only problem is finding the diligent ones. People like talking to white people here and they act really interested in our teachings so we have to keep coming back to them, but they don't want to get baptized which is such a bummer cause they're just wasting our time. It's never a waste of time though cause we're inviting people to come closer to Christ which is what this is all about. It's good practice for the first lessons though. I can understand and teach the first couple lessons no problem but the second we start talking about the plan of salvation I just get so lost haha. People here are either passive or extremely passionate about their religion. Really the only ones who are "passionate" are the 7th day Adventists and the Jehovah Witnesses. Most of the time they're not even passionate about their religion. They're just passionate about trying to make us look stupid. They're always trying to Bible bash us which is way funny. We never really bash back, but we do politely share scriptures that own them, and then invite them to study the scriptures and ask God.

Anyways that's about it for this week. Love you and miss you all!

Elder St John