Welcome Home Hayden

 

We were all saddened that Hayden had been suffering with migraines and they had prevented him from getting out and working as he desired to do.  After much consultation with President Foote it was decided that it would be best for Hayden to return home and try to become well.  

We were all excited to see him and have him with us again.  

Chantel and Tanner made a special trip to greet him when he arrived.

Bonnie and Kari

The love of these siblings is a joy to see.

Hayden looks so good and there are such great feelings of excitement 

and joy in greeting a returning missionary. 

Kari asked Hayden where he wanted to go for his welcome home lunch.

Surprisingly, Hayden chose Cafe Rio - it was fun.

Everyone had fun seeing the mementos Hayden brought home from Madagascar.

CYCLONE

Well another week another natural disaster. We had a cyclone roll through so that was fun. Malagasy people are terrified of natural disasters so the whole city was shut down for a few days. In all reality the only thing that happened in Antananarivo was we got a little bit of rain and wind. The cities in the northeast got hit pretty hard and three people died so that's sad. 

Other than that nothing much happened. Still haven't been able to get out to work yet, but I did get stuck in an elevator so that was fun. It's the first elevator I've been in in 6 months and it broke. Don't trust anything in Madagascar. It took them about an hour to hand crank us up to the next floor so that we could get out of the door. 

That's it for the week. 

Love you all

He's Back and by He I Mean They and by They I Mean the FLEAS,,,

Well the fleas are back...

So this week was way normal. Nothing big really happened. I wasn't able to get out to work, but I have a doctors appointment scheduled for tomorrow, so that should be good. 

My new area is awesome and the ward seems way strong. I don't really know it all that well cause I haven't gotten out to do anything. Things are going good here though. My new companion is way awesome. I feel bad taking him away from the work, but an elder who's getting surgery on his toes is going to stay with me for a few days so Elder Blatter can get to work. 

We had a baptism this week for a kid named Miguel. I don't really know him, but he seems like he'll be a good member. Sorry for the short letter but that's it for this week. 

Love you all

Gone

Well it was a good run here at fort D... I got news that I'm leaving to head up to Tana. My new companions name is Elder Blatter. I'll be working in a place called Analamahitsy. I'm leaving becasue I've been having really bad migranes lately and they want to pull me closer to the president. It was a good six weeks though haha.

Anyways this week was pretty good. I wasn't able to work at all because of my head sooo... Nothing new really to report on. Joseph and Omega got baptized this week. I was able to do Omega's which was a way cool opportunity. These guys are such big ballers. 

Anyways that's it for this week. Hopefully next week I'm able to work so I can have a more interesting letter.

Work

Well another pretty boring week. To start things off we went to a place called Evatraha which is just like a way cool beach place for P day last week. That was way fun. I'll send pics. Then the rest of the week was pretty much just a normal week. 

We went to a wedding for an investagator. They've been taking the lessons for over a year and they finally saved up enough money to get married so now they're getting baptized on Saturday! It's awesome seeing the sacrifice that some people make down here to become members. Most people don't care at all, but some people do which is awesome. Joseph and Omega (the people who got married) are very poor. Even for Madagascar standards. They probably make around 500 bucks a year so they literally have close to nothing, yet they still saved up for a year to be able to get legally married. So that was an awesome opportunity to be able to see that. 

Other than that it was just a normal week. I had to take a few sick days cause I've been having pretty bad migranes lately so hopefully they get better soon. 

I also gave a talk yesterday in church about the importance of temples so that was fun. It rained so like 15 people were at church which made it a lot easier on me. Anyways that's about it for this week. 

Love you all

Duncan in the Oceannnnn

Well I'll start off by saying this week was ballin'. 

First off I SAW A LEMUR. We went to a nature reserve down here and when we got there we walk into this big open field with a few trees. Then the guide that we are with just yells MAKI (which is a type of lemur in malagasy) and we see like 20 lemurs start booking it out of the forest cause they know they're about to get hooked up with some good bananas. The guy just gives us some bananas and we start feeding the lemurs and petting them. They're seriously the coolest animals in the world.  

After that the rest of the week was pretty normal. We taught a bunch of good lessons. We've got some way cool investagators and stuff. But the coolest part of this week was that we got to do baptisms in the OCEAN. Me and Lebereko had 2 baptisms to do this week and there were some other people too, but the font wouldn't fill up so we went to the next best thing, the ocean. The people we baptized's names are Jacques Tsony and Alfonine Lalao. They're married and have a daughter who is married to a member. They're way cool people. The guy is way smart and has already read like the whole Gospel Principals book. Another couple should've gotten baptized, but they are getting married on Wednesday so they'll be getting baptized in 2 weeks. I get to go to a wedding so that's pretty chill too. 

But yeah way cool week. Love you and miss you all.

Still Don't Know What's Going on Here

LEMUR PARK LAST WEEK WAS A BUST. Didn't have lemurs... We went there and turns out that we were at the wrong park. We're going to the good one today so hopefully that works out. I STILL haven't seen a lemur and I've been here for 4 months. I'm gonna lose my mind. Anyways I'll take some pics. 

This week was pretty normal. We had a way good day at church with some good investigators in attendance. The people down here are awesome and way accepting of missionaries. 

Nothing really big to report on. We should have a few baptisms this week which'll be awesome. Sorry about the short letter I'll try to send a longer one next week with some pics.

SICK

Well to kick things off I've been sick litterally all week. Yesterday was the first day that I was able to get back to work. Apparently I got like a stomache infection or something. Anyways it's all better now so don't worry. 

Well apparently the Internet got cut in the whole country of Madagascar for the major Internet provider which is Telma. Fort Dauphin mostly uses Orange though so it's all chill.  Don't worry, we still have Internet. 

This week the branches were split down here so we now have three branches which is super cool. Seeing the growth of the Church is amazing. We had a district conference yesterday with about 350 people that came. It's pretty crazy that in a small city like Fort D there's able to be such a big group of such strong saints. 

Other than that, just another uneventful week. Sorry about that but I'm not sick anymore so hopefully things'll pick up again. 

Love you all.

It's Hot

Well I made it to my new area on Tuesday. It felt weird getting on a plane haha. The airport was the most first world place I've seen in 4 months. My new companion's name is Elder Lebereko. He's from South Africa. There's a little bit of a culture difference, but it's all good. 

Fort Dauphin is super pretty, but super hot. The work goes wayyy well here though. Last year they had 106 baptisms in this small city of probably 15,000 people (no one here knows how many people there are anywhere cause they haven't had a cencus ever). There are six missionaries and two branches, but next week they're splitting one of the branches here.  

I've been pretty sick the last few days just cause of Madagascar food. So I haven't really been able to teach that much here, but the people seem awesome. Shout out to Chris for getting a baptism. Sorry for the short letter this week. Next week I'll have more stories to share, but this week I spent most of it at home. SORRY! 

Love you all

FREAKING EARTH SHOOK MAN IT WAS NUTS

Well to kick things off this week WE HAD A EARTHQUAKE. It was pretty nuts cause it happened at 1:00 in the morning and woke us up. It was like shaking our beds and stuff so that was pretty intense. A few members' houses got a little cracked but that's everything that happened in Ambositra. A few people died like 100 km outside of Ambositra so that's pretty sketchy. It was way sad. Everyone was freaking out cause like no one has ever felt an earthquake before. 

I also wanna tell you all a story of a black market painting transaction that went down. We were sitting in a restaurant and we see this cool picture so we ask how much it is and the lady says 400000 AR which is like 120 American bucks. We said we'd pay 100000 for it. She went and asked the owner and the owner said it was a no go. Like five minutes later the lady comes and waves us into a back room where she says she'll sell it to us for 10000. She tells us to meet her at the church at 3:00 and we say we can't but we'll meet her there at 7:00. She then says we can't tell anyone about it. Well we get to the church at 7:00 and she's like trying to climb over the wall to see if anyone's in there and she starts coming towards us. We give her the money and she gives us the picture. She says that the owner's son grabbed the painting off the wall and gave it to her so the owner doesn't know. She then says "Don't tell anyone or I'm gonna go to jail." Well she took the money and started booking it down the road. That's my black market painting story. 

Anyways we had seven baptisms in Anjoma this week so that was way cool. It was way cool cause they don't have a baptismal font so we had to do the baptisms in a river. It was a 8 KM or 5 mile hike up to the river so it took us about an hour. It was SOOO cool. 

Right now I'm in Tana for transfers. I'm going to a city called Fort Dauphin. If you wanna see heaven on earth look it up online. Seriously it's the coolest place in Madagascar you can go and everyone wants to go. My new companion's name is Elder Lebereko. He's from South Africa. I still haven't met him yet cause I'm catching a plane tomorrow at 12:00. 

Anyways that's it for this week. 

Love you all

So Far Gone

Well I got the news this week that I'd be heading out of Ambositra. Kind of sad but it's all good cause we get to do 8 baptisms on Saturday in Amjoma. I'm gonna miss this place, but it'll be so nice to finally be done with training and stuff. We've been training Elder Bassett here cause me and Elder Olsen are leaving so we're training Elder Bassett on the area. 

Not much has been going on here everything is going pretty good. Party never stops here so everyone is still a little tipsy, but it's starting to settle down a little. Nothing new really.  We've dropped a ton of investigators who just weren't progressing well, so we're starting to tract again. Hopefully there'll be more to talk about next week. 

Love you all.

New Year Boozinn

Well new year new me. Not much happened this week and the electric company here is going to shut down the power soon so I have to keep it short. First off everyone here is DRUNK. Apparently all they do here for new years is drink so the work never goes here during new years. We went and tried to teach lessons and everyone was drunk so we just went to a members and had dinner haha.

We taught a lesson yesterday that was really awesome. It was to a guy named Justa. To start off he invited a friend to come learn with us so score. Then while we were teaching he kept sharing really cool insights. The first one is the story of a philsopher who was trying to figure out our relationship to the kingdom of God. He was on the beach walking and he ran into a little kid who was digging a hole and he asked him what he was doing. The little kid said that he was trying to fit the ocean into the hole. The philospher relates that to the kingdom of God. All of us are trying to dig a hole and fit the entire kingdom of God into it. It was awesome cause after he shared that we just told him that no one will be able to fit the whole ocean into a hole. But what we can do is help make your hole bigger and help you understand more of who God really is. It was a way cool lesson and he was super stoked to learn more. He's the guard of a prison and he invited us to go teach the inmates there. 

Anyways that's about it for this week. 

Love you all and Happy New Years