Austin's Madagascar Mission: On The Way Out!

It's weird how fast these past 6 weeks have gone by. I thought 6 weeks would be an eternity but thankfully it's not. The language is still coming along but I can usually say what I want to now but it's still kinda kicking my butt on the comprehension side.

I'll start at last Friday since nothing really happened after I emailed on Thursday. First, we made a contract that we all signed to go for the next 10 days with as little English as possible. Yeah it worked for the first day and we haven't done it at all since but it helped that first day anyway! Elder Pinson taught our best lessons ever too! We stayed focused on the topics, felt the spirit, and could understand what he was saying and respond to it so it was super awesome! Also, I memorized the missionary purpose in Malagasy which is good too I guess. If you are wondering what that is, it's on the first page of chapter 1 in PMG.

All of our zone left earlier this week so we had our last foty sabotsy (soccer Saturday) with them and that was way fun. I'll miss them though they were cool. Sunday, there was a farewell devotional kind of thing for our zone that was leaving and that was pretty cool. Maybe I should tell you who is in our zone. We have all the off the wall mission. We have Eastern Europe, Madagascar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The Eastern Europe missionaries left a few weeks ago and this was all the Indo/Malay guys. Anyway, yeah it was good and I ended up saying the closing prayer in sacrament. I asked if I could do it in Malagasy but they wouldn't let me. Our devotional that night was super cool too. Some missionaries were called up to share their conversion stories and that was awesome.

Monday was great haha. We did a bunch of review on the language and stuff and that was good. But the best part was gym. We were playing basketball (and by we I mean my district was and a couple of us were playing volleyball haha) but Elder Hammer went to save a ball from going out of bounds and nailed his elbow on the fire alarm. It took a chunk out of his elbow and set off the fire alarm haha it was so funny. Now he can say he pulled the fire alarm in the MTC.

The last 2 days weren't anything super special. We just taught lessons and learned more Malagasy. But I did get to host Kason so that was fun. And we got new Armenians and Indonesians in yesterday.

Ok mom, here's what you've been waiting for:

British Airways 5095 Salt Lake to Dallas, Leave 1:30pm Arrive 5:05pm

British Airways 1521 Dallas to Heathrow, Leave 8:05pm Arrive 11:15am Aug 19

British Airways 55 Heathrow to J-berg Leave 7:10pm Arrive 7:10am Aug 20

South African Airways 8252 J-berg to Tana Leave 10:00am Arrive 2:10pm

I'm not sure if that is local time or here but yeah. I leave here at 8:30 monday morning. So I'm not sure when I'll call.

I think that's all for now. Veloma fianakaviako!

Yeah everything is honestly going good! I did get a haircut TODAY so chill. Tell Whitni if you see her soon that I think it's really weird that she's married for the record. And that's really funny what she said.

I am very anxious to get there even though I've heard the stories that our teachers have told us. Not a single solid bowel movement in two years. Yeah that'll be rough. The language is coming pretty well I think. I'm already speaking it better then I ever did Spanish haha. I randomly throw in Spanish words into the mix though. Once I start thinking of English I get everything haha. Everyone from Kanab is doing great up here as far as I know. They all seem to be doing well. I'm not sure how well the picture thing will work out. I usually only see them in passing but Merrill does have the same dinner time and gym time as me so we'll see I guess. I'm glad Jarrin is liking scouts. Hopefully he'll stay that way for awhile anyway.

Thanks for telling me about Arizona. When did this happen? Let me know how she's doing. Teague would too. I'm praying for her to recover quickly. Don't worry I won't let this distract me. Malagasy is hard enough without distractions but I am concerned so keep me updated at least until I leave the MTC.

Tiako ianao (Love ya)

Elder Coleman

P.S. you better not be touching my pillows.