The Craziest Week Ever!

So yeah I'd have to say that this has been the craziest few days of my life. Like hands down. 

Well first off we had the whole "leaving the MTC" thing so that was great. They just told us that the MTC is the easiest part of the mission and that we hadn't seen anything yet. So that was pretty comforting. 

We left the MTC on Monday at 8:30 in the morning and jumped on the Frontrunner to Salt Lake. Then we just jumped on tracks to the airport so that wasn't anything too crazy. The airport was pretty easy and no one had any problems and we didn't have to wait very long to get on our plane so that was fun. I finally got to eat some real food! Cafe Rio has never tasted so good in my life! The flight wasn't bad from SLC to Dallas and it was pretty quick. The flight from Dallas to London though was freaking brutal. I don't know why but it was seriously awful. I got to see NYC out the window though at night so that was pretty cool. Flying into England was way cool too! We could see the countryside for miles and it was beautiful! Heathrow though, really sucks. Like a lot. I have never been scared of airport security until I got to London. They just think everyone is a terrorist. And they don't have any good places to eat in the airport. Their water even sucks! (Granted it was sparkling water... It was bad). London to J-Burg wasn't bad at all. I just slept the whole way until about an hour and 15 outside of it. By the way, British Airlines really sucks. Their food is so bad and the seats are so uncomfortable. J-burg was pretty cool actually. As we were flying in, the sun was coming up and it was the coolest sunrise I've ever seen. It was a deep red, like blood orange I guess would be the best way to describe it. I didn't get a picture because I was in the middle of the middle aisle. The airport was interesting too. We had to rush through to get to our next flight because we only had like a 2 hour layover. Then we got in this little plane and hopped over to Madagascar. I have some pictures of the South Africa coast as we fly away and some pictures of the Madagascar coast as it comes into view. 

It was so great to see Madagascar. Finally after the longest 2 days of my life we could see our destination. We landed in Tana and Sister and President Adams were there along with the APs. One of APs is Elder Fox! So I met him like first thing in country. The drive from the airport to the mission office was just straight up nuts. It wasn't culture shock it was beyond culture shock. It just smelled so bad. Burning trash, sewage, dead animals you name it. That's what you smell once you get into Tana. The traffic here is crazy too. There are no rules, no stop signs, no traffic lights and no cops. Ok that's a lie there are cops but they only direct traffic sometimes and pull over vazahas (white guys) because they're white. Other then that they just stand around and talk to each other. It was this super crazy drive to the mission office and I was just trying to take it all in. It was just straight up nuts. My companion desrcibed it as "organized anarachy" because it's super chaotic but it works. I apologize right now because I know I will forget to say things. But yeah President Adams is way cool! He's awesome! And he asked me about computers in my interview with him the first night so that's why I'm in the office haha. 

The office is just kind of like the APs second set of hands. We just help out during transfers week and other then that it's normal teaching and tracting and stuff. We have a pretty nice apartment. Two bedrooms (one for transfers), a kitchen, bathroom, and living room. It has three balconies that you can walk out on which is pretty cool. The APs live right below us so I hang out with Elder Fox like everyday. Elder Rice is way cool. He's super awesome. He's way good at the language so he does most of the talking. I try to but I can't say much. He's from Boise and he's been out a year and 2 months I think. 

Church was way interesting. I couldn't understand anything that was going on. And the power went out like 3 times during choir practice (yeah I'm in the choir) but that's just how the power is here. Sketchy at best. I also had to bear my testimony in front of the congregation in Malagasy so that was interesting. It was ok though because they have a really small ward. I think it might be a branch actually. Gospel principles and Priesthood were just a fight with the Sandman. I just had the hardest time trying to stay awake. I did end up helping teach a lesson on the Plan of Salvation with an investigator after church so that was good. We went contacting after church and it was something else. Everyone calls you vazaha or vajongo (it's like in America when you call a black guy the 'n-word' but it's for white people) and you are just walking over open sewer lines and the like so that was super fun. We also came across this super apostate church that was just crazy. It sounded like a Nazi rally as you got closer to it. It had some guy screaming over a microphone  to a huge congregation of people and they  all shout back responses back at him. It was so weird. At one point they all stood up, raised their hands in the air and shook them while the preacher guy screamed into the microphone. Also, the public transportation here are just like autobus in South America. If you don't know what that is, ask Luce or google it. But yeah the first time I rode one some lady was breast feeding her baby right next to me. Apparently that happens a lot down here. It is just the normal thing to do. Mom's breastfeed their babies during missionary lessons and like during church and stuff or out on the side of the road. I saw that earlier today.

Today we went to a zoo on the other side of Tana. We went to go see lemurs and to get them to crawl all over us. Turns out, all you have to do is pay the zookeeper guys like 1000A and they'll let you in the back. So that's what we did and they put honey on our hands so the lemurs would crawl over us and eat the honey. It was way fun! We went and bought a Bible from a shop on the street and I paid to have it bound. I'll show you what that means when I get it back. I'll take a picture and send it to you. 

I sent some pictures on here and some on the camera. I was able to connect to the internet but my camera died so I'll send you some pictures later this week when I'm in the office. Sounds like everything is going well. I'll keep an eye out for the packages. Send them with pictures of Jesus on them and they won't get broken into. If you ever send me another package be sure to send a flashlight and some gummi eggs. Or maybe some cactus cooler too. It could even be my Christmas package I don't care. Oh the Coke here is so good. Way better than America's. And the Fanta is way good too! There is pineapple and grenadelle falvored kinds too. Grenadelle is like exclusive to Madagascar and it's way good! If you could send me like a picture book or some pictures of home and you guys that would be great. I ate at a members house like the 2nd night and they asked me about that so yeah I could use some pics. They also asked if I was Japanese which is super random. But they thought it was pretty cool when I told them I was part Lamanite. And you're recipe for crepes would be good to. There's Nutella here so I want to make some Strawberry Nutella crepes. "Saka" is the word for cat in Malagasy. Pronounced Sah-kah

I think that's it for this week. Sorry it's a little long but a lot has happened. Hang in there and I'll talk to you next week.

Oh I totally hung out with Elder Hein today too. He's in Tana and all the Tana elders get together on P-day and do stuff so I was with him all day.

Elder Coleman