The weeks just go by faster and faster, it's ridiculous. It doesn't even feel like Christmas is next week. Literally at any other time in my life, December would be going by super slow but not anymore. Time flies when you are doing the work of the Lord I guess haha.
So
Monday was very uneventful. We had a time at 7 but he wasn't home so we ended up teaching his neighbor because she saw us and was like "hey lets invite these strange vazahas into our house and see what they have to say" We just shared a quick vatsim-panahy with them but it was super lame. The whole time they were just like laughing at us. It was usually actually when I would say something. So annoying. So i just cut the lesson way short and left really mad. But as we were walking to Sofia's, Elder Connault told me about this video called "Missionary Work and the Atonement" and when we got to Sofia's, I watched it on one of the computers and holy cow is it good. Totally helped me. I have watched it so many times since then. I would definitely suggest watching it. Also I read that talk that Mom sent me, "The Inconvenient Messiah". So good. Went right along with it.
Tuesday was a lot of contacting. We contacted this guy named Solofo who is way cool. We taught them a little bit and then gave his brother a blessing. He was in bad shape though. He went to Tana about 4 months ago and came back a month ago and had an IV in his arm and was weak and skinny and apparently he hasn't eaten really anything since he got back. He looked way bad. Like a Holocaust victim. I felt way bad for him and I'm afraid he'll probably die this week or next. We contacted another guy and he is way cool. The first thing he starts doing is asking us all these way good questions like "Why aren't there miracles now like with Moses?" Well obviously that was the perfect question so we were like "hey, we have this video that answers just that, would it be ok to share it with you" so long story short we showed him the Restoration video and it was so awesome. SO much spirituality in that room. And you could tell he felt something. He even said he felt something, like a tickle in his heart when we watched it so hopefully that'll be good. We help a couple brothers in our branch with their mission papers by taking their picture for them.
Wednesday was straight poop. We just got stood up by everyone. We taught Jeanine about the Plan of Salvation and we taught Marcellan about the story of King Noah and Abinadi. These people really don't have much of an idea about the stories in the Book of Mormon so that's what we're trying to do right now. The church is still very young here, we found out the other day that it is only about 5 years old here in Fianarantsoa. They need a lot of help.
Thursday was pretty good. We didn't have Florent with us because he was helping with the open house at the church. We went out on to the mountain and taught Teophile and got him committed to baptism. He's a stud and asks all kinds of good questions and he's got a lot of potential. He's progressing way faster than a lot of our other investigators. We also taught Soa and found out that her and two of her kids went to church last Sunday but went to South and not North.... Lame. But they are doing way good. They also accepted a date for baptism on the 31 of Janvier (January in French, Fun fact)
Friday we were at the open house all day. It was way good though we had a pretty good turnout annd got a lot of contacts from it. There is this Jehovah's Witness missionary here from Canada and he's a way cool guy actually. We've talked to him a couple times. He came and he liked what he saw and came over and talked to us for a bit. He said he used to have a Book of Mormon but he lost it and wished he could have read it. Well I still had an English one from the MTC and I told him that I could go home and get it for him if he wanted. He wanted to so I gave out an English Book of Mormon to a Jehovah's Witness in Madagascar. That is a weird sentence that I didn't know was possible to type on a keyboard haha. But you could tell that he felt something being there and so hopefully he'll be able to come closer to God. And we picked up our suits that we had made and mine looks way good. The girl that did it did a way good job. And we had crazy rain and hail again so that was fun.
Saturday was zone conference and it was way awesome. We had a slide show on the history of the mission here in Madagascar and it was way cool. The history of the Church in Brazil is almost directly parallel with the church here right now. In fact, when Brazil was this young in the church, there weren't as many things as we have here. But basically it put a big perspective on the future of the Church here. Oh and fun fact, I am one of the first 1000 missionaries to ever serve here. I think right now there have been a total of 963 and that's counting the ones here right now. Also we talked about how we need to look at our investigators and nothing short of Celestial Beings. That is our goal as missionaries is to get people to the celestial kingdom. We talked a lot about conversion too and the baptismal covenant and how when we understand the baptismal covenant we should be converted. If we do everything that that covenant entails then we should be converted. Obedience, sacrifice and consecration were also topics of discussion. Obedience should be willing always. Sacrifice is enduring through hard things that you didn't choose and consecration is giving up things freely to God. All of those things are essential in conversion.
Yesterday was actually a pretty good day. At church though I had to translate for Sister Adams and a new mission couple that came with them. Holy Shiz. Translating is hard. So hard. Hopefully they got something out of my translation cause I felt like I was all over the place. We got a new branch presidency so that should be good. The new president used to be a stake president in Tana so he should be good. He's been a member for awhile. We taught two of the Brady Bunch after church, Tahinia and Alicia. They are super annoying but way awesome. They are way smart too. They might be the only two of the Brady bunch getting baptized on the
17 of Jan. We taught a few other lessons but one that was way good comes to mind. President had given us some advice on how to teach a little better to make sure they are converted. Basically it comes down to the picture book. We show them the picture of the 1st Vision and tell them, while pointing at God, that He is your father and that he loves you. He wants you to talk to Him and return to Him. We know the way how to do that. Let us teach you how. So we did that yesterday to a guy in a very quick lesson that was just the first vision. It was a super powerful lesson and the Spirit was there and it was just sweet.
That's this last week for ya. Oh transfer wise, Elder Lehr is leaving as well as Elder Garcia. But, we are getting Elder Hammer and Elder Covey, both from my group. That'll be super fun. It'll be really young down here for awhile haha. Half the missionaries down here will be from my group so that'll be interesting.
I got all of my packages when the AP's came down and oh my goodness, was it amazing. American Candy, Music, Ramen Noodles, Taco Seasoning, Cactus Cooler, just all of that so good... You are all so lucky to have that stuff. Thanks for everything. I'm saving some of the stuff to open on Christmas so I'll have something to open.
Well that's it I think so have a wonderful week everyone. Enjoy the cold and the snow and I'll talk to y'all next time.
Elder Coleman
Time in Antananarivo
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