Bless the rains down in Africa...

Well what a week. It's weird that it's already 2015... It seems like just yesterday 2014 was starting. But it's been a crazy week work wise and branch drama wise.

Monday we just chilled at home until we went to work. We taught an inactive member, Larissa. She is is some of the pictures I sent home. She and Florent helped us one day and wanted us to take pictures of them. Anyway sees been having a hard time with friends telling her that the church isn't true and all kinds of stuff like that so we are trying to strengthen her and help her come back.

Tuesday we taught Tinah and he was interesting as usual. We taught about the importance of baptism and he understands perfectly that he needs to be baptised. He's a smart guy. But the only problem is that he's lazy. He told us that his faith is very little. That was perffect though cause we shared Alma 32 with him which is the "faith is like a little seed" so hopefully that helped him. We got a new investigator who is just a stud, his name is Orion. He has a sweet name too. He lives in the bottom of Jean Chrys house. We started teaching Fanasina's sister too, Sandra and oh boy was that interesting. We spent 45 minutes trying to teach her that God and Jesus Christ are very much not the same person. Very frustrating.

New Year's Eve... We taught the Brady Bunch about the Law of Chastity so that was fun haha. We mostly taught Tahina and Alicia because they are they only too that will be ready for the baptism on the 17th. We taught them all the points of the Law of Chastity and every single one they called out someone in their family that did that, in front of them. They are an interesting bunch that's for sure. They thought it was hilarious though. We taught a bunch on less actives that day too. Lary and Dorise are still going strong with coming back to church! We just need to get them some friends and to feel welcome. We ate at Tsara Guest House that night and stayed up until midnight for the New Year. I'm glad I got to be a year ahead of y'all for like 10 hours haha.

New Years day was good. We had a zone meeting and talked about area books and stuff. Other than that the day was super poopy. It's pretty sad when a whole country shuts down because everyone is drunk from the night before. It was seriously a ghost town. We contacted a lot that day and actually had some success. We contacted 2 awesome families. One of them was super Catholic and said a weird prayer chant thing together with us for the closing prayer. Super weird. WE finished the day by teaching about Captain Moroni to Mario and his family.

Friday was just a way good day work wise. We taught a ton of people and it was way fun. We taught one guy outside and that was fun haha.

Church was good because it's at 10 now. Tahina and Alicia came to church a half hour early and she showed us her notebook. Our last lesson with her we told her that Elder Rigby would be doing an interview with her and would ask her questions about the learning. So she goes and makes notes in her notebook and has been studying them diligently. How awesome is that? She's such a stud. She's so ready too. We taught her after church and she told us a story. Apparently, before, their family had a good amount of money. Like they were fairly well to do and their dad owned a big truck and that's how he earned money. But one day, the Dahalo came and destroyed their house and took all of their things and now they are where they are now, in a shack made of sheet metal with rags for clothes pretty much. Way sad. We taught Eric that night and he told us that he hasn't had any cigarettes or coffee so that's way good obviously. But he didn't come to church so we have to move his baptism to the 31.

Today we tried to go to Ranomafana but we ended up going past it to this little village in the middle of the jungle. It was still way fun though and got to see a bunch of cool stuff. We came back and it started raining a lot. I'm typing this email soaking wet because it was raining very hard haha. I hope y'alls new year is great! Love ya see ya bye.

Elder Coleman