Austin's Madagascar Mission: Boy What a Week!

Boy what a week. A super awesome week this week for us. First and foremost, cake. Holy cow... the taste of an actual cake about brought me to tears. We made it Monday night and it was soooooooo good. Like so good. I can't describe with words the delectibility and scrumptuality of that little slice of heaven.... And by little slice I mean, we cut the cake in fourths and ate it like that haha. Sooo good.

Tuesday started the week off nice with Herman and Celestine. They are a way cool family that we have started teaching recently. We gave them a Book of Mormon last time but they hadn't read it yet. So we just read the 1st chapter with them to just kind of get them into it and invited them to pray about it's truthfulness. Elder Connault and I have been trying recently to be more bold when extending commitments and when teaching and since we love this family so much we are being very bold with them and well it's working so far. We taught Tinah later but he wasn't feeling well so we just showed him the Restoration video. Remember that girl that had the weird thing on her chest? Yeah she was there and about half of it had fallen off. Apparently it was a burn. It was some boiling water that had fallen and burned basically half of her torso. We went to visit a contact but she hid from us when she saw us coming. Way lame. So we climbed a rock. A big rock. Super cool though. You could see way far. We taught Sandra and she is ever so slowly getting it. And we taught Orion and tried to give him a bap date. But a little problem there. He said "No, I don't want to be baptized." Well yeah that was kinda weird. It turns out that he's terrified of water so that's why. We'll see what happens I guess.

We taught Tahina and Alicia about temples and they told us again that they both want to go on missions later. We'll see how that goes too. Coco and his family were next but for this, we need a little back story. His daughter is 18 but she's handicapped. It's seriously the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Her head is almost 3 times the size it should be. When she was born, she had a twin but their heads were fused together. The one died and the doctors had to operate to save the other one. So she ended up having a huge head and can't move or do anything by herself. Well we got there that day and the dad was super tired. He told us he had worked until late and then had been up all night taking care of her. We basically only taught the mom because he was falling asleep the whole time. She goes to church 4 times a week because she believes that God will heal her daughter if she does that. Way awesome lady. We taught Larry and Dorice about enduring to the end again and talked to them about a mission a little. They were kinda interested in that and we think we might focus on that in the weeks to come.

We visited Raymond on Thursday and taught about how he just needs to trust in God and come back to church. He's a way cool guy. We chilled with him for a little while and played with this chameleon outside his house. I got a way cool video of it climbing a tree. We visited a contact from Onja and she is a way cool lady. Her husband wasn't home so we haven't met him yet but her name is Berthe. She asked about baptism so we taught her about the Priesthood. She was like, "Well when can I get baptized in your church since mine wasn't valid?" Way awesome. Then cool story time. So we just got out of a lesson and decided to contact one more house. We go to the door and ask if the head of the house is home (I know kind of a weird question but that's what you ask in Madagascar). He wasn't so we turn around to leave and there he is walking toward us. He tells to come in at least 10 times and we go into this way nice house. It looked ok on the outside but it was way nice on the inside. He had a way nice couch too. We sit down and talk to him and he seems super interested in our message. He even gave us a glass of soda and as a parting gift, a liter and a half of fresh milk. Super random hahah. But it was awesome because Elder Connault used it to make crepes that night. He's just what the church here needs too. He speaks French, a little English, plays the piano (which is way rare) and is just an awesome guy.

Friday was a lot of contacting but a way fun day. We contacted this one house, go in, and they are watching the Jungle Book! Way awesome. We taught this one girl who has this way nice apartment later. She's way smart and is genuinely interested in our message. When she accepted the commitment to pray, I felt like she really meant it and that she was going to do it. I really hope she does because she is super awesome. And she has a carpet rug. Yeah it's a big deal if someone has carpet. The best part though was I had the opportunity to give a blessing to a little girl that had been sick since Sunday. It was a little bit of a struggle to do it in Malagasy but it worked out.

Saturday was the baptism. It was way cool to see them get baptized after finding them and taking them all the way through to baptism. I had the opportunity to baptize Tahina, who is a couple months older than McKenna but is about the size of Jarrin. I bet Jarrin is bigger than her actually. The water was super cold and I struggled a little bit with the Malagasy bap prayer but it worked out in the end. We taught Herman and Celestine again and they are reading! They said they prayed about it too! We're just waiting on an answer now! Found out that morning at the baptism that the little girl was doing much better! The Priesthood is such an awesome thing! My testimony of that has been strengthened a lot by that experience.

Yesterday was cool. We didn't have as many investigators at church as we would've liked but Tahina and Alicia got the Holy Ghost. We were invited to be in the circle to do it and it was a way awesome experience. I'm going to be very sad to leave this place. We didn't get a lot of times yesterday but we did teach one less active Priesthood holder who is a way awesome guy.

This week will be my last with Elder Connault. It's been a long time that we've been together and I'll miss him for sure. We receive transfer news on Sunday and no matter what one of us will leave. We'll see what happens.

Elder Coleman

Yeah the Pineapple is super good! Leches are kinda weird. They have like a shell kind of thing on the outside that you peel off and the inside is like an eyeball. Yeah it's weird. THey are way good though and way cheap! You can buy like 50 for like 500 Ar.