Austin's Madagascar Mission: Down with the Sickness...

An interesting week for sure with the worst ending ever but hoentintsika.

Well last Monday, we spent the rest of the P-day playing basketball which was way fun! A little bit of info about my companion is that he loves basketball. In fact, he was on the National Team here in Madagascar before his mission. Yeah so he's pretty good. For language study he always asks me how to say basketball terms in English. We had a back to back soiree so I was super full. SO much rice it's ridiculous.

Tuesday was good. We taught a bunch of times and these people are so nice. These people are so poor. But when you teach them, they give you food. Even when they have nothing to give they still do. And it's usually awful food but it's the thought that counts. I can add more details once I get people's names down. We did teach one lesson in this tiny shack and they gave us this super nasty soup that I knew was going to get me sick if I ate it. Then there was a fight outside so that was fun. We got some help from a girl in our branch that just got her mission call to Cote d'Ivoire (I don't know what that is in English sorry). There are so many return missionaries from Antsirabe and so many that are about to leave too. We finished that day off with another soiree at a less active's house.

Wednesday, most of our times fell through so that was lame but we had English class! I love English class! We taught some of our investigators at the church after that about the Book of Mormon and it was a good lesson. They are way smart and understand everything super well. We taught an inactive family about the importance of the Book of Mormon, read a chapter with them and set a goal for them to read a chapter every day. And then, you guessed it, we had another soiree

Thursday we had district meeting and I had the lesson. I just talked about how in Fianarantsoa, when we followed the schedule with as much exactness as possible we had more success. We would follow the schedule in the white handbook and try to start all our studies on time, and when we did, we saw great blessings and were able to reach our goals for the day and the week. Sometimes we would even surpass our goals. There is a scripture in Romans that I really like. I think it was in Romans chapter 8? but it talks about how when we love God, things work for our good. And another scripture in John says that if we love God then we will keep his commandments. So when you put those together it equals good things. We did a bunch of tracting in the rain today so that was fun too. And then we had a soiree haha. Our member help Robin, did the vatsi-panahy from Alma 30:6. Elder Razaka and I were super surprised when he started talking about anti-Christ and stuff. Yeah a little bit of damage control had to be done on that one. It's a good thing I know that story.

Friday we wasted a lot of time getting our bikes fixed. First, Elder Razaka didn't want to ride his because the front wheel is doing sketchy things so we hire a pousse to take us there. Well we tied the bikes to the back of the pousse and it was way funny. I sent a picture so you can see what that is like. The gear shifter on mine doesn't work so we had to go with the bike repair guy to this huge market on the other side of town to find out they didn't have any and wouldn't until Monday. Lame. We taught quite a few good times though. We taught Solofo who is an inactive member. If you remember, I had an "investigator" in the MTC named Solofo played by brother Aldous. Well this is the reall guy. He has a picture in his house of Aldous so that was kinda cool to see. And there is this way cool cactus tunnel that you walk through to get to his house. He gave us some free popcorn so that was cool too. We went to one lesson and these kids saw me with the popcorn and swarmed me trying to take it from me. It was fine though it was kinda funny. But then one stuck his hand in my pocket and tried to take my wallet. Yeah I was a little peeved.

Saturday I woke up and felt awful. I think i had pink eye in both eyes. My eyes were just super red and bloodshot and I looked like I had just finished smoking a bunch of weed so don't worry I represented the Church well on that day while tracting. We went to teach one guy but he wasn't home. His brother was though so we taught him and he's a way cool guy. He's got a nice family and I see good things for them. Torio ny Filazantsarako class was a total bust. No one showed up. A girl opened her mission call while we were there and she is also going to Cote d'Ivoire. At this point I was feeling absolutely awful but I decided that I needed to keep going because we still had people to teach. It was a long couple of hours. At one point, I decided to go home because I felt like I was going to poop my pants. Yeah the food here just destroys you. I felt a little better after an hour or so with some medicine. But since it was valentines day, we went to a fancy restaurant later that night with the other Elders in our house.

Sunday I felt just as bad as the day before. I started to feel better as the day went on though. We made some mofo akondro for lunch which was super good. We did a practice interview with one of our investigators today who has a date for the 28th with her husband. Speaking of which, right after we finsished that interview we were going to our next time and we come across him. He has a cigarette in his hand and was obviously super drunk. He saw us and stopped dead and his eyes got all wide and he didn't know what to say. He said, "Aza tezitra" a lot which means "Don't be mad". It really bummed me out but we will work with him and get him to get off of it. And then later that night it was close to 8pm and it was dark. We were walking to this time that was a little far away. We walk through this big gravel field and Elder Razaka was like "Oh shiz" and I was like, "What?" Then I saw what turned out to be a prostitute who was like calling to us from the other side of the field. Yeah awesome. And there was some guy walking with us that kept whistling and Elder Razaka told me that he was whistling to his buddies that there is a white guy here and we need to rob him. So yeah that was fun. But even worse happened after that. We walk into our time and the family is watching a movie. Well I happened to recognize the characters in the movie unfortunately. They were watching an illegal copy of The Hobbit Part 3.... So yes I saw Thorin and Azog fight and both of them die. I told them how I love the Hobbit and they were like,"Hey the fight is already over but we'll go back to it cause it's way cool!" Oh my goodness. Literally any movie I could've handled. Any movie but that one. Yeah the amount of suckiness was over 9000 for sure. And they told me that if I go to eat there at noon they'll make sure they watch it again. Yeah hard pass. A very difficult, tempting pass.

And in other news, Our washer is broken and I have 0 clean clothes. The joys of living in Madagascar... You learn to love the little things. Like carpet, hot water, running water, Clean clothes, washing machines, tons of good stuff like that.

P.S. I Forgot to mention that but I'm in a soccer tournament. I'm going to buy some cleats and stuff. It's the whole district here that is doing this and there is a team of just missionaries. We aren't on that team but we are going to beat them haha

Yeah Elder Razakamandimby is a very cool guy. He is a convert. He had a very messed up life before and it really shows me what the Atonement can do. He was basically a gangster before and did all kinds of bad stuff. He was in fights all the time and stuff but he is a way cool guy now. His family is pretty wealthy for Malagasy standards from what I understand. He has his own car so they must be. His sister and his mom are members but his dad is not. No one else in his family. He is very good in English and we talk in English a lot but Malagasy too so it's good for both of us.

(Speaking about Elder Kelsch) Yeah I've talked to him about Japan. And he did Sterling Scholar too. He said I looked familiar when I got her so that's where it was from. He didn't do math he did some other category.