Zone Conference

Sooo I forgot to mention one thing that happened last week on Friday... Well I was on a split with the zone leaders, Elder Obioma, and we were riding our bikes to our last time. The road we are on is more of a dirt path than anything, very mountain bike esque. And as we got near the time, the path descends gradually. Not a lot just gradually. And so I'm going and I'm making sure I'm not going to fast when suddenly I hit something, I don't know what and went straight over the handle bars. I landed on my back/left side and got super dirty. I had a little scrape on my elbow but not bad. I definitely should have been hurt more. The worst part though, is that my left shoulder landed right in some cow poop. Yeah awesome. Our last time was with members and they were laughing way hard when they saw that. Yeah and now my shirt has a big stain on it from cow poop. 

But yeah for this week it was super good. We had a very good week this week. We worked way hard and it is such a relief to have P-day right now. I'm so tired. But last week we were able to get in three lessons. We taught Donelson, a college student that's a stud. He isn't progressing super well right now but we will get him there. We taught this one guy that we contacted last week, Jean Jacques and he was super apostate. He told us that he doesn't care if his church is wrong and if ours is right but when we meet in front of God at the last day we will see who is the right one. Yikes. And then Nirina's family; we had a soiree with them and had a good lesson about the Joseph Smith with them. They are super inactive but the mom is starting to come back to church. We need him though too. We are in desperate need of Melchezidek Priesthood holders. 

Tuesday we had an amazing day of contacting and teaching. We taught this member's husband that isn't a member and we are hoping to get him interested in the church and get him baptized so they can go to the temple. She's a super nice lady and so I feel like I owe it to her almost. Just this whole branch I guess. I just love all of them. We were able to get in the door for one lesson and teach them and they were very receptive. Cool story, we were by the old house that the sisters had when there were sisters here and we decided to contact it. Well we go and their helper is outside the door and does in to get them for us. It's a nice house so there was a chance that a French guy lived there. Well we hear the helper coming back out and someone speaking in French so I though it was going to be super lame. But the guy that came out didn't look French but looked Malagasy. However, he was speaking to a Malagasy in French so that was weird. He comes over and is speaking French to us and I am just responding in Malagasy from the translation that Elder Reynolds is giving me. And this is where it gets weird. He isn't understanding my malagasy very well at this point but his wife who was very obviously Malagasy understands completely. I would say something in Malagasy, she would repeat exactly what I said in Malagasy and then he would understand but he was speaking French to us. Yeah weird. He invites us inside the gate (in French) and asks if we are French (in French) I respond in Malagasy that we are American and then him and his wife just start busting out in fluent English. Well it turns out this guy is from Mauritius and he speaks, French, English, Creole, Malagasy, Italian, and Swahili. He was a way cool guy and we got to talk to him for a little while. It was the first time I ever tracted in English so that was weird. He said we could come back and teach him though so we might have to take him up on that. We taught Patrick and Ony after that and they are doing good but Ony is still unsure about baptism. I told her to keep thinking and praying about it and that if she knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true then she should be bapitzed. We'll see though. 

Wednesday, We had a pretty good day and we were able to teach quite a lot of people. We were able to see Maxime. He still hasn't been to church and we are trying really hard to get him back but I don't know what else to do. This week we are going to try to go see him more and help him to come to church. 

Thursday we had a good day too. We taught Edmond (the love guru is what we should call him). We had a very interesting lesson with him. We talked about Joseph Smith and showed him the picture of the first vision and we were talking about it when he interrupted us. He wanted to know if someone took a picture of it with a camera. I told him that obviously not. he refused to believe it that it could have happened. Once we got over that hump he decided that it wasn't true because in the picture, Jesus has long hair and he said that people with long hair aren't "tonga saina" which I'm not sure how that translates in English but essentially it means that Jesus was crazy and not all there in the head.And then he went on to say that sinners can't pray to God and that if no one is perfect then no one can be saved. But he was essentially saying that he has no sin. It was frustrating. But yeah it was a good day other than that. 

Friday was a good day too. We got a lot of times in and a lot of contacting. Just an all around good day. Nothing too special other than it's in Madagascar and it's on a mission.

Saturday was zone conference and it was super good! It was all day but I loved it. It was President Adams' last zone conference with us and he definitely went out with a bang. We had this way cool discussion on the Book of Mormon and he gave us this paper that is a way to make the Book of Mormon easier for investigators. It's essentially a scripture chase through the Book of Mormon to all of the important scriptures. It's super useful. And he gave a bunch of life after the mission advice like how to find what you want to do, how to get a lot of money, how to find a wife, stuff like that. It was super helpful. 

Sunday we had church and as we were getting ready I got a call from President Adams. He needed a translator for a temple recommend interview. That was an interesting experience for sure but it was good. We had a few more investigators come to Church yesterday too and it was way cool. We had a good day yesterday too. We had transfers last night and Elder Rice is going to Fianarantsoa to finish his last transfer. Elder Kelsch is training in Tomatave and Elder Mack is leaving and going to Tana. Those are all like the changes that I really wanted to know but yeah. 

SO that's all for this week and I'll see y'all next week. And by see I mean email

Elder Coleman