Austin's Madagascar Mission: Hump day,Navajo tacos, earthquakes and Aldous........

Faly miaraba anareo indray ny tenako amin'ity herin andro vaovao sady mahafinaritra ity. Tsy napoiziko mihitsy ny fandehan'ny herin'andro lasa. Mandeha malaky be mihitsy ny fotoana. Tsy mety izany.

Well yeah it's Monday again. Crazy! But we had a good week this last week and I am excited to do better this week. Well last Monday we taught Raivo and Prisca which is always good. I seriously love them so much. Then after that we had a soiree with Sr Voahangy and her family which is always super great. I love that family so much and I am so sad that I will be leaving. We have another soiree with them tonight and I will be taking lots of pictures with them.

Tuesday morning we did Môrmôna manome tanana, or for those of you that don't speak Malagasy, Mormon helping hands. We cleaned up a yard at a school and it was way fun! I haven't done service like that in a long time and it was good to get out and do some work with my hands. And it was in Manadona so it was even better. We got back and were a little late to Desire but we were able to teach Rojo and we had a good lesson with him about the priesthood and why it's important and that it was restored again through Joseph Smith. Basically all our lesson after that fell through though. Funny story, we went to one house to teach and this little girl answered the door. I asked how she was doing and this was her response, "Good. Give me money" She was maybe like 13. So next time someone comes to your door, ask them for money. We went back to the Mauritius guy after that and gave him a French Book of Mormon. He was grateful for it and said he would read and that we would talk about it next time. We taught A couple other people after that and then went to Nirina's house. There we were asked if we could give the grandma a blessing. It was a cool experience for sure. I have never given the blessing in Malagasy before so it was an interesting experience. But it worked out good. She was already looking better after we finished the blessing.

Wednesday we had zone meeting in the morning and it was way good. It was a great lesson about how through the small and simple things, great things are brought to pass. After the lesson, the zone leaders made us navajo tacos and they destroyed me. Literally destroyed my insides. It was a rough day after that but it was worth it. The lesson actually helped us with our first time, Nomena and Gaethan. We taught about answer to prayer and discovered that they were expecting something huge to happen to be their answer to prayer. So we used some of what we were taught that morning to help them understand. It was a great lesson. We taught the guy that fixes our bikes that day too and had a great time with them. We got a soiree set up for Wednesday with them too.

Thursday was the day, the hump day. It's crazy to think that a year ago I started this journey and now here I am, a year later speaking a language I had never heard before, serving a people I didn't even know existed. It's truly amazing... beyond anything that I can possibly put into words. But Thursday in an of itself was a pretty good day. We spent two hours in the morning fixing bikes and that was kind of annoying. But Faniry wanted to help us, the son of the bike guy. So that was a win. He's a stud. We taught one lesson that day and that was kind of lame but we had a good day of strengthening the members and helping Faniry. We had our soiree with Mampionona that night too and that is always super good! Love that family.

Friday we had a lot of times fall through again but were able to teach a bunch of less active members. We had Faniry with us again that day too. We were able to have a bunch of good lesson and really had the Spirit with us that day. We taught Jeannot also and he is doing good. He just needs to read the Book of Mormon. He really wants to know where teh truth is but he won't read the book. That's a little frustrating but we just need to be patient with him. We just took time to show how the Book of Mormon and the Bible support each other and used examples from each. We had a soiree with Robin's family and then with Sitraka's to finish off the day. We were given mountains of corn at RObin's and then tons of rice and mashed potatoes at Sitraka's. It was the first time I have ever seen mashed potatoes used as a loaka but it was super good.

Saturday morning I woke up to a loud noise and my bed shaking. And then it happened again real quick and then nothing. It was a total of maybe 2 seconds but it was an earthquake. That is honestly the first time I have ever felt an earthquake. I freaked out for a second because I realized that our house was made out of brick and that if it was going to keep going things were going to go down but it stopped so it's whatever. We had a good day that day too with teaching. We taught Tiana and Naina in the morning and then went to this old investigator, Victor. His teaching record in the Area Book said, teach at your own risk. So obviously we went by because we were curious. Well big mistake. He wouldn't let us talk at all and is super arrogant. And he made us listen to country music. Dolly Parton. I apologize if there are any fans of her in the audience but I think from that I understand better what happens to those in spirit prison. I'm kidding but it was rough. We went to a member's house and taught her brother who really wants to learn from us. He has diabetes and is super sick; way skinny. I felt way bad for him. Elder Reynolds and Elder Razafindresetra gave him a blessing last week on their split and he is super eager to learn. We went to Raivo and Prisca after that and taught them about scripture study and about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. It was a good lesson. I also told them that I was leaving soon and they were way sad. I have made so many friends in this area, members, investigators, other missionaries and I don't want to leave at all. But after that we had a meeting with our branch president and talked to him about some reactivating ideas that we had. We had dinner with his family too and it was way nice.

Sunday was a great day. We had 6 investigators at church including Desire! It was way great to see him there. And Faniry came too! And to top it all off, Aldous was there. I don't know if you remember him but he was my teacher in the MTC. He just randomly dropped by Madagascar. And I got to bless the sacrament too and it was way cool. I had never done it in Malagasy before and it's the first time I've done it since the MTC. But after church, during branch council, we present our idea to them which was to take the whole branch council with us after the meeting and go visit a couple of less active families. Well they loved the idea so we all went to the bike guy, Nicolas, Faniry's dad. It was great and he said he was going to come to church next week. We also took the sacrament to Solofo and I taught them how to do that because they have never done that before but it went well. We were able to teach a lot of people yesterday too and had some great lessons. Our lesson with Be Sofina was of particular note. We were able to help them realize what an answer to their prayers is going to be like. It was just a great lesson and we were very thankful for the promptings from the Spirit.

It was a great week and it's crazy to think that I have been doing this great work for a whole year. I have loved every second of it though and am very grateful for this opportunity to share the message of the Restoration with the Malagasy people. Have a great week everyone!

Elder Coleman