Austin's Madagascar Mission: Long walks on the beach and sunsets.....

It was a great week this week and had a great time! We are seeing things go well here in this area.

On Monday we had a lesson with some studly recent converts, Liva and Hery. They are young men and are studs. They come every week and are just as solid as can be. We taught them and just shared our favorite scriptures with them. We both shared scriptures that had to do with overcoming and enduring hardships which was kinda weird, we didn't plan it. And it seemed to affect the mom a lot. She told us that she has been going through some hard things recently and that those scriptures see had never heard before. It was a very cool experience. We were guided for sure and ended up teaching the mom and not the recent converts but it's whatever. Then we went to a soiree with Ordance and Hanitra and had super good fried bread that they made for us. It was way nice.

Tuesday we had a good day. We taught Modesta first thing and talked to him more about finding people to work for him so he can come to church. It is so frustrating getting people to realize the blessings that come from church attendance. They just need to come to church! But we had a good review with him about the nature of God and about prayer and he gets it really well now. We taught Vololona after that and Lala wasn't home. There were a bunch of other people there so we though it would be a good opportunity to play the Joseph Smith video. Well it was a huge fail. They did not get it at all. When God and Jesus appeared to him, they all said in unison, as if they had rehearsed it, after an exasperated gasp, "He saw the Holy Ghost!" yeah. Sometimes it's like trying to teach deaf people. We taught a new investigator after that, Abeline. She is a sweet girl that whenever she talks I feel like she is going to cry. We are teaching her neighbor and when we went to visit him once she approached us and asked to learn from us. We talked Restoration with her and showed the Restoration video and she liked it a lot. She even came to church yesterday. We did some contacting too that day and contacted into a house with two girls in it. Their parents weren't home so we told them we would come back later. We walked back out to the street and the one called us back. So I walk back to the door and talk to her for a second to find out what she wanted and well she wanted to met up with us later to "get to know us better" to put it in her words. Kinda funny. I told her that we can talk more at church on Sunday at 9. Well they didn't come haha.

Wednesday we taught Dada and had a great lesson with him about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked faith and repentance with him and he loved it and understood it really well. He's a stud and is progressing super well. We taught Ordance after that and helped her with her Book of Mormon reading and the study helps that we put in the Book of Mormon. Well she did not understand the study help at all up to this point even though we had explained it thoroughly at least twice before this meeting. She finally understood and loved it.

Thursday we taught a bunch of people. We taught a new investigator, Dorsia. He is 18 and we found him tracting and has come to English class and church a couple times already. Well he has like 0 knowledge of the Bible and of Jesus Christ. So we are not quite teaching the lessons yet but we are teaching him the life of Jesus in detail since he has never heard the stories before. After that we taught this guy named Michael. He used to come to English class and we randomly tracted into his house the day before. We taught him about the Restoration and showed him the video and he liked it a lot. He understood it very well and accepted to pray. Then we were looking for Lala by his house and we got kinda lost. Well we were just wandering through a maze of houses and small pathways and then just decided to knock on a random door. Well we got into the house and there was something weird about it just from the get off. First, there was a coffee maker in the house. I have never seen a coffee maker in Madagascar. Malagasies just don't have those kinds of things. And second, there was a Macbook sitting on on of the chairs. So it turns out that this Malagasy lady we tracted into is married to an American and they live there. He is Muslim and their child's name is Alma. Way weird. Haven't met the husband yet.

Friday we taught quite a bit and we taught a new family that we contacted into. The dad is Muslim and the mom is Apokalypsy or Apocalypse. Yes that is the name of a church here. But we showed them the video Finding Faith in Christ. It was a great spiritual lesson and they really wanted us to come back. The wife was very skeptical of us coming into her house and wouldn't sit in on the lesson but as the movie was going she came in and watched and loved it. She was actually the one that asked us to come back so we'll see how it goes the next time. We had our branch president meeting at the beach and it was super awesome. We got there just as the sun was going down and let me tell ya, sunsets on the ocean are amazing! Super amazing.

Saturday we had a great and very busy day. We taught Dada first thing after English class about baptism. He loved it and is super excited to get baptized. He realizes now that he needs to be way diligent to get baptized and he is willing to do it. He has seen lots of changes in his life from learning with us and is coming to a knowledge of the truthfulness of this church. It is seriously so awesome to see. We taught a less active family after him and helped them understand God better. They thought God was a spirit and that the three of them were literally one being. It's no wonder they were less active; they don't know the doctrine. We are working on that now. And then we taught this way cool guy named Dola and we had a great lesson with him. He had some great questions and we were able to help him out a lot. We are going to start teaching him more often and I can see him progressing very well.

Yesterday was a good day. We had a lot of investigators come to church. Dada showed up way late but he still came! There was a bit of apostasy in Priesthood but other than that everything went well. Our program kinda of got shot in the foot yesterday so we ended up teaching a lot of less actives. It was still good though.

One last thing is that there is this Italian food place here that is super good and has amazing ice cream. I had a banana split there the other day and it is amazing. We go there like all the time.

Well have a great week everyone!

Elder Coleman