Hot days and hard work

I can't believe how fast the times flies here. But Elder Stringfellow and I are killing it and having a blast. We did a lot of work this week and we are hoping that things will start moving here now with the new branch presidency.

So Monday we taught Liva and Hery about forgiveness. That is a big problem with Malagasies here, especially in the church. The second someone gets offended, they leave. Liva and Hery don't have any problems with that but it's better to prepare and prevent than to repair and repent. But yeah it was a great time with them and I love them so much. Their little daughter is adorable. I'll have to send a picture next week.

Tuesday we had a lot of contacting. A lot of contacting. We were able to get into a couple houses that we contacted into. We contacted into a house right on the beach and were able to teach them about the Restoration. It went very well. they have pet lemurs too. I'll attach a picture. It's super great to be with Elder Stringfellow. People just understand what we are saying and it's way nice. But the one guy in the lesson was super interested and accepted the Book of Mormon. We have a time to go back to them this week. We were able to teahc Dieu Donne as well and help him to get an answer about the Book of Mormon. We are just trying to push that with him first before we move on too far. We had some more times fall through and so we kept up the contacting and set up a bunch of times for later on in the week. We got into one house actually with some students and they had a PS3 and were playing it. It's only the second one I have seen in my whole time being in Madagascar. They were super cool though and accepted a Book of Mormon as well. Dada wasn't home unfortunately and so we went to Ulrich and taught him. He is super cool we just need him to come to church. We did a mock baptismal interview with him even though he is already baptized just to see where he was at in the doctrine and if he had any problems with the basics.

Wednesday we did a similar thing with Timoty and his family. It went well and they have a couple things they need to work on so we will doing that over the next week or so. Toky couldn't help us because he was doing some final things for his mission so we couldn't teach the less active women that we normally teach. So we went tracting. We contacted into a family that had actually accepted the missionaries before and had a Book of Mormon. It was super funny when they told us their names. Her name is Mary and her husbands name is Joseph. So we are teaching Mary and Joseph now. We went and taught Jackie about the Book of Mormon and he loved it. He said he was going to come to church but didn't make it. Shouldn't have really been a surprise there; that always happens. All our next times fell through as well and so we decided to go visit Teddy and Patrick, Two less actives that live close to each other. They were both home and it was way nice. Then we went to a contact named Michael. He's a stud and is super good at English. He is in a way apostate church though. So we'll see how things go. We went and taught Mahazo about covenants and I thought it went really well. He understood super well. But he didn't come to church  yesterday.

Thursday was a great day. We pretty much contacted the whole day and had a lot of success. We started by teaching Vololona and Lala about the Plan of Salvation. They loved it and still remembered it pretty well. The problem is getting them to APPLY it. They need to see why it is essential for them. They said they were coming to church but did not make it. We did a bunch of contacting after that and contacted into a super cool Muslim guy that wanted to hear what we had to say. We shared the First Vision with him and he thought it was very interesting and that it wasn't all that different from Mohammed. He also was directing us to people that would like to hear about it too. Way cool guy. Then we taught a guy that we contacted on the beach the other day. His house was crazy hot! Like an oven! We taught the Restoration and he loved it and also said he was coming to church. Also didn't come. But at least the desire is there...kinda. We did more contacting and tracted into a young family that just moved to Mahajanga from Tana. We knocked on the door and the wife said we could come back and teach when her husband got home. Well right as she said that her husband pulled up on a moto. Cool! They told us straight up that if what we had to offer was better than where they were currently praying then they would join our church. They received a Book of Mormon. We went and taught another family that Elder heiden and I contacted into a couple weeks ago. We stopped by and they were all there and we were able to share the Restoration with them. They loved it and begged us to stay and keep teaching them. They were like,"Wait what? That's all for today? it's just getting good!" We taught the other Dada aft6er that and we are trying to get him to know that this is where he needs to go. A little slow on the progress right now with him.

Friday we taught Vololona about praying to know that the book of Mormon is true. She is turning into one of those eternal investigators but she is coming to church so it isn't all wasted. She just doesn't seem to be going anywhere with the Book of Mormon. We decided to go back to Ordance because 1. hanitra called us and asked why we didn't come by the other day and 2. I figured we could try one more time to get her progressing towards baptism. Well there seemed to be a new energy in both of them to learn but Ordance didn't come to church yesterday. We went out to Viktor's and taught him and his family the Plan of Salvation. They liked it a lot and came to church yesterday! They are going to be baptized here pretty soon. We came back and taught Jackie about prayer and how to pray because he doesn't really know how. And then we did a little bit of contacting and came across a big family that let us teach them. We will be going back to them this week but it was kinda hard to teach them. They were not what you would call receptive. We taught about the baptismal covenant to Philibert and his family and he kinda hammered on his wife because she is less active.

Saturday was English and tons of people showed up. They always ask me weird questions though. But basically our whole plan just fell to pieces. We taught Timoty and had a good lesson with them on Obedience but after that literally all our lessons fell through. We did a lot of contacting but no one would let us in or was busy at the time. We were able to teach Dada though that evening and read with him from the Book of Mormon.

Sunday was interesting. I almost had to give a talk on the spot. Of the three people that were supposed to give talks, not one showed up when the meeting started. But they found some members that could do it so I didn't have to. We had a lot of investigators at church this week and Viktor was very interested in the temple and eternal marriage. We taught Clemence after and she seems to be doing a lot better. We taught a bunch of people after church too. Our program was packed full. We taught Mercien about the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom. Then we went to some new investigators that was basically just a waste of time to teach. It's really sad when people just reject the message of the Restoration. We know it's true and that there are immense blessings that come from knowing that but they don't care. We taught Mary and Joseph again and went over the Book of Mormon with them. They understand it well now and they should be able to understand it as they read. We taught a fellow by the name of Rakotovao again. Elder Heiden and I found him. He is a cool guy and we talked Book of Mormon with him and he just gets it. It's way nice. Some of our other times fell through so that was lame. Our last time was super lame because everyone was just goofing off and it was loud so we just ended the lesson and left.

We worked way hard this week and it was awesome! We got 23 new investigators this week! I am excited to see how things go over the next few weeks!

Elder Coleman