Well this has been an interesting week that's for sure and a long awaited week too. So the thing is is that Air Madagascar just kinda shut down for two weeks. Not sure why. So it took me a little longer than usual to get my new companion.
Monday night we had a soiree with Sr Hardy, the ex-branch president's wife. It was super good food and was a way good time but some things came to light. She has heard people talking and they are saying that the branch president killed himself and he was drunk the night he died. We know it isn't true and she knows it as well but obviously she is having a hard time with it, as if things weren't hard enough already. But I was way mad. That is not ok. So I called the AP's to see when President Lalari, one of the counselors in the mission presidency, was coming down so he could address the problem. We they happened to be with President Foote when I called and so they just put me on speaker phone. So we talked about that and the candidates for the branch president right now and some other things that can not be mentioned in this email. But it was an interesting way to start off the week.
Tuesday we did a lot of tracting and we taught a recent convert's brothers. They are way cool guys and they come to our English class. We had a little lesson with them and they fed us too. Tracting was not super successful that day. We taught Dieu Donne about answers to prayer. He is still struggling to see the answers to whether the Book of Mormon is true or not. We taught Dada after that and read with him in the Book of Mormon. He is still not 100% dedicated so we are pushing for the Book of Mormon with him. He is starting to do a lot better though. He has been coming to church the past few weeks and is doing very well. He didn't come yesterday though :(. We taught Ulrich after that and had a good time with him talking about obedience to the gospel and all the blessings it brings.
Wednesday was lame. My bike broke on our way to lunch and so after we ate, we took it to Toky's house. We went and taught Timoty and read from 3 Nephi 11. It was good for them. We had to do a little geography lesson first to get them on the right page. We taught Emmy after that and talked to her about the Book of Mormon as well and trying to deepen her conversion of it. She is super mean though to us and it's very hard to teach her. She acts like she doesn't want us to be there. We taught Bernadette after and taught about baptism and covenants and the like. They are starting to wake up more to the teachings and like it a lot. She came to church yesterday too! We went back to Toky's and the bike was good to go. So we start going and my pant leg catches in the gears and rips it all the way up to the knee. And the other piece was still broken so we went back and Toky informed us after an inspection of the piece that it would keep breaking unless we replaced a bunch of pieces SO we decided to do it. So we went all the way to the store with all the bike parts and they didn't have any. We go to the other store: closed. So big waste of time there. So we had no bikes and we had a long ways to go to our next lesson. We just took a Bajaj out there and taught Arlette about answers to prayer. We thought that the best course of action would be to go back in the morning.
So we go back in the morning and it's still closed but there was on a sign on the door that said it would be open in the afternoon. So we went to our first couple times, not there, and then went back to the store. Well it is run by some Muslim that I'm pretty sure are from the Middle East and the parts they had were incredibly expensive. Big waste of time. we just went to a street market instead and bought all the parts for less than one of the parts in the store. Toky started on the bike and we went to a lesson and taught a new guy that we had tracted into the other night. he let us in and was super nice. He loved the lesson and as we were talking with him he realized that it only makes sense that God would call another prophet in our days. Great time. When we went back to Toky's, he was still working on the bikes, so we helped him finish it up and then went to our next lesson. We taught Dada and talked more about Baptism and are trying to push him for baptism on the 31. He still isn't sure though and we are encouraging him to pray about it.
Friday we taught Vololona and answered some questions that she had about the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Mormon. We helped her understand it and that took the whole time but it was a good thing for her. All of our next times fell through and so we decided to go teach a less active that lived close by, Francisca. I went to her with Stephano when we did our split last week. We just gave a little vatsim-panahy and invited her to come back to church. We did some tracting after that and got into a house of a student. He was Muslim so the lesson went nowhere. He couldn't accept that God was a tangible being or that he was even a man or anything like us to be honest. But that's what they believe though. We went to Bernard and talked Joseph Smith with him. We went a little more in depth about his life and went up to his death. He had never heard that story before so it was good for him. They fed us corn too and it was super good. Super good. At this point the AP's had called us and told us that they were in Mahajanga and were going to meet up with us at the house. We thought they were going to take us out to eat but it didn't happen. They brought my new companion and my package so I was pretty happy about that.
Saturday was English class and a ton of people showed up. I had to leave Elder Stringfellow there with Elder Heiden and go let people in to our house because we got a new washer. My clothes can be clean now! It's just been like three months! After English, President took us our to eat at a place that serves tons of crepes and ice cream. Delicious. I got to talk with President too while we were there, just me and him. It was nice. It was good to be able to talk to someone about how things have been up here. Then we had a split. I went with Elder Herrin, one of the APs and Elder Heiden and Elder Stringfellow went together. We went and taught Josefa first and talked Book of Mormon again with him because he has a hard time accepting anything other than the Bible. Then we talked with Alex and he is already through 3 Nephi 22! I was way surprised. Lalao was home but Kristian wasn't so we decided just to go straight to Arlette and then go back. But Diam wasn't home so we couldn't teach them either. We went contacting for a little bit just behind his house and were able to teach a cool guy that knew Diam and wanted to go to church with us. Way cool. Then we went back to Lalao and Kristian and had a great lesson with them. It had been awhile since we saw them last but they are still as awesome as ever. We went and invited a couple of investigators to church and then met up with the other too and a vazaha pizza place.
Sunday was great! We had tons of people come to church and we had 7 investigators! Including the 2 that we invited! One of them actually texted us right before church saying that he wasn't going to be able to make it but then he showed up right at the beginning of the meeting. We got a new branch presidency which is great! They are all studs and I think things are going to go really well now. We taught Clemence after church and she had a breakdown. The primary teachers here are super mean to each other and she just doesn't want to come anymore. We comforted her and took her straight to our new branch president and had him talk to her. Then Elder Stringfellow and I, together at last, went and taught Mercien about the Atonement. It was a great lesson and she really needed it. Then we went and taught a bunch of new investigators and had a ton of success. Most of them were there and were very accepting of us. I am very excited for this transfer with Elder Stringfellow and we are ready to go hit it hard.
Time in Antananarivo
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