Families :)

Can't believe that it's already Monday and that I skyped y'all a week ago! Time is just flying by! It's nuts!

Sorry but the ponderize scripture didn't happen this week... But I did spend a lot of time thinking about the Plan of Salvation and God's specific plans for each and every one of us. Also did a lot of Pondering on Diligence. It was a big subject of my studies this past week.

Monday we got dogged by our time with a family. They aren't super interested we feel so I don't think we will go back to them. But we got to go to Danielson's! And we had fried chicken. Fried chicken. It was so good! 

Tuesday was a great day! We took Elder Lenhardt to the airport and picked up Elder Nelson. We caught a lot of people at home too. We caught Francisca at home and had a return missionary help us teach her since he lives right by her. He is super good at English and wants to go to BYU next year. But he was a huge help. Side note: Apparently Razakamandimby is in America right now; in Utah. We caught Yvon and Lala finally! It's been a long time since we caught them. He really wants to come back to church but he works Sunday morning and gets off right at 9. So kind of hard. We are working with him though and he is actually looking for a new job so he can come to church. We taught Dimby a little bit. He had more questions but during the lesson Elder Jensen didn't feel super great so we bounced out of there quick and headed for a bathroom. Well long story short we had to cut our day short starting then. A little rough. A little bad news too. At about 3 in the morning on Tuesday there was a house fire in our neighborhood, just behind the hill by the house. There were about 106 house burned down. Two members houses burned down and their sister didn't make it out of the house and died. She was the only that died. Please keep them in your prayers. It's heartbreaking. They have literally nothing now. The clothes on their backs is all they have. 

Wednesday we had a great day. We caught Sandy and Esperant, a new family and they are awesome. Way into the teachings. We gave them a Book of Mormon and they are way interested in it so that's a good sign. We taught Ruffin about the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom and he's all good on those so he is on track for the baptism on the 11. We got dropped by a Lutheran family. That was interesting. He told us he talked to his pastor about us and the pastor said it was his choice; he can do whatever he likes but that if he wants to leave their church it is a lot of paperwork that he has to fill out. Never heard that one before. Well then we contacted into a huge family that was also Lutheran but they are way cool and super into the teachings. We had a great lesson about the Restoration and it turns out that they had already received a Book of Mormon from some missionaries before and had been taught. That was interesting because they acted like everything we taught was pretty new to them. That night we taught Bertin, a 20 year old guy that is here learning. He's great. We always have great lessons with him. He is very sincere and really just wants to be happy in life. We brought Odillon with us and it was great. Then we taught Germaine and Augustine with Odillon and that went good. Germaine wasn't there so that was kinda lame. 

Thursday went great. We found this guy named Done who has learned a lot before from missionaries but just never got baptized because he couldn't stop drinking. Well we had a good talk with him and we are determined to get him baptized. He'll be great. We did some tracting that day because we had a bunch of times in a row dog us. We walked away from house that had just dogged us and I thought, "Father, where do we need to go?" And right when I thought that Elder Jensen was like hey lets go over this way. So we walked over to this street that we hadn't tracted down yet and all the houses we could see were locked up. We walked down a little ways and knocked on the first house that was open. Well we got let in by an awesome family that loved the Restoration. It was a great lesson and you could tell they felt something. It was awesome! 

Friday we caught Mahala and Elvine and had a great time with them. We talked about their baptism and told Mahala that he has to be done smoking or else they can't get baptized on the 28. They would have to get moved back. He has a strong determination to get free of smoking so that's awesome! Keep him in your prayers! He needs help! We taught Anjara and Marciel about the baptismal covenant and it was great. They are on track to get baptized on the 11 as well. They finally saved up enough money to get married! They should be getting married this week! We had a soiree that night with the other missionaries in the other branch. The members house is right next to the place that caught on fire. It's a way cool story actually. SO this guy is the Elders quorum president in the other branch. So Tuesday morning the fire was raging and it was heading straight for their house. All their neighbors were freaking out. They were grabbing things out of their houses and trying to evacuate but the members wouldn't. They just kept praying that the fire would miss them. They actually locked the door to their house so no one could get in because as people were evacuating their homes, people were coming and stealing all their stuff. SO this member family wasn't scared at all, locked the door to their house and prayed. And as the fire was about to get to their house, the wind changed and blew the fire the other direction and their house didn't get touched. 

Saturday we taught Fanja and Naina. They are awesome. Like beyond great! He is a great guy. A great guy. In the two years I've been in Madagascar, I've never met anyone like this guy. He is just an all around great man. This guy is a stud. He is really interested in the teachings and really wants to come to church. He really wants to know about the church. We had an awesome lesson with him and his wife about the Plan of Salvation. We went back to Aina and Voavison, the family we tracted into on Thursday and gave them a Book of Mormon and talked about it. It was awesome. They love it. The wife told us that she loves our teachings because we want them to ask God if it is true. They are from Fianarantsoa and the husband said that as soon as he saw us he recognized that we were from that church. He's seen the one that's there. And I got to speak a little Betsileo with them so that was fun. We taught Selmann's family how to do an FHE kind of. They've apparently already been doing them every Monday. Super great. And they are always studying the scriptures when we show up. It's super awesome to see. Selmann wanted my tie so I gave it to him. It was our last time of the day anyway. Also there is this epicerie right by his house that is super nice. It sells bread very similar to brownies so I always buy some. Well the lady that runs it loves us. She gave us a bunch of free cookies when we stopped by. Way nice.

Sunday was great! We had tons of people at church including investigators! We had one guy that we contacted into, didn't even teach, show up. Way cool. We stopped by that Lutheran family again and taught them about the Book of Mormon and it went super well. They were very open to it and are super interested in it and want to read it. We went by the guy that came to church and taught his family and they are way cool! He is super interested and read the whole pamphlet! And he is related to Honore so even better. We had an awesome lesson with them and they really want to know about the Book of Mormon. 

We had a lot of really cool families this week and I am excited to see them progress. We've got some baptisms coming up this next week and things are just looking great. Life is great. I've started running in the mornings on the beach and it's awesome. It's way mandreraka though. 

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Coleman