6/29/15 - New Mission President, Finding People

We tracted up a mountain one day and wow, what a view!

  

ALOHA 'OE!  Hawaii no tsara be kanefa Madagasikara no toerana tsara indrindra!!!

Hey y'all!  So, this week is kinda gonna be a sad week for the missionaries.  President Adams goes home this week... :(  I love him.  We will be receiving our new mission president on Wednesday I believe.  His name is President Foote.  I don't know much about him but President Adams says he is going to be a great leader for us so I'm excited to meet him.  We actually have mission president interviews with President Foote planned for Saturday.  I'm way excited! 

I am way good! We had a good week but a little stressful.  We had about 40 lessons planned but ended up teaching only 15 of those.  Kinda stressful but eh, still good! :)  So let's break down my week a little shall we? :p

Tuesday: We had a wonderful full day planned. We had tracted very hard to get these times scheduled and then... down the drain.  Only one time did not fall through.  We've had to do a lot of tracting in this area.  This was kind of a harder week too just because of Independence Day here.  I hope it goes better this coming week!  The one time we taught was to Sarika and his family.  I don't know if I have ever talked about Sarika but he is way cool.  He has been coming to church with his Grandpa and has been wanting to learn from the missionaries.  The only problem is he does not live in our area.  So we got permission and have started teaching him and his family.  Both his parents want to come to church now!  I'm really hoping they will come!

Wednesday: Freestyle :p worked hard finding people

Thursday:  I think I have told you guys about Joseph and Nina. They are a couple that are not legally married but wants to get baptized. They used to be way good about coming to church and now they don't come.  They say it is because of money and they can't take the bus. It kinda made me a little bit frustrated.  Back in Saradroa we had people who had nothing but every Sunday they would walk about 3 hours to get to church. You remember that one bebe who walked 60 km to Antsirabe for district conference?  She is like 80 years old!  So we taught them about faith. We taught them about the story of Elijah asking food from a poor women and when she had faith, she received immeasurable blessings.

Friday: We went to maman Tendrys house Friday morning and painted her house.  The paint was a very low quality but it still felt good to do service! Today, we found a way cool family! Their names are Mamy Nirina and Meltina. They are a younger couple that have two adorable kids. The dad was fishing when we tracted into them. They took us in and listened to our message. It was a great discussion and they felt the spirt, they understood the need for a living prophet with power and authority.  We gave them a Book of Mormon and I thought the wife was gonna cry.  She was just like, "Oh, thank you!  Thank you!  Today you answered a few of my questions and I have the desire to continue with the lessons!"  Yah! :p  We also taught Fanja today who is a recent convert.  She's the lady that went with us to Tsimbazaza.  Her neighbor is a recent convert too.  His name is Fetra and he is so funny.  When he learned the Joseph Smith story the missionaries asked him, "Who appeared to Joseph Smith?"  He said, "Umm, Jesus and Christ."  *facepalm*  He knows the right answer now.

Saturday: We taught English in the morning.  It was a way good lesson!  We had a new family come!  The dad is Alexander and then his son also came and learned with us. Alexander found the church on his own and he just started coming on his own and he has been waiting to be taught the gospel. The lesson went way well!  He already knew the Joseph Smith story and he has already read a lot of the Book of Mormon!  Way cool!  He'll get baptized fo sho!  We are teaching Edward still (the catholic teacher) and from what it sounds like he wants to try and come to our church.  He likes the lessons but the way he gets money and supports his family is through his job at the catholic church. His church is at the same time as ours.  He is very welcoming with us.  He has not received a Book of Mormon yet but we asked him, "If we give you a Book of Mormon would you read it?" and he said, "I really will."  So we will see where things go!

Sunday:  Church was good!  For branch council, President Nirina wanted to show a video from the apostles but it wasn't in Malagasy it was in French.  He wanted the missionaries there but we had no idea what was being said.  I could hear the apostles voice in the background in english but it was hard.  So today we found out that we have a ton of less actives so me and Elder Iata went on a search for them!  We found one!  Apparently she is a returned missionary and less active.  Way sad... but she is way cool!  She went to Africa!  She said that work has just taken over and she has just been exhausted from it but she promised to try and come next Sunday to church.  Then we taught Olivie and Liva (the couple that can't get legally married because the husband is still married to a lady that moved to France. Yikes!)

Well, I hope y'all are doing well!  Thank you for all the love and aloha.  I love you guys and I hope you all have a wonderful week!  Bisous bisou!

-Elder Mack
 

P.S.  The song "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic just started playing in the cyber! haha!

This is Feno.  His middle name is actually Jordan and he says his friends call him Jord.  Way cool.  :p