Mission to Madagascar!: 8/24/15 - Magic Pillow, Wedding & A Baptism

Bon Jour! Kely sisy de mila manao veloma amin'ny namako malala... Hey y'all!

It is the last week of the transfer. Next week Elder Thompson goes home! Oh he's making me so trunky thinking about and talking about home! Nah. Haha! But he has worked hard his last transfer and whenever I get home at night I am out as soon as my head touches my pillow! It's like a magic spell in the bed. Haha! Elder Thompson and I are convinced that there must be only 3 days in a week on the mission. It seems like I only remember Monday (P-day), Friday, and Sunday. That's it. That is how fast time goes... Well after hump day last week I guess I am officially on the downhill slope of my mission hill and i just tripped over a rock so it's going too fast :p Oh - not downhill like everything is going bad but downhill like the last part of a journey. But let's not think of that shall we! Let's get to the amazing week that Team Thompson and Mack had!

Tuesday: We went on a split with the zone leaders. I got Elder Covey! He is so dope! He is the group ahead of me! We had a way fun split. We taught 4 lessons if I remember correctly. The bus ride to their area was like 2 hours. The ride sucked but we tried to make it fun. We got a cool contact on the bus. Me and Elder Covey were talking together and then we hear from behind us, "Hi guys!" We were thinking, "What the ish! English?" The guy was looking to practice his English and he was pretty good. He asked us about our job and we told him we were missionaries. Then he asked the perfect question, "Hmm, you know there's about 206 churches in Madagascar. Which one is the true church?" Me and Covey looked at each other, grinned, and taught him a first lesson! Haha! It was a great contact. We didn't teach him right on the bus but when we got off we went to the church. I loved it when he said, "This is the most beautiful church I've ever seen!" My heart was happy. :p I hope Covey and Johnson get a cool investigator out of that neat experience.

Wednesday: We had one of those days when just no one was home... It sucked a little but we still got to teach Christoffe and Niry later! They are doing awesome. I don't know if I told you guys this but they had to change their marriage date to September 3 because of copy problems. So Thompson won't get to see them get married. If I'm training I won't be able to go either. :/ We'll see. We taught them about fasting and the law of chastity and it went well. We also taught Etienne, a less active. Thompson slayed his family for not helping Etienne with his word of wisdom problem. SHABAMM!! I'm too nice. Thompson throws the HAMMER!!!

Thursday: Year Mark! Me and Elder Liao burned a shirt and made cookies to celebrate. Our shirts are getting so dirty haha (but they're still good mom :p) Madagascar gives no mercy to those water proof, anti- whatever things, etc. Nothing is Madagascar proof! It was one of those full scheduled days but half of our times fell through. The times we did get were good though. We taught a few less actives and it went well.

Friday: We prepared Ernesto for his baptism coming up! He passed his practice baptism interview with us. He is way ready. I'm so excited for him. Sambatra has got a little problem though and probably won't get baptized this week... :/ We also visited this less active member who just had a death in his family. It was his sister. His name is Orlando. Orlando was way sad when we went to his house but we taught him the Plan of Salvation. I loved bearing my testimony to him about my feelings of that perfect plan. Guess what? He came back to church on Sunday! :) We also taught Patrick's maid. She's from Andranomanelatra which is cool but she is very slow in learning but very nice. We just made sure she understood the Joseph Smith story. She is very active in coming to church and it is great seeing her smile when she comes.

Saturday: We went to a marriage for our friends Viqueca and Fabiena! They looked so good! They are perfect for each other because they are both weird. Haha joke. They're so fun. They both served in Cote de Vour for a mission. They left today to go to the temple :) Yay! I went on a split with Elder Liao in his area. It was way fun. We taught no lessons though. We tracted the whole time! We got some good contacts and hopefully there will be results from a few. Elder Thompson took the District Leader to interview Ernesto and he passed his baptism interview!! He will be baptized on the 29th. :)

Sunday: We went to church. I got to do some translating for Jewels. Sign language is way fun. Me and Thomson are in the choir preparing for ward conference next week. Church rocked. We got the most people in attendance that we've had in a while. There were 95 that came to church. The less actives we taught made the difference. Haha. I don't want to brag or nothing... but less active after less active came and me and Thompson were like dancing in the back of the chapel like, "Yes! We are good missionaries! Haha!" We even got an entire family to come back and it felt good! We also taught Ernesto about the temple after church today and he was just amazed. His eyes were never really normal sized the whole lesson. Haha! Sambatra came to church and we were really happy to see him because we have not been able to catch him all week. We asked him where he was and he told us that there was a family problem that he did not want any part of so he left his house and has been living on the streets. We are not able to baptize him until he has a home. If he moves to the country side where there are no missionaries then there is no point in baptizing him because he wouldn't have that support. We told the ward council about that and they are looking for a solution too.

Uh...badabada, thats all folks! Have a great week! The church is true, God is good, Jesus is the Christ!

Love y'all!
Elder Mack