2/1/16 - Busy Elder

Mom:  Elder Mack didn't send a blog letter today probably because he worked on and emailed me his BYU essay.  He wrote his essay about that flooding experience - see the 12/14/15 blog entry.  He did mention that he has heard he will probably be leaving Anjanahary when transfers come in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned for that news.  Just in case you weren't keeping track, Elder Mack comes home in about 6 months!

Sister Foote posted this on Instagram, "Morning exercise at the mission compound."

1/25/16 - Bribery, futbol, and a bunch of baptism dates

Arabaina ry dadatoa sy nenitoa fa nahazo mpamaky kitahy ianareo! :)

Hey y'all! :) Wow.  I can't even describe to you guys my feelings of this past week.  It was crazy mifangaro (mixed up) week.  Not a big letter today but let's check da highlights!!

- Sambatra was walking home late one night, around 10:00 and the cops saw him.  They asked him for his ID and he didn't have it on him so they took him to prison. When I heard that I was just so mad. Cops here are soo lame.  Sambatra is such a good guy.  They said that he has to pay 200,000 ari ari to get out. We went to the station to go see him and the big guy at the gate wouldn't let me in because I didn't have a judge note.  I was able to bribe him and then he let me in.  Haha.  Don't be alarmed.  That's how things work here.  Sambatra looked so scared.  We got him some food and a Book of Mormon to read and what was funny was the officer started asking questions about the book.  Sambatra told him that when he gets out that he would give him the Book of Mormon. This whole trial took a couple days of work.

- Lea is a wonderful daughter of God.  I talked to President Foote about her and he said that we can baptize her!  Her mom is active but does not have a calling yet.  President and Bishop agreed that when Lea's mom has a calling that we will baptize Lea! 

- On Thursday we had a zone futbol activity! Wayyy fun!  We got to play on that way nice turf field again. Senior comps won! Woo hoo!

- There was a world-wide mission conference and it was incredible!!  That was on Friday.  I loved Elder Bednar's talk about the role of the holy ghost. We can bring the gospel message to the people but they have to allow it into their heart.  They need to invite the spirit in.  The spirit is so important in the miracle of conversion.

- We had a great turn out of investigators at church. Janine came with Ianta and her two daughters. They have all accepted baptism dates.  Maritina has accepted a baptism date as well. Nimrode and Dola will have their baptism interviews this week and then next week they get baptized.

- The sisters in the district have been teaching this guy named Donne and I gave him a baptism interview last Saturday.  He is more than ready for baptism!  I had a great talk with him.  I felt the spirit with him and then he asked me to baptize him.  So Saturday I'll be doing that for him.

I probably only have three weeks left in this area. Ohh boyy... gotta rack up the member dinner appointments, get some people to sign my journal and take lots and lots of pictures.  Bye guys! Have a fantastic week!  Bisous bisous!

- Elder Mack

Tana north zone missionaries - Elder Mack in the green and white stripes with the hat.

Elder Mack at the beginning and end of the video

Elder Mack running with the yellow shoes

Elder Mack in the middle of the huddle facing the camera

Tana North Zone futbol activity

Tana missionaries getting ready to watch the world-wide missionary conference broadcast - elder Mack is on the back row.

Elder Mack on the last row, far left

The broadcast was moved outside for better reception - Elder Mack on the first row, far right



Tana Missionaries - Elder Mack by the tree on the last row

1/18/16 - Zone Conference, trying something different, and wanting to follow Christ

Akoryabio!  Kay, mila mahay amin ny betsileo indray

Hey y'all!  Wow!  What a week!  I love those weeks that once you get to Sunday you're exhausted!!  haha!  P-day comes, you get refreshed, and then you can go ham again the next week!  Bum bum bum... WORK!!!!  How's everyone doing?  I'll give a few highlights from this past week:

- So both Dola and Nimrode are doing great.  They are progressing towards baptism!  Not much else to say about them other than they are BALLERS!!!

- We are teaching this lady named Lea.  She was taught by missionaries before but they would not baptize her because she cannot speak and communicate that she understands.  Well, I can tell that she knows things and so I tried something different.  :p  I grabbed my picture book and showed her pics of the Joseph Smith story.  I gave her signs.  I taught her the sign for Joseph Smith.  She would see the picture and then do the sign.  Then I showed her the picture of God and Jesus appearing to Joseph.  I taught her those signs and then she did them.  We kept doing that through all of the pictures and she was getting it.  It was amazing!

- Our zone meeting was great!  We learned about setting goals.  It was way cool.  We set some goals for progressing investigators, bringing people to church, and helping people commit to a baptism date.  Those three things are necessary in an investigator's progression.

- Janine, Lemanana, and Ianta are all doing very good.  It was way weird to see them go from not being interested to now they are coming to church.  They came to church again yesterday and they loved it.  Manda was telling me that they were participating in Relief Society and they were laughing and having a good time.  Janine told me something great during our last lesson.  She told me that she is Catholic but that she has never wanted to follow Christ until she started learning from the missionaries.  She wants to keep coming to church and feeling of the spirit.

That's all folks!  Have a great week!

-Elder Mack

Tana North Zone missionaries

1/11/16 - Miracle of the pictures and going to Relief Society

Tena ohatra mampatruny be ny hern andro fa tsa manahy!

Hey y'all!  How's everyone doing?!  Just dandy I hope?  Mahafinaritra be izany!  Well, this was transfer week and it was fun as ever.  Haha!  We have a new office elder living with us.  His name is Elder Monsen!  He is Elder Glazier's kid and I totally prophesied to him a while back that we would either be comps or live in the same house together.  Haha!  And fate had it! BAM!  The house has been hectic lately.  People are coming and going but I think this is the last time I will see a transfer week here.  It's kind of sad that this is my last transfer in Anjanahary.  BETTAH KILL IT!!!

- Dola is such a baller!  He told us that he was a professional soccer player.  He's legit!  He showed us a video of him playing in Paris, France.  He has also played all around Africa.  He has been progressing so well.  He is so humble and was so ready for this gospel.  Whatever we ask him to do he does.  He will be baptized on the 6th of February.  For the lesson on Monday we were planning on teaching plan of salvation but felt the need to change it to discussing goals and we brought him a picture of Jesus Christ and the temple.  I took out the pic from my bag and Dola and his wife glanced and each other with wide eyes and laughed.  I asked them, "What?"  Dola told me that after church he told his wife that he really wanted a big picture of Jesus Christ and the temple to put up on his wall but his wife said she didn't know where to get one.  Next day, BAM!  Ask and ye shall receive!  Haha!

- Dola gave us a referral.  One of his workers was getting really interested and finally joined one of the lessons.  Her name is Maritina.  Come to find out, she's getting married to one of the members in the ward named Mady.  He is brothers with Willie who we are helping to prepare to go on a mission. She is way cool and came to church yesterday and she said she just loved it. She loved the spirit and the help from the talks in sacrament meeting.

- Lemanana and Ianta are so cool and are starting to progress well. Ianta and her sister came to church yesterday and had a fantastic first experience.  I attended Relief Society (I'll tell you why in a second) and they took part and felt welcomed.  I introduced them to bishop and they were like amazed because in other churches, you can't just go up and shake the pastor's hand.  A big no no.  Haha!  But they loved meeting him and bishop is a great man who builds great relationships with people.

- Rain, rain, and more rain.... Yikes!  Elder Monsen just became the new office elder but came on a split with us and he said that is the first time in his mission he has had water in his shoes.  Haha!

- Jewels brought a referral to church yesterday.  It was a deaf girl.  We were so surprised!  Jewels is soo funny.  He has been trying to teach her and has already dropped a baptism date on her!  Haha! Go Jewels!  We took Jewels teaching with us one day and he had so much fun teaching I guess that he started doing it on his own.  The thing is that this lady does Malagasy sign language and me and Jewels have been learning American sign language from some sister missionaries in DC over Skype.  So during the 3rd hour of church the APs took Jewels to priesthood and then I took his friend to Relief Society and attempted to translate for her.  It's so hard to change.  Haha!  I hope she got a lot out of it.  The Relief Society, when they do closing prayers, they hold hands in a circle and it was way weird because I had to stand in the middle of the circle and translate for Francine and the prayer was wayyy too long!!  Haha!

This was a way fun week!  I love training!  I'm bringing out Elder Tambula's loud side a little and he is sooo funny.  Haha!  I don't even think he means to be funny but he is!  Well... love you all!  Have a fantastic week!  Bisous bisous!

Elder Mack

This is not a fist bump anymore.  We call this a 'DONA'. 

This is Mirado's dad

A funeral right outside the house.  This is how they take their dead to the burial place - carry them on the top of a taxi be. 

I taught Jewels some piano!  He can play, "How Firm a Foundation" now!  Haha!

1/4/15 - Happy New Year!

Hey y'all!

Happy New Year!! Here's some highlights this week:

- At our ward party:  Christof and Niry brought the daughter of an old invesigator family to the party.  She loved it and told her parents, whom we used to teach, about it and they wanted to start learning again. I saw the mom on the street and she said she really wanted us to come over.  We get there and this time everyone is ready to learn.  They had notebooks and their Bible out all ready to learn!  I was like, "YESS!!"  Haha!  This is Lemanana and Ianta if you guys remember those names. They said they will come to church next week!

- Church was great! Before church, we went to Mosesy and Nadia's house to pick them up to go to church.  When we got there and they were all ready to go!  We went together to church and it was fantastic. Testimony meeting was great! Mosesy, even though he was less active for a long time, bore a wonderful testimony. 

- Dola is still doing really well. I don't think we'll make his baptism date goal but that's okay. We need to give him more time to learn.  I think Nimrode will be getting baptized soon. Woo hoo! 

- With New Years everyone was partying or on vacation so our plans were kind of shot.  We did a ton of tracting and met some cool new people!

I love you guys!  Have a great week!

-Elder Mack

Mosesy and Nadia!  We can see who wears the pants in the family.  Haha!

Flooding sucks

The couple that lives above us just got married.  French guy, Malagasy gal. 

Ward Christmas party

Man-powered ferris wheel

Tambula made lunch for us

Christof and Niry soiree.  The activity was arm wrestling!  Yah, Faniry beat Bruno.  Haha!

New Year's party

Nadia and Mosesy's daughter all ready for church

12/28/15 - Soirees, promptings, & including the Lord in your goals

Elder Tainter with his mission dad Elder Mack and mission mom Elder Tshuma

Salama Daholo!! Tratra ny toana vaovao!!

WHAT THE ISH???  My one full year away from America is done... Lety e!!  Next year I'll see the land of the brave again. Yikes. Christmas was wonderful! We had a christmas party with the missionaries here in Tana and it was a blast! The senior couples made us all pancakes and eggs. It was soo good!  After breakfast we had a wonderful Christmas devotional. Then we had some fun activities. We finished off the party by watching The Christmas Story. You know, the one where the kid gets his tongue stuck to the pole.  Haha fail!  At around 5:00pm my time I SKYPED DA OHANA!!!!  You guys all look great! :)  It was wonderful and soo special.  I promise I'm not too trunky now. I recovered quickly.  Haha! Ish... :p  I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. This past week was great!

-All of our soirees were great!  Thursday I made two batches of brownies and somehow I ended up not eating any of them. :/  Dang it. 

-Zone leader splits last Thursday was way fun!!  Elder Yeagley is a baller!  He gave me a lot of good tips and we talked a lot about faith and helping our investigators have enough faith to do anything. We taught Faly and his family and they have a new problem. They are guardians for a house and they have to work on Sunday. They are poor and finding the faith to quit the job and find another is hard. They don't realize the blessings they will receive if they do that. A lot of the members who put trust in God and pay a full and honest tithe have been blessed immensely. Faith is the first principle in the gospel. Believing and faith are two different things. One requires work, that's faith. Faith starts off small but grows after trials. 

- When we Skyped my father talked to me about promptings of the spirit. It can be hard to recognize if something is a prompting sometimes.  It can be hard to differentiate between a thought or prompting. I thought a lot about the spirit and experiences that I have had using the spirit. I went home that night and a thought/prompting came to my head which told me to go upstairs and give the people that live there a Christmas carol. So I told Tambula and he was like, "Are you serious?"  Haha!  I took him upstairs, knocked, and got into the house. I brought my guitar and we sang Silent Night. They loved it and the spirit was strong.  Even though we didn't know them we kind of all became great friends.  Come to find out they were getting married the next day and they insisted that we come.  Also, apparently the wife has learned from missionaries before.  We have a soiree with her next week and hopefully we can help them feel the spirit like they did Christmas night.

-We had a great soiree with Christof and Niry. They gave us a referral that night for Niry's brother. We met them and they are a wonderful and happy family.  They have three kids I believe.  The wife actually came to the baptism.  Bruno is the son who came to the baptism and he is one of my favorites.  Haha!  He came to church on Sunday.  He said he wants to get baptized just like his cousin Faniry.  Christof received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday too!  Woo hoo! 

-We had a ward Christmas party on Saturday after the wedding.  It was soo much fun. The members had a lot of fun and we had some investigators come as well!  One of the investigators was actually Lemanana's daughter who just had a baby.  We stopped teaching them a while ago because they weren't progressing but it was cool to see her come to the church!  Christof and Niry brought her. 

-Yesterday we had a great lesson with Valery. With the new year coming we decided to talk about goals with him!  I gave them pictures of the temple and of Jesus Christ. In talking about goals, we asked them to make temporal goals and also spiritual goals that can help them come closer to Christ in helping them get to the temple.  We gave them each a piece of paper and we all wrote about 5 goals. Nadia had goals like go to church every Sunday, and start saving up for the temple. Valery's goals were wonderful. He wrote down stop drinking, stop chewing tobacco, finish the Book of Mormon, and get baptized.  How great right? :)  We explained to them that the best way to accomplish your goals is if you add the Lord into it. Ask god for help and strength often to accomplish the goals you have. 

Well this Thursday we have a soiree with the office elders at one of their members homes!  Way stoked!  Happy New Year everyone!  I love you all!  Bisous bisous! 

-Elder Mack

Merry Christmas from the Madagascar Antananarivo Mission.  These are the elders, sisters, and couples with President & Sister Foote. 
Elder Mack is on the last row, third from the left.

  "Joy to the World" shared by Sister Foote

"Silent Night" shared by Sister Foote

12/25/15 - Christmas Skype Call

Merry Christmas from Elder Mack

Part of Elder Mack's testimony in Malagasy

(Thank you Spencer Lehr, Elder Mack's trainer who just got home from Madagascar, for helping me translate this!)

I want all of you to know that I love you a lot.  I am happy for all that you have done for me.  I am full of thanks for the blessing of this call here in Madagascar.  There are a lot of investigators here that have been changed by me and others, but they also have changed my life.  I feel that I have become a better person because of the work here.  I am grateful and full of thanks for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and the atonement which was done for us.  I know that there is a living prophet now, and I also know that Joseph Smith restored the true church. 

Elder Mack and Elder Coleman have been together three out of the three times they've Skyped

12/21/2015 - Soirees, my malagasy Mom, and lots of rain

MELE KALIKIMAKA!! TRATRA NY KRISTMASY!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Hey y'all!:) I'm so excited for Christmas!!  Haha!  I always get so giddy around this time!  I bought a tree with lights and ornaments to add some color to the house.  Malgasies don/t really have decorations and stuff. They don't do presents but what they do is have family parties. The missionaries here in Antananarivo will have a Christmas party on Friday all day! Way stoked! We'll do a white elephant, singing, games, movies, etc.  I'll take pics! :p  I have soiree dinners every night this week too :p Woo hoo!  Bishop tonight, Mirado tomorrow, then Mosesy and Nadia (new investigator) for Christmas Eve lunch and then Manda Christmas Eve night.  I will have spent my birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with Manda!  She's my Malagasy mom. :p  Well, this week was good. I honestly focused on training. Elder Tambula.  He is way new to the gospel.  I love him so much!

-Monday we had a great lesson with Nadia and Valery. For so long I have been focusing on helping Valery to get over his drinking problem and this week we felt we should change it up a little. We talked about the eternal family and being sealed for all time and all eternity.  It was a wonderful lesson.  We brought a Family Proclamation for them and showed them different pictures of the temple.  After the lesson, Valery grabbed the Family Proclamation paper and hammered it into his wall right next to where he sleeps.

-We taught Jose and his family.  This is the family that we helped un-flood their house last week. They are a wonderful family. Jose is way talkative but I loved listening. The first visit we didn't really have a lesson but it was a lot of getting to know each other. He took a lot of interest in my life.  He asked about my family so I showed him pictures.  He asked about school and why I stopped to serve the Lord.  He talked a lot about the blessings he has and it was a wonderful visit.  Next week we'll teach the restoration.  I'm way excited! :)

-Rain, rain, AND MORE RAIN. Dang, rainy season is worse here in Tana, especially where I live. It just floods like none other. We have umbrellas but we still get DRENCHED!  Last Wednesday we went and took shelter at Jewels' house.  Jewels is the only member in his family but he is always praying and hoping for his family to accept the gospel.  Usually Jewels will teach the lesson and then we will  add our thoughts too it.  His family doesn't know sign language so it's hard for them to communicate. I decided to translate everything Jewels was saying and the family was very impressed with Jewels and what he has come to know to be true.  It turned out to be a very good lesson with a strong spirit.  I hope the family felt that too.

-We taught Dola again and he is doing great.  He came to church and he loved it.  We gave him a Book of Mormon.  We are trying to prepare him for the 23rd of January to be baptized.

- Friday we had a wonderful time with Samson and his beautiful family.  We talked about testimonies and the power of ones testimony. We had a little testimony meeting with them.  It was wonderful and the house was filled with the spirit.  I love this family.  They have truly become one of my favorite families.  They love each other and work together.  They each shared beautiful testimonies about their love for their Savior.

I love you all so much.  Do something special this week for someone who may be going through a hard time.  Think about the true meaning Christmas.  Think about our Lord and Savior and where we would be without him.  I love you all so much.  Mack Ohana I'm so excited for Skype! :)  Bisous bisous!

Am-pitiavana,

Elder Mack



City Court building

We were waiting for Joseph Richard to get home one day and he left his office open :p  Tee hee!  Dr. Mack is in!



Manda and I wrote a Malagasy version of the 12 Days of Christmas.  Haha!  Still a work in progress...

These are the only lights that the city puts out for Christmas

Anjanahary

What we played on P-day - Risk :p

Anjanahary

The sisters in Washington D.C. signing with Jewels

This is how much room I get in taxis :p  I totally squished that lady right next to me!

Elder Olsen is the new office elder

shopping madness

12/14/15 - Church Voice, Cross Roads, & Bucketing Water

Manahoana Ianareo! Tiako be Ianareo sady malahelo anareo koa ity no paradisa!!!!! >.<

Hey y'all!  What's up?  I am so grateful for the fun and crazy week I've had this past week!  Some of you guys might think that you'd never want to come here but let me tell ya, it's great!  I don't have too much time today so lets get started with the highlights!

-My new trainee Elder Tambula is way cool and very quiet. It can be hard to get him to talk but he is sooo humble and ready to learn.  He is definitely a soft soul. When I ask him to speak louder he tells me, "I use my church voice."  Dang it.  Haha!

-Well, here's a little spiritual story. Last Wednesday it was raining hard like none other.  We had Sambatra with us and we were all getting hammered in the rain.  I decided to take shelter at one of my favorite member's homes, Manda.  She took us in happily and wet.  Haha!  Well, we left when the rain stopped but streets were flooded.  We get to this cross road.  One takes us the short way home, and the other one is long way home.  Of course the spirit tells us to take the long way home and I am so glad that we listened.  We walked past a house and inside it was flooded WAYYY bad.  We called out to them asking if they needed help, and the father looked way surprised for a sec and then asked us to help.  We go on in and the water was up to my hips when we first got there.  We got buckets and started bucketing out water.  After we were done, the guy tells me, "You know, I was bucketing water alone and then I felt the need to pray.  I prayed for help and then not to long after you guys came." #Spiritrocks  We have a return appointment with him tommorow! :)

-We walked home and the streets were flooded!!!  We ended up walking home in knee deep water.  I'll get a picture next time that happens but on our way home we found a dead guy.  He drowned.  That was not fun.  Nough said.

-We got a new investigator!  He is one of our member's husbands.  His name is Dola.  He had come to church every week for a month and only now does he want us to teach him.  We told him about our goal for him and his family and asked him why he came to church in the first place.  He said that he wanted to follow his wife and have the same faith as her.  He came to church and said he felt something new.  He asked us if he could get baptized this month!  Whoa!  Haha!  I told him he had to know the basic teachings of the church and when he can pass the interview then he can be baptized. Hopefully we can do that in January! Woo hoo!

Love you guys!  Have a great week! :)

Elder Mack

My favorite Russian!  Elder Evans from my MTC group!

The flooded house

Bucketing...

Nametags

Dang Hawaiian...

You taking a pic of me?

Give me the camera Mack.  (This is Elder Tiu who was Elder Mack's MTC comp but he is wearing Elder Tambula's nametag)

Bishop's daughter :)

I said walk slowly!

BFFs

The Ward Mission Leader  - Lalaina!