The Work is Heating Up (pun intended)

        Salama é! Inona vaovoa anareo? Not a whole lot new here this week to be honest. I know I probably talk about this a little more than I need to, but it is getting HOT here. And it's way humid. And the funny thing is it hasn't even rained here in like a month, but it still manages to be so wet. And as I'm typing this I have sweat dripping off of my nose. Which I'm sure all of you needed to know! Haha but it's not terrible, just one of those things I gotta get used to. Plus we got our AC fixed in the house finally! So that's a nice early Christmas present I guess. It's so funny how I took little things like that for granted, but now that I'm out here it makes a world of difference. Anyways, there's my little shpeel on the heat.

        Like I mentioned earlier, I don't have a whole lot of news to share this week. So this may be the shortest e-mail, but I'll try to squeeze some kind of news in this. We're getting excited about thanksgiving that'll be here soon! We're planning on celebrating it next P-day with turkey and everything! How we're going to do all that, I'm not sure yet, but we'll figure it out I'm sure.

        Random thing in the world of food, yesterday I had some Ravitoto at a member's house. It's basically just mashed up leaves on top of rice. Haha nothing too special about it. But when I think about how little the people here have, it's just fine by me. Another thing is that we now have Lychees! Ah! They are soooo good. Best fruit I've ever had. And Tamatave is the only place that grows it in Madagascar. I don't quite know how to describe it. It looks kindof like a strawberry on the outside, but white in the middle. It tastes kindof like a raspberry with the texture of a grape. We've been teaching a little about the tree of life this week to a few people, and I thought about it a little. I had never tried a lychee before in my life until this week, and I am convinced that it is the fruit that Lehi partook of in that dream. Seriously, so good. One of the benefits of living in an extremely hot and humid climate I guess!

        I heard about the 40 day challenge Sister Mumford is doing, and I've decided I'll do it too! Hopefully the time I get to study in the morning will be enough, but I can also read at night. I'm looking forward to it!

        I honestly can't think of anything else to write... Pretty uneventful week. Just like the last minus the Baptism and the visit from the Seventy. Just teaching and teaching and doing some more teaching. That's been going well though. I've started to notice that things are becoming a little more automatic for me in the sense that I don't have to think so hard about what to say. I'm trying to get out of the habit of translating everything into English and just being able to associate things directly to Malagasy. So I think that's helped a lot. And I've found that I'm a lot more prepared with things to say when Elder Moulton hands part of the lessons to me. Overall, still making progress!

       Welp, if any of you have some questions please ask them and I'll do my best to cover them in emails! For now, I think I'll go ahead and move on to other emails and get some pictures up. Love you all! Tiako ianareo!!

-Elder Mumford

A view of the house from outside the gate.

Lychee!

Rice with some henomby! (beef). This is at a muslim place that we found. Way good food!

Burnt Rice Water! Hated it at first, but now I love it. It's amazing how it grows on ya. 

Bike riding through pure sand. Story of my life!

This is the milk that we have here. It's UHT pasteurized (Whatever that means) but it's pretty good. Nothing like the good ol' Maid O Clover you get at home, but still not bad at all.