Winter? In June?

Dearest Family and Friends,

Hello everyone! Wasn’t it just yesterday I was emailing? Weird.

This week overall went pretty well. The first 2 days were kinda rough though. It seemed like anything that could possibly go wrong with our schedule did. It was pretty mahakamo. Nobody was home it seemed like. Plus we couldn’t get a member to help us, so we couldn’t get into any houses where there wasn’t another guy. We were literally saying to ourselves, “Welp, let’s go see who’s gonna dog us next” Haha probably not the best attitude, but it’s what happened. However in that extra time we had we didn’t just go do more tracting, but we got a hold of the bishop and sat down with him for maybe 2 hours with a list of all the members in Ampitatafika and had him go through and underline all the ones that were inactive. Good thing we did, because he had underlined about 80 names. Yeah. 80 less actives. So that’s kinda been our focus the last little while in trying to get out and see those people. About half of them have either moved or just plain unreachable, but we still have plenty we can try instead of door-to-door. So yeah, we’ve talked with the ward and hopefully we’ll get some good help with some reactivation efforts.

By Thursday  things finally picked up again. People were in their homes ready to receive us and the things we taught. Plus we got some more member help. Rackin up those member presents! Good stuff. There was one kinda weird experience this week with teaching. The guy's name is Solo. We went to his house and of course he was happy to let us in. At first it seemed completely normal. We asked how his Book of Mormon reading was going because he had just gotten one the week before. He said it was going great and started quoting word for word the introduction page. Haha. We told him not to memorize it, but just read it and understand it! But yeah, a little later on in the lesson I started to smell his breath and yes indeed he was drunk. He didn't seem like it at all before. We were asking him questions to confirm that he was understanding everything and he kept answering correctly, so we kinda just kept going. So we'll see how much of it he remembers in our next lesson and maybe we'll slip in a little Word of Wisdom talk ;)

I don't really know what else to specifically talk about.. Oh! Our washing machine has been broken all week and we're still waiting on a new one. In the mean time we get to hand-wash clothes! Yay :) Haha. The real Mada experience! And it's actually been super cold here. When we walk out of the house in the morning to get some breakfast, we can see our breath! That should not happen in Madagascar... But it's all good. We have our little heater that keeps comfortable in the mornings and evenings, plus I have a sweater. Not the best, but it gets the job done. We do have a new addition to the house. I'm awful, but I don't remember his name... He's super quiet. He's another Elder from Rwanda. He speaks English as far as I can tell. But I'll be better at talking to him and making him feel more at home.

The training is still going! I've been making more of a conscious effort of having Elder Hull involved as much as possible. Every lesson I've had him talk about at least one or two things. I've even put him on the spot a couple times with things we haven't gone over. Mwahahaha! I'm not that cruel, but that's something I'm grateful Elder Moulton did. I didn't always like him for it! But I know I wouldn't be where I'm at if he hadn't pushed me. So that's what I'm trying to do with my trainee. And he's been doing alright with it. He still struggles sometimes with certain words, but hey. I was there. So I help him out whenever he's trying to find those words. It's been a good thing for him though I think. And now I'm at the point in my Malagasy where I'm pretty comfortable. But I'm doing my best not to be content with where I'm at and to keep pushing myself to keep improving all the time. Overall that's been going purty well.

I can't really think of anything else... So I'm gonna get to some other emails! I probably won't have pictures up this week. This cyber is being really slow and I could be here for days. But I'll do my best next week! Anyways, love you guys! Go have an awesome week for me! Tiako be ianareo!!!

Tadidio:

Aza miantsampy ny hazo tsy fantatra!

-Elder mUmF

Kindof a crappy picture...