Tratry ny Krismasy!!

Tratry ny Krismasy everyone!! Hope you all have a great week :) Well I guess I'll be seeing most of you anyways so I'm pretty excited for that!

Where to start this week... Lots of stuff going on. I had until Friday before I had to leave Mahajanga. I think I made the most of the time I had there. Said a lot of goodbyes. I always hate those to be honest. I hate goodbyes!(what movie?). It actually wasn't all that bad. The worst was saying goodbye to Bebe and her family. She started crying! And then I started watering up. It was hard, but I'm kinda glad it's all over with. We went to the beach last Monday and I got to see the giant baobab one last time and catch the ocean breeze. Man I miss that place. The work there was hard, but we still were able to find success. Those were the hottest days of my life, but also some of the most memorable. And funny thing, the week I left is when it started pouring rain! There was one investigator we weren't able to get to because their house was completely surrounded in waist deep water. There's supposed to be canoes coming in and that's how people will be getting around, but it was interesting maneuvering around all those lakes! After all, lakes are basically just holes in the ground. Let's see. Not a whole lot else happened that I can think of while I was there. I just really really want to go back... Hopefully someday though!

Friday night I flew back out to Tana. It was kinda cool seeing Mahajanga all lit up as we started heading south. I looked and I knew all those streets like it was my backyard. I whispered my final goodbye to Mahajanga and after a few minutes I was back in Tana and was greeted by the APs and taken to my new house. Turns out I'm living in Itaosy! Yep. I worked there once upon a time when it was combined with Ampitatafika. Except it's a different and new house. So it's kinda interesting coming here and already knowing basically where everything is at. I'm working in 67ha, which when it's spoken it's just the number in french. So like, soixant sept or something like that. I'm back in the city, this time it's more like the Bronx of Tana as some people say. It's pretty run down and dirty, but I'm trying to find the best in it. It might just take a little bit of time. Haha. My companion's name is Elder Tiu. Yep, he's an asian dude. Except kinda not really. He's from San Jose, California and he doesn't speak any Chinese, just straight up English. So I was relieved when I found that out. He just gone done with the training program. His 'Dad' is now in Ft Dauphin and now I'm his 'Mom'. So the malagasy is still coming for him. Whenever he makes mistakes I just kinda smile to myself, not because it's funny, just because it reminds me of how I probably was when I was first in country. It'll come like it has for me and I'm doing my best to help him on the way. We live with 4 other Elders in the house, all of which are still pretty new. I tell people I have 7 months left and they're always telling me I'm old and going home in no time. Haha so I'm the old fart around here! Oh and I'm District Leader too, so hopefully I can be a good help to these youngsters and help them with things I've learned in my experience.

We do have a pretty cool church building. It's the biggest one in Madagacar. I think I already have pictures up of it from before, but I'll get more of it up in the coming weeks. It's big enough to be a Temple! And there's even an elevator and it's 4 stories tall. It's nice being in a ward again because of how stable things are with the leadership and everyone pretty much knows what's going on as far as I can tell. So there's a bright spot! Plus it's nice to be with other missionaries again.

Sorry if this letter is kinda lame like the last one. It's just been another hectic week and we still have lots of stuff going on today that we wanna get done. But I'm super excited to see you all on Christmas!! I'm still thinking it will be at about 8 o'clock AM Utah time, so we'll stick with that if it's all good with you. Hopefully nothing happens, but if something goes wrong I'll try to get back as soon as I can to make other arrangements. So if I'm not on in the morning just know I'm doing my best with what I've got but that we'll still get to talk at some point. But I think the morning should work just fine. So just keep you notifications on and such for Christmas morning!

Well I better get going. I'll have more news next week! Love you all! And Merry Christmas daholo!!! Tiako ianareo!!!

-eLdEr MuMfOrD