Akoriabe!

       Another week down! Seems like just a minute ago I was here typing my email for last week. Crazy stuff! Just in case anyone is wondering, we do email at what's called a Cyber Cafe. It's way nice, just a bunch of computers in a building. 

      

       This week has been way busy! It's so nice to have a full schedule and not have people dropping out of their times at the last minute. That's definitely made the days go by faster. Haha not that I'm in a hurry to get out of here, it's just so nice to come home after being out in the hot weather all day. And especially on sunday nights. It is such a liberating feeling coming home on P-day eve! Haha. But it's been fun teaching. I've been playing more of a role in the lessons, which has kinda forced me to come out of my shell a little bit. The language barrier is still there like a big wall, but with every lesson I'm making strides to beat it down. I'm not as afraid to say things even if I make a fool out of myself like I was the first day. I've found that things stick better when I just try. And when I make mistakes, I know for next time the way to say it! Plus I've been reading Ny Bokin'i Mormon which helps a ton with the pronunciation. The big words that seemed daunting to me at first are nothing now. All in all, I'm making some strides amin' ny teny malagasy.

      

       I got a request to talk a little bit more about the culture. So here it goes! The houses here are very very small. I'd say the average house is about the size of the standard living room back home, with beds and all. But it's nice and cozy at least! The people are very nice. I've heard they're a little unforgiving when it comes to vazahas learning the language as opposed to Tana. But they still appreciate that I'm trying. One weird thing. Breastfeeding. Perfectly acceptable in any social situation to them. Sometimes in lessons, a baby will be crying and so the mom will just start breastfeeding. So strange! Let's see... Everyday I get at least a hundred "Bonjour vazaha!"s. Kindof annoying, but I'll just have to get used to it. Other things.. At meals, the oldest always eats first. It's very impolite to express gratitude for food, cause I guess when you say thanks it's implying that you weren't expecting to get food or something. Weird! So sometimes I say 'misaotra' out of habit. Need to stop that! The streets are pretty crowded with people trying to sell random stuff. The people here stare at us hardcore. It's kinda fun to catch people looking at you and then staring them down and making them feel awkward. Haha! Sad what becomes entertaining out here. If I think of any other cultural things, I'll be sure to write them in other emails, but that's about all I have for now. As for animals we see here, not much actually. Still haven't gone and seen any lemurs. Funny story, we walk in one night and there's a giant spider, and three geckos on the wall. So we tried to scare the geckos to go by the spider and to eat it! Haha, it didn't work and the spider got loose in the house. Everyone was loosing their minds! We will catch that spider one of these days. I've seen some huge cockroaches here. They're not the hissing ones that are usually associated with Mada, just big normal ones. It's so stress relieving to get a lighter and some kind of flammable spray and to torch them outside! Haha, don't worry, we're careful with that kind of stuff. But it's way fun, I'll have to get a video!

      

       Not much else to share about this week. I'm sorry if I'm kinda lame with these emails... But it's kinda the same story every day. Go out in the hot, teach all day, and come home and sleep. Haha. I'll put on some pics and get to some personal emails. Thank you all for your love and support for me! My pday emailing time is packed thanks to all of you! Haha I love y'all!

Tiako ianareo!

-Elder Mumford

I will go, I will do!

The busy streets of Tamatave!

 They have Nesquik here! The milk is a little different here, but still way good. 

The BEST vanilla icecream I've ever had. I'm craving it now.

A random turtle we found in front of our house! We named him Jeff :)

A little complex in Tamatave that looks almost like Hollywood! Haha I thought it looked kinda cool.

2 Months in!

       It's weird to think I've been gone 2 months! On one hand, it feels like I've been in country for 2 months, but at the same time it's gone by pretty fast. I tried to explain it earlier, but there isn't a logical way. Time on a mission is just weird like that I guess!

       

       The word of the week is 'lena' (wet). Very lena this week, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday where it just rained all day. And I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but I left my rain jacket in one of my bags in Tana right before they shipped us off to Tamatave. We were so rushed to get all of our stuff together in one bag that somehow I took off without it! So by the end of Tuesday it looked like I had just hopped in a swimming pool! Haha. Luckily since then, Elder Jensen from our group has been letting me use his until the office can get mine back to me. He doesn't ride a bike, so he just uses his umbrella anyways. So that worked out nicely!

       

       The week has been interesting as far as teaching goes. About 70% of our times have been falling through where nobody's home. We even call them the day of to confirm the visit with them and they still don't keep them. Malagasies. Kindest people you will ever meet, but they're not the most punctual! Haha. Oh well, it usually isn't that bad, just one of those weeks. We got to do some contacting and got a return appointment from tracting, so that was good!

      

       I've heard things with the government back home aren't doing so hot. Haven't heard much, just that things are shutting down? Anyways, if any of you have looked up news about Madagascar lately there's an election coming up on the 25th. It's been pushed back several times, but it looks like it's actually gonna happen this time. Propaganda everywhere. Busses go around and just boom music advertising for their candidates. It's interesting to be here during it. One of the Malagasy Elders, Elder Razafimandimby, says that when the results come out things are going to get crazy. There could be riots and stuff, so we could be on lockdown for a couple weeks in our house. Hope not! But whatever happens I know I'll be perfectly safe. I don't bring all this up to scare anyone, just something to talk about I guess!

        

       Enough of crazy government talk. Haha! The language is still coming along. Slowly but surely! Still not really able to communicate with anyone very well, but every once and a while in lessons I'll have sparks where I understand everything for a minute or two. I've heard that's where it all starts, understanding things here and there and just filling in those gaps over time. I know that if I just put some toilet paper and some kindling with those sparks, that over time they'll grow and begin to turn into embers of warmth and the flame of understanding who's brightness overcomes the void and darkness of confusion. And then I'll roast some Spam on it! Mwahaha! I hope all of you enjoyed that incredibly tacky metaphor. I should write a book. ;)

        

       There's not really much else to say about this week. Today we just went to a field and played some soccer, but didn't go to the beach this week so that we could actually get some things done. I'll put some pictures up! Hope everyone is doing well! Tiako ianareo!!

-Elder Mumford

What Ariarys look like! Pretty cool.

There's the chapel!

Giant spiders outside our house! This one is about the size of my hand stretched out. 

Every once and a while we'll get these in the house. A little lizard! Or gecko? I dunno, but they look cool! Crazy fast too.

So... One of our investigators wasn't feeling well and asked if one of us could give him a full back massage. Elder Moulton passed, so I had no choice. So I just went for it. Coconut oil and all! The things we do for investigators.

Just rockin my bike helmet!

A cute malagasy kid!

Another Week in Mada!

       Hey everyone!! It's been kindof a long week since I last emailed, not gonna lie. But I'm doing very well :) Still getting used to things a little, but haven't had any problems adjusting. I'm so glad I get to email all of you once a week, I always look forward to telling you about my adventures here!

     
       I guess I'll start things off with a funny story. I had one of those Elder Calhoun moments (from The Best Two Years). It was my turn to share a spiritual thought at a member's house, so I was trying to say, "Would it be alright if we had a spiritual thought?" And the word for spiritual thought is vatsam-pinaina, except I used "fakam-pinaina which means temptation. Haha yep, I asked if we could share a temptation with them. Everyone was laughing way hard and I was a little embarrassed... Haha but at least I will never forget which one to use! Sometimes when people laugh at my malagasy I'm tempted to tell them, "How about you learn English? Then we'll see who's laughing!" Haha but I bite my tongue. The language is still hard, but with the little that I can say I'm getting a lot smoother. Elder Moulton says he's seen a lot of improvement in the last week, so that's good! I even get compliments from time to time from the people we teach. They'll say something like, "Efa mahay amin'ny teny gasy ianao!" (You're already good at malagasy), and then I'll be like, uhhhhhhh... What?? Haha. It'll come around, I know it will eventually.

     
       There were a few questions coming about the food. I haven't had anything that interesting, but give it time. Lots and lots of rice! Just different loakas, or toppings. It's usually beans and some kind of meat. I'm starting to love the rice now! At first it was hard for me to polish off half a bowl, but now I'm able to eat 2 hefty bowls of rice easy. Elder Moulton says I've adjusted to that wayyy faster than anyone else. So that's something to be proud of I guess!

       
       Church is pretty good. Pretty much the same as back home, just not as fancy of a building. And that big ol' language barrier. But it's good. The chapel is on the main floor and there's primary, priesthood meeting, and relief society on the upper floors. This past sunday I got called up to bear my testimony. Just a wee bit intimidating, standing in front of 150 malagasies. But I did it! Didn't say much, just introduced myself a little, said a few things in my testimony, and got back to my seat. I'm glad it's done!

       
       Today we went to this place called Full Point. It was a beach area that was way pretty! Hot as all get out, but very nice. It would've been a lot funner if we could go in the water! Haha, but oh well. We played a little bit of soccer. I'm not really a fan of soccer, but it was fun just running around. While we were there we got swarmed with people trying to sell stuff, like necklaces. It happens a lot out here, people see a bunch of white vazahas and think we're just a bunch of french moneybags. I did give in and spent 5000 ariary ($2.50) from my personal fund. It's crazy cause I don't even really convert the money into dollars in my head anymore. It's probably good, cause if I thought about things in dollars, I'd probably spend a LOT of it. Things are pretty cheap here. An average day of money on food is probably around 5000. Not too shabby! You can get about everything here that you could back home, it's just a matter of how much you're willing to spend for it.

       
       Let's see.. Not much else I can think of at the moment. Here's some random stuff. It's very hot here, and it's only gonna get hotter and wetter until December! That's a fun thought. I'm already dripping sweat here. But oh well, guess I better get used to it! We do ride bikes everywhere. It's fun! Hard work, but fun. We're either riding on a paved road that's busy, or on sand paths. Nobody can pronounce my name. It's kinda funny! At least for their first try they can never get it. Everyone pronounces it Moomfoard. On the streets everyone says, "Bonjour!" and I'll just always say, "Manoakory!" (Betsy Mitsaraka for manaohoana) and they're always surprised. For music, we listen to one of the Elder's cds a lot. I think me and Josh Groban are gonna become very tight in this adventure! Haha. Oh and in my last email I spelled Tamatave wrong. At least "Tamatave" is the way it's spelled everywhere here. I'm glad I got to come here as my birthplace. It's a way nice place! I really do like it here.

     
      Well, I'll get some pictures up soon and say anything else I can think of. I love you all!!

      Tiako ianao!

-Elder Mumford

Who is this tree hugger??

The beach at Full Point. The view is okay I guess... ;)

Coconut on the beach! Looks better than it actually is. Still pretty good though :)

My room. Yeah, should probably clean it up a little today! Don't judge us ;)

People swarming around us, selling stuff.

A few hours at church, and this is what the back of my planner looks like. 

MADAGASIKARA!!!!!

       Manahoana from Madagascar everyone! It's so good to finally be here. Man, I don't even know where to begin!

       
       The flights were looooooooooong. But it was okay, I slept through most of it. From South Africa we flew on a smaller sketchier plane which was exciting! Haha. I don't have much to say about sitting on planes and airports. Not much fun. 

        
       Wednesday afternoon  we arrived in Tana and I ended up with all my luggage! I was relieved cause I had heard about some missionaries that go and don't get all their luggage for a couple of weeks. So I was happy about that. First of all, the little kids here are SO cute! Yeah, I'm a dude and I just used the word cute. Sue me! It was kinda sad cause when we first got there the kids came up to us and started asking for money. I guess we're not supposed to, so all we could really say was 'Azafady! (sorry). But they looooove fist bumps here. It's weird, I feel kinda like a celebrity here, but at the same time like a zoo animal cause everyone just stares at me. Haha and I don't think it's cause I'm 6'5, but cause I'm a vazaha (foreigner). Everyone is tall to them! Pretty much the tallest I've seen here is maybe 5 feet tall. It's funny cause every once and a while an investigator or something will point to me and say, "Lava be!!" which means very tall. It's pretty funny. I also saw Elder Rasmussen!! He was at the airport to pick us up. We immediately started talking about how we were kind of related. He's a great guy. 

      
       So after we met the mission president, his wife, and some of the other couples that work at the mission home, we got our new assignments. I got assigned to Talmatave with Elder Moulton! So awesome. It did suck though, cause we had to take an 8 hour bus ride here and it was way bumpy. We ended up getting here friday morning around 3. But other than the bus ride I'm really liking it here. It's way humid and hot here, so I always feel sticky. It's weird, but I'll just have to get used to it I suppose! To be honest, I wanted to get outta Tana. All the streets were absolutely PACKED with people and everywhere smelled like burnt garbage and probably some other things that I don't want to think about. So yeah, I'm really liking it here. Everywhere in Mada is gonna be something like that, the people here are really poor. But this place is nicer, a bit more clean. Plus the beach is nearby!! We had a zone conference on saturday and we went and played soccer and volleyball at the beach. It was so fun! And beautiful. I'll be sure to put a few pictures up of it.

      
       There's not a whole lot to say about the food. Rice. Rice and more rice. Haha it was really hard for me at first to finish a whole bowl of rice cause it filled me up so fast. But I'm able to eat more of it now. They have a bunch of different toppings called loaka they put on it. Different meats, sometimes salsa and beans. Pretty good. To go with it they give you burnt rice water. It's weird, all the other missionaries love it, but I'm not the biggest fan. I hear it'll grow on me though! Oh and the sodas here, aaaaaamazing. So freakin good. Everything has real cane sugar in it, none of this corn syrup crap. My favorite might be the Fanta's, especially Fanta ananas (pineapple). They also have this really good one called Bonbon Anglais that tastes a lot like banana laffy taffy. I think you'd like that, mom!

      
       Teaching here is pretty fun. Elder Moulton does most of the work cause I'm not mahay (skilled) at malagasy at all. I can say pretty much whatever I want, but when they say something back is when it gets awkward... I can't understand with their accents and with them speaking so fast. It's frustrating, but I know I'll get it eventually. They speak a different dialect here too, so that makes things a little more difficult. It's been a pretty big adjustment moving in to Madagascar, but by far the hardest thing is having all these wonderful people here that are so welcoming and not being able to communicate with them. It's a little depressing sometimes actually. But not too bad. A lot of the missionaries here say they didn't get comfortable with the language until about it year into it, so that makes me feel a little better. I'll just keep working hard. Whenever there's a word I don't understand, I scribble it down in my planner and Elder Moulton goes over it with me at the end of the day. It'll come. I know it will. :) One lesson we had stood out to me. It was at night and we were teaching this family in their home by candlelight. We taught them all about prayer. And when I would say something, sometimes they wouldn't understand me, but for the most part they did. Anyways, this family was so accepting and even though I couldn't understand anything they said, you could tell they were accepting things. It was cool to see, and I got this overwhelming feeling that even though I don't speak the language now, that everything would be okay and that soon I would be able to speak with these wonderful people.

      
       Let's see. I can't really think of anything else for the moment.. So send me some questions! Oh and it turns out I still only get an hour a week for email, so sorry if these get a little shorter! I'll try to make the most out of it. And I'm probably missing a few things, but I'll write it down and get it in next week when I email again. Anyways, I'll get to some of the personal emails! And I'll get some pictures up. I love all of you! Tiako ianareo!

Elder Mumford

Love you!!

Here's the mailing address for anything you would like to send me. I love you all!

B.P. 5094

Dingana III

Andrainarivo

ANTANANARIVO 101

MADAGASCAR

Me and Elder Rasmussen!

Me and Elder Moulton!

 Our chapel. Way sweet!

 View from the mission home in Tana. Beautiful!

 The beach in Talmatave.

The street to our house. I forgot to snap a few of the house, I'll get some in next week! It's way big, there's 6 of us there. I love it :)

Another cool pic from the beach in Talmatave!

 First view of Mada. The field is white! Well... In a manner of speaking ;)

 Some cool looking houses in the area.

 It's a jungle out here!

 The South African airport!

Safe arrival of Elder Mumford

September 20, 2013

Brother and Sister Mumford,

Your son, Elder Mumford, arrived safely in Madagascar.  After prayerful consideration, I have assigned him to labor initially in Mangaravotra in Tamatave with Elder Moulten, one of our best missionaries.  We will do everything in our power to see that your son’s missionary experience is all that it should be and one that will be a source of strength to him throughout his life.

As your son takes the gospel forth, he will have some new experiences, some of which will probably be a great challenge; especially learning a new language, being away from home in a foreign land and culture, adjusting to missionary life, and getting along with companions and other missionaries.  Experience shows that missionaries who lose themselves in the work quickly overcome any obstacles.

Your weekly letters will greatly influence his success and be an important source of emotional and spiritual support.  Please make letters to him cheerful and uplifting.  Family members and friends are authorized to send emails to their missionaries, subject to the guidelines established by the brethren.

For any package you would like to send to Madagascar use the address below (very important) when using the post office or any other mail company: Please keep the packages reasonably small, for there is a fee here for packages that the missionaries have to pay. Tape the packages securely and also attach stickers of Christ on the outside of the package to insure them not being opened by post handlers.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints

Madagascar Antananarivo Mission

MISSIONARY’S NAME

B.P. 5094

Dingana III

Andrainarivo

ANTANANARIVO 101

MADAGASCAR

Each missionary receives the Missionary Handbook.  Your missionary has committed to living by the principles of this handbook.  You can be of great support to your missionary if you are aware of some of these principles.

“Write to your parents each week on preparation day.”  If you should not receive these letters regularly (taking into consideration that there is some irregularity in mail delivery), please let me know.

”Notify the mission office if your parents’ address changes (including e-mail addresses).”  It would be useful for you to also notify us of such a change, just in case your missionary forgets.

“Do not telephone parents, relatives or friends.”  We would also ask you to refrain from placing calls to your missionary, except for a call on Mother’s Day and one on Christmas, which we do authorize.  Missionaries are not authorized to accept other calls.

“In case of an emergency, contact your mission president.”  Should the family have an emergency which needs to be communicated to the missionary, please contact the Mission Office (001-261-20-22-491-95).

“Consider your support money as sacred.  Spend it wisely and only for things relating to your mission.  It represents sacrifice by your family, yourself and others…If you have extra funds, do not overspend and make it difficult for your companion who may not be as fortunate.”   There are many valuable lessons to be learned during a mission, and one of these lessons deals with being able to budget and live within an allotted amount. 

Sincerely,

David R. Adams, President
Madagascar Antananarivo Mission

Also, this is a random side note....

A nice man sent this photo from the London Airport when Dakota was on his layover. This is Elder Cartmill and Elder Mumford.

It's Here!!

September 12, 2013

       Hello everyone! Man. This is for reals. I leave on Alatsinainy! (Monday). I'm so excited right now and I can't wait!!! Okay so here's my detailed itinerary:

SEP 16 LV: Salt Lake City, UT                 2:05pm

            AR: Dallas/Ft Worth, TX               5:40pm

SEP 16 LV: Dallas/Ft Worth, TX               8:00pm

            AR: London Heathrow, England    11:00am SEP 17

SEP 17 LV:  London Heathrow, England    7:10pm

            AR:  Johannesburg, S. Africa        6:55am  SEP 18

SEP 18 LV: Johannesburg, S. Africa         10:00am

            AR: Antananarivo, Madagascar       2:10pm

       So yeah, I have a few days of traveling ahead of me. I'm not really looking forward to all those hours on a plane and in layovers. But I'm excited for all these places I'll get to fly over! Part of Europe, the Mediterranean, a lot of Africa, and most of all Madagascar!! I've waited 6 1/2 months for this, and it's finally here :) I feel like jumping off the walls talking about this, but it might be a little weird with everyone else around... Haha! It's been hard to focus on anything else, but I'm also doing my best to be ready for it. 

     
         I really don't have anything to say about the MTC. Tsitsy voavoa. Same old. The Malagasy has still been going well! Nowhere near fluent, but I've got a pretty good foundation. Rahalahy Sell says that our district may not have the most vocabulary coming out of the MTC, but that out of all the groups he's taught that we are the best at teaching and that that is a world of difference. Cause the vocabulary will come with time. We're not teaching anymore investigators anymore. One of our investigators, Henry (with an accented e), we were able to commit him to baptism! Even though it was just Brother Sell who played him, it was a cool experience just helping him with his problems and getting him ready to be baptized. It's gonna be so sweet to do that in real life! Henry is an actual person that Rahalahy Sell taught over in Talmatave. So maybe I'll meet him! When he first came to the missionaries wanting to know more, he was an alcoholic. But with the help of the missionaries he was able to stop drinking. He wasn't legally married to his wife, and at first she wasn't really open to the gospel. But eventually they did get married and he and his wife were baptized. It's just so cool hearing stories like that about people changing for the better. I hope when I'm there I can change a few lives too!

       
       I have a sore throat, but it's not a big deal. I'm hoping I can get over it before Monday, but we'll see! Uhm.. Let's see. For the devotional on Tuesday we had Elder Martino speak to us. I forget what specifically is his calling but I think he's in the Seventy. It was sweet, like any other devotional. Honestly, we were kinda bummed that we didn't have an apostle our last week here, but it's all good! He spoke to us about how we need to involve members as much as we can. Oh and we didn't end up singing this week. It was only for Main Campus peeps. Lame!! Oh well. It was good being in the choir while it lasted! 

       
       If I think of anything else to tell y'all I will later today. We're going to the temple and getting fresh haircuts! So that'll be good. And I haven't been good at getting pictures this week, but I'll try to get some to send later today as well. 

          I love you all!! Tiako ianareo!

-Elder Mumph

Hello again! I'm back on the computer for a little bit. Just thought I'd kinda share about my day so far. We went and did another session today. It was kindof emotional, knowing I wouldn't get to go to another temple for 2 years. But it was good as always! In a lot of ways, leaving the temple today was a lot like leaving home. But I know the blessings from the temple will always be with me, and it's such a comfort to know that :)

         Anyways, enough with the sappy stuff, I'll put up some pictures!

This one is of me with my flight plan. Even though I'll be traveling a good 2 days, I'm so excited to finally be off to Madagascar!!

The view outside of spirit prison! Haha :) 

Elder Ricecakes taking a snooze last P-day. So peaceful ;)

Ny Drafitra ny Famonjena (Plan of Salvation). My drawing skills have already come in handy :) And in case you're wondering why I don't have outer darkness on there is cause our teachers have told us to not even get into that with the investigators, since it wouldn't really apply to them. So yeah, there's my little chart we used in a lesson!

A doodle session I had at a devotional... I still payed attention, even though it doesn't look like it ;)

Heehee! Maditra aho!

Tried this once. It made for an interesting day...

Our district along with the Branch Presidency.

Septambra!!!

September 5, 2013

        It's hard to believe that I've been here almost an entire month! It's so weird because I'll have days where I feel like I've been here for ages and then days like today where I can't believe where the time has gone. I only confuse myself by trying to explain it. Haha. I think it's kindof impossible to describe it.

       
       Having said all of that, everyone is ready to get out to Madagascar. If any of you could be here with us you would be able to sense the angst ( I like that word now) that our district has. But we had a good talk about it on Sunday and we've been doing better about being patient. We have about 10 days and 50+ hours of traveling ahead of us, so our time will be here soon! I seriously can't wait. 

       
       So I'll just keep the explanations about the devotionals brief this week. On Sunday we had George Tyler and his wife come and speak. They served in the MTC presidency over in the Philippines. It was awesome because they gave us a virtual tour of the MTC there. It made me a little jealous about not going out to Ghana, but the MTC is a good place to be anywhere you go! Tuesday night we had Elder Evans from the Quorum of the Seventy speak along with his wife. He talked about how nearly a year ago President Monson made the announcement (that long already??) and how there has never been a time quite like this for missionary service. Even though I'm one of the old geezers of the bunch, I'm just so happy to be in this vast army of missionaries! For choir we sang, "Sweet Hour of Prayer". Going into practice I thought to myself, "Great, the most overplayed song in the hymnbook" because in seminary we would sing that almost every day since that was the only one anyone could play. But as we started singing, I really started to understand the meaning behind it all that had just kinda flown over my head all these years. It was so powerful. The chorister shared the story about the composer. He was blind since birth and through reading the scriptures with his family he memorized the entire Bible! Crazy stuff.

       
       MTC life is still going. The reason I say just going is because I don't have anything to complain about, yet not really anything great to say about it either. Except for I get to learn more about the gospel, feel the spirit, and learn Malagasy. That is pretty stinkin awesome! But the MTC itself is just kinda whatevs. Same ol' song and dance. Studying until my brain is fried and then schooling some Indonesian Elders at basketball is what I do. When my threes are falling at least!

       
       The language is still going well. I think I mentioned this last week, but I feel pretty comfortable about the grammar and how everything works. It's just a matter of learning words now. Our teachers have told us that when we get there we're gonna be like, "This is not the Malagasy they taught us at the MTC!" and that it's going to take a good couple months before we'll be more comfortable speaking it. But I'm sure I'll get to that point before I know it! I really hope so at least. We've heard that we'll probably be getting our flight plans tomorrow! Or if not tomorrow, then pretty soon. But I can't wait to get that. Then I can see how long my layovers are and stuff so that we can figure out a time for a phone call! I'm really looking forward to that!!

       
       I guess this will be the paragraph I dedicate to random things. Haha. So first off, our milk lid population is dwindling. We only have about 45 lids, and that was from the first week we started collecting. At the cafeteria they used to have a big fridge stocked full of BYU creamery bottled milk. As soon as we cleared it out there hasn't been any since. Oh well! Now we're just relying on other kind of lids, like Powerade caps. I'm sure we'll survive! As for music, we're not allowed any. Period. So I haven't pulled out my iPod to see what was on it. But I'm sure it's all great! I think I'll test it out once before I go just to make sure it all works and everything. 

       
       Anyways, I don't really have anything to talk more about that I can think of. We ended up having some time this morning, so I thought I would just go ahead and get this email out, but I'm still planning on being on later around 2ish. So if you're available feel free to send emails back and forth with me! I'll also get some pictures up and try to respond personally to emails. Until then, I love all of you!! Thanks for all the love and support, I truly am one lucky missionary :)

         Tiako ianareo!!!

-Elder Mumford :)

Time for some pictures! To start, this picture is what we do on the computers. It's called TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning). It looks a little more exciting than it actually is. With this you can kinda see how the language works, completely backwards from English!

How to make an Orange Julius: Fill up a glass about 2/3 of the way full with orange soda. Then take 2 orange dream bars and let it soften in the soda for about 15 minutes. Then mush, mix, and enjoy! Oh the stuff you figure out when you're in the MTC this long ;)

This is the laundry room! Unusually not crowded this time. But yeah, we're lucky enough we don't have to wash our clothes in the rivers here! 

Sister Lambert being all focused on his letters home. The reason we call him Sister Lambert is because on the first sacrament meeting someone from the branch presidency accidentally called him that over the pulpit and it's just stuck ever since! 

The praying mantis we saw on our way out of the temple today! We went and did initiatories today, so we got out way earlier than usual. It was awesome!

Me and the famous map!

We're all hooked on this stuff! I love Guarana :)