Photos from Sept 23

 

Soiree before I left the last area, looks like an epecerie threw up on a plate.

 

 My new comp

 

 The whole new group, well most of them.

 

Some random kids we met on path.

 

 Overlooking the area, we live close to the big tower.

 

My comp stepped in a rice paddy and washed his shoe in dirty water. 

 

(Mom note):  Elder Weber and his new companions "overlooking a nice view."

  

I think this was supposed to be the picture of the mall, but the wrong image was attached to the email.

Welcome to Ivandry

Welcome to Ivandry, pronounced Ivangy.

This is a beautiful area with some very very nice areas. We have three areas that we work. Ivandry, Alarobia, and Sovinmasoandro. 

My companions. My companion's name is Elder Garren Bowler. He is my trainee. He is from Las Vegas and he is 18. He is the youngest in his group. He is WAY AWESOME and he has come extremely well prepared for the work. He is willing to work hard and to accomplish whatever problems come his way. He is already extremely good at Malagasy which will be helping the work a lot here in Ivandry.

My other companion is Elder Herimalala. He is a mini. A mini is someone who signs up to go on a little mission, and when the mission needs someone to fill a spot or something they call one of them and for a transfer or two, they serve a mission. Elder Herimalala is 16 and is from Mordamanga a small village between Tana and Tamatave. He is way cool and knows his scriptures well. He will be in our companionship until October 10th when he must return home. He has to begin school again. His name is pronounced hairy-ma-lah-lah. 

Elder Herimalala worked in this area before with the last Elder which is why they had him stay here with us for a few weeks! I love having him with the experience. There are some adjustments needed in the area. Area book was not previously getting done, which should be the staple of a missionary's work. Here is the principle for anyone who cant see it. If they had not granted me this mini for the next few weeks and I had come into this area, I woulc probably not be teaching over half of the people that they are currently teaching, because there would not be ANY record of them existing. Luckily they granted me the mini and his knows the schedule and all the people, but I am now having to start the hard task of bringing the area book back to its proper form, which is a lot harder to do in hindsight, it is a lot easier if you do it everyday! But with that aside we have 34 times planned for this next week. Another thing that needs organization here is our program. We have been spending a ton of time walking back and forth between our three areas because the times are not grouped together by area, which is a problem, because then we spend hours and hours wasted walking between all of these areas when we could put all of the ones areas times on one day and only have to walk there once that day instead of several times!

I sent a picture of a very nice mall. This mall is called LA CITY or nicknamed Ivandry mall. It is the nicest thing I have seen in Mada and it feels like I am back in the USA. It is really nice and has a foodcourt like most american food courts. Just not the name brands. My mini said it is the fanciest thing he has ever seen in Mada.

The ward is great here, and we had 4 ex-missionarys return in the last two weeks here in Ivandry. 

Well our times is almost up and we have times to teach. This area has a lot of reactivation work to get done, but we can DO IT!! I have high goals set, this are should be able to see close to 40 lessons a week before I am finished with it!! We should be able to help make this ward progress nicely!!

Elder Weber

TRANSFER NEWS........

HELLO EVERYBODY!!!!

So lets start with the big question on everybody's mind. What happened with transfer news?? Well....

So my companion is heading out of Tana to an area called Fianarantsoa. He will be finishing his mission down there. He was not super excited when he heard about that, but its life.

But with me.... It was a curveball out of left field. So I had some ideas that I may be training, and thats true. I am training this next transfer.

There are 6 elders that came in my group that are training, and I am one of them. But wait... There's more. They have decided to whitewash my area of Ankadindramamy with sisters, and so I am being transferred as well. I will be doing my training in an area called Ivandry that is also in Tana and it is not that far away from where I am currently. It is in the same stake and zone. So I am whitewash training in Ivandry. You now know almost the same amount of stuff as me for my new area. It is going to be extremely difficult. Whitewashing is hard, training is hard, and together combined with only being here for 2.5 months myself, makes it way hard. But wait there's more, I will actually be in a threesome companionship for a few weeks because I am going to have a mini as well to help. A mini is a priest or elder from a branch or ward that go on missions for a transfer at a time or whenever the mission needs help. I am pretty sure that my mini's name is Elder Herimalala, and he is way cool! I have already met him before and he is working in Ivandry right now so he will be around to help us for about 3 weeks learn the area and help me get started in that area. So its not a complete whitewash, but kinda. On thursday I will find out my trainee and we will get to work.

This news was completely unexpected and so luckily we have done a good job with Ankadindramamy that the sisters that take over will be able to just keep going with the work. None of our investigators should fall through the cracks and get forgotten about. We have good records set up and in place to get the work to not stop or go back, but to keep climbing the way it is.

But yeah thats my transfer news. Kinda crazy out of left field and I had no idea that it was coming. All the elders in my group that are training are training in their areas except for me. I now have to pack up and move. I will probably not see my new house until my trainee and I see it together.

It is going to be a rollercoaster ride.

Anways enough of that, you'll be hearing a lot about that in the next 12 weeks I am sure. Yesterday we had stake conference which was fun. I last week had been asked to play at stake conference and accompany the choir. So I had like 8 days to prepare two choir arrangements to play and then I also accompanied the choir on prelude music, I played prelude music for the meeting for an hour and a half, and I also played the congregational hymns.

SO MUCH PLAYING!! But it was fun, but really tiring.

Cool story from this week:

There is this boy named Fitiavana which translates as love. There was one night where we gave these kids a package of Saltos, which are crackers.

There were 6 kids around and I had them do the math, there were 18 crackers and 6 kid and so they did the math and agreed that there were 3 a person. I opened the package and started handing out the three to each kid. I had knowledge that most of these kids were hungry and hadn't either eaten dinner or had not had very much. Afterwards I told the kids to enjoy eating, and he was the the first to thank me which was cool, but then he turned and offered me one of his crackers. I was way impressed by this young kid who is hungry having the desire to share the food that I had given him, because he had seen that I didn't get any. I was really impressed, and I realized that the Savior must feel the same way I felt when we take the gift that he has given us, the Atonement, and then because of the gift, thank him and offer ourselves to him. We obviously are not offering him back the atonement, but we can offer ourselves to his will and to his service.

That I think is the letter for this week! There was more, but I don't want to bore you with more.

Elder Weber