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