Story and Photos from Jan 13 letter

TODAY!!  (Monday January 13th, 2014)

Today has been a great day. We started this morning with an activity for the leaders of the branch, all of the auxillary presidencies, and then also the missionaries. We had about an 1.5 hours of lessons, and then we went to this cool lake in my area, near a members house. Big lake and there are tons of pictures from it today. And then we ate some lunch there as well. Here is a story of the pictures. (For help, I will try to number the pictures in the story)

So the story goes like this:

We started this morning with an activity, with Branch President Emile leading the activity (9336). 

Afterwards we had a Vatsim-panahy (spiritual thought) by yours truly (9337). 

When finished with the program, most of the younger people in attendence went out to a nearby lake called Andraikiba. (9345) 

It is a nice large beautiful lake. Lots of cool people where there like picture 9351. 

Our DMB even did some back flips (9353) 

There was this cool flower that i took a cool picture with (9356) 

and also with my nametag (9358) 

There even was a house that was alive (9362 sy 9363) 

And then we had a fun time being scared to death on this big tall scary made, not very sturdy platform in the lake. (9373). It was a beautiful day at the lake. 

I tried to use my story telling voice, so Im not sure how well it turned out. But we had a blast this morning it was so great!

Until next week!

Elder Weber

Another fantastic week in Mahazoarivo

Letter from January 13, 2014 (Posted Late)
It has been a great week here in Mahazoarivo.

The start to last week was a little slow, with not very many times on Monday through Wednesday. Tuesday we had to help take a sick member to the hospital. And I realized when we went just how bad the hospitals are here in Madagascar. When they admitted her, she ended up in a small room that had 3 or 4 beds, and that was it. No instruments, no heart monitors, no beeping things, just beds. It was kinda a sad thing to see. And I am sure the medications that they actually have access to, are very limited. It is really hard to see.

 Mom Note: Times is shorthand for teaching appointments.

Wednesday,we had english class, and also helped to build some shelves in the church building. But lessons wise, we came out with a loss. 

Thursday was a good day. We had a great district meeting, and then we successfully had a great day teaching 7 times. We started teaching some new investigators that are really awesome!! We had some great member help that day which was fantastic. They really helped to answer a lot of questions that were brought up in the lessons. 

Friday was another great day teaching a lot of times. We had a wonderful day.

Saturday, I did a split in Andranomanelatra, where I did a whole slew of bap interviews for them. We had some great food at the Branch President's house, and we had a lot of fun out in that area. I have gotten to know a lot of people in that area, and it is great to occasionally go out there and see them all. That was a great day!

Sunday, had a great day at church, with 28 investigators and a great day. I was then asked by the zone leaders to help do some bap interviews for the other district's district leader, because there were a lot to get done. That went well as well. Then we had a great day of teaching and had a member soiree that evening where for the first time in my life, I ate..... Rabbit. It wasnt superb, because it had the skin and fat and all. But it was definitely an experience. 

another week, another transfer finished

January 20th letter

So another week has flown by.

It was a great week, including 3 baptisms. We have a little wait until our next baptisms, Probably in March, 

But transfer news came out, and my current companion is headed to Tana. I will be getting a malagasy companion for at least this next transfer. When I worked in Ivandry, I lived with him so I already know him. He is 6 weeks behind me in country. So I will be senior companion still. So it will be lots of malagasy for me, because he is still learning english and is not that good yet. 

Other transfer news, is not much that you guys would be interested in.

This area is doing really well. Yesterday at church though, we had a drop in Attendance, both of investigators and members. It probably had to do with the rain, but who knows. The work is still progressing, and I am hoping to have at least 10 baptisms in March if all goes well. It is all about the investigators. My branch has set some really good tough goals, and they are working hard to achieve them.

I would like to take the moment to praise my branch council. My branch council is wonderful, and has been working very effectively. They are still learning, but it is a lot better than what I have seen in my other areas in the mission. They are really affective and they make assignments, and then people do the assignments. There was a goal set to reactivate 5 families by the end of march, and so they first picked the 5 families. The next week they made assignments nad schedules of when to visit them, and know they are following up. Yesterday they had a great discussion about how they are visiting these people, and they are all really happy to be visitied, but they havent returned yet. And so the assignments were made to visit them all again this week, and to also visit them on Sunday morning and bring them to church. We will see what happens. They are learning very well, and they are excited to work. 

We are really doing a lot of work here in Mahazoarivo, and we are hoping to increase the branch quite a bit over the next few months. We have a large pool of investigators, and now it is just helping them all progress to the important step of baptism. 

We have some great members that go out and work with us. There are 3 main guys, all preparing for missions, and one girl, also preparing. They are extremely active in helping and they are so excitied to continue preparing for their missions. The members in this branch are awesome, and so willing to help. Everyone is focused on the work at hand, and there are good goals to go with the goals. All it is is work, work, work. I love to work, and this area needs people who are ready to work. 

We have a bunch of investigators that are really active in learning, but have problems with Vita Soratra. We are hoping all of those problems can be solved somewhat quickly and that it wont cause to large of a problem in their progression towards baptism. 

Mom Note:  From a previous email, we learned that Vita Soratra is the government recognized marriage that requires official birth certificates. This can sometimes be a difficult and expensive situation.

Quick story about investigators. We have these two investigators, that showed up to church one week, so we started to teach them. They are blind, the guy very much so, and the wife can see.... barely. When we started teaching them, they said that someone told them that if they went to church with us they could get money. Which is false, and so we assumed when they learned that, that they would no longer want to learn. But they are still very interested in learning about the gospel. Their house is extremely humble. It is the smallest home I have taught in. There are the husband and wife, and one little child. They live in a room that is probably less than 5' by 5' and there is nothing inside, except a little mat. I wouldnt even be able to lay down inside the house comfortably. There is a door, and one small window, but no furniture, and very little possesions. But they are humble, and ready to recieve the gospel.

God Speed!

Until next week!

Elder Weber