Elder Scott Weber's mission to Madagascar. Check back for weekly emails and pictures of Madagascar!

Alma 26:12 - Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

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

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