Another week! End of July!

Letter from Monday July 28, 2014
This has been a great week! 

Last monday after I wrote, we went and got a tour inside of our new church building that is being built. It looks EXTREMELY nice. It is like an American church in Madagascar. I will eventually get pictures for you. It is WAY nice though. Very big and roomy.

This week we contacted, and we taught, and we taught, and we contacted. That is a large part of our time here. Now on Tuesday I went on a split and did some bap interviews for one of our district leaders out in Ambohimangakely. It was a good split and I had previously gone on a few splits out there when I was brand new in country and it was good to see some of the people again. 

Wednesday we conducted a zone meeting, in which we discussed a lot of time effectiveness and a new stat we are measuring here that tracks time effectiveness. We are pushing everyone to be a little more effective with their time, we had found that missionaries werent where we knew they could be. We have now seen stats increase a good amount in the three weeks since the stats have been introduced. It was a very good zone meeting. We have a great zone right now. A good group of solid missionaries. A little young, but the whole mission right now is young. Besides one elder going home in 3 weeks, the oldest people in the zone are the two zone leaders (elder fisher and I) and the APs because they are in our zone (elders Christiansen and Fox). But I have an odd feeling that a lot of my zone will be training in the next two transfers. It may have to do with the fact that in August we are getting 14 new missionaries and then in October getting another 12. So 26 new missionaries in two groups only 6 weeks apart. Meaning that there will be 26 companionships in the training program at the same time. That means close to half of the mission. hehehe It is going to get really crazy really fast here in Mada. We also are going to have to open a bunch of new areas. Three this transfer, and then probably 5 or 6 in October. It is going to be good. I wrote you guys a long time ago saying that the mission was at really low numbers, but now we are going to get back up to some of the record highs for numbers here. 

Anyways, Thursday we had MLC (missionary Leadership Council for those who dont understand my slang) which consists of the zone leaders across the island of Mada and the zone leaders from Reunion and then the APS and President. Had a very informative meeting where we talked about A LOT of stuff, a lot that is probably means nothing to you guys so I wont share it. In August Elder Hamilton of the seventy will be here for a mission tour and we will have a good zone conference with him when he comes. 

The best part of MLC is the lunch afterwards. Anytime we get fed lunch by Sister Adams is a joy beyond measure. We had Chicken pot pie which wasz WAY GOOD! I love Sister Adams cooking! And then we took the long long long bus ride back to our area. And then Friday and Saturday weworked hard. Taught the english class on Saturday to sind Yesterday by the beetles and discussed the english principles and vocab in the song. And then on Sunday had a great day at church with 12 investigators attending. One of the investigators walked up to us outside of the church and asked where the Jehovah"s witness church is, and we told his honestly that we had no clue, but invited him into the church for our our services and he accepted. He was a great addition to the meeting. However, he is not form Tana and is going back home and so we wont ever see him again. 

And then more about our friend Norbert. We taught him on Sunday and brought the Stake President as well, and they were able to talk about some of his ideas. I think the Stake President presence was good for Norbert, but also Norbert was an answer to a prayer for the Stake President. The stake president has been having a problem with our new building and the hooking up the water for it. Norbert's wife, Isabella, happens to have worked a long time for Jirama (the water and electricity here Mada) and so they are going to talk today and get that taken care of in a hurry so we can get this building done. As my companion describes the encounter yesterday as, "They were happier than two kids on Christmas morning!"  

Mom Note:  I'm behind posting emails.  Check back and read the post for the letter written on 7/21/2014 to be introduced to Norbert.

It was a very good week! I am going to get a haircut today and go buy a new backpack because mine is broken, and try to get my camera fixed today as well. 

Oh yeah I wrote you mom, but i didnt tell anyone else, the back is getting better, slowly but surely, the pain isnt nearly what it was before. 

Elder Weber