Christmas in Madagascar! (and leg injury...)

[Elder Soper's Dad: Last week Taylor sent us the first letter below, after the pictures, with a fake story of how he got a serious injury to his leg...  haha?  :)  We decided to hold off on sending it out until we got the real story--which follows in the second letter.  I've also attached some pictures and videos below from his skype session with us.   Merry Christmas!]

Baptisms last week in the ocean.

 One of the dopest investigators I've had on the mission, Germain. He asks the craziest questions, usually to try to stump us; problem is, I'm easily stumpable, so what you want Germain? He's came to church yesterday, and he loved it!

My favorite kids making their first debut album.

Awesome new church with a forest across from it

Letter from Dec. 19, 2016:

Karakory ma jiaby!

Gored by Bessy:

While walking to our next lesson, as carefree as could be, we swung around a corner and encountered a fussy Bessy charging at me--an actual Malagasy cow, not a large, furious Malagasy woman to make that clear. What happened is a couple teens were harassing Bessy by throwing rocks at its head, infuriating her and causing her to charge for whatever the heck was hurting her head. Unfortunately, it turned out to be me that Bessy accused as its harasser. As soon as I saw this furious cow barrelling at me, I turned on a spur with flailing arms and desperately dived to the side. I fell on the ground and quickly scrambled up the muddy bank. Climbing up the wooden fence, suddenly, a piercing pain erupted in my leg and traveled up to my head. I looked down in horror to see the cow's horn gored into my shin, drilling a hole to the bone. In shock, I flopped over the fence into someone's trash-filled yard, and with me just laying there, Elder Kruger sprinted over and started to pull my leg, just like I'm pulling yours, haha!

I really did get stitches though, haha! I'll explain the real, less entertaining story next week. :D On another note, I'd like to invite everybody to take some time reflect. Take one minute to sit down on your comfy chair in the corner of your living room. Then, ponder about how wonderful it is that we know of Christ's ministry and His suffering for us. We know attributes like kindness, longsuffering, meekness, a pure heart and clean hands are what Christ was and what we need to aim to be. We know that through serving one each other, we can receive enduring happiness, as allusive as it may be. We know there is a loving Heavenly Father rooting for us on the other side. Through learning and applying this knowledge, we can return back, together! I testify that these things are true! In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Valan'Omby

Christ's perfect life started with His humble birth in a manger. 'Valan'omby' is what Malagasies use even though it technically means 'barn.' Christmas is a great time as a missionary because everybody's heart seems to open up, becoming more sensitive to the spirit, and thus ready for change.

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Letter from Dec. 26, 2016:

Hey Everybody!

Real Stitches Story:

Sorry I lied about being gored by a cow last week, haha! The real truth is much more underwhelming, yet just as painful. As I was carrying chairs up some stairs in the brand-spanking-new church, one of the young men thought it would be hoot if he tripped me on these stairs that happen to be designed like knives (cement blocks with sharp, metal lips). The result wasn't just the predicted, slight embarrassment where I would awkwardly slip, suffer no damage and simply chuckle for a bit with the young man, but rather my shin landed straight on the metal edge of the stair and chopped straight down to the bone, causing me to think twice about wearing shinguards as a missionary.

After writhing in pain for a while, I quickly caught a ride to the closest hospital, which turned out to be the worst quality we could find: a dirty, unkempt place, with inexperienced doctors, limited resources and people walking in and out, peering over the shoulders of the doctors to just give a wince and a, "Ooh!" Just for the fun of it, they poked me with some unknown, useless anesthesia, so I felt every little movement as they forced my flesh together with 9 stitches. Now it's over, phew.

Christmas-time is great here in Mahajanga! Yesterday, Elder Kruger and I finally extended a baptismal invitation to one of our favorite families, Benja and Aina! Real quick, I want to describe what kind of people they are. They live next to an orphanage, and even though they don't have much of their own, they agreed to take in a couple of the surplus orphans--which seem to overflow here in Madagascar--and raise them as their own. Aina really cares for everyone around her. Her main motivation from learning from us is so that she, in turn, can teach the orphans the Gospel. Benja and her came to church yesterday too! Awesome, genuine family! I'll definitely talk more about them in the future.

Also, I got to Skype all of you guys!! Even though I miss home, I don't want to leave Madagascar anytime soon, and the longer I'm doing this work, the more I value my family. Having the privilege to Skype you guys reminded me of first, how much I love my family and second, how important my use of time for these two years is. I can't waste time here because it's time away from you guys! Love you so much!

Nativity Sketch:

We did a sketch on the Birth of Christ for the branch activity on Christmas Eve, and we sort of took it our own way. To 'Malagasify' it, me, being Mary, wore common Malagasy woman wardrobe of thin cloth wrapped around my body, tights and a make-shift turban. Looking back, a wise man would have opted out of the role, but this sketch might just make me the next Chris Pine. Within the sketch an angel communicated through telephone because he was too lazy to show up in person; I rode an auto-rickshaw moto to Bethlehem, gave birth on stage to a creepy, deteriorated baby doll; and, there was large range of lowbrow, bizarre elements that probably frightened most of the kids. In the end, the branch seemed to love it, seeing as everybody kept laughing and wooing, even the old and ever-serious Ralaibary.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Mitsingehagehana:

When one's so full, it's hard to breathe. I've always wanted just one word to describe that feeling; now I have it.

Love you all!

Elder Soper

A new calling, yikes...

Hey everybody!

Great week! Our church is moving locations, so we did a lot of member visiting to make sure they won't go less-active. It's in a beautiful place, with a view of all of Mahajanga out the front window. Our previous church building was a poopy, cement building right next to a noisy street. Also, there's been a lot of hurt feelings in between the presidency and the members recently, due to odd fights about money and callings; so hopefully this move will bring not only a nice change of venue but also of perspective.

I'm trying to get as many pictures of boats here in Mahajanga. It took some sprinting to get the right angle.

 My good friend Dax System (his rapper name) that I talk to every morning during breakfast. I disapproved of him dying his hair red. What a punk, but we're still cool.

 Haha, Elder Kruger offering coconut to two people--getting denied twice because it fell in the sand.

Some Weird News:

I'm not sure if everybody knows what's going on, but I was just called as the 2nd counselor in our Branch Council, and now Elder Kruger and I have to attend most of the meetings throughout the week, which kinda puts a wrench into our normal missionary program, but it's an exciting assignment. It's fun to give my 2 cents when talking about important business like the logistics of handling money and member records of which I have no idea about. It's almost like when everybody assumes you're expert on fixing cars, and you want to feel cool in front of them, so you take a look inside under the hood, fiddle around, touch of few parts and mumble some things while shaking your head. Then, you end up just agreeing with the next random comment like, "Oh yeah, that's what I thought." We'll see if the branch here in Mahajanga turns apostate soon enough with my help, heh!

Bocce Ball:

When it rains, many of the back, earthy paths flood with water (looks like chocolate milk by the way), and we always have to use new, creative ways to get across. Usually, we either hold on to wooden fences, overestimate our jumping abilities and leap right into the water, or find another route. But this time, we were a bit smarter. We heaved and strategically threw rocks into the mini-chocolate milk lakes to make a make-shift path. However, without looking, I threw the first and biggest rock, and it splashed up on and all over a sweet, old grandma, sort of hidden from my view behind a fence. She screamed in horror as she was drenched by the delicious chocolate milk. My reaction was to immediately crouch down and cover my head in embarrassment. What an ignorant foreigner I am. We said sorry a thousand times and scurried away.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Tombocassehy:

"Branding," as in the herd mark burned into one's sheep. A good way to think about baptism is as a sort of branding that signifies we're God's sheep. If the baptism doesn't take place in the presence of the correct, Aaronic priesthood, the wrong mark is branded, and God will act like, "This ain't mine!" and not let you into His fold.

Love you all!

Elder Soper

The work is flying right now...

Hey Everybody!

Transfer news! Zip. Elder Kruger and I are still together! I was way happy to hear that, especially because the work is flying right now. Yesterday, a couple less-active families came to church for the first time in years. Too bad the church meeting was full of odd, awkward problems with the microphone, a priest doing the sacrament prayer like a motivational chant and some odd testimonies. Nevertheless, it was an encouraging experience.

Handsome Jesus Christ:

We showed this noisy family the Restoration pamphlet that has Jesus Christ holding a lamb on the front. One of the older ladies grabbed it from my hands and said, "Beau gosse ity Jesosy ity!" which means, "This Jesus is way handsome!" 

Soap Opera Miracle:

Our Relief Society President bore a funny, sweet testimony yesterday. Saturday night, she binge-watched novellas (Spanish soap operas translated into French) 'til 4 AM. After finally deciding to sleep, she confessed in a prayer, "This is a worldly thing I just did. Novellas are my weakness. Please help to wake up and attend church tomorrow." The next morning, she was scared awake by water dripping on her bed from a hole in the roof. She made it to church on time and said she wasn't sleepy at all. Funny thing is I heard some gossip that she fell asleep in third hour and was snoring. Sweet lady.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Tifohidy:

This means 'food poisoning.' We had a dinner appointment with a random recent convert family, and they ended up serving us their nightmare-ish homemade pasta with little chunks of surprise meat. Even from it's appearance, all the alarms in my head were screaming, "Fake a stroke!" But, we chose to ignore all the obvious warnings from the Holy Ghost, and continued by giving the family a big thumbs up with nervous and panic-stricken smiles and hesistantly dug in. So, the next day, counting each separate trip, I went to the bathroom a total of 29 times. Here's a good reference for a scriptural description of what happened: Jeremiah 4:18-20. Please read this. 

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Teaching at the end of the earth...

What's up everybody!

Everything's going great!  Elder Kruger and I are getting along well; it feels like I'm working with a friend rather than a companion, and he loves the people we teach.  There's this fun "teaching at the end of the earth" kind of feeling every day here in Mahajanga. I like the isolation, but I miss being around a lot of missionaries. For district meetings, I just let Elder Kruger choose a random missionary duty, and I teach him how to do it; we did how to fill out baptismal records last week. President told us that he'd be back in about 10 weeks for conference. Whew, that means about 5 weeks left.

A little bit more about the city: We have a huge variety of areas we work in because the people we teach are scattered throughout all Mahajanga. Some are super pretty while others are really ug-butt. We went on a cool excursion to a less-active way out in the wilderness, and it was fun to take a relaxing bike ride out there! The place wasn't pretty, but it felt cool to go on a trek to teach someone. Our P-days consist of going to the beach, eating and hanging out with members. I love it!

 The sunsets here are amazing...

 Would anybody like a pair of these Malagasy flip-flop things? They have all the sizes. I've been wearing these every P-day, and I've seen my confidence, happiness and maniliness increase.

Some stories from the week:

Brother Ralaibary:

Yesterday, Branch President gave Ralaibary 5 minutes at the start of Branch Council because he apparently had an emergency announcement. Ralaibary started off with his usual talk about how the natural man is an enemy to God, and we need to deny ourselves in order to progress. Then, he began to cry, "I confess that I have displayed unworthy behavior in the presence of God and my fellow brothers and sisters. My way of thinking is corrupted; my focus is suffering. It's not because of my age, but it's because my actions have been opposing God's. Will all of you forgive me for my weaknesses?" We all nodded uncertainly answering yes, but I still had no idea what "unworthy behavior" he was talking about. President then said, "Alright, thanks Ralaibary. Let's get started." Cutting in again, Ralaibary, yelled out, "Do you all forgive me for my transgressions?!" We all quickly responded, "Yes Ralaibary, you're forgiven!"   The "unworthy behavior" he incriminated himself for turned out to be the way he added too many embellishments while playing the hymns, and he admitted that he was simply showing off. When I heard the whole truth, I promptly told him I would never forgive him... haha, just kidding. Man, this brother wears his heart on his sleeve. 

Friday Sigh Day:

An odd/fatiguing thing about Mahajanga is that most of the members and less-actives live in far-flung places out and around Mahajanga, leaving few people actually near the church. It's like a raindrop fell in the center of Mahajanga, yet splashed out to the edges of the city, leaving the center dry. Two missionaries in this city isn't enough, but it'll have to do, especially because the members are amazing and genuine people here. 

Friday, we saw a sad result of the lack of attention some of the members receive here. We visited one family near the edge of Mahajanga. The dad is a great man. In addition to his unbroken church attendance and inspiring testimony he always shares consistently, he has to do deal with a very off-kilter family, which includes: Evil Grandma--a heavy chain-smoker who buys really fancy food with the little money he can provide for her; Ill-tempered, Apostate Wife and Ungrateful Children (almost like there's anti-missionary villain team ready for us to knock on the door). After an awkward lesson that consisted of an immobile grandma giving off smoke, glaring at us from the corner, and the passive aggressive sighs and comments from Felix's wife as she cooked in the other room, Felix showed his appreciation by driving us in his little Bajaj (mini-taxi tricycle thingy from India) to our next lesson. He broke down crying about how hard his home-life is and that nobody from the branch cares to visit him.

That experience jumpstarted us a bit. Maybe it's a better idea to worry more about the actually active members rather than those who have already been cold for 2 years+.

Stupid Tracting Strategies:

We generally spend our tracting time in middle-class areas, looking for families with scooters and cars. Due to the level of difficulty rising, we've added some more ambitious and foolhardy tactics to our arsenal. For example, after investigating the scene of this nice, red-brick home, I noticed some baby clothes hanging on a drying line, a stroller stored off to the side of the house, I decided to use the "joke around about the baby" tactic. We knocked, and as the lady came outside with her new-born baby in her arms, I then confidently said, "Hey sorry, I was just looking at this great baby socks," as I casually gestured towards a little pair of blue socks hanging on the clothes line. I continued, "Well, I was wondering if I they were for sale; I really--" She then nervously smiled and interrupted, "My baby is getting cold, sorry. Come back next time." As the door swung closed, I immediately felt so embarrassed and started to doubt the integrity of my perfect plan. Elder Kruger was laughing his head off, but I felt like an idiot, heh!

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Awesome experiences this week...

Hey Everybody!

One of my favorite weeks on my mission so far! We took a drastic turn with how we're treating our program, cutting off a lot of the fat--dropping almost all of our eternigators (eternal investigators)--and instead blowing the dust of the area book in order to search for some less-actives members. The work has been more painful and slow, but it's still just as rewarding.

This lemur cleaned our hair with his tongue and his spindly hands. It really hurt for some reason.

Woops--scared this little kid.

Marcellin:

Here in Madagascar, the main problem isn't finding new investigators to teach; instead, it's finding people that are genuinely prepared for the message. Elder Kruger was telling me before the lesson that he didn't really believe in those stories where missionaries just happen upon someone so readied by God and the experiences in their life for the gospel that it simply clicks indray mipy maso. Notwithstanding, a lot of Malagasies can be gullible, but it's rare when the importance of our message really sinks deep. But Elder Kruger said this experience felt like "God's hand tampered with it a bit."

On Thursday evening, we were on our way to a less-active who lives in the boonies. I smelt something disgusting for the millionth time that day, and as a natural reaction, I turned my head to spit. But not looking, I haphazardly spit all over this guy's leg who was sleeping in the grass. He sat up like, "What the heck?" and I just looked up with a confused expression at the sky like, "Oh gosh. Did you see that bird? Where'd that come from?" So, we started talking to him, and he seemed genuinely interested in being taught.

We taught him and his wife Saturday evening, and without a hitch, he answered every question spot on alongside emphatically accepting the request to pray about the message and read the pamphlet. By the end of the lesson, he revealed that he left the Lutheran church after praying about it one night, and ever since, he's been searching for the true church and is ready and excited to do his best to learn for himself if it's really true.  He warned us, however, "That doesn't mean I'm getting baptized just yet, but I felt the spirit from the first time I met you guys, so I might as well keep following it."

Identity Crisis:

I've been starting to have an strange crisis the past few weeks. I'm starting to genuinely ask myself those Plan of Salvation questions: where am I from, why am I here and am I Asian? Ever since I've come here to Mahajanga, kids will run up to me and rudely imitate how a Chinese person speaks: "Ching chong wan! Wer ting wong!" It started off as a fluke, just some kids that don't realize that some foreigners have feelings, especially this one. However, it was just an omen of the persecution to come. Every single kid I come across will yell out, "Yo Asian! Do you like noodles?" or something else barbaric and politically incorrect. I've been reduced down to screaming, "I'm not Asian!!" and kicking at the kids. But it backfires, because they then make fun of me for my spectacular karate skills. I began asking all our investigators if I look Asian; half of them testify that I look super Chinese while the other half shrugs and says, "I dunno."

Elder Kruger has repeatedly walked in on me, staring at myself in the mirror, in worried contemplation of what my real origin is. Night-time consists of stretching my eyes wide open and doing other exercises to delay my inevitable metamorphosis into Jackie Chan's brother. After church yesterday, we were walking with a recent converts' 10 year-old kid to their house, and during our conversation, I told him I don't like lychees that much. At first he acted appalled, but then he was like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. Asians don't like lychees." It took all of my willpower to stop myself from powerslamming that kid. Man...

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Ranomandry:

'Ice' is the meaning, but when separated it means 'sleeping water' or 'water lying down to rest.' One of the most beautiful parts of Malagasy is how many stupid, odd and unique word combinations there seem to be buried in all aspects of the language. I love experiencing the mini-revelations of the quirks and secrets of Malagasy throughout the week. I probably look crazy when I loudly say a random Malagasy word and start laughing just a little too hard. In my opinion, learning Malagasy will be uninteresting when heck freezes over. Heh.

Stories for Next Week:

-Dallyas

Love you all!

Elder Soper

This transfer has been a blast...

Ry Fianakaviako,

Personality-wise, Elder Kruger and I are getting along great! We're always trying to make each other laugh, and it's helpful to have someone not hesitant to make fun of me or point out the dumb thing I'm doing. I also like how even though we have a different perspective on a lot of things, we can always find a productive compromise quickly. The conversation never turns dulls too. We share stories between lessons, and it's weird how boring topics can be so fun to talk about. I didn't realize how similar our humors are in spite of the differences in our personalities. The only drawback is the rigorous process of teaching him Malagasy.  Otherwise, this transfer has been a blast!

Pulling a Handcart Pousse-Pousse:

I literally paid a handcart pousse-pousse driver 300 ariary so I could pull him and the 200-pound Kruger 100 meters. It was so masochistic and unfun that by 60 seconds I dropped the cart completely exhausted, stumbled a couple steps to the side, drenched in sweat and involuntarily sobbing. And in comparison to the little pousse-pousse driver, I have about 60 more pounds on me. I don't know how those guys live on one bowl of rice and day and pull those things 12 hours straight. Those guys are so excited to earn to 1000 ariary (33 cents) to transport you and your Sulley-sized friend a mile on a dirt path.

Banana:

The classic Madagascar missionary line, "Oh sorry, I don't speak French." Even when someone says, "Bonjour." We react, "I don't understand! Speak Malagasy!" This backfired when I asked this family what food their pet lemur liked the most, and they replied with, "Banane." Not understanding at first, I smugly said, "Psh, please. I don't speak French." Then, Elder Kruger started laughing way hard, "It's banana, you idiot!" The family asked what 'banane' was in our language. I said weakly, "Banana..." 

Professional Soccer Game: 

We heard these huge roars coming from behind this wall, and we decided to climb up and see what all the hub bub was. Turns out, FIFA held a match between Antananarivo vs. Mahajanga, and we had to pay about 50 cents to stand on this guy's wall to watch for 10 minutes. I've never heard or seen more swearing, odd squeals, angry fists towards heaven, insults to the refs and pure excitement. Malagasies are the perfect sport spectators because they are all so invested and passionate, and nothing can distract them.

Conspiracy:Almost every lesson we had this week somehow turned to Donald Trump and the weird conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. It's weird how obsessed Malagasies are about America insomuch that they have their own well-thought out opinions about every major American event. They would bring the topic up by saying, "So... Donald Trump!"  Our investigators would then flip the conversation to 9/11, and I am so tired of how many Malagasies tried to convince me how it was a secret job done by Illuminati--a group of world leaders which apparently includes Obama, Bush, a random Malagasy president and some other obscure names to make it seem legit--in order to get oil from Iraq.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Manompo or Manompa:

To serve and to swear. These words are a little too similar for comfort. For some reason, 'manompa' bypasses the normal edit process in my brain and comes out every time I want to say 'manompo.' Here in Mahajanga though, swearing isn't considered as shocking or bad, and it isn't an odd scene when you see a grandma gently chastising her noisy grandchildren with dozens of severe, gruff swear words.

Stories for Next Week

-Identity Crisis

-Dallyas

Love you all so much!

Elder Soper