Salama O!

Salama O!

This week contained some very encouraging, very crazy and very painful experiences, hoo my goth. Ndao isika handeha!

A video post from the mission president's wife on Instagram: Elder Soper and other missionaries participating in a pday ping-pong tournament

-Double-Dragon: This experience was pretty graphic. By this week, I had already eaten a ton of street food, from bugs to disgusting candy to odd kebabs to sandwiches with unidentifiable chunks in them. But, I ate at the supposedly safe 'Red Hotely' which served basic rice and laoka. Once again, I basically had digestive problems on the spot. That night, I slept 0.2 hrs. The hours I wasn't sleeping, I was double-dragoning (a nice way of saying you're having problems at both ends).  I even had some trouble at one point in the middle of the night making it from my bed to the bathroom successfully, but I won't go into that...  I missed one day of proselyting, which was incredibly frustrating because it was a few new investigators, but luckily Elder Hammer was able to get a hold of them, and they still wanted to meet with us. I recovered pretty quickly, and I'm back to eating street food. I think it was the juice they served at the restaurant because other Elders got sick from it.

-Our families are still doing awesome! I need to get pictures with them sometime so I can show what they look like. The three families that are most mazoto (diligent) are H1s, H2s and the Gs. [Names removed for the privacy of the investigators.]  H1 is a professional rugby player who can run wicked fast. He and I had a sprinting competition, and he smoked me, whew. His traps are the size of my legs I think. He has a family of 3. H2 is a translator for French and Malagasy TV networks (a little bit more wealthy), and he has little use of his legs, so he walks 3 miles to work on crutches. He has a ridiculously smart family of 4. G is a juice maker who has a family of 5. His wife is super buff because she washes clothes a lot for some of the families around her. Washing clothes by hand makes your biceps huge I guess. G has a few teeth and a very high voice, but he retains the most information about what we teach compared to any of our investigators. That's a little bio of our strongest investigators. A couple of them struggle with smoking, coffee and coming to church on time. But, they trying their hardest and are incredibly passionate about the Gospel. I'm very thankful for the missionaries before us for the work they've done to find some of these families.

-Elder Hammer is a great companion and we are starting to get along great.   He is a hard worker, but I can tell that this is a tough area to end your mission. The area where we work each day is honestly a bit rough and dirty compared to some of the other prettier provinces.  When Elder Lake's trainee came in, everything changed. Our whole dorm is great friends. We end each night telling stories to each other. It's not the same closeness I felt at the MTC with the other Elders, but it's improving. The new trainee in our house is from South Africa. He's pretty quiet, but he's way dope. He wants me to learn Afrikaanz, and I've learned a couple phrases. That language feels like Pigeon English and is actually pretty easy!

-The Malagasy is coming along great! I got in a little rut for a couple days while I was sick because I didn't want to say anything. Plus, it's scary to teach sections of lessons that you know your companion could do so much better. It's tough not to be really neurotic about these things, but Elder Hammer has been very patient with me. He pushes me to learn the area, new nuances to the language and the logistics of the mission very hard. Sometimes I wish we could prepare more during companionship study, but he doesn't like to roleplay. So, I feel like I'm in the dark when I'm teaching a new topic. I'm progressing well, I think! The thing I've gotten good at is understanding what Malagasies are trying to say through their body language. They use a ton of body language, and it's nice being able to know how to respond to them when I don't understand everything they say. That's probably the hardest part of Malagasy though, understanding them. Speaking it is a wee bit easier.

-I still love the kids. I need to get a couple pictures from Elder Hammer for you to put on the blog because there's these neighborhood kids that play soccer with us every morning for about 5 minutes. They all go crazy and destroy my legs.

-Kids also love fistbumps (dona). And the bebes (grandma) do too! We can say, "Dahoana bebe!" Then, the bebe goes crazy haha. There's some very weird bebes in our area that are pretty much gangsters. 

-We took in a little chameleon named Jack Sparrow, pretty sure his parents named him that. He always acts a little drunk, hence the name. Sometimes, we ask him if he wants to go proselyting, but he's pretty maditra. Whatever.

-I think I missed a few experiences, so I'll consult with my journal (left it at home) and tell all of you next week.

Gospel's great! Love you all so much! I love reading the letters too! 

Love, Elder Soper