Overall, an awesome week!

Ahoana Fandehana?

                                                     Me and Albert with our traded ties

Rija is holding the camera

From a soiree we had recently

Overall, an awesome week! There's a couple tough experiences that happened this week. We have some investigators that are going to be baptized this Saturday, woot! 

-Rice Paddy Idiot: 

We were walking on the wooden plank walkway raised up above rice paddy about 3 feet. I was trying to fist-bump a kid behind me on the walkway, and I didn't realize there was a slight turn right in front of me. One of the worst feelings I've ever had was when I expected my foot to hit wood, but it swung down like a pendulum as my whole body awkwardly flopped into a dry part of the rice paddy below. I kind of caught myself, so my backpack avoided damage, but the right side of my body became nice and muddy. Luckily we only had one more appointment before it was time to go home. Oi, it was not a fun experience. Elder Hammer has a picture of the mud I got on my shirt and pants. I'll get him to send that picture to me sometime.

-Upcoming Baptisms:

I'm grateful for the work the Elders did in Ivandry before Elder Hammer and I showed up. This next Saturday, we have 4 baptisms. One for N., the extremely diligent girl that wants to serve a mission. Then, three for H's family, a man who used to be a translator for a French TV network here in Madagascar, but he got really sick, lost most of the function in his legs and now he can't work at all. But, he comes to church every week on his crutches. 

-Poverty Here in Madagascar:

This has been tough to see and experience. People are incredibly happy here, even though many of them have almost nothing, but they still want to feed their visitors. It's common to see many malnourished kids on the street, and men with bum legs crawling across the street. It's still pretty shocking, but the other missionaries seem pretty used to it. Elder Hammer and I work in a richer part of Antananarivo, so we don't see it nearly as often though.

-Rija:

A recent convert named Rija helped us for 4 days straight this week. He's about 18 years old, and right now, it's vacation for two weeks from school for his age group. He said he's been bored, so he said he wants to spend his time doing something actually worthwhile. What a baller! We have him teach 1 principle during each lesson, and he gets super nervous when he teaches. He has a super strong testimony and he can't wait to serve a mission. He wants to serve in America and learn English.

-Tough Experiences:

One of our strongest investigators dropped us (S.). He's from Diego, and the culture there is very superstitious of dark magic. He became really sick recently, a bad chest cold and fever. He became really paranoid and some of his friends from Diego convinced him is was because he was attending our church... Darn.  

-Trading Ties:

I traded one of my ties with our new DMP, Albert. He's a dope old guy, and he's the uncle of N. His laugh is super high, and him and I are becoming great friends.

The mission is going great right now! Even though I'm exhausted every day, and there are tough experiences here and there, I'm ignorant enough that they aren't too painful. I've learned I need to rely on the spirit a lot because it causes me to love to work hard each day. Thanks for your letters, and have a good week!

Love you guys,

Elder Soper