Salama Daholo!

Salama Daholo!

Inona miresaka? Ah, tsisy miresaka. It's been a pretty good week with a couple of ridiculous experiences. Easter is still going strong, which is partially the reason we have an early curfew of 8 this week, heh. 

                            This kid is really good at English, better than most of the adult students.

• Member Split: We doubled up our area on Wednesday. Elder Hammer went with Elder Knight (still hadn't received his new companion), and I went with Rija (recent convert). This was a great confidence booster. He and I got put with the job of tracting. We were able to tract into a couple lessons, and I was finally able to teach the BoM lesson (tough lesson for me) without it being awkward or out of order. When we left, Rija said, while the lesson was still going, "That's how it's done." I still have so much to learn about the language. Right now, an accurate description would be that I talk like a Malagasy kid does. Nevertheless, it's nice to have a successful day like that.
• Ny Klin T-Shirt Sarobidy: I saw this shirt when I first got here, and it's been my goal to get it since. I've been on the look-out on P-Days, but up until to today, tsy misy. Finally, I saw a guy walking out of Shoprite (small grocery store) with the Klin shirt on, in decent condition! I gave my bag to Elder Hammer and sprinted towards him. I told him I would buy it off him right there. He instead opted for a trade for my purple Adidas shirt because he didn't want to be shirtless. 
  
• Caution! (Awkward): During English class, I was trying to explain the difference between 'in' and 'at'. I drew a map of an area near Ivandry called Analakely, but I made the mistake of abbreviating it as Anal. All the students already knew what that means, way embarrassing, but a good laugh.
• Families: We tracted into a few less-active families this week. This is a huge problem in Madagascar. Many missionaries did whatever they could to baptize as many people as they could without really helping to convert. In our area, there's about 120 active members (decently sized ward), but about 450 less-actives. So, Elder Hammer and I are hoping to work better with the ward missionaries and find these less-active families. There's already a lot of work done by missionaries before us, we just need to take advantage of it. Plus, 2 Nephi 31:14, yikes. Two of my favorite families we've met so far is M. and S., then D.'s fam. I'll tell you their stories next week.
• Easter Fiasco - Story I need to tell next week!
  
  
  
  
• This guy asked me to take a picture of him before he dies so that there's a record of him that lives on after he dies, pretty sweet. He was kind of joking, but hopefully I can print this picture off for him.

I love sharing the Gospel every day! Being able to share my testimony with so many people is a great blessing! Fantatro fa mahafinaritra ny filizantsaran'i Jesoa Kristy! Amin'ny manaraka indray!

Love you all!

Elder Soper