Salama E!

Salama E!

Overall, I had awesome experiences this week. However, for other reasons, it turned out to be one of the harder weeks of my mission. I'mma share some good first, then the bad.

Elder Cyusa on his birthday in the fanciest (Malagasy, not French) restaurant in Antsirabe. It's about 6 dollars for a big, juicy steak.

• Good Ol' Guy Gilbert: This 65 year-old guy is a retired yoghurt-peddler, oddly successful--lives in quaint cottage with a gigantic TV. Every time we come over, he rolls his eyes and jokes, "Man, why do these teenagers keep bothering me?" Then, he laughs, coughs, spits and tells us to "Hurry and get in here!" Nearly everything he says isn't serious. Whenever we ask him a serious question, he'll either make a racist, sexist or sarcastic joke. A couple examples: he couldn't stop laughing during the Law of Chastity lesson; when we ask him to pray, he replies, "Women are better at praying. My wife should pray. I'm not going to the Celestial Kingdom anyway." In spite of all this, he continues to come to church, keep his commitments and progresses.

• Tough Aspects of the Week: Elder Andriantinarisoa's girlfriend 'Dear John'd' him last Monday. He called her and his friends one night, and now I have to help him stay focused.  In addition, we had to go to the doctor 3 times for him throughout the week during proselyting time for a undetectable knee problem (missed our best times). Then, when we get out to work, he either is extremely happy, or he walks slow, is irritable and a tough to work with. Sometimes, he's awesome, sometimes his bipolar mood swings are exasperating.

• Mpandainga: I've got a weird running joke with this one family that we consistently stop by to say hello throughout the day. As of now, they believe I can speak 6 languages fluently, was a bodybuilder before the mission and slept for 3 days straight without waking up once. They didn't believe that I've been to the moon or broken every single limb in a soccer game. Elder Andriantinarisoa and I brainstorm throughout the day to think up new, crazy things that have happened to me. I probably oughta come clean soon, but they are so respectful and trusting that it's too good of an opportunity to pass up. They don't know how boring I actually am.

• Lil' Testimony Mikasika the Family: After hearing about Haley's friend's kid that unexpectedly died and learning that one of my investigator's kids (in Ivandry) died from unknown causes as well, I've thought a lot about the worth of nurturing and developing a testimony about the Plan of Salvation. Like Dad said in a letter to me about the effects missions have on one's priorities, "I guess it just narrows things down to what matters.  Everything else starts to seem a bit frivolous." I've found that to be really true. When, I first came into country; it seemed all I missed was certain luxuries such as a comfy couch, TV, food, and time to be lazy. But as I've gained more and more experience alongside witnessing more and more miracles transpire on my mission, I start to realize how valuable and precious family is. The Plan of Salvation is my favorite lesson to teach because when the time comes nigh for the testimony, I start rapping in Malagasy with the spirit as my hype-man. 

Antsirabe is amazing! The work is a little slower down here than in Ivandry, but the people are genuine, humble and funny as flip. I still have a couple stories I need to tell from the week before, but I'll let my future self take care of it. Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Soper

Salut, Salit, Salat! 🌍📣

Salut, Salit, Salat! 🌍📣

Antsirabe is still flippin' dope. This week was full of pretty generic work, but rewarding as always. One thing Elder Andriantinarisoa and I had a disagreement this last week about  how many single women we had in our program.  Without a man in the house, we can't enter their house. Consequently, we have dragged our DMB around with us every day in order to teach them. Elder Andriantinarisoa really does love everybody, so it was hard for him to drop a lot of the investigators. Everybody needs the gospel, but we need to teach families and people who will progress.  Some pictures first:

Posh, human chicken.  Didn't really want to hear what our message was though...

• Knowledgeable Nadi: We teach this one family that has 4 generations in one house. The great grandma--who has no idea what's going on, but can still dona (fistbump)--the grandma (Nadi), the father (Billy, Nadi's son) and his daughter. Nadi learned from the missionaries about 10 years ago and actually was baptized. Because of that, she pretends to know everything, which is hilarious. Every time we ask a question, she nods and goes, "Mmhm. Got it," then asks everybody else if they get it yet. When they don't understand, we ask her to explain her understanding. She acts like she can't hear us and pretends to be taken off guard when we ask her to explain, making a very surprised face every time. She usually just says, "Nah, I already understand. Teach them."

• The Package Lady: This last Sunday, this random guy from Utah named Randy showed up to church. He didn't speak any Malagasy or French, so I was like, "Inona ary fanaovanao ety?!" (What the heck are you doing here?!). Then, he introduced me to his wife Domoin, who spoke English better than I do. She's the lady that Mom got in contact with, and she brought the package here to Madagascar! She dropped it off at the mission home in Tana, so it should take a couple more weeks to get to me. Which is way awesome because, when packages are sent normally to Madagascar, first, it takes from 1 month to 6 months to travel here, and second, they are often broken into by the police here, unless there are evangelical pictures of Christ all over the package (they're scared of disrespecting anything religious here).

• Yaw Yeboah Kissi's MTC Story: Elder Kissi is a gigantic man from Ghana (who grew up in New York) who's laugh sounds like a human tuba. Over some rice and loaka, he recounted to me about his MTC fiasco. He wrote on his mission papers that he knew how to fluently speak 5 languages: English and 4 dialects of Ghanian, which is true. Somehow, the MTC class schedulers assumed he was a foreigner that had little knowledge of English and was already fluent in Malagasy. As a result, they placed him in a 2-week course to learn the PMG lessons only in English, then he would be sent straight out to Madagascar with no Malagasy experience at all. He attended that class for a full-week, and then he met the actual Malagasy district on a random P-Day. Thus, he realized he was put in the totally wrong class. He had his flight plans and everything, but they scrambled to switch him into the correct class. It would've been way better story if they never figured it out.

Stories for Next Week:

-Antsirabe's Church Growing Pains

-Stellar Families

-Splits w/ AP's 

-Mangitsy

I need to tell a lot of little stories next week. Love you all! Hope it's going great back in Utah!

Elder Soper

Antsirabe is an amazing place...

Salama daholo!

Antsirabe is an amazing place. I had a great first week, a few tough experiences adapting, but they were nothing compared to the good experiences.

• Branch Activity: For my first P-Day here in Antsirabe, our branch planned a super-activity to get to know the new Elders, me and Elder Wilmot. Elder Wilmot's companion decided he didn't want to go to the activity, so I was the only white person there, got the weirdest look from Malagasies I've ever gotten, walking down the street within a crowd of Malagasies, holding a couple kids' hands. We went to a place called Lake Andraikiba, a beautiful lake with large hills all around. The day consisted of playing random EFY-like games (which Malagasies are flippin' good at), soccer for three hours, eating altogether, taking pictures and mitsangatsanga (chilling). It's near the top of my experience list here in Madagascar because I was able to really get know some of the amazing members and feel almost part of the branch. Also, I think it helps that I know enough Malagasy now to joke around effectively. Also also, I was able to go around, join different groups to get to know them and eat all the food that each family made, perks of being a missionary. The activity was the perfect welcome to Antsirabe.

• Meeting Jules: Friday, we were weaving through some crowds of men playing Petanque (Bocce Ball--huge here in Madagascar), and a man grabbed my hand to stop me. At first, I was like, "Man, another drunk wanting to complain about the French," so I pulled my hand away. But then, the guy started crying. We turned around and noticed that he was deaf. Luckily, our DMB knew a little Malagasy Sign Language, and they were able to communicate. The deaf man explained he had always wanted to learn about how to pray, yet no one has ever been willing to take the time to teach him. In addition, he doesn't know how to read, so he's never been able to read the Bible. As he was saying this, he was sobbing mafy. He said his name was Jules, and I recognized that there's a well-known deaf member that lives in Antananarivo, who is also named Jules. This member gives all the missionaries nicknames in sign language (mine is two fingers swiped across the eyes); it turns out the two are brothers. We referred him to the mission office, and they are going to set up a Skype session with some Malagasy members that know Malagasy Sign Language.

• Stringfellow & Pascaud's Lunch: First off, Elder Stringfellow (zone leader for Antsirabe) is an especially shy guy, who is a redhead, 6' 4" and a lil' chubby. He and his companion (Elder Cyusa) were invited to lunch with Brother and Sister Pascaud--an elderly couple from France that work in our areas. They don't know any English and Stringfellow doesn't know any French. Stringfellow explained that they "literally sat there in silence for 45 minutes eating this weird tomato bread thing." Afterwards, they went on a walk together in a garden while Brother Pascaud had his arm locked with Elder Stringfellow's and Sister Pascaud's with Elder Cyusa's. They slowly circulated around the garden pointing at random things, doing thumbs-up's and grunts to signify the garden had nice flowers. They left after kissing each other's cheeks a few times. I'm so glad I wasn't in Stringfellow's position.

Stories for Next Week:

              -Stellar Families

              -Kissi's MTC Story

Love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Soper

Transferred to Antsirabe!

Salama va taingy!

Fetra Tahina and Mahery

• Transferred to Antsirabe: President had promised Elder Hammer that him and I would be together 'til he died, kinda sweet sounding. However, we received a call two days ago that I would be moving to Antsirabe, a province in the south: cold (good), great food, beautiful Madagascar countryside (the opposite of where I am now) and weird, amazing people that speak Betsileo. Betsileo is a dialect that sounds a like Madagascar's version of a hick. My new companion is Elder Andriantinarisoa, a Malagasy. He and I did a split about 4 weeks ago, and he and I both wrote to president asking to be together sometime in our missions. President calls himself the big, round sugar plum fairy, so voila! I got my wish. Elder Andriantinarisoa is one of the funniest guys I've met, and he's willing to help me a lot with my Malagasy (he speaks English very well).
• Saying Goodbye to Investigators: This was incredibly hard, oi. Yesterday, we visited our best investigators and recent converts. I cried a wee bit, but I just told them my eyes were sweaty. The hardest goodbyes were to Clarissy's family (the tailor), and a 11 year-old boy named Toky (Heritiana's family). When I told Toky I was leaving, he just looked down and wouldn't talk to me. Gah. I'm lucky to have a gotten some precious pictures with them. I'm going to miss this area so much.
• Vagabond Snot Kid: Elder Hammer and I were walking across these rice paddies on a quiet Friday evening. As we were crossing an especially long, muddy path, a little Malagasy boy confidently strutted towards us. We met and stopped in front of each other in the middle, stood in silence and stared each other for a couple seconds. A little bit of snot peeked out of his nose, and Elder Hammer told him to wipe his nose. He yelled, "No!" He laughed super hard, and a ton of surplus snot launched out onto his face. He promptly ran away into the twilight, leaving us confused, but oddly inspired. 
• Skype for Mother's Day: It was a great to see all of you guys on Saturday. It literally feels like I'm living two satisfying lives through reading your emails and our conversations over Skype. I miss you all so much! Conveniently, it doesn't make me homesick, but it motivates me more to have a productive mission. Having limited connection with you guys has really made realize how lucky I am to be part of this amazing family. Love you all so much!

I'm sure this next week is going to be a whirlwind, moving to Antsirabe and all that. I can't wait to see what weird crud and spiritual experiences await me there!

Love,

Elder Soper

Albert and his family

Frederik

Yohan and Alan

Victor (crazy cool RM)

Rija

Nambinina's family

Gaston's family

Clarissy (probably my favorite person to talk to)

Toky

Heritiana

Dope week!

Salama O!

Dope week! I didn't have too many ridiculous experiences this week, so I was a bit disappointed, but it was actually one of my favorite weeks so far. 

(Taylor didn't send any pictures this week, but since he went to a lemur reserve, I included this random lemur picture...)

• Tracting: With his last four companions Elder Hammer didn’t do much tracting—mostly member contacts.  So I wanted to expand or improve our program, but it was a  tough adjustment.  Up until now, the only serious tracting that's been done in our area has been during splits.  Elder Hammer and I are getting the swing of it now, however, and it’s been great.  It honestly is some of the most fun I've had. I've met people with no arms, people with no legs, the grossest bebe's, midgets and wonderful people ready to hear the gospel. It's sometimes awkward and painful, but we gotsta do it.
• Gunmouth: I got a nickname from some of our members. They call me "Basivava" which means 'gunmouth,' not sure if it's a bad thing or not. They call me this because I talk a lot even if I don't know what I'm saying. It's definitely easier to be confident in a different language. The members seem to like it, so I'mma continue.
• Malagasies and Swear Words: This last English class, only guys showed up, so they took the opportunity to ask a lot of crude questions about English. I kept having to say, "We're not going to talk about that." One guy from Saudi Arabia liked my reaction when he said the 'B' word, so he started calling a me a 'B' a ton. It got to the point where I brought him to the front and made him explain why it's wrong to swear in English, way funny.
• Peaches are a Foretaste of Heaven: We were teaching one of our strong families (Gaston and Bakoliarisoa) about Lehi's Vision about the Tree of Life. We asked what the fruit of the Tree might be. The wife blurted out, "Paiso!" which means 'peach.' For some reason, the timing was so odd and caught me offguard, so I started crying laughing. She tried to rationalize her comment by saying, "I really like peaches; I wouldn't mind if that's all I got." 
• Lemur Park: We decided to go to this lemur park far out in ambanivohatra (middle of nowhere) in a place called Amboimanga. It took forever to get to, but it was ridiculously pretty. The people there talk like Malagasy hicks. Instead of saying, "Tsy misy vaovao," when when we ask "Inona no vaovao," they said, "Tsa mishy vfaovfao!" in a very high voice. It was way cute. The park was small, but better than we expected. I'll send some pictures, and hopefully they can accurately show how beautiful the area was.

I'm still loving it here in Madagascar!

Love you all!

Elder Soper