This week was full of special, spiritual experiences...

Ry Fianakaviana,

Three baptisms are coming up this Saturday! There's Noel and Blandine, a young, newly-married couple (our best investigators by far). Then, we snatched an oldie, Lucien. Lucien's family was baptized a while ago, excluding him, since he has been indifferent about religion most his life. Now, he's decided that he's gonna commit.

Me and Elder Monson on the street

President and Sister Foote visiting the Tamatave apartment

Zone conference

Two way diligent deacons: Stanley and Antonio. We told them to pose like Nephi would.

We found a delicious pizza place called Pizza Vizovou, about the only one in Madagascar. All Malagasies love this pizza chain called Gastronome's Pizza; they claim their creator learned about pizza for years in Italy. Yeah right, chef man. Papa John would be so mad. Their pizza is literally uncooked dough, snail slime and corn-starchy cheese.

This week was full of special, spiritual experiences. A lot of the lessons have gone on very deep tangents about people's problems in their lives. It's opening my eyes to the actual problems these people face each day, meanwhile helping us know what to teach. I'mma share the best two (the first and last story)!

Oscar:

My favorite new investigators right now. Oscar is a marathon runner with amazing calves. I probably shouldn't have asked if I could touch them, but I did, and I confirmed that were firm and amazing. Oscar has a really adorable, obese baby, because whenever it begins to make its unsettling low grunts and moans, the wife just whips out her breast, shoves it into it's mouth, and thus the baby continues to evolve. As we walked in, their house was all over the place. Oscar's wife was stung by a scorpion stowed in between some clothes, temporarily losing control of her hand as a result. Their rice started to burn, so she grabbed it with her paralyzed hand, toppling it over, causing rice to spill all across the floor. In spite of the chaos, they still invited to give a short message.

Being Catholic, they initially seemed pretty hard-headed, but we took an odd strategy and shared about temples and priesthood first and foremost. They seemed fascinated, so we decided to ask if they wanted to be baptized--received a nice and hard no. Disheartened a wee bit, we invited them to pray before our next lesson. At the beginning of the next lesson, Oscar started to cross-examine us, asking question after question about our doctrine. After answering dozens of questions, he finished with, "We wanted to get baptized right as you guys walked in. We know your church is true." Now they're preparing for baptism on November 5th!

English-Obsessed Gramps:

This grandpa named Jean Claude is always out and about with a big, bowstaff-sized stick and his pants pulled up to his chest. Yesterday, he asked us if we spoke French or English. When we told him, "English," his eyes became really wide as he began to cackle, baring his toothless smile. He said he's going to join our church now because he loves English. Cool.

Bebe Bondy:

We encountered a somewhat feral, drunk grandma that said (in Malagasy),

"What's up dude." (D'ahoana lehitsy)

And I was like, "Nothing's up, girl. What's going on?" (Tsisy raha, kia. Ahoana fandehana?)

"Only now, bruh." (Izao ihany, basy)

She gave a fistbump, brought her fist to her heart and left me speechless. She was pushing 80 years-old and had about one foot in the grave. However, she was amazing at slang. Slang is a different language here Madagascar. Adults have no idea what teenagers are talking about if they are using only slang (teny bandy).

Mamo Be:

First time I've bawled on my mission. We were passing by a group of adults gorging themselves on the sweet-smelling Malagasy moonshine. They started catcalling us, and blabbering about how they needed religion. "Mila fivavahana izahay, avia e!" I told them that we wouldn't come back if they were drunk, and they were like, "Hah! Can't promise that!" I made a face like, "Welp, whatever." So, we set up a time. When we came to the set appointment, they weren't drunk; we kneeled down to pray with them, and they were attentive. We didn't teach any message, but we shared that we only teach people that want to change. We shared a small message about the healing power of the Holy Ghost. They began to reveal all the problems in their lives: they are three siblings, their dad died, their mom has cancer, one of them is a prostitute with a half-white baby, the two dudes don't have any work, all the kids are suffering from sicknesses ranging from pneumonia, polio, etc.), nobody wants to help them and they spend what little money they have on alcohol. While they were sharing their stories, I couldn't stop crying; I felt so horrible for them. We usually focus on more stable families, but in this case we decided to give them a deal that we would only teach them if they came to church. And sure enough, they came to church! We stopped by after church, and they said three days is longest they've ever gone without alcohol.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Lalim-paka:

'Lalina' and 'faka' literally mean 'deep' and 'roots.' However, when combined, it becomes 'profound.' Nice.

Stories for Next Week:

-Yaya

-Gasy Bobo

-Vazimba and Biby Olona

-Pillow Prayer

-Ward Activity

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Things are going great in Tamatave!

Ry Fianakaviana,

Here's the view from a bridge we cross every day.

Rich people have tall walls lined with barbed wire, glass shards and other dangerous substances (acid, drugs, swords, etc.).

Another cow beach pic.

Me and Monson wearing helmets in Alexander's house, a man with a dozen kids and a car (not common here in Madagascar).

This is Chantony's family! I love these people. They call me the 'mpivavaka comique' (comic religious person). Elder Price baptized Chantony about 2 months ago, and he's moving to Tana to go to a fancy-schmance school. He wants to go to BYU! Elder Monson and I have just started teaching the mom and dad, and we'll see how that goes.

This is Chantony's house; their family is one of the richest in Madagascar. His dad owns a lot of clubs, hotels, car dealers and expensive stuffs. We had a nice chat with a creepy, rich French guy over a couple glasses of wine/juice--has a 30 year-old wife...

Teaching English.

The average path in our area, just a little prettier.

This is Elder Freestone that came in Elder Monson's group. He's chubby, Asian missionary that talks really quietly, and when I tried to joke around with him, he kept saying, "Okay, guy." Mahamasina is his area in Antananarivo, which is famous for having a ridiculously giant hill that the missionaries climb up and down every day. During the training meeting, everybody was busting up laughing because when he read his call and it said 'Mahamasina,' he quietly said, "Oh gosh no."

Looks like this house is a little TIRED

This has been a great week!  We're seeing a crazy amount of success that I almost feel it can't last too long. I'm pretty dang vizaka right now. Fun experiences this week!

Celeste:

We tracting into the jewel of a man last week. He is the "President" of 12-12, the center of our area where about 4,000 people; however, he lives in a very humble home. His wife addresses him only by 'president,' haha. Anyways, I hope you guys can visualize my description well, because Celeste's mannerisms are what make him one of my favorite Malagasy people yet. When a joke is made, Celeste slowly closes his eyes, slightly lifts his chin up, smirks and gives the most rich person sounding chuckle. Or, he'll shake his head slowly while biting down on his tongue. Being one of the most attentive investigators I've ever had, his hands are locked on the table as he maintains an intense, interested expression throughout the whole lesson, making satisfied grunts when he hears something he likes. He treats each lesson like a meeting: starts with opening remarks and announcements and ends with profound, thought-provoking rhetoric questions. I might send more descriptions of Celeste because he is too interesting to be described over email only.

Haja the Security Man:

There's this 25 year-old security guard that works at our church. We always have fun little conversations while we're passing by, but one day, he said he wanted to learn. I assumed he was already a member for a different branch, but he got a hold of a BoM that one of the guards from the previous shifts had left. Then, he received an impression that he should ask about the Book of Mormon. We've taught him a couple times; he came to church, and now he's got a baptism date!

J-Dubs:

We tracted into this house of a guy named Joseph. When he came out, he whipped his head back and started laughing. He invited us in, and we soon realized that he had just let a pair of Jehovah's Witness missionaries into his house. They had all of their books opened up, and their angry reaction was priceless! They told him that it wasn't acceptable to investigate two religions at once, and he said, "Why not?" The J-Dubs were just about to finish their spiel, but Joseph let us start sharing our message. During our message, the J-Dubs were visibly frustrated, as they kept fidgeting in their chairs, standing up, pacing, looking over my shoulder at our Bible. They tried to bible bash with us, but Joseph told them to not try to mock our message. Once we were done, Joseph invited us to come back, but rejected the J-Dubs. Heh, sorry J-Dubs.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Mifandrombaka:

Mifandrombaka means 'everyone is in competition at once.' I used it in an example where everybody is trying to get on a taxibe and only a certain amount of people can get on before people are hanging off or left in the dust. The taxibe is related to the path to heaven, and this helps answer a common question that Malagasies have about the amount of people that can get into to heaven. There is always a seat in heaven for everyone to take, but it's up to them to get to the busstop on time before it leaves to the countryside.

Stories for Next Week

-Yaya

-Gasy Bobo

-Old, English-Obsessed Dadabe

-Vazimba & Biby Olona

-Pillow Prayer

The stories are starting to pile up, oh no.

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Akory alinareo!

The work is going great with Elder Monson! He's an awesome humble hardworker.

An amusement park where everything is man-powered. Elder Parraga (way awesome guy by the way) and I took a ride for about 17 cents each. Three Malagasies took turns climbing towers on each side of the ferris wheel, jumping onto the spokes, riding it down, jumping off, rinse and repeat. They were dead-tired at the end, but they seem to have a blast doing it.

A beach that marks the edge of my area (I usually don't proselyte in the ocean). It'd been fun to try to canoe around to the fishers and be a literal fisher of men, heh. This part of my area is called Canada. No idea why.

Cow migration on the beach. They interrupted our 15 minute soccer game session with our investigators.

Some lil' buds doing flips.The mode of transportation for kids starting at age 5 is cartwheels and handsprings.

Gabriel from Good Smelling Rock: This was an odd experience, the kind you hear in the Liahona, maybe. I got a call from a contact [unknown], and this guy named Gabriel said he wanted to meet up with us at the church at 4. Turned out that time slid perfect into our program, so we went on over. A jumbo man climbed out of a way fancy Porsche, and as he walked up to us, I realized it was a guy that I contacted on the street once in Antananarivo, my first area. He said he is from a place called Vatomanitra (Good Smelling Rock), a place near Tamatave, and he's some head honcho boss-man of the government for the North-East region. Apparently, he is the one who allowed the church to be established here in Tamatave. We taught him in the Restoration, and he understood like nobody I've ever seen. I couldn't help but feel like he was acting or had already been taught, because he answered every question right on and more. By the end of the lesson, he said he wants to establish the church in Vatomanitra. Way weird/cool. We'll see how the next lesson will go. Heh, probably a ghost.

Dead Dog Tale: Every day this week, we've seen an injured or dead, mangled dog. It's getting pretty depressing. We've had to scoot them out of the street with our feet, stop people for kicking dogs and other similar, sad experiences. 

A French Experience: A random, brawny dude invited us in to teach him and his buddies. He spoke in French, but luckily I inferred his intentions correctly and walked right in. We walked into this French fashion theme lounge with the smell of Marijuana everywhere, very contrary to Madagascar. We started to introduce ourselves, but we soon realized they barely could speak a lick of Malagasy. It was a surreal experience to try teach some Malagasies in their "supposedly" native language, but they didn't receive any of it. We ended up just sitting there in silence for about 5 minutes before leaving. I did say, "Au revoir les mecs," right though!

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Andriamanitra

Andriamanitra means God. However, it technically means 'good-smelling king.' The reason that it means God is because though the body is not seen, there is some fragrancy or feeling attending the name. When 'Andriamanitra' is said in the right circumstances, Malagasies believe that God's spirit pours alongside the spirits of their deceased ancestors (razambe) into them and guides their actions. In addition, Malagasies not only believe in and trust a variety of idols, but they believe that each and rank and position of men have their own particular deity. That means the rich possess a wealthy god, the impoverished a poor god or even the blind a sightless god. These old Malagasy ways do get in the way of progress sometimes, but I think it's pretty dang cool.

Stories for Next Week

-Yaya

-Pillow Prayer

-Celeste

I saved my best stories for next week! Pillow Prayer and Celeste are probably my two favorite experiences I've had here in Tamatave!

HAGS--have a great summer, lol. Love you all so much,

Elder Soper

New companion: Elder Monson!

Ry Fianakaviana,

We had an arm wrestling competition to see who got to do the dishes.

Dope sunset with some dope trainees

Spiders next to the elders' house...

Our roof--nice...

View from our roof

Elder Monson

Having a great time with my "son." (mission lingo for new trainee) Elder Monson is already flippin' good at Malagasy, and he writes a ton of words every day in addition to the corrections I write down for him. Gonna be Vita Gasy in no time us two. He's already has a great love for the very coarse and kinetic Malagasy lifestyle: the crazy kids, the constant noise and rigorous work.

Starting to Use Bikes = Sore Bums:

Our program was bit all over the place the last couple days because I had to travel to Antananarivo for a lil' bit. In order to catch all our important peeps, we used our beyond repair bikes. Mine had no seat except for a small, pathetic, plastic representative, and Elder Monson's chain kept falling off. As a result, these last two days were a blast. They consisted of dozens of catcalls from Malagasies, a lot of running into fences, getting caught in sandpits and saying appropriate, angry words. My bum is suffering today.

Drunk Antandroy Preacher:

This was actually way fun. We showed up to some return times with a little yard full of Antandroy families. Antandroy is one tribe from the South of Madagascar. I'm up in the North-East region of Madagascar, so I have no idea what they're saying. Their dialect is not mutually intelligible at all with most of the dialects in Madagascar. In my opinion, it's not Malagasy anymore, haha. Anyway, we noticed that they were all drinking together, so the grandpa took us into a room and started preaching/bellowing to us. Throughout arms flailing, belly and pecs flapping and phrases like "Jesus Christ is the water of life" or "Jesus Christ can move mountains, cause a star to fall and destroy the world," Elder Monson and I calmly sat on his couch, enjoying the experience for about ten minutes--pretty dang fun.

President Paul's:

Every Sunday each fortnight, we have a soiree (dinner appointment) with our District President. He's the boss of all the police here in Tamatave, and as soon as you meet him, you know who's the boss. Sometime, I'll send a picture. Can't think of a way to describe him. Chubby buff? Scary kind? Malagasy Hulk? His wife is a hilarious, master chef. The food she cooks has converted me to Malagasy food--a testimony of rice is developing now. She also lets us each take a bottle of her homemade fruit juice, delicious. 

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Sopiera:

Sopiera is my official nickname here. A 'sopiera' is a white bowl/pot with flowery design, a flat-bottom and a lid.  It's uses include: decoration, keeping rice warm and as an extra seat. Every time I tract, the Malagasy always realizes my name sounds like 'sopiera,' then they chuckle a bit, bust a gut or think my name is really weird. It's extremely helpful for getting into houses because it makes the Malagasy comfortable quick, and it's an easy name to remember. Plus, they like rice, so anything to do with rice is usually beloved.

Stories for Next Week:

-Yaya

-Saving a Puppy (don't know how to tell it, heh)

Love you all so much!

Elder Soper

Gonna Have a Son...

Ry Fianakaviana,

Tamatave is still great! I'm as tired as can be, but at least the bedbugs haven't been biting for the last couple weeks. It was a blast to spend time with President Foote, the spiritual BFG. He rivals Dad with his story-telling ability. He told about the amazing and stressful process that goes into building a temple--he built the Reno Temple, and he told an inspiring story of flying a plane essentially blind with no hood, being battered by glass and freezing wind.

Turns out, I'll be training this next transfer due to the "death" of Elder Price (finishing his mission this transfer). Elder Price was an awesome companion--easy-going and hardworking. I still don't know who my trainee is or where he's from, but I'm going down to Antananarivo on Wednesday to pick him up. I'm trying to think of some strategies to weird him out the first couple days. Maybe when I wake up, I'll cockadoodledoo and tickle him a bit. Then, I'll cook him the most disgusting breakfast I can. 

Price, Price, Price

Impoverished kids standing on a pile of trash as happy as can be.

Elder Price and I went one last walk on the beach to reminisce about his mission.

We had 5 baptisms this last Saturday. Two were the kids of a recent convert, and the other 3 were our most diligent investigator family. The dad is getting baptized in 2 weeks because his mom unexpectedly died last week, so he's in the countryside. My shirt is soaking wet because I forgot to pack a second shirt, heh! I had the opportunity to confirm the two kids of the recent converts yesterday.

Playing chess with some Chinese-Malagasies (I lost and threw the chess board over)

That Price Thang: 

You'd think the man was old, but he worked way hard with me in his last weeks. He didn't really mind not visiting old investigators and members to say goodbye. He was good with being a normal missionary 'til the end. 

This following quote might be easily found on the internet; even so, he said it to Sister Foote, and it quickly became extremely awkward.

Last Elder Price Quote: "On a scale of 1 to America, how free are you tonight?"

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Mikisam-Body:

Mikisaka --> to creep

Vody --> butt (bad word when referring to a person)

When you put these two words together, you get 'mikisam-body,' which means to 'scoot on your butt.' I don't know why a missionary would need to know these words, but I've been using a lot in lessons for some odd reason. In one lesson, I gave the example that Satan is just scootin' on his bum, trying to grab our legs, and we can literally step right over him. Horrible example, but whatever; they liked it.

Stories for Next Week

-Yaya

-President Paul's

Love you all so much!

Elder Soper