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