Another great week here in Madagascar...

Ry Fianakaviana,

This monsieur is 100 years-old. He kept saying in a high-pitched, trembling voice, "I'm really tired. I need to lie down." He knows what his body needs; that's why he's made it so far.

Hey everybody! How are the kids? Nice. Good to hear. Another great week here in Madagascar. This week went by pretty fast seeing that I caught a pretty intense cold and fever. Luckily it wasn't severe enough to prevent me from working, but I probably put investigators off when I started coughing and sneezing all over their stuff in addition to my constant wailing and throwing sand on my head habit. I was bit off. Hopefully I'll recover quick.

Elder Monson's Progress:

Elder Monson is literally training himself. He's got an odd, savant skill where he can hear something and repeat it perfectly. Sometimes, he'll repeat some of my favorite phrases that I say when I can't think of anything, and I'll be like, "Hey, that was mine ya jackwagon!" Just kidding, but it's easy to see he's a flippin' prodigy with Malagasy. I think he may be one of the best ever to come out of the MTC, and I'm lucky to be able to train this bloke.

Franck's Cyst:

One of our recent converts, Franck, lives in a little bamboo hut on the side of the main river in Tamatave. He's always a basketcase. Either he has a fever or flu, pneumonia, and now he has a gigantic, pulsing cyst under his armpit. We had to teach him while staring at this revolting thing sit there. Franck was not shy about it though, but he should have in my opinion. The river he lives by is literally a landfill. Some Malagasies push around big carts, knock on doors, yell, "Fako! Fako! Fako!" (trash) until you answer and they'll take all your poop for a price. Then, they push the cart to the mouth of the river or the beach and dump it all out just to earn a couple bucks. We think Franck is always sick because of the bad air from the river.

New Missionaries:

We got two trainees in our house. They split Nortje and Parraga's area, and they are both training. I was pretty relieved about that because they are probably some of my best friends on the mission so far. In our house now, we have Elder Bennett, a way buff lacrosse player, and Elder Shoemaker, a way tall, star basketball player. Both of them are awesome dudes, and our house is boss now.

Hitting my Head on Everything:

I've been hitting my brainholder on everything recently. Every time I stand up, I hit the roof. Every time I leave, I hit the door frame. Investigators think it's funny, but I'm slowly forgetting my childhood I think.

Danced w/ Drunk Guy:

Fun little experience. There was a drunk guy that was dancing and singing like Bruce Springsteen, a lot of gravely growling and belting with all the air in his lungs. At one point, he had one knee to the ground and his other hand to the sky. I joined in on the dance for a couple minutes while a group of Malagasies spectated. He taught me how to Tango.

Fight:

There was a lot of hub bub yesterday in our main work area. We saw a crowd of dozens of Malagasies crowded around cheering something on. Apparently, a major fight was going down. Whoa, cool! I want to see! Right as we got there. Everybody separated like Moses and the Red Sea--really surreal experience because all the people kept saying, "Here come the missionaries. They'll stop the fight." It felt like they were waiting for us. When we got through the crowd, we saw two drunk dudes, screaming at each other about how one stole the other's money. Hard to understand because they were mainly barking at the ground and emitting random, unintelligible grunts. But it was sad though, one of the guys is an investigator of ours. It was tough to see him all bloody and crying. Eventually, the police came = all good.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Patron'Aomby:

'Patron'Aomby' means rich dude who owns a lot of cows and attracts a lot of girls. There's a song called 'Patron'Aomby Barinjaka' that you all should look up and tell me about.

Stories for Next Week

-Pillow Prayer

-Don't Worry about Tomorrow

-Gino's Baby Laughing

-English Class Convo

Love you all so much!

Elder Soper