Awesome spiritual experience...

Dear Fambly!

Great week! Even though there's still some lingering pain from being kicked out of Manakambahiny because of the Bubonic Plague.  This quote one of my friends sent me by the writer Jack Handey, however, gives me comfort:

"Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago, an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But, in the future, maybe we’ll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs."

So, the pain that was rendered because of the sudden evacuation will be rewarded. But maybe I can get revenge on the plague somehow? I could let myself get infected, and then punch myself in the stomach? I dunno.

Our good karma though is already coming to fruition! It's been about 1 and half weeks, and we've found some of my favorite investigators I've ever found! We had 6 new investigators we found this last week come to church as well!

In addition, Elder Armstrong is doing great! He's a more calm, reserved guy, but we've found a groove in how we work together. It started off with writing down simple phrases he could use throughout the day on notecards. Then it moved to just lots of roleplays. But now, this next week, I'm gonna try to throw him under the bus, and let him lead all the lessons. 

There's a special power that a trainee brings because every time Elder Armstrong invites someone to be baptized (as the First Twelve Weeks training book suggests the trainee should do) they always accept! It's as if a complicated explanation of goals and differences between our church isn't needed--just a direct invitation.

Administering the Sacrament

Awesome, spiritual experience. When I was here a year and half ago, my Malagasy companion and I found this guy named Florent through tracting. I heard he got baptized later on and was way diligent, but I was worried because I didn't see him at church on Sunday. Luckily, the Elder Quorum President noticed that too, and he took us and a few men to administer the sacrament to him!

Florent's face lit up once we entered, and he exclaimed, "You were the first one to give me a Book of Mormon! Look! I finished it!" His book was full of marks and notes and destroyed by water. I asked him if he wanted a new one, and he said, "No. This one may be ugly, but what's inside is what I love." Turns out he's also the Sunday School President now! Great guy!

He lifted up his shirt to reveal all these horrible inflammations, and I immediately thought, "Whoa! Plague!" But apparently it was just an especially bad case of the Shingles. We sat down, and two of the men with us started to prepare the sacrament. They administered the sacrament with so much respect and care that I couldn't help but tear up during the prayers. After that, I shared a quick spiritual thought from 3 Nephi 18, and Florent then sheepishly said he felt prompted to request a blessing, gesturing over to me. Already on the verge of tears, I struggled to speak during the start of the blessing. Then, I sobbed and sobbed. I probably started babbling out random, incoherent phrases while spitting and crying all over Florent's head and the hands of the other men. Who knows what came out of my mouth? All I know that it was the love of God that I felt. In all honestly, I've had very few witnesses of the Spirit in my life, so it was pretty shocking and unexpected to feel the Spirit in such an overwhelming way. I love this Gospel. I know that the administering of the sacrament, blessings and ordinances in this church are done through the priesthood, the same priesthood held by the disciples of Christ. Because of this, I know my family is forever!

 One of the funniest missionaries ever - Elder Dlokova

His goal is to sound like an African King when he speaks Malagasy haha

 Tracting o! If there was stat for how many houses we get into, it would be around

5% - Nice houses

50% - Not nice houses

 Filoha Jacquot (First Counselor in the mission presidency

He was in my previous ward.

 Ominous castle house

 Elder Dlokova knocked over the chalkboard in his first district meeting.

 Baptism of Faly and his Mampionona (tracted into them in Manakambahiny) thanks to the Ward Mission Leader there!!

 My trainee!

Elder Freestone is an Japanese-American famous for breaking everything he touches.

Cultural Tidbits about Madagascar

The sun goes down here at 6.

Teaching a family of 9 in 7' by 7' house is normal.

Xhosa Morsel of the Week - Qiniseka Emsebenzini

I'm slowly learning Xhosa (jus' for fun) from Elder Dlokova, the language with all the clicks and stuffs from South Africa. 

These two words mean "focus on the work." The 'q' is a soft click with tongue in the front of the mouth.

Love you all!

Elder Soper

A lot happened in the past two weeks...

Hoo golly. A lot happened in the past two weeks.

Monday: The poop hits the fan. Sorry about the foul language.

    After playing our Monday Ping Pong Master's tournament with our suits on (on a little 4 by 6 foot table), we went to the bishop's house to do a service project. During the project, they voiced concern about the Bubonic Plague might hit our area in the coming weeks--a little ominous prophecy I suppose. "Psh, yeah right," said my undeveloped, 20 year-old mind who thinks I'm invincible and nothing bad can happen to me, "It's only in other dirtier areas!"

An hour later, I got a call just we sat down to email that made my heart sink straight to my butt, a call from President Foote. All my investigators names flooded into my thoughts,

Right as I answered the phone, President hurriedly commanded, "You and your companion have an hour to evacuate. Go grab your stuff. Leave what's not important. Unplug the outlets. Bring your Area Book." Not many words were said as Elder Stromberg, his new trainee, my new trainee and I packed up. The area had just been split, and the work was what you call "going peachy" when calling in stats. All the families we were working on are still going to get baptized soon, but it just stinks we can't be there... Mine and Elder Armstrong's area will have 6 baptisms this Saturday, and Elder Stromberg's area will have 4. Darn. Cool and still great in an eternal perspective, but darn.

Now, Elder Armstrong and I are in Antsirabe! Despite the things that have happened, we are remaining positive!

In the past few days though, there has been so many tender mercies. All the displaced elders came to Antsirabe depressed; there was a negative air hanging around with everything we did. But once we got down here, the members received us with such warmth and excitement that we can't help but realize maybe God has a different direction for us. We have received so many referrals (probably pity referrals haha) that are very valuable! Within 4 days of work, we got 2 new families to General Conference this Sunday, and the members helped us pick them up! I absolutely love the members here in Antsirabe!

Service Project

Desperate to create a program on the fly, we asked around about service projects, and Elder Armstrong and I got a meeting with the local leaders in Antsirabe! They gave us all the times of the cleaning projects around town in the next couple weeks. Every set of elders and sisters were assigned an area to go rake and burn trash--in an effort to prevent the plague from coming to Antsirabe--for a couple hours before General Conference. (Burning trash ironically is the opposite of being green, but that's how Malagasies clean; we ended up burning two dead dogs too ugh). Though, the highlight was the leaders that represented each sector of the town generously gave us some time at the end of the project to invite everybody to General Conference and to learn from us! We got over 15 new investigators in our area, and the zone got over 60 altogether! My head hurts way bad though from the toxic trash smoke.

Odd Work Assignments

Right now, I have no zone leader companion here in Antsirabe. I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the money, finding new houses, buying emergency gear, etc. In addition, we're taking two days of our program to visit a remote village called Manandona about 70km from Antsirabe. It's honestly all exciting, but I feel a bit unorganized. There's about 19 missionaries here in Antsirabe when there was previously 6. So, things are a bit tight. I love my mission haha!

There's so many more experiences I want to share this week, but due to lack of time, I'll save them. Here's an overwhelming list of stories I want to write about in the coming weeks.                

Other Fun ExperiencesØ

+ Failing to Teach in French

+ General Conference

+ Landy, Tony and Lalaina

+ President Bruno

+ Zone Conference Skit

+ Learning Xhosa

+ Funniest Type of Referral                                                                                                                                                                           

Love you all!

Elder Soper  

                                       

New companion--Elder Armstrong...

Elder Soper was too busy to send a full letter this week, but he did pass along a handful of pictures (below).  He is training a new companion--Elder Armstrong--and staying in the same area to continue to work as a zone leader with Elder Stromberg (probably until the end of his mission).  He looks happy...

Jean Louis

Sidoniah, Cyrile and Tafita

Vincent and Hanitra

Our apartment's stairs

Dealing with the Bubonic Plague...

Dear Family and Friends,

Great picture of Elder Lesch getting his birthday wish from President Foote after just being smashed with eggs and flour.  (Elder Stromberg is still my companion until I get my new trainee. Elder Lesch is one our district leaders.)

"Teach me!"

Funny "caught red-handed" moment with one of our great recent converts named Joseph. To start the lesson, I asked who would pray, and Joseph quickly pointed to his 7 year-old son. Shaking his head, the son declined. As Malagasy parents usually do, Joseph chastised him saying, "You are in my house, and you do as I say." The son suddenly turned towards him and barked, "I can't pray because you don't teach me how! I tell you to read the BoM, but only Mom and I do! Teach me how to pray, and I'll teach how to read the BoM!" Joseph went completely pale. I thought it was funny, but now that I look back at it, it was a bit awkward, haha!

Bubonic Plague

There's been an outbreak here in Madagascar in a beach province called Tamatave. It still hasn't traveled here to the main city, but we're taking precautions anyways. Bubonic plague is transferred by fleas, especially fleas from rats--Ratatouille = no no. Our houses are spotless; we drenched everything with bugspray; we don't touch any animals; I think we're good. Fortunately, the bubonic plague is a very curable and preventable disease. Yet, it's horrible history and already audibly gross name add to the worry.

So, the transfer news came in!   It's been pretty ridiculous since every elder (about 10) has been pulled out of Tamatave like I mentioned. Now, they're these vagabond missionaries just acting like skintags and annoying, vestigial appendages jumping from area to area. 

President Foote brought all the zone leaders in for a special transfer planning meeting. We all decided together what to do with these extra stragglers: where to split areas, where to make trios and how to make them feel like they're are still useful. Sadly, there's a lot of investigators waiting to be baptized up in Tamatave, and there's little hope the missionaries will return within the next few transfers. Crazy. 

Splits

Went on 3 splits this week, which is taxing because it takes about an hour and a half to drive to an area on the edge of our zone. As a result, we wake up at 4:30 in the morning and start our journey in order to get both companionships back home at the right time (8:00 AM) for studies. Blugh.

The first split was with the seasoned cook, Elder Jakins, who has lost over 50 pounds on his mission. He used to work at Subzero as a manager, and he gave me a sales pitch to why Subzero ice cream is the best ice cream and I, missing the taste of true ice cream, was totally sold and converted. We also calculated how many ice creams--the main reason, he attributed, to him becoming fat--he may have eaten in his life. Three a week, 52 weeks, 2 and half years=almost 400! Anyways, I loved my split with Elder Jakins because we talked all this great food besides rice. Plus, he woke up early, did our dishes and swept the floor!

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Splitting the Area...

Dear Family and Friends,

It's official that Elder Stromberg and I will be splitting the area, both training and trying to effectively zone lead at the same time. In the past weeks, we were silent about the split because we were both terrified. Eventually, we both spoke up about how we want the area to be split, but neither of us could be satisfied. After what seemed like a "final" decision, either him or I would reveal that they didn't like the split. Each area is full of wonderful investigators, and neither of us could give some of them up. It was like ripping off fresh bandaids, putting them back on, ripping it off again and then getting punched in the groin. To solve the dilemma, we ended up trading investigators like cards, each one on the verge of tears as team stars like Vincent and Hanitra was transferred to Elder Stromberg and Sarobidy was given to Elder Soper.

Finally, we're both satisfied, and the split is even. Now, I have three more months on my mission, and I intend to make the most of it!

Elder Lesch

Fell in a poopy gutter...

Delicious spicy chutney

Gospel Principles Model

Everybody in the Relief Society was convinced I was in the Gospel Principles book after they had a lesson based on Chapter 14: Priesthood Organization. The title picture shows three priests, one kneeling in the middle doing to the sacrament prayer. Apparently, the Relief Society was in a civil war, some swearing that I was the priest on the far left while the other said it looked nothing like me. They went so far as to take me and Elder Stromberg from our Elders Quorum and call us into the Relief Society room in order to compare me and the picture just to prove it was me haha. Too bad it wasn't me. I hated seeing how disappointed Sr. Fanja was, a little, toothless lady that was the leader of the group claiming I was a Gospel Principle model.

Stake Conference

All of the surrounding wards and their missionaries attended our church building for the stake conference. I'm so glad it was held at our church building. We had 22 investigators! If all goes right, we should have 4 baptisms in the next two weeks. And eventually, many more in the next 3 months.

A highlight from the stake conference was this one RM's invitation he gave during his talk. He asked everybody to close their eyes (most everybody did), think about a loved one that is not a member and make a plan of how to bring the missionaries over to teach them. The way he led up to the invitation was wonderful, sharing a touching story about his dad finally accepting the gospel that left most everybody in tears. Afterwards, we had 4 people promptly run up to us eagerly promising they would have someone for us to teach the very next Sunday. Awesome!

Love you all!

--

Elder Soper

Madagascar Antananarivo Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Elder Stromberg is a great missionary...

Dear Fambly,

Great week again! My companion, Elder Stromberg, is a great missionary. He never wants to waste time. Even when he obviously should stay inside to rest because he's super sick, he insists he can work. He's been one of my favorite companions, and most likely, I'll be in the same house with him until the end of my mission, seeing as we are going to split our area and both train. I'm so glad this is how my mission will end because we bring the best out of each other--more diligence, more jokes and better teaching. Great guy.

$1.66 steak we cooked

Walking to a time with Haja

Photo shoot w/ our recent convert Joseph

Cesaire and his bananas

Awesome soiree with President Jacquot.

Primary activity - Royalty Theme

Teaching a crawfish

Ankadindratombo (pretty spot in our area--little strip of land with a railroad on it in between two rivers)

Kid with a burning broom

Hanging a ladder by a rope to paint the wall 

But are they real Ray Bans?

Here's two funny stories:

Blaise

Always drunk, always respectful. He goes around stopping people on the street with a "Uhh.. Hello sir! Can I stop you for a minute?" If you happen to get stopped by Blaise, he will have a polite conversation with you about your day, your kids, your work, and then he'll end with, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" No thanks, Blaise. Help yourself first, haha! I've honestly never seen him not drunk. To add to his great personality, Blaise also considers himself a Mormon! It started once he came to church months ago when my past companion, Elder Bingham--not realizing he was drunk--randomly invited him on the path. Way too enthusiastically, Blaise sprinted over and expressed how ready was to finally change. As church started, Blaise was amazed at everything: the "fine workmanship of the ceiling and pews", how "quiet" it was and the power and spirit he felt during the bishop's talk--he literally nodded a full 90 degrees after every sentence. After church, he revealed, with wide drunk eyes, that he wanted to be baptized! We countered, "Come to church again, and we'll see!" He didn't come the next week...

Then! Yesterday evening, Blaise suprised us as we rounded a corner. He first said sorry a few times for scaring us, and then said, "I came to church again! It was wonderful!" We didn't see him at all during sacrament meeting, so we replied, "No you didn't, Blaise." Sincerely offended, he cried, "I did! I really did! Trust me. I stayed all three hours." Laughing, we left a disappointed Blaise to drink the night away.

Later that night, while putting in stats, the elders in the other ward that meets in our building told us that a guy named Blaise showed up to their sacrament meeting, stayed all three hours and exclaimed he wanted to be baptized to the priesthood quorum, haha! Elder Stromberg and I laughed so hard. Though drunk 24/7, I guess he's a progressing investigator.

Sinus Infection

I've been a fortunate soul on my mission. I haven't been sick nearly as much on my mission if compared to other Madagascar missionaries. I've honestly become like a mom to a couple of my companions, providing fungal ointments and moleskine when and where needed. When it comes to Elder Stromberg, he's been ravaged by fleas, bedbugs, athlete's foot, gas pains and currently a mad sinus infection. The ironic thing is I warned him a couple nights ago to not blow his nose too hard as to cause inflammation. After not heeding my prophetic counsel, he woke up the next morning not being able to shake his head without wincing in pain, haha! I felt way bad, but I couldn't help but feel empathetic to how Tommy feels when he warns all of us, and we don't listen.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Genagenaka

Thrilling

Love you all!

Elder Soper