Starting a Preach My Gospel class...

Yo everybody!

So, the internet is down for most of the country here in Madagascar; apparently, a deep sea cable (that feeds Madagascar all of its internet connection) was chomped up by one of those nasty Kaiju rascals from Pacific Rim. Luckily, we were able to find a laboratory that uses a different type of connection: space connection I think.

The work is going great! A lot of the young men and women are preparing for missions, and we started teaching a "Preach My Gospel" class, which is a blast. Also, there was 100 people at church yesterday, which is a huge increase from the normal 75-80! The tough the thing is that right as sacrament meeting is done, everybody has an excuse to go home. Bluh. We'll figure it out.

In

Lift My Restraining Order:

Starting Tuesday, we started getting these unsettling texts that read, "Lift my restraining order now." After receiving this text about 5 times, I blocked the number. Our DMB Sandratra bought a new phone and was trying to mess with us. He later joked, "What the heck, man?! I'm try to apply my English knowledge! Why you block me?"

Soccer Addiction:

I gotta take it easy with the spontaneous games of soccer. On Saturday night, we played with some rough hoodlums that weren't scared to slidetackle on the hard dirt. I suffered some minor injuries because of this play. I had the ball and didn't see the guy sliding from the side. He swept my legs from under me, and I rolled a couple times, all the while flailing my arms and making as many grunts as I could to get a foul called. Just kidding, but I received a few nasty cuts and a ripped, muddy shirt. I need to start using that 12-step addiction recovery program the church has.

Fidelicia:

Cool quote from Fidelicia (after reviewing the 1st and the baptismal questions before their baptismal interviews next week): "We're ready to get baptized. I feel like Germain and I are adults forced to wear diapers in this branch. We're ready to receive callings and responsibility, as well as enjoy all the blessings of being a member, an actual part of this branch." This has turned out to be the best family Elder Kruger and I taught--her and her husband should be getting baptized on February 25th if their citizenship cards come in the mail on time. Pray for them!

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Midribble:

A lot of times, there is no Malagasy word that can describe a certain action or noun--usually because it's too modern. Kind of like my 6 year-old self who loved and wouldn't accept to wear anything but floods/mom pants, the Malagasy language can't really adapt or update itself. So what it does to survive is mooch off of French and English, creating these awkward, hybrid words. You can guess what 'midribble' means, heh.

Stories for Next Week:

-The Hopefully Classic Conversion of Roger

Love you all!

Elder Soper

New companion: Elder Shai!

Karakory Ma!

Bye bye to Elder Kruger. Hi Elder Shai. I love this guy! He makes me want to become the best missionary I can be. Only having been a member for about 5 years, he's so committed to helping this Mahajanga branch grow and get excited about missionary work. 

Elder Shai

Branch Activity:

We went to a nice, small on the edge of Mahajanga for a Young Men and Women's activity, Park Renalia. Sad thing is all the animals seem underfed and claustrophobic, which kind of takes away from the enjoyment. Instead of making you appreciate nature, it just makes you feel bad for littering. What I really want from a park is to be lulled into thinking all the animals in the world are smiling and plump, playing in the lilies. At least these parks are trying though.

Teaching Muslims:

One of our investigators invited us to teach the Restoration message in an Islamic school on Thursday. Thinking it was a trap, I demanded a big sum of money. Just kidding, we taught a quick lesson on our view of the Restoration and Plan of Salvation. They were very gracious and asked great questions. It turned out to be an edifying experience. I learned how to greet someone in the Muslim way:

"Salama legume."

"Legume salama, auramatolahy ambarakato."

Language barrier with Elder Shai:

I'm getting along well with Elder Shai, but sometimes we don't communicate too well, haha.  I don't know if it's the language barrier or what, but I struggle to understand what he says most of the time. Here's one conversation we had: 

Shai: "I like when they're hairy."

Me: "What? Like girls?"

Shai: "Yeah, and my girl must be tall."

Me: "No, wait. You like hairy girls?"

Shai: "Yes."

Me: "Like a hairy back is nice?"

Shai: "Yeah, and chubby."

Me: "What?!"

Shai: "Not too chubby, but I like it if she's stronger than me."

Me: "Elder Shai, I won't even tell you my opinion, but just know yours is wrong."

I may have totally misunderstood the topic, like maybe he was talking about big, strong men role models or something about his vision of bigfoot best friend like Harry and the Hendersons. I dunno.

Church is true! Read the Book of Mormon, and tell someone you love them!

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Saying goodbye to Elder Kruger...

Hey everybody!

For this next transfer, I'm losing Elder Kruger for he's on his way to the capital (Antananarivo) to a nice, countryside area called Sabotsy Namena. For me, I am getting an up and coming star named... Elder Shai! He's another South African bro, and he's going to be the 2nd counselor for Mahajanga branch when I leave. I've heard great things about the elder, and he's the same age as Elder Kruger and my trainee, Elder Monsen!

Though I gotta say, I'm grateful for the time I got to serve with Elder Kruger. He taught me a lot about "common sense?" Whatever that thing is. Just kidding, I just appreciated his principles of respect and love for investigators, plus he's an incredibly funny man. He'll be a lifelong friend of mine. 

A little video:

Hair makeover.  I can't stop laughing at this one of Elder Kruger.

 Benja sy Aina

Safidy:

Haha, this guy. He has a mental disability, seeing as he's about 34 years-old and lives with his parents who don't allow him to work. But, this guy loves Elder Kruger more than anything.  Every Tuesday, we pass by this guy's house, and he starts freaking out and hollering, "Kruger! Kruger!" Then, he scrambles over and mumbles with a nervous face, "Kruger, I just saw you from over there, and I just thought, 'Oh! There's Kruger, my friend!' So I'll go talk to him to figure out the... all the... ya know. Right?!" Right, Safidy.

He invited us in to share a quick spiritual thought. As we were going to duck under a ladder leaning on the side of his house, he desperately tried to remove it saying it was rude for him to leave it there. After bashing the ladder against a few walls, we saw a guy coming down from the roof and he told Safidy to stop because he needed the ladder to get down. Safidy just yelled at him, "You can wait!! Kruger's here!" We left the guy to sit there for about 10 minutes, haha!

During the spiritual thought, Safidy would randomly interupt and turn the conversation, "Sorry, Soper, if you don't mind me asking, how old is Kruger?" or "How many siblings does Kruger have?" or "What's Kruger's full name?" He was too scared to make a bad impression on Elder Kruger that he would even whisper the questions to me as to not disturb his idol. We ended the spiritual thought, and later, we saw him rapping to himself doing all those gangster motions with his arms in his backyard. Cool guy.

 Safidy

Foker and Lightning:

Here in Mahajanga, it is taboo to wear red clothes on a stormy day. If you are brash enough to don some red on a cloudy day, according to the myth, the lightning will land right on ya, leaving nobody around you harmed. Our Muslim investigator, Foker, was telling me that black magic sages, back in the medieval Madagascar times, would zap any simple peasant wearing red being as it was the color reserved only for royalty. Nowadays, these black magic users still control lightning to kill their enemies and to cut their kindling into the right size for cooking the food over charcoal. The former makes sense, but the latter seems like an underwhelming use of those awesome lightning powers.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Reveko:

Slang for 'I like.' However, it means to enjoy yourself in a noisy or obnoxious way. I like this one because it's based on the word 'to revel in.'

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Felix got married...

Hey everybody!

It's hot. Work's a-ok. Elder Kruger and I doing great! (More pictures at the end of this email.)

Felix's Wedding:

Felix and his wife are getting married! It was poignantly sweet that only Elder Kruger and I populated the chairs in the marriage hall. Normal Malagasy tradition is that there's needs to be an extravagant party full of expensive chicken, drinking, dozens of cars honking down the road, colorful dresses and suits. However, Felix wanted so bad to be baptized, he didn't wait to save up that money, but decided to save up his money for going to the temple. Here are some pictures!

 A little kiss, a little hug...

Blessing:

After Felix's wedding, we ran over to a member's house to give their 4 year-old grandson a blessing for the sick. For the past two months, this family hasn't had any good sleep or a moment of quiet time because the kid cries 24/7. I'm pretty sure he has muscular dystrophy: muscular stiffness, trouble sitting up, falls over a lot. During the blessing though, the kid kept straining his neck up to see who the heck was playing a weird version of Jenga on its head, and in self-defense of our laying on of hands, he started scratching at the priesthood with his nails. Little winces of pain showed through the blessing I was giving as I started to talk much faster, randomly emphasizing and yelling a random word in each sentence when the kid would dig his nail into my skin. When it was done, he stopped crying, which was a good sign, but he gave me a look like, "What the heck were you just doing to me?" 

Bike Race at Hotel De Ville:

Conveniently, on our way to one time, we were able to stop and cheer on Elder Kruger's favorite investigator, Lova, in the esteemed yearly Mahajanga bike race. Unfortunately, Lova's bike broke, so he was forced to stop halfway through, which stunk because he finished 2nd the year before.

But, it was totally worth coming to the race, because near the end, something horrible almost happened. A large, fancy Ford Ranger truck came barrelling in on the bike track without permission from the police directing the traffic. Noticing his mistake, he tried to zoom off to avoid trouble. But as karma would have it, another policeman had just allowed a bus to enter the same street, abruptly cutting off the truck's getaway. The truck turned hard to the right, lost control, then veered to the left as the tail swung out and bashed into a cement pole, untimely totaling his new truck. Soon following, throngs of Malagasies, whooping and hollering, sprinted over to see the mess. It was crazy. Luckily nobody was hit.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Volamena & Mavokely:

Two of the most frustrating words in Malagasy. Whoever created them must've also thought of the pronunciation for colonel and bologna in English. 'Volamena' technically means gold, however 'vola' by itself means money, and 'mena' by itself means red. When I look at gold, my first thought isn't, "Mmm.. that's red. That shiny, yellow stuff is kind of red." Then, to make things worse, 'mavokely' means pink. Broken apart, 'mavo' alone means yellow, and 'kely' means little. Which is saying, pink is 'a little yellow.' Ah, I've never thought about it that way--probably because yellow has literally no flippin' business to do with pink!!

Stories for Next Week

-Apostate Flimflam

-Foker and Lightning

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Found this gigantic chameleon in the middle of the road. It's bite hurt worse than I thought it would.

Elder Kruger wanted a flexing pic, but it's been awhile since I've known how to flex--just curl your arms and make an angry face right?