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