Awesome week!

Hey everybody!

Awesome week! A lot of people came to church; we're getting a lot of valuable referrals and street contacts; and, we found a delicious, hole-in-the-wall (which is like every shop in Madagascar) restaurant which is spicing up our lives like none other.

My Sludge Bud

Elder Bingham keeps falling into the rice patties, which is horrible--walking around with a leg covered in pee/mud sludge. Just as I was joking about adding training wheels to his ankles, the edge of the path he was walking on crumbled down and his leg slid straightway into a poop river. I had a great laugh.

Mamy & Josy

Picture the stereotypical Jehovah's Witness, tall and lanky with glasses and that's Mamy. I met his family in the cyber last week and helped them open up a Gmail account and make a Facebook post about their son's graduation. Randomly, his wife blurted out that they were going through a hard time mourning the loss of a newly born son. Keeping in mind these people are heavy duty, 4x4 Jehovah's Witnesses with leadership positions in the church, we started off firing on all cylinders. I've never taught somebody that understood the Restoration faster than Mamy; he loves the idea of the fulness of the gospel, and I think he liked our explanation that those baptized into another church are "still not baptized,"-- because of the absence of the priesthood, the baptism is still not full. We used an example that if my pinky toe were to come out of the water in a baptism by immersion, I would have to be baptized again, but that doesn't mean I was baptized twice; I was just still not finished. They have a pretty shaky baptismal date for August 5th! Mamy accepted, but his wife said she needs to ask Jehovah.

Sifu Desire:

This guy, named Sifu Desire, is doing great! He came to church with his wife and loves everything about Joseph Smith. He has already prayed in his fair share of churches, and he likes to compare himself to Joseph.  it's a good start, haha.

Lucid Dreams

I started taking my multivitamin, vitamin C and vegetable pills at night instead of morning, and the result is these incredibly realistic, yet odd dreams. Last night, I dreamed Elder Bingham was trying culture me more about the skater dude lifestyle, teaching me about rap and wearing cool clothes. In the dream, I looked down to see myself wearing a really baggy gray jacket and pants that are, according to Bingham's teachings, "distressed"--pants that are ripped, bleached and like floods. I felt way fresh. He brought me to a party full of famous rappers like Kendrick Lamar and J Cole, and for some reason I lied to them that I was a recent convert into the Mormon church, and they all really respected my decision, all of them saying they wish they could receive an answer to their prayers. I was way confused. But just as the party was getting good, Elder Bingham told me we had to start work, and I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm a missionary!" Then he threw me a pickaxe, and I remember thinking, "Am I gonna tract with this?!" We hopped in a big Land Rover and sped down the road, turned sharply into a little alleyway, forcing all the Malagasies desperately scramble up the walls to avoid not being hit. Skidding around one corner we bashed into the wall, knocking over huge piles of charcoal, quickly jumped out of the car, sprinted into a random shop and opened up a trap door. Climbing in, we couldn't see anything, and after hours of walking in pitch black, the path opened up into this expansive, amazing quarry/mine. In the mine we could see millions of little torches and Malagasies mining for minerals, and I couldn't stop excitedly saying, "This is awesome Bingham! Thanks man!" Weird dream, but I loved it.

French! Morsel of the Week - Poupin & Poussin:

Missionaries here in Madagascar have a weird complex when it comes to the French language. Taking on the racist Malagasy mindset, they refuse to learn French, even though it's essential to know a good amount due to the fact that any vocabulary that is more modern is always French. If you want to fix a car, all the parts are in French. Malagasy is too primitive. I swear there are better American patriots here in Madagascar than in America. Malagasies love comparing the "relaxed, beautiful" American lifestyle to the "uptight, racist, but nasally proficient" French culture. As a result, the American missionaries adopt the same biased perspective and love telling Malagasies, "Whoa, do I look French to you?! Nah way, I am not good at French!"

Anyways, 'poupin' means 'chubby', and 'poussin' means 'chick'--some common slang words I hear often.

Love you!

Elder Soper