Brownies in Madagascar...

Dear Family and friends,

Awesome week! 

Fun Sunday

We had 16 investigators at church yesterday! Woot. I felt a bit overwhelmed with what I was asked to do at church. Somehow, the responsibility always slides through the cracks to the bottom of the crevice, where I'm lying, just asking for a nap and some water. I ended up having to play piano, and teach 2nd hour and 3rd hour. I'll tell more about this Sunday next week, not enough time sorry!

Mamy and Josy, our most valuable family started to stop progressing and coming to church, even though they have a close baptismal date. They said they've been going through a lot of problems, and it's tough to focus. One problem that put them over the edge was that car tires were slashed (which doesn't make one feel safe). Hopefully they didn't think it was us that slashed them in an effort to prevent them from driving to the faraway J-Dub church, and instead, go to the close 'our' church.

Elder Stromberg and I started getting very worried, so we decided to go miles out of our comfort zone and cook them a meal, haha!  We cooked them a curry rice, smoked beef meal with green beans and some brownies to top it off. The brownies were a disaster though. When they came out, we realized we put a bucketload too much of flour in; it was basically a sponge. But it turns out, Mamy and Josy loved the crud out of it! I guess Malagasies honestly don't like sweet things at all. So, what seems sweet to us must be an explosion of flavor to them.

I Soper! Avia hilaolao! 

Soper! Come and play!

Malagasy Morsel of the Week  - Mofo Kadradraka

Mofo Kadradraka means 'cockroach bread' or 'brownies'. It's become a weird inheritance from the ancient missionaries about 10 years ago who started making brownies for everyone, and one Malagasy noticed that the surface of the brownies look like crushed up cockroaches. Funny thing is that a lot of the members are still convinced that literal cockroaches are caught, nurtured and then slaughtered to be used in the brownies, and they thus swear to never get close to that stuff. For those that know the truth though, we're stuck with them always whining about how we need to make more brownies, as if that's the only we can show our love to them. So, to combat this, I just say, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6:31) Make me some flippin' brownies for us too Sister Nivo!! Just kidding, I'm happy to make her brownies.

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Great week!

Dear Family and Friends,

Great week! We had a couple slow days in our best area last week, so it prompted us to change our program radically and try some new stuff.  It worked--it's going much better now. Here in Madagascar, you can do what you want with the program usually. In the beach provinces, you can get up 50+ lessons if you want, and here in the city, maybe 35+. However, it mainly depends on the quality of one's program. Almost everyone is willing to learn, but very few people are genuinely interested. After months of work, our program is full of people reading the BoM, coming to church and really trying. It's been really refreshing.

It could be possible that Elder Stromberg and I split the area and train while zone leading. It might be a bit awkward, but our area is in a good spot for it. 

These kids were sliding down on a little piece of cardboard. The little girl with the onesie fell off and rolled down into a cushion of trash at the bottom. If that were 3 year-old me, I would be sobbing. But this girl laughed and let all the other kids slap off the dust all over her. Then, they ran up and did it again.

Soccer

Missionaries vs. Malagasies  2 - 1

Manakambahiny (our ward) vs. Mahamasina (Elder Dlokova's ward)  4 - 2

Good week for soccer!

Gigi

An old Malagasy veteran. About a month ago, we accidentally tracted into him. I was trying to show Elder Stromberg a former investigator, but when we knocked on the door, Gigi came out. Both their houses look the exact same, but they're in totally different areas, heh. I was thrown for a huge loop. It took me a bit to regain myself, but we ended up setting a return time with him. After a mediocre (our fault) first and second lesson, we gave him the Book of Mormon and didn't think too much about him. By the third lesson, he had read to 1 Nephi 3, nice. Then by the fourth lesson, 3 days later, he had read to flippin' 2 Nephi 17! We asked him if we would come to church, and he said, "No promises," which usually means 'no'. Whoa! He tricked us! He came to church with his daughter! Some people are just more ready to be taught then we are ready to teach them, haha!

Law of Chastity

In a Gospel of Christ lesson, one of our regular families started to reveal to us all of their marital problems, sharing all of the uncomfortable details even. We sat there listening to them use exaggerated euphemisms and metaphors for a half-an-hour to indirectly insult the bad habits of one another. For example, one would say if only one person brings home rice, but the deal was the other one would bring home the meat; however, when they got home, the one gave all the meat to his friends. Apparently, that was supposed to be metaphor of how the  doesn't bring enough money into the home; how the other says 'hi' to too many men. I ended up getting way confused.

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Baoby

A slang word for money. When we're out of taxi fund, we tell the taxis, "Yo, we got no Baoby Marley! Can you give us a ride?" They love the joke so much that they usually give us a ride for about 5 minutes for free! :D

Love you all!

Elder Soper 

A week of success!

Dear Fam and Friends!

A week of success! Brownie points earned and invested! Still in Manakambahiny! I've been here for a long time. But, I requested President Foote to keep me here longer because it's here I've found out how to be a real Preach My Gospel missionary. It's here I've really fallen in love with a ward and wanted to work hard to help it prosper. I'm still not bored of the area, so I might as well keep enjoying it!

My companion, after falling in the mud pit 

One of our best buds, Arabo. We made a deal with him. If he reads the pamphlets, he can pretend to speak English with us on the path, and as every girl passes by, we have to laugh like he said some great joke. Haha! Once he reacted, "That's too over-the-top you guys! Just chuckle next time and give me a pat on the back or something next time!" 

Cesaire, my favorite investigator of all time

Scary stairs

Rodrick's cute lil' girls. Way naughty at church though.

Henry's baptism!

Sifu Desire--our karate master investigator

Drunk Lady Wrestling Me 

You know what's not fun? Being latched onto and then tackled to a wall by the drunk and obese Richard's mom 3 times in one week. I say tackle because she always surprises me around the corner, literally sprints towards me and wraps her arms around my chest and smashes me into the wall with her hefty, CAT Machine-sized body. It's a surreal nightmare being pressed up against the wall by a stinky Woman with a capital 'W,' crying to you with tobacco-destroyed teeth, and then me--filled to the brim with the feeling of "Oh, gosh no!"--trying to squirm and pop out of the chubb trap with all my might. Just imagine the fight scene between Paul Blart and the obese lady in the mall.  She's mad at me for not coming back to teach her about "prayer". Welp, I would if I didn't feel like my life was in danger!

Open Your Mouth

Slowly but surely, we're getting more and more investigators to church. Right now, we're hovering around 10-13 each week. Yet yesterday, we had 17! I made this lil' green puppet thing with a brown head, white eyes and orange buttons that slides onto one's pointer finger--or any finger of choice--and whoever it's passed to each week has ward mission slogan hanging over the heads: "open your mouth" (sokafy ny vavanao." It's been a fun activity recently, and it resulted in two new investigators coming to church!

*I'll send a picture of the puppet some time

Piano Fiasco

To add to the drama on Sunday, I experienced this mini-fiasco while playing the piano during sacrament meeting. What happened is these two lil' rascals are running around in the stands causing a ton of ruckus. I jump up from my piano bench and throw them my planner to draw in and calm them down. It works like a dime...Wait, charm! They are quiet right up to the 3rd hymn. As I'm playing "Count Your Many Blessings" (Isao ireo Fitahiana), I hear them scuffle up right behind me. They start to shout, "Soper! Soper! Here's your book! Soper!!" I can't react at all because I need to focus on not blubbing up the hymn and the spirit. As all kids are, they get mad that I didn't respond immediately and begin banging on the keyboard keys to my left and right. At this point, my eyes are wide-open, I'm sweating and everybody's nervously laughing. I whisper loudly to them, "Stop! Naughty! Stop!" Finally, after two more verses, the hymn finishes. Nobody had the guts to come grab the kids. Stinkers.

One by One Once Again

Bishop Theodore wants me to do the One by One solo again, and he got permission from our stake president to film it in the chapel. I declined, but they still have it planned... I'd rather just film on another day, or after church. 

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Risoriso

Bribery

Love you all!

Elder Soper

A week of success!

Dear Fam!

A week of success! Brownie points earned and invested! Still in Manakambahiny! I've been here for a long time. But, I requested President Foote to keep me here longer because it's here I've found out how to be a real Preach My Gospel missionary. It's here I've really fallen in love with a ward and wanted to work hard to help it prosper. I'm still not bored of the area, so I might as well keep enjoying it!

Drunk Lady Wrestling Me 

You know what's not fun? Being latched onto and then tackled to a wall by the drunk and obese Richard's mom 3 times in one week. I say tackle because she always surprises me around the corner, literally sprints towards me and wraps her arms around my chest and smashes me into the wall with her hefty, CAT Machine-sized body. It's a surreal nightmare being pressed up against the wall by a stinky Woman with a capital 'W,' crying to you with tobacco-destroyed teeth, and then me--filled to the brim with the feeling of "Oh, gosh no!"--trying to squirm and pop out of the chubb trap with all my might. Just imagine the fight scene between Paul Blart and the obese lady in the mall.  She's mad at me for not coming back to teach her about "prayer". Welp, I would if I didn't feel like my life was in danger!

Open Your Mouth

Slowly but surely, we're getting more and more investigators to church. Right now, we're hovering around 10-13 each week. Yet yesterday, we had 17! I made this lil' green puppet thing with a brown head, white eyes and orange buttons that slides onto one's pointer finger--or any finger of choice--and whoever it's passed to each week has ward mission slogan hanging over the heads: "open your mouth" (sokafy ny vavanao." It's been a fun activity recently, and it resulted in two new investigators coming to church!

*I'll send a picture of the puppet some time

Piano Fiasco

To add to the drama on Sunday, I experienced this mini-fiasco while playing the piano during sacrament meeting. What happened is these two lil' rascals are running around in the stands causing a ton of ruckus. I jump up from my piano bench and throw them my planner to draw in and calm them down. It works like a dime...Wait, charm! They are quiet right up to the 3rd hymn. As I'm playing "Count Your Many Blessings" (Isao ireo Fitahiana), I hear them scuffle up right behind me. They start to shout, "Soper! Soper! Here's your book! Soper!!" I can't react at all because I need to focus on not blubbing up the hymn and the spirit. As all kids are, they get mad that I didn't respond immediately and begin banging on the keyboard keys to my left and right. At this point, my eyes are wide-open, I'm sweating and everybody's nervously laughing. I whisper loudly to them, "Stop! Naughty! Stop!" Finally, after two more verses, the hymn finishes. Nobody had the guts to come grab the kids. Stinkers.

One by One Once Again

Bishop Theodore wants me to do the One by One solo again, and he got permission from our stake president to film it in the chapel. I declined, but they still have it planned... I'd rather just film on another day, or after church. 

Malagasy Morsel of the Week - Risoriso

Bribery

Love you all!

Elder Soper

Our less-active work right now is especially fruitful...

Dear Family,

Don't have much time!

That was awesome to see Devin and Rachel's reception--can't help but feel a bit trunky. It's a good type of trunky though. Because of my excitement to see my family, I am motivated to work harder and not waste my precious time, the Lord's time and your guys' time. This week was a great week! Our less-active work right now is especially fruitful (Vonjy, one of the less actives, is banana salesman; heh got ya there), as we have about 14 less-actives reactivated in this past few months. The reason it's been going so well is because we have a wonderful ward missionary named Jose who was less-active for 5 years and has, as of recent, become ridiculously diligent👔. He calls us almost every morning to say, "Hey! Can I come study with you guys?" "Haha, Jose, you're not allowed in our house." "Darn. Can I come work with you at 4?" "Sure, man!"

Elder Soper's lifesize cutout at his brother's wedding reception last week

This kingdom is yours Simba. (Simba, by the way, means 'broken' in Malagasy haha)

Great view from the Mahamasina hill.

Did some good cleaning this morning. Holy cow was our rug full of dust.

These geese guard our investigator's house like a cherubim and a flaming sword. Their bites are surprisingly painful and damaging--caused some sort of a blood blister on my leg. Now I can't stop making these weird honks when I laugh.

Trip to Mudtown

There's a section in our area that is straight jungle full of thick brush, wet fronds leaning over into one skinny path that slices through. Every time we take this path, Elder Stromberg and I sprint in funny ways trying to make the other laugh and attempt pathetic parkour jumps over each little rivulet, which usually consists of doing the Heisman pose or a double backflip. On Saturday, Elder Stromberg sprinted towards a gap in the path, only to realize too late that it was an Olympic-sized pool. His foot shot two feet deep into mud, and as he desperately scrambled to find a handhold or some secure object, all his four, flailing limbs began to splash and chuck mud in every directions. I promptly got my camera out and made a point to laugh extra hard. The pictures show the result.

Teaching Piano

Every Saturday, we teach English. Malagasies are so crazy about learning English that we sometimes have upwards of 50 students come. However now we added two more classes: piano and reading. I'm tired of playing piano in church insomuch I have compassion for the upcoming missionaries, and I'm teaching a couple members how to read and play hymns. One of them is Matio, a kid who loves Clash of Clans and now knows how to play perfectly that one Halloweeny sounding song I made up, haha! A lil' prodigy of a Webelos.

Love you!

Elder Soper