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