Week 51 - Can't Keep Up

Already been here four weeks, and I'm still lovin' it! Today has been fantastic. We started out by cleaning some and taking care of stuff around the house. Then we went to get haircuts, and we are looking so fresh now. Actually, Elder Pinson is looking fresh, I just have shorter hair... It was actually one of the best haircuts I've had so far on my mission! Pictures might be coming out next week. Another win for Fort D!

Then we went to this hotel place and had a hawaiin pizza with zebu meat instead of chicken and we asked for them to hold the corn (no, I have no idea why corn would be included on a hawaiin pizza...) And now, here we are, at the cyber.

This week has been fantastic! We had A. and V.'s marriage, baptismal interviews that I did for the Tanambao elders and A. and V.'s family's baptism!!! Then we had 25 investigators at church not including Andre's family. So really like 30. We are running into a big problem though...

WE CAN'T KEEP UP WITH EVERYONE!!!

 We've got 30 recent converts we need to visit and 25ish investigators who come to church each week, so 50+ people who we really need to visit! And that's not counting the investigators who still haven't come to church quite yet and all of the less actives that we want to be visiting too! So we need more missionaries. We need to let more people get to work here! Haha I know, that's like the best problem in the world to have, but I really think the area needs it.

I know what you're all thinking: Poor Elder Rasmussen, he's just sooo busy... The work sounds so hard down there...

Well, it is what it is, alright?! We've all got different trials.

In other news, President Adams has left Madagascar for his long trip/vacation that will eventually land him home in America. Big changes are afoot in our mission... haha because it's President Foote... changes are afoot... Oh well, any way, President Foote came! We called him to send him our greetings and he sounded very cool! And he also apparently schooled the AP's in basketball...

I'm super excited to meet him.

He should be coming here within the next month to tour the mission, so that will be fantastic!

Other than that, this week was just a lot of teaching and finding ridiculous things to laugh at this week with Elder Pinson. He has yet to not be a stud, so things are going very well here. I feel like we are a pretty good teaching team, and we get along really well still, so that's great. We are also fantastic at demolishing the Tanambao elders when they try to say their area is better than our Amparihy. Please.

We are also on the phone hunt right now because ours is held together with a rubber band, the speaker doesn't work and it must be in speaker phone in order to hear someone, but hearing them doesn't mean you can understand what they say... I think our phone just has a weird virus that turns any speech that comes through it into Chinese. So... new phone! Yay!

The fourth of July was fantastic. Elder Pinson and I went out to eat at night to celebrate. We were enjoying our pizza until they brought a microphone out and turned the lights down and then turned on the colorful lights and little disco ball... Dang it! Not karaoke night! Not just that though, we crashed a karaoke birthday party!!! So we scarfed down our pizza and ran out of there as fast as we could. Happy 4th of July e'ry body!

Malagasy Morsel this week is brought to you from the MTC. Mamaky means to read. So when your investigator malala has not been reading it is an important thing to know. Quick testimony about that, with the exception of one person so far on my mission who could not read, I have not had a single investigator who progressed well and got baptized that did not read the Book of Mormon dilligently. Then there are these four things that are often associated with each other in the church: faith, repentence, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Well, you can't really gain a strong faith that this church is true without the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon also teaches us all about true repentence. Joseph Smith's reading of the Book of Mormon was what brought about the restoration of the power and authority to baptize and confirm the gift of the Holy Ghost, and we can't honestly think we are enduring to the end if we are not consistently nourishing our soul with the good word of God found in the Book of Mormon. So, it's like kind of a big deal... So... Go read it.
It's true, I promise.

But if you doubt that promise, go read it anyway and ask God if it's true every day and you will know. That's my little piece of anatra for the week. It really is great though, and I love reading it and teaching about it!

That's probably about it for today, sorry for the ridiculously long email.
I love you all and I wish you a fantastic middle of July!

Tahian'ny Tompo.