Week 89 - Big Week!

This was an exciting week complete with transfers and everything, but I'll tell you about the transfers at the end.

I don't know if you all remember, but like two weeks ago I told you about this guy who goes by "Kevin's dad" that was way drunk and kept telling us that he loved us. Yeah, we were suppossed to teach him again on Tuesday, but... he was drunk again. And this time he kissed our hands. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity. So by then we were giving this guy a 1/6. We'd seen him 6 times and he'd been sober once. We didn't teach him on Tuesday, we told him we'd be back the next day and "remember, Kevin's dad, don't drink, right? Ok, that's good, Kevin's dad, we gotta go now, ok? Yeah, we love you too. Yeah. Uh-huh. Ok, bye. Yeah. Goodbye! Tomorrow. Don't drink. Yeah." That was pretty much how the conversation went. Then on Wednesday we caught him. Sober. Bam! 2/7!!! He's doing great!

Then we've been teaching some way cool families that have been coming to church. Two of the best are Olivier and Angela, and Jerry and Ercyla. Jerry and Olivier work together, and Angela and Ercyla are sisters. Way cool families! They learn together once a week, then they each learn separately once a week too. When we taught them together, we went over the Plan of Salvation. They loved it. Accepted bap. dates. It was great. Then a guy was being chased by a bunch of dogs outside and we heard him yell at the barking dogs, "In the name of Jesus!" Then the dogs stopped barking... We all just looked around at each other and busted up laughing. I couldn't help myself. Then when we taught them that we committed them to talk about getting married with their spouses and making a decision about doing that because none of them are technically married yet. Then we come back yesterday to ask how that's going. Jerry says, looking down, "Yeah, I talked to Ercyla about it." (she's sitting right next to him looking at him.) We're like, "And what did she say?..." He looks up with a slow grin and says, "She says she's really, really ready to get married!" Ah that was great! They're so great together. They're both around 24, still no kids, and they are just such a couple. That's a big deal because usually here, not a lot of couples seem like a couple. They just live together and have kids but they don't do stuff together. Jerry and Ercyla come to church together, they sit way close and look like they are together. AND THEY'RE GOING TO GET MARRIED!!! So cool. Then when we went to Olivier and Angela and asked what they decided on, they said that they need to get married. So they will. Then Olivier's crazy mom piped in that they needed to get married and it really wasn't all that hard to do. So it was great.

Then it was Easter this week so we were expecting lots of people at church. But then it rained. So we had 83 at church. Not happy Bob. But we still got 19 investigators and one of them was KEVIN'S DAD!!!! 3/8 BABY!!!! HE'S KILLING IT! hahahahaha but really we were way stoked to see him. He seemed to really enjoy himself. The members were great.

Then for our Malagasy Morsel this week we'll do teny gasy. Short for Fiteny Malagasy which means the Malagasy language. Dumbest Malagasy Morsel ever, I know. But the reason that we're doing that today is because Elder Johnson and I are staying together for another transfer, so we've got big plans. One of those is to only speak Malagasy for the rest of the transfer exept for emails home, important phone calls, and zone meeting when we're teaching. We even buried my large plates (my english scriptures) in the hole in the hill cummorah (in my suitcase under my bed) and they won't be coming out until the year 1823 (about May 11 when I'll probably get to my next area in a transfer). So that's the big announcement for the Malagasy Morsel this week. We'll see how that goes.

Then to end on a little bit more of a spiritual note. We had a great district meeting this last week with a lesson by The Elder Brown. He was talking about how we can conquer fears through faith and referenced Elder Ballard's talk that referenced Brigham Young's talk about being in the good ship Zion. And then he talked about when Jesus calmed the tempest and how the Apostles were all freaking out and he said "Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?" The Elder Brown said that Jesus is in the boat with us, so we don't ever need to worry that we'll sink. We're doing His work so we can do it with confidence and enthusiasm because we're not going to fail as long as we keep it up. I really liked that a lot.

Anyway, way long email, but hopefully you all will manage to have a good week in your spare time when you're not reading that way long email. And those of you back home, make sure you don't forget about James, because he's coming home this week and he can't wait. It would be a bummer if he didn't have anyone to pick him up at the airport. Have fun Elder Rasmussen from South Africa! Elder Rasmussen from Madagascar will see you when he skypes home in a month and a half.

Mazotoa e!