This week has been great! I loved it. There were so many cool things to write in my journal. So I've trying to be good about writing in it this week.
On Tuesday, we were heading to a time with our member help, Fabio, and Delphin, our incredibly awesome recent convert, came up behind us on his bike and started talking to us. Turns out he had moved that morning and he wanted to show us where he lived now so we could visit him. So we followed him over and he bought a liter of coke on the way with some crackers and welcomed us into his house. He told us that he'd read about the three nephites (he's finished the Book of Mormon already) and he said he prayed that the three nephites would visit him. Then here were three people visiting him. Coincidence??? Haha he's such a funny guy!
Then on Wednesday, we taught Carlo, the guy who was a referral from Sister Heather Moody in England, and he told us that he's "way ready to be baptized." June 4th, here we come! Then he was asking about which form of the name "Jesus" he should use because in Malagasy some people use Jesoa and Jesosy. The name of our church uses Jesoa, but we told him that it wasn't really important. He said, "I think 'Jesoa' is better, because 'Jesosy' sounds like 'J-sauce' and sauce is slang for money." hahahaha I laughed really hard. I don't want to be sacriligious, but if he's ever looking to go into the rap world, he's all set with a name and everything! Also, Elder Brown informs me that the number one rap album in the world right now is by JamesTheMormon. I'm crushed that my plans for going big with "NateTheMormon" are now crushed. He beat me to it.
Then we've been trying to contact each investigator every day with at least a text, so we send out big group texts to remind our people to read and not smoke and stuff. But we don't like being boring, so we try to shake it up. Elder Johnson sent one out that said, "If you don't read your Book of Mormon today, Rasmussen will eat you." So when we got to our time with Modest and Soazara, Soazara had read the text wrong and wanted to know what a "ramusen" is, "Is it some kind of devil???" Hahahahahaha we had a little bit of explaining to do there. It was way funny.
Also, their son, Cedric, came to church and Manitra, a sweet guy that we helped come back to church again, taught a great lesson about why the Restoration is called a restoration. So then he explained all about that to us. So cool! Then, the lesson that we had for them was the Word of Wisdom. We taught them, then asked if they had any problems with it. Modest, always a stud, said, "I drink coffee right now, but I'll stop and never drink it again. But I don't have any problems with any of the other things. I used to smoke, but when you guys invited me to church, I decided to stop smoking that day and I did." HE QUIT COLD TURKEY THE DAY HE CAME TO CHURCH THE FIRST TIME AND HAD NEVER EVEN LEARNED THAT IT WAS A COMMANDMENT! Then he's quit coffee now and he's doing great. He is the coolest guy in the world. And his families not really behind him at all!
Then, Friday night, I was heading to the other missionaries' house late at night with Elder Ncoyo to do a split the next day when our pousse-pousse (like a bicycle rickshaw kind of thing) came up to a police checkpoint. Elder Ncoyo whispered to me, "Elder Rasmussen, I left my papers at home." Not good! So I started praying right there that we would somehow get home fine. The police come up and start asking for our papers in French. I tell them in Malagasy that I don't speak French, but I do speak English and Malagasy. He then turns to the pousse-pousse driver and says, "Oh, so he doesn't speak English OR Malagasy? That's how these guys are, they always pretend not to understand you." I was like "No! I am speaking to you in your own language right now! Speak to me in Malagasy, but I don't speak French." So he asks for our papers. I start digging around in my bag a little bit, and then the pousse driver needs to get at his papers under the seat, so we have to get out. I hand the photocopy of my passport to the police and he says, "These are your papers?" I told him that those were indeed my papers. It's my passport. Then the pousse driver showed him his papers and he let us go. In all the commotion, he hadn't looked at Elder Ncoyo once. Elder Ncoyo didn't have any papers to show, and he never got asked to show any. That was way cool!
Then I went on a split in Ankirihiry with Elder Maleka and it was a blast. We did five baptismal interviews and some of them were way cool! But this email is already getting pretty long, so I'll have to save those for later. Then we also ate octopus and biked for 45 minutes out to a time and biked back. It was lots of fun.
Then church was fantastic! Lots of our people showed up. But not enough members. We're probably going to start doing some more work with less actives.
Of all of the families that came to church with both mom and dad there, 3 were member families, and 6 were ours. I was pretty excited and bummed at the same time by that.
Then this morning we went to a lemur park. Great week.
Malagasy Morsel would be vatsim-panahy, I may have already done this, I can't remember. It literally means supply or treat for the soul. It's what you say for spiritual thought, and here's our little spiritual thought following that, on Tuesday when we visited Delphin in his new house we talked about small and simple things bringing about great things and he said something that I really loved. He said that one of the small and simple things is a little prayer that goes like this: "Heavenly Father, is Joseph Smith really a true prophet?" And that small and simple prayer can bring someone onto the path that leads to exaltation and eternal joy in the Kingdom of our Father, and that is the biggest thing of all!
He understands it.
Delphin is just so converted, I love him so much. Once he comes back from a mission he's going to be a bishop, then a stake president, and then the first 70 from Madagascar!!!! Haha but really, what he said really got to me. I love learning from the great members here. Working in Madagascar is such a pleasure for me. There's always things that take me by surprise.
Anyway, that would be my email this week. I hope none of y'all are too dissapointed by how long that took you to read. I know Andrew's got lots of important things to do... haha
Have a great week!
Mazotoa e!
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