Week 26 - Antsirabe - Beginning to Learn French

So I'm a little late getting this sent out today because this morning we had a breakfast meal with the Tolmans, the couple missionaries here. We have an Elder going home this week because he extended, so he's not going home on the transfer schedule, and we were having a good bye breakfast for him. His name is Elder Andriamanganoro and he is from Tana. It's weird that he's already going home! Anyway, the fruit salad, potato casserole, yogurt, and like ten cinnamon rolls consumed by yours truly were amazing. I love eating at the Tolmans.

That being said, I'll start off now with our Malagasy Morsel of izany hoe. If you want to be technical you would pronounce it as ee-ZAHN-ee way. But if you say it like that you don't have a malagasy accent because the words are ellided a lot of the time, so you barely pronounce the first syllable, then the third syllable runs into the last so it sounds like zahn-way. It means, "that is" or "like" and you use it when you add some clarification. It's pretty handy and I say it all the time.

Then, Friday was a pretty big day. As of Friday, I have been on my mission for 6 months. That's crazy!!! I still can't believe that I am more than a fourth of the way done now. I'm not sure that I'm quite as good at Malagasy as I was expecting to be when I was a fourth of the way done, but I'm pretty pumped I still have some improving I can do! Speaking of language learning, I officially started learning French this week. I already have picked up a bunch because Malagasies will use it all the time, especially because they think all white people are from France usually. But I officially started this week, so that's cool.

Before I get too much farther I will just apologize for any spelling errors, the computer is set to French so spellcheck tells me all my words are spelled wrong so I don't bother trying to check them.

I've been getting a lot of requests for just little things about how life is out here and for pictures, so this week I'll send some, if I can get a card reader from one of the other missionaries that works. Then just a little bit about Madagascar right now: it's hot. It usually rains each night, and it rains a lot. A lot a lot a lot. Yes, there is different food here. Some of my favorite things are passion fruit fanta (yes, that exists), coke (you can pretty much only get coke products here- coke, fanta, sprite, and they use cane sugar so it's way better than in America!), mofo akondro-- which is a deep fried banana covered in pancake batter pretty much, and ravimbofotsy, which is a type of herbal tea that's pretty common. Ooh, and there's this mango lasary, which is sliced mangoes in vinegar with peppers and other good stuff. You guys are probably all sick of me always talking about food though, so we'll move on to other things.

This week we have been working super hard! Last week Elder Razakamandimby was sick, so we didn't get a ton of work in, but this work we came back hard and we have destroyed our previous records on like everything! It's been great! We did a bunch of tracting and our schedule is just about to burst because we are teaching so many people! I love it! We've been having a lot of really cool experiences with our investigators too! We taught a family last week, and then when we came back yesterday, the wife told us that her husband was touched by our message and he stopped drinking, staying out late, he doesn't smoke anymore and he's been trying to be a better person! We didn't teach him about the Word of Wisdom either! We just barely taught about the restoration and that's it! It was so neat! Then we got to a guy who is a Bible Scholar and he pretty much already believes everything we teach, we just have to get him through the lessons to get baptized! He already promised to come to church, which is usually one of the hardest things to get people to do, he's a straight up stud!

Then we've also had a lot of fun experiences with crazy people. We were stopped by a drunk, old, probably crazy, lady who asked us to pray for her. We sat down and talked to her family a little bit to get a feel for what we should teach, and then she just starts praying and shouting up at the sky! She was like commanding God to help her, and then when she was done, she trailed off super quiet, then yelled a few more things. Then we told her that if she wanted to be able to think straight and not have a sick head all the time (what whe was praying for help with) she needed to stop drinking because she was most definitely on the bottle... It was super funny!

Another cool experience I had was looking at the stars last night. I haven't seen them for a month or two because there have been so many cloudy nights, but it was super nice to see them again! Then I've been having some problems with pousse-pousses, they're like these rickshaw things that are everywhere here. I am apparently too heavy now, and the last couple of times I've gone in one, I've had to get out and walk up the hills with them because they couldn't pull me. That's a real self confidence builder...

The work is going great though! Our church attendence was 154 last week and 149 yesterday! That's double what it was when we first got here! It makes me super happy to see all the growth and the less active members coming back and heating up their testimonies a little bit!

Anyway, I love you all, and I wish you all a fantastic week!
Mba hifalia foana!

Week 25 - Antsirabe - Prayers Do Get Answered

I will start with a quick message about fasting. Yesterday was fast Sunday, and because we have been dropping a lot of people because they aren't actually doing anything, Elder Razakamandimby fasted that the people who wanted to learn would find us and ask to learn. So now you're thinking, oh, so then someone came up and asked to learn, and it was all great and happy. No. Four people did. And then at a couple of our lessons THAT DAY they brought family members to come learn with them who hadn't learned before. It was fantastic! Especially because all of this happened after we broke our fast then headed out to work at 2, to when we headed home at 9:15ish. It was pretty cool to see how quickly our prayers were answered!

Anyway, we'll get on with this week. Last Monday, when the last email was sent home, we had planned to go to Lac Tritriva again because a lot of the new missionaries haven't seen it yet (fun fact, every single missionary who was here in Antsirabe when I first came has already left...). Then we didn't. So then we played football instead. Yours truly caught 2 of our 7 touchdowns. I'd be lying if I said I did a lot though, it was kind of a just throw it high up and he'll catch it kind of thing. I did actually run though... Then after that we went and got haircuts--my hair is way too short now... And then we picked up some food and went home.

Fun fact about this week: other than Monday and Sunday, we played basketball every singly morning. We've been getting up a little bit earlier and playing for an hour, then heading back to get ready. It has been fantastic! We played a local Malagasy club team and lost by 5  points. I think that's not bad for a bunch of missionaries who haven't played from anywhere for 2 months to a year and 9 months! I have noticed that I have been sleeping much better now! I also go to bed at like 10 and occaisionally 9:30 so I can keep up on sleep. It has been great!

Along those lines, I have also been demolishing food this last week. It started a little before we started playing basketball, so I'm not sure if it's from that or not. We have made a lot of great food this week, Elder Razakamandimby made 3 deep dish pizzas, I made biscuits and gravy to break our fast, we've had pancakes a couple time, oatmeal is a constant snack, Elder Kelsch made some no bake chocolate cookies ( also known by their real name of gorilla poop), and we've had spaghetti a few times too. An average day for me goes like this: We go play basketball, I get back and make oatmeal with peanut butter in it, then I make eight pancakes, then I study for a little bit, then I make another batch of oatmeal with peanut butter. Then I finish up studies and make a lunch of spaghetti with ground beef mixed in, just like back at home, then I eat 5 bananas with peanut butter. Then we go out and work. I buy two bowls of soup and some warm sugar milk with a bread ball at a little hotely for a snack. Then we work more. Then we come home and eat pizza. Then I eat some oatmeal as I write in my journal and then brush my teeth, put in my retainer and go to bed. Then you just repeat! It's crazy. Hopefully I am not growing any taller, that's all I can say, I already have to walk around hunched over in every Malagasy house... Maybe it's just that I have been healthy for a little, so I'm eating like normal again. I don't know.

This week we had next to no member help. That's an especially big bummer because two weeks ago we had member help every single day, all day. It's also a big bummer because we had member splits planned and nobody showed up. However, since we have been focusing on finding father lead families, we didn't have too much of a problem with needing a guy to teach with us because there were only women. So tha't good. We've found some more families and we had all of next Friday and half of Thursday planned to go do contacting in a new area we haven't been in too much. I say we had that planned because yesterday when all those people came to us, they all wanted to learn in the evening in Friday, so now it's just like half of Friday.

Malagasy Morsel for this week is manisa. mah-NEE-sah. It means to count. So for example, when I bought a Christmas advent calendar last Monday and decided to start counting up to the 25th of January (why not?) then manisa ny andro tsirairay aho. Or I count each day.

Anyway, that's the letter for this week. All of you enjoy the new year!
Tratra ny toana, samy hoa tratra ny ho avy indray, sns.
Mozotoa!

Week 24 - Antsirabe - Christmas Happened!

So we'll start this week off with a quick review of the end of last week. On Sunday, Elder Razakamandimby was sick. Ok, that's enough to get going here. So on Monday he was feeling a lot better, so what does he do to continue the rest and recovery stuff? He plays a very competitive game of basketball with all of the other missionaries. Then, when P-day was over, we headed off to have a soirèe at a less active family's house. After eating a lot of corn, with lot's of sacay (like mashed peppers with oil--way spicy) on them, he decided he once again wasn't feeling good. The timing was pretty good, because it was already just about time to go home. So he went home, threw up, and then slept. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, that's mostly all he did. Threw up and slept. And used the bathroom. He was even sick on Christmas too, but he was feeling better and we managed to get the skyping done without a problem. The poor guy was finally feeling better on Friday, so we managed to get back out to work. Moral of the story is don't push yourself too much when you're sick. And something else we can learn from that is that we didn't do very much work this last week. It was kind of nice staying home and studying a lot, and it was nice to stay home so my companion didn't die, but I'm not going to lie, I missed working pretty bad. I've got a nice habit of working every day, so not working just drove me crazy, but it's all good, because he's doing a lot better now.

Then, Christmas happened!! It did not at all feel like Christmas, but we did have a Christmas pageant thing that we were able to get to, in which the missionaries were all angels and sang "Far Far Away on Judea's Plains" in Malagasy, of course. Then I was the lucky duck who got to be the Angel Gabriel and wave my arms around and look angelic while the narrator read my lines. It was pretty fun. Then we skyped home! That was amazing!!!! You all looked so good and it was so nice to talk to you all!!!

It was pretty fun getting to be a part of the present opening on Christmas morning too! Things I learned from that:
1. Matthew's voice dropped and is comparable to mine now.
2. Sammy and Danny are HUGE!!!
3. Every one of you is HUGE!!! (That might have been because the camera was right next to the floor, but also, when I see a 5'8" person now, I think he's way tall. And my 13 year old brother is the same height as my companion...)
4. Andrew looks a lot older.
5. South Africa does actually look like a very pretty place. I will admit that now.

The whole skyping thing was fantastic though, I had a blast and it was so great to see everybody and talk to y'all. Between seeing everybody at home and James in South Africa and even talking to Elder Glazier on the phone and wishing him a merry Christmas too, it was like I never left!!! Except I was in Madagascar. Small sidenote.

One other cool story for this week, after writing in my journal on Saturday night, I was reading through it some, the entries before I left on my mission, and I read one from March 2nd 2014. It talked about how I got a plate of snickerdoodles at my door with a typed note that said, "Nate Rasmussen (that was my name back then), you are probably the nicest guy I know. You are a great example of a disciple of Christ in everything that you do. You are smart and funny and a great friend. Thanks for that. :)" Feel free to start the "nice guy" jokes now, but my entire journal entry was just super happy and I just felt so loved! It was probably around a half an hour or so of effort to make some cookies, but the part that made me the most happy was just this little note with 4 little sentences and it totally made my day and made me feel so great about myself! Then, when I read it again, almost a year later, it made my day again!!! That's a lot of influence that one person with a little bit of free time has! I still have no idea who sent that, and that's part of why I'm writing this, so that maybe they will read it and know that I'm super grateful for them. So what you should all be getting out of this, is send me cookies. Not really, they would go bad, but really, if we each take a little bit more time to build up the people around us, then we can do so much good and so much service and we will get so many blessings! Complimenting someone is not going to have bad effects on you, even though we might think so, and it could totally make someone's day! Even if they're having a WAY rough time! A little bit of kindness goes a long way. So, my little challenge for you is to work on spreading a little more goodness, and I'll work on that too.

Going somewhat along those lines, the Malagasy Morsel this week is manatsara, mah-nah-TSAH-rah. It literally means to make good. You can use it as improve but you can also use it as compliment or talk good about someone. I think that's pretty cool because when we spread kindness like that, we are really improving the world a little bit. Rehefa manatsara ny olona hafa isika, dia tsy manao afa-tsy ny fanatsarana izao tontolo izao.

Love you all!
Aza adino ny manoratra ahy matetika! Satria tiako ianareo!
Elder Rasmussen

PS sorry there are no pictures, some should be coming next week. And a new camera might be coming soon too, we'll see.

Week 23 - Antsirabe - Christmas is Coming!

So... This week has been pretty exciting. We got to enjoy the hectic transfers but we managed to make it through all right. Everybody is starting to settle down, and it's been nice to meet some new missionaries.

I'll start of at the end of the week and work backwards. On Saturday we had the Talent show. It was pretty great, there were lots of surprising talents and there were lots of not so surprising talents. Elder Razakamandimy and I were one of the last talents to go. Razaka was playing the guitar and singing a song he wrote while I played the drums on the keyboard. We looked like straight up G's in our snapbacks and RayBans. And proselyting clothes... We were looking pretty hood, and everybody loved us, especially when the bass dropped and I came in. But then there was Tahiry interrupting our stream of thugness. He decided to switch out his outfit right before we went on and wore a... jesters hat...? Then he was much to flamboyant as he sang the harmonies. Razaka had his nice manly guitar playing thing going on, and I had a nice Daft Punk head nod going on with the keyboard, so it just seemed a little out of place. But that's ok, we got called back for an encore! We were the only ones who got that, so in my mind, we won this unjudged talent show pretty squarely. What can I say, we're keeping it real out here.

Then, a neat thing that happened this week. I have been studying faith this last little while, and there is a nice entry in the Bible Dictionary about that. One of the things it says is that miracles always follow faith, and the elements can be controlled by faith. Anyway, skip to Thursday and it was raining very hard. That's not really new because it is the rainy season, after all. Anyway, we could barely hear anything because most of the roofs are made out of corrugated tin, so I decided to offer a small prayer while all of the cannons were going off above my head. I asked for the rain to stop, but once I was finished I felt a little ashamed of my prayer. It just felt like I had been to wishy washy and the prayer had kind of been a "do it if it by Thy will and in Thy time" kind of thing, and I felt like that was more just throwing a wish out there than actually exercising faith. So I prayed again and asked that the rain stop in the next five minutes and it stopped in two. He's real. Usually the rain doesn't stop that easy during a big rainy season storm like that, often the rain can last for several days. So that was pretty cool and it helped me change my perspective of what it actually means to exercise faith. You got to be an agent and actively seek something, like the Brother of Jared. Don't just throw a wish out there and hope for the best. That's not actually doing anything. But I know that faith works. Then, after that, the next day we had three appointments in a row that weren't there. So we turned to go grab a quick snack two of the times and then they walked right up just as we were turning away! Then for the last one we felt like heading over to someone else's house and we found them. We had really great lessons with each one and it was great to see the Lord's hand guiding the work.

Malagasy Morsel for the week: bandy. BAHN-dee. It means like a young adult man who is just a thug. Imagine a bunch of kids trying to look like rappers sitting on the side of the road calling out crap to the missionaries as they walk by. That's a bandy. Example: Elder Razakamandimby and I looked totally bandy in the talent show. Do something with that word.

Anyway, HAVE THE MERRIEST CHRISTMAS EVERR!!! And a happy new year too.

Week 22 - Antsirabe - Staying Put

Alright, so this week starts off on last Monday. When we played basketball and I went and picked up my two pairs of tailored pants. Then we got some food too. That's a pretty important part...

Then on Thursday we were teaching some less actives who have recently been reactivated and she has been trying to introduce her friend to the gospel and brought him to our lesson. We were all excited, it's nice when members do missionary work. Then, it turns out he just wanted to Bible bash. Which was all great, because we managed to teach her some, answer some of his questions and then at the very end, gave him some scriptures to look up later and come back ready to talk about the spirit world and the resurrection next time. He even wanted to bring a friend to help him understand! Or in other words, he found our answers too satisfying and sensible, so he needs to bring his preacher to help out. But that's all good! That's just another person who gets to learn a little and feel the spirit and choose what to do from there! Surprisingly enough, that experience really helped our less active family come to church! I think the real reason is that the weight of our message was just so impressive. Literally. We came in and sat down on the two beds and 1 chair--that's all there is--and then about ten minutes in, the bed just collapsed! It had nothing to do with the big white guy who was sitting on it... I think there was a small, extremely focused earthquake or something. I felt so bad, but granted, it was me sitting with like three other people there, so I can't take all the blame. But there you have it. I'm fat. I am way fat. I am furniture-breaking fat!

Then, we moved again. We bought a new house that is pretty nice, the only problem I have with it is that there are some low hanging lights and some pretty painful doorways! We didn't really move in much and settle in because we weren't sure what was going to happen in transfers, but here's the news.... I'm staying!!! I'm super pumped about it! Elder Razakamandimby is staying with me, and the other Ambohimena elders are staying too! Which is great because our branch could use a little extra help and attention. It's started turning around some, but it still has a long ways to go before it will be able to totally stand on its own. It reminds me of the early church a bunch! People are still just trying to figure out how the church runs and how they fit in to that. Lucky us though, the Doctrine and Covenants was written when the early church was going through some growing pains, so it applies really well! Imagine that! The rest of the zone is changing though, Elder Covey is heading down to Fianarantsoa to mom Elder Glazier, who just finished being trained. That will be fun for both of them! Then we are getting both Elder Christiansen and Elder Fox, who were the APs when I got here, and they are super awesome, balling missionaries!

So these transfers were pretty good! I'm pretty satisfied, and I'm way excited to stay here for Christmas and spend that here! Skype you later!

Tiako ianareo tsirairay avy!
Elder Rasmussen

PS whoops! Forgot my Malagasy Morsel! Fahafantarana means knowledge or knowing. Faha-fahn-TAR-ah-nah. You use this a lot when you ask quesstions, for example: araka ny fahafantaranao, iza moa Andriamanitra? or according to your knowledge, who is God?
So, yeah, that's it for today. Have a great week before CHRISTMAS!!!!

Week 21 - Antsirabe - Last Week Here?

So I'll start out with a little game of two truths and a lie. This week I flipped over my handlebars on my bike. This week I crapped my pants. This week I broke one of my super long pinky fingernails. You all get to decide what's actually happening over here.

In other news, this is probably my last week in Antsirabe. I'm pretty broke up about that, but I'm excited to get transfer news this Sunday! This transfer is only five weeks because they didn't want to be doing transfers over Christmas. So I will probably be skyping home for Christmas in a new area, with a new companion. It's a bummer I don't get to spend my Christmas here with all of these members I love so much. I am, however, pretty excited to go to a new area and meet some new people. It's not 100 percent certain that I'm gonna be bouncing, but Elder Razakamandimby will have only been here for five weeks and I'll have been here for 17.

We have already moved though. Our house was having some problems with the power... we apparently used over 1,000,000 ariary worth of power and hadn't payed for three months. The guy who turned off our power stuck to that story even when we showed him our receipt from last month. So we lost power. We're guessing the landlord has been stealing power, because we haven't been using our washer, dryer, or our hot water heater for two weeks, so it's not like we've been using anything but an occaional light. So then we moved. Elder Rice and Elder Morse headed over to the Antsirabe house, my last house, and then Elder Razakamandimy and I went to the Mahazoarivo house, my first house. So right now I'm living with Elder Covey again, and then Elder Stokes, Morley, and Kelsch. It's pretty packed. We are sleeping in the main room and we have our stuff in there too, so there's enough room for the table and that's about it.

We went on splits with our wise and all powerful AP's this week. That was pretty fun. Other than that it's just been work as usual this week. We've been having great member help this week! We organized them a little bit, and now we are scheduled to have at least 1 man helping us each day. I want to work it up to where we have one day of member splits each week, but we'll see what we can do this week.

This week's Malagasy Morsel is mitsiriritra, I'll let you all guess on the pronounciation of that one. It means to covet, so we frequently use that when teaching about the commandments. Plus it's just fun to use right after I blow past Elder Razakamandimby and dunk on him. "Aza mitsiriritra ialahy." Don't covet man.

Favorite hymns? My favorite Christmas hymns would probably be the same as yours (Silent Night and Angels We Have Heard on High). My favorite just Christmas song would probably be "Let it Snow" We've started singing some Christmas hymns in church, but there's barely any that have been translated into Malagasy. Other than that, I hear an occaisional Christmas song being played every once in a while, but it really doesn't feel like Christmas at all still.

I know how you feel with the whole "it doesn't feel like Christmas" thing. I'm sleeping with just a thin sheet so I can keep the mosquitos off and not get too hot.

About the baptism, they're fine with it (the less-than clean water) because to them it is clean water. That's the water that comes out of the pumps and the taps, but most people wash from well water, which is even worse because it just fills up with runoff when it rains and the runoff is nasty. We do have filters on our water, but it comes out of the filter much slower than the regular water.

I'm glad it sounds like you all are getting around and doing stuff together, it sounds like lots of fun!
I got two packages on Thursday, one had some snacks and 4 wrapped presents and the mission journal, and the other had the ensign and an advent calender that had melted and all the chocolate leaked out, and then a little letter from Sam.

Yeah, life's pretty much going good here. Just doing work and helping people to change.
Love you all!
Aza kamo!

Week 20 - Antsirabe - Thanksgiving

So I had my first baptism where I actually baptized some one. To quote Nacho, "Baptized!!" It was great! The water was cold and green and full of bugs and smelled like Utah Lake in August and that is the water that comes out of our taps... It was fantastic! Our program has finally started getting to the baptism stage, when we whitewashed it took a while to get people going, but the harvest is finally starting to whiten and it is wonderful!

So Thanksgiving happened, it's this really big holiday here in Madagascar where no one does anything different except for a bunch of white Americans and a random Canadian and some Malagasies that got dragged into it. It started at 7 in the morning where we went and had a zone activity and played football, the american kind, for a while. I believe that was our district meeting too.

After that we went home and studied some, got ready, and went to have a delicious Thanksgiving meal at the Tolmans' house, the scrawney Malagasy turkeys weren't good enough for them, so they made chicken cordon bleu instead. But we had all of our stuffing and potatoes and fruit salad and pie. Then we went and worked. Then, at around 8 we went to a restaraunt called Sam's and ate another thanksgiving meal, this time with real turkey. It was fantastic and almost as good as Sister Tolman's cooking! Then we went home and went to sleep.

But did we stop partying there? No. We just waited until Saturday after the baptism when we went to our now former investigator's house and had a Malagasy party. We had some Macaroni stuff for an appetizer and and then we had rice and loaka. The Malagasy way on this is you have to eat until all the rice is gone and there was soooo much. Then, throughout the meal we had some natural pinapple juice they made and put into water bottles, I think you can see them in the picture. Anyway, those destroyed my entire system yesterday, but they were pretty good on Saturday. Then we finished off the meal with some ranon'ampango or burnt rice water. Then they pulled all of the chairs and tables out and filled the room with subwoofers and an army of other speakers and then we had a dance. It was awesome. I still think most Malagasy music sounds like the Mexican radio station mixed with bluegrass and occaisionally dubstep, but Malagasy dancing is one of the most entertaining things I've seen. You know Napolean Dynamite's dance where he starts out just stepping on one foot then the other? It's like that but usually they don't get too far past the first part. It just reminded me a lot of a junior high dance filled with white people with white people, so in other words, I've found my place! I can do that!!

So other than making plans to return to Madagascar after my mission and become rich as a professional dancer, life has pretty much gone on as usual for us out here in the Indian Ocean.
This week's work is midoladola, mee-doo-lah-DOO-lah, which means to waddle. Why, you may ask, would a missionary need to know this word? I'm honestly not sure, but I'm super happy I asked what it was during English class! And since this week has been a week of bounty and the Christmas season has begun, I will give a second Morsel of Malagasy for you all (I think that's what I'll call this from now on), and that Morsel is, "kay ilay ity!" It is pronounced kie-lay-tee if you say it fast, and its English equivalent is, "the heck is this?!" So there you have it. Do something good with your increased knowledge and fahaizana.

Our branch supposedly has around 300 members. Ususally church attendance is around 90-120, but this last week it was 139! But that was the primary program, and I think people from the other wards skipped sunday school to come to that...

This week's spiritual though comes at you from John, he said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." Sure you've all heard this before, but it's the fundamentals that are the most important, and as we get into the Christmas season don't forget that you mean something special to your Father and your older brother in Heaven, and they will do all they can to help you if you will accept their help.

I love you all!
Stay gold ponyboy.
Mifalia daholo!