What a week! - 7/14/14

Elder Lehr and Elder Miller

I guess one of the most effective ways to describe what is happening this week is to kind of just go in order of days.

Tuesday; got in a taxibrus at 8:00 in the morning and got to Tana at about 6:30. When we arrived I found myself inhaling some of the dirtiest air I have ever taken into my body. I truly forgot how dirty Tana was. Because of said bad air, I got sick and am still trying to recover.

Wednesday: Got to meet with the other trainers, and said goodbye to Elder Gaul and Elder Evans. SO SAD! I am glad for the opportunity to hang out with them after everything is done. They are some swag guys.

Thursday: I gave birth at around 2:00 to a really tall 18 year old Man named.......Elder Miller. He is SO COOL! He is more of a quiet guy, but oh is he awesome! (From Boise, Idaho) He is way good at sports and is excited to be here. Elder Morley got an Elder Garcia as his companion. They are all way tall, and I am just short....Hmm I guess that is what happens when you have a malagasy father and a mexican mother on the mission. :) (This mission lingo can get interesting - He is referring to his trainer, Elder Rasolofonirina and his next companion, Elder Trujillo) We all left by taxibrus a little bit later and stayed a night in Antsirabe. The main problem was that Elder Garcia got some really bad motion sickness and was......relieving some lunch on the side of the taxibrus for almost the entire 4 hours. It's ok though. We had an awesome time staying with Elder Cartmill and Elder Ralaivo (he is from Fianarantsoa).

Friday: We leave Antsirabe at around 2:00 and during the entire trip they were blasting music as loud as they could. I almost couldn't hear anything for the rest of the night and am still recovering.

Saturday: We met with the branch president, attended a fireside with the couple missionaries, and taught a couple of people. The fireside was really good as the couple missionaries went into a lot more depth about the plan of salvation and it led into how we need to all prepare to go to the temple so that we can give those ordinances necessary to go return to live with our Heavenly Father to our ancestors. It was way cool.

Sunday; We went to church, had class, got a little frustrated at some of the teachers and people since the missionaries that usually come to Fianarantsoa have already been in Madagascar for a couple of months and are at least ok at the language. And it is a little weird for them to have someone that barely knows anything at all. (Elder Lehr had to remind the people that Elder Miller literally just arrived in the country. They were more willing to help after that)  Elder Miller is a stud though and I think will pick things up pretty fast. Also in our investigator class, the teacher was talking about the word of wisdom and was asking every single person what their problem was with the word of wisdom. NOT OK! That should definitely be something only with the bishop and the person.

So all in all, it has been a really good week. I feel bad because I am still trying to figure out how I can help Elder Miller progress and become the type of person that he can become, and he is trying with all his might. It's definitely not something I am used to and will take a lot of praying and fasting to know what to do, but I am excited to be with him. I figure that this will help me to see that the lessons are not really that important, but if the new missionary can grow and learn every day, then it will be worth it. I think he is going to teach me a lot of really cool things. It's an exciting time :)

Am-pitiavana

Elder Lehr