Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 18

April 20, 2015

This week felt pretty fast. I have one more week left in this area and then I am hopefully changing. I am still not 100 percent sure, but all signs say that I am going to change areas in this next transfer, so that is good. Elder Tangarasi even revelated and claimed to know that I was being transferred, so I'm hopeful.

Elder Evans and I are still doing our fair share of tracting right now. There seems to be a shortage of people interested in learning about the restoration, a real shame it is. Though, we have found some new people that hopefully will continue in their faith and continue to want to learn from the missionaries. We can only but hope. Tracting... going door to door is just not that fun for me, I say me because maybe some of you have fun going door to door, I don't know. I just really don't like it. Something about getting doors (curtains) slammed (abruptly shut left to right) in your face door after door (shack after wood hut) just isn't my cup of tea (herbal of course). But yeah, it is pretty funny.

If I had 50 Malagasy Ariary for every time that a investigator promised me he would come to church and didn't I would probably have like 5,000 Ariary. That could get me fries and a drink from an expensive restaurant or about 5 plates of rice and laoka from a regular hotely. Not bad. Lots of people like promising that they will come worship with us, but rarely they ever do. A minor setback. I just wish everyone would come just once in order to feel what it feels like, you feel me? Maybe in the Millennium everyone will come to church with us, who knows?

Yesterday I was eating dinner with some members (a humble meal only, but I wasn't expecting 50 Dollar steak), and I noticed that the piece of meat I was eating had 3 prongish things that all connected at the ends and fanned out. I then realized that I had just enjoyed my first chicken foot. It wasn't half bad. I wasn't even mad when I realized that it was a chicken foot, I just kept on eating it. Food is food. But naturally, my mind began to focus on images of the sickly, pathetic, dirty chickens in Madagascar that search in the above-ground sewage lines for their meals and my stomach churned a bit from the horrifying thought. But, today I am fine, my stool was no softer than usual, so no harm done.

I honestly can't think of anything else that was particularly exciting this week, so that is probably all for today.

Elder Anderson

Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 17

April 13, 2015 Second Baptism

Well today was a pretty busy week, like usual. We had interviews with the Mission President on Thursday, and then we had a baptism this last Saturday. My Malagasy has gotten pretty good, it is safe to say I am ahead of the bar at this point in time. I feel like I understand the language better than I can speak it, there are few words that I don't understand when teaching lessons. On a less holy note, I also know almost all of the swear words here, I will now be prepared in case an intense Bible bashing session begins, j/k. But, all in all, I feel confident in my ability as of late.

Interviews with the President went well, it was pretty short, but I didn't really have any questions to ask. He told me to just continue working hard and being obedient. It was pretty good I guess.

Last Saturday we had another investigator get baptized. Her name is M--- N---, she is the niece of a member in our ward. N--- lives with T--- (the member) instead of her parents. She is 15 years old. Elder Schroedter and I started teaching her a few months ago. She is doing good, and comes to church every week. She wanted me to do the baptism so I happily obliged, I was way less nervous the second time. The words just spun off of my tongue this time around. (Although I did have a little rough start entering the font. I started getting nervous as I forgot which wrist I was supposed to grab with my hand, after a small setback I thought to myself "Well my right hand is supposed to be up, so I can deduce that I am to use my left hand to hold her wrist" (A sound deduction, if I do say so myself).  After positioning my body around I figured that it would make the most sense to hold her right wrist and not left) so in the end it went well. The water was also freezing. But freezing is better than cold in my opinion. She looked extremely discomforted when her entire head was immersed, but I would say that a little discomfort for a cleansing of all past sins isn't a half-bad deal.

The other day while we were contacting I saw a very strange sight. Out in the middle of the rice fields I saw two little Malagasies dragging a pig across the mud by it's hind legs. The Pig obviously didn't want to become the supplement to rice, but the Malagasies tried their best to haul it across the fields. At one point the pig got to a hill and the 2 dudes didn't know what they should do to get it up, so they took the beast by the ears and pulled it up the hill. I have never heard such wailing and screaming. The pig sounded like it was giving birth or something. It was bad. But they eventually got it up. Afterwards the pig was not very happy, and attempted to ram into the young Malagasies (luckily there was a leash holding it back). But I found it very entertaining watching the Malagasies drag the pig to the slaughter to the best of their abilities. One weird food that you can buy here is the face of a pig. I find it pretty gross-looking, but it probably isn't too bad tasting. I always get a little grossed-out when I see the various severed animal parts hanging in little street shacks out in the sun. People here buy meat that has been out in the sun for days, I guess their bodies are already used to it. 

This week we had fewer lessons than usual, most of our time was spent going door-to-door for hours in the hot African sun (probably the funnest activity in the world). Yeah, I don't like tracting at all. This week I found salsa for the first time in a supermarket, and it was a glorious occasion. Never has salsa tasted so good. I was a bit disappointed though, as I could not find any tortilla chips. I had to use some local chips that were fairly close, but extremely different. I have even been putting salsa on pasta that I make haha, I do like salsa. I also bought some nice expensive cheese for 15,000 ariary, about a days worth of allotment found. It was the first real cheese I have had in Madagascar, and it was quite delightful.

But, this week wasn't extremely eventful, so that is probably all.

Goodbye,
Elder Anderson

Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 16

April 6, 2015

Well, this week seemed to go by faster than most. We have been doing a lot of contacting lately, as usual. The past few weeks it seems as though we have been only been teaching 1st lessons, nothing else. And I assume that it feels that way because in reality we haven't taught anything other than 1st lessons in these past few weeks lol. Also, recently I have been focusing on attempting to improve my language ability. I want to sound like a native Malagasy in my way of speaking and manner of speaking. I don't want to just sound like another vazaha from out of country. This computer has to be the slowest thing I have ever seen or used. I was a bit curious when I noticed that the keyboard and monitor that I am using were plugged into a toaster rather than a computer. I really want to master the Malagasy language, even though it literally has no use outside of this country. It is probably one of the most useless languages in the world though lol. Even in Madagascar you can get around the country just fine if you know French, you don't even need to know Malagsy here. 

This past week our zone had a nice little meeting. So it really messed up one of our schedules for the day. The place where we met at was an hour and a half drive from our house as the Taxi Bus drives, and you'd better hope we don't have one of those on our tail. The meeting was fine I guess. I learned a thing or two. It just really messed up our whole day though, we didn't get back to our area until 4 30 PM. We ended up only getting 29 Hours of proselyting time this week because of the Zone Meeting. 

Last Saturday I attended the grandest baptism in Madagascar yet. It was the first Baptism in our new building. A lot of people came to support a man named Frere Norbert. He has a position fairly high in the government, and because of that, he has a lot of friends in high-up places. He even gave a fancy invitation to his baptism to the President of Madagascar, he didn't show up unfortunately though. It was also one of the longest baptisms that I have ever attended as well. There was a song or hymn or musical number about every 15 minutes it seemed. The meeting in its entirety was 3 hours in total. There were a lot of speakers present, and they did speak much. It is safe to assume that I may have been just a little bit bored during some points, I never did succumb to the temptations of sleep though, so that is good. Afterwards I worked at a desk with a bunch of LDS pamphlets and Books of Mormon and talked to people that asked about our Church afterwards. We received about 23 names of people who were interested in learning more about our church. Hopefully that means that I will be doing less contacting. There were probably around 200 people at the baptism, if not more. Definitely the biggest I have seen.

Easter was pretty good, we didn't really do anything special, we didn't get to watch conference because we don't have it yet. My companion said it usually takes a month or two to translate to Malagasy and then to give out copies to all of the wards. But I did have a lot of chocolate and candy from my family to eat, so that was good. I do appreciate eating candy and chocolate every meal instead of rice, it is a nice upgrade. Rice... just has no flavor, not my favorite. But yeah, church attendance this week was very low, and probably because all of our investigators went to their old churches this week because they all have big Easter parties. Last Sunday I saw more people go to church in Madagascar than I ever have before, and usually lots of people attend so it was quite a spectacle. Sunday in Madagascar is the one day of the week people actually take showers, wear makeup, and wear nice clothes (anything not dirty with holes is nice here). So it is a fairly nice day here. But last Sunday there were loads of people walking down the streets, taking taxibes, and driving cars to church. Then on Monday they all have big parties to celebrate Easter. The streets were more crowded than I have ever seen before. It was a pretty good Easter.

This computer is really bad so the letter is probably bad quality as well.

Have a good week, 

Elder Anderson

Elder Anderson did not send pics this week, the following are from his companion Elder Evans and a mission facebook page. :)

Garbage pile near the police station.

The new Stake Center!

Inside the New Stake Center.

Weight room in Benjamin's apartment with cement weights.

Rice Paddies.

Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 15

March 30, 2015

This week Elder Evans and I have been working really hard, we have done loads of tracting and have taught plenty of lessons. Our goal this week was to achieve 30 hours of proselyting time, and we did it. We even had 5 minutes to spare. This computer is very slow, I am typing the words and then they appear seconds later, it is slightly annoying to say the least. But we got our 30 hours, and it was no simple task. If we were outside of our house we were either teaching lessons to families or going door-to-door. The last week we have been trying to contact into the more wealthy families, Our success therein has been limited, more curtains have been abruptly shut in my face than in my mission as a whole (or my whole life even, most people in America have doors and not curtains as the one barrier guarding their front door). But I'm not even mad, because a few of them let us in in the end and wanted us to return. On another note, it seems that all of the drunk people here in Madagascar want to talk to and become friends with the missionaries. It does get annoying sometimes, I am just thankful that they aren't ever violent.

I don't remember if this has previously been mentioned, but our new Stake Center is done, and it isn't half bad. It is about a million times better than that cheap and moldy apartment building thing that we used before. It is a really nice building, probably one of the nicest in the whole country. It feels just like a church back in America, the only major difference is that there are no drinking fountains in the church here in Madagascar, a minor letdown. And if there were drinking fountains they would most likely not be safe to drink from, unless they had their own nice little filtration system that is. It would be fine for the Natives, but it would upset my bowels (I have had diarrhea since Easters here!), it seems that even if you just simply look at a glass of homemade juice with unfiltered water you get an upset stomach. But anyways, the new Stake Center in Ambohimanarina, Antananarivo is very nice. Upon entering the Chapel I begin to feel as if I am back home in America, but when I leave and see the small, broken, dirty roads and small little shacks that they call houses, the dream begins to fade and I start to think to myself, "Wait... this can't be Utah, there are only Black people here". And then it hits me, the chapel's soothing effect caused by it's American appeal is lost. But, I begin to gain hope as I start to realize that if I am in Madagascar that also means that I can buy a fancy meal from the top restaurants in town for around 3 US Dollars. My heart is content knowing that food here is good, usually, and practically costs nothing compared to the cost of living in America.

The last few weeks I have started to gain a mastery over my area (the layout and such). I can get anywhere I need to, and I know the most efficient route, I wasn't quite sure it would ever happen, I thought that I would be constantly lost in my exceptionally large area, but it seems that I have indeed accomplished the near impossible. I set records last week when I didn't have to turn around in order to find the correct path a single time. That must be the power of prayer, because the week before I had no clue where I ever was (exaggeration for effect, I wasn't entirely clueless when wandering the near-identical looking paths of Madagascar, just semi-clueless). But, I really do feel like I have improved loads this past week (good thing too, because my new companion hasn't ever worked here [obviously]) I finally feel confident in my area for once, and it is a pretty decent feeling.

This last week we have gotten a lot more strong investigators in our area (strong in this case suggesting that they (the investigators) remember and take to heart the main part of our message). I have seen a lot of people recently that all agree that there shouldn't be so many churches in our time right now, and that Jesus only created one church, so (by using deduction) we can safely conclude that there needed to exist a restoration of the fullness of the gospel in order to bring back to order the true church as established by Jesus the Christ. A lot of our recent contacts agree that there are so many churches here on the earth right now, because the true authority to act in the name of God was lost when Jesus and the Apostles died. I am eagerly waiting to see their progress.

Well, that is all for today.
Elder Anderson

​I stole this hat from a Malagasy missionary in our district and snapped a quick photo - lol, I can't choose the pictures that I send on this computer, it is pretty random.

This cute kid caught three birds with his bare hands, not bad I say. He was posing for the photo.

This lizard was fairly large, half of my forearm.

Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 14

March 23, 2015

Well, sorry that I didn't send an email last week, Elder Schroedter spent most of his last P Day here saying "Good Bye" to people as he prepared to depart. Right now I have a new companion. His name is Elder Evans. So far he seems great, we get along just fine. Elder Schroedter went to a place called Mahajanga, it is on the coast by the beach and is way hot. I am still going to be working in this area for the time being. I am still here in Ambohimanarina.

In other news, last week I did my first Baptism ever. I was just a tad bit nervous to say the least, I was really worried that I was going to say the Baptism prayer in Malagasy wrong. Thankfully I did in fact say it flawlessly (I have confidence in my claim as not a single Malagasy laughed while and after I was performing the baptism, I was very proud of myself). The baptism was completed in a nice little squarish box thing. The water was nice and cold (I was glad that I was dunker and the dunkee, only my legs got wet). The font was also a lot cleaner than our last baptism, our diligent DMB (ward mission leader) decided to clean it before the meeting this time, bless his heart. Instead of being a certainly peculiar shade of refried beans brown, this time it was the friendlier color of "used" kiddy pool green. I baptised a 14 year old young man named J-- M---, he is a friend of M---, who is a friend of P---, who is a Recent Convert in the church. My well-thought goal for these next few months is to baptize someone who is above the age of 17, hopefully I can accomplish such a extraneous feat.

Lately I have started hating rice a little less than usual. Before I could only eat a little bit of it before it got boring (I would occasionally even gag if I put enough of the tasteless stuff in my poor, discriminating mouth), but now I am usually able to finish a plate. It still has no taste though if there is no meat with it, a minor setback. Now that I am on the subject, the difference in flavor between fried rice and plain white rice is tremendous. I still look forward to the day I return and get to once again taste fried rice from Panda Express... but for now I will just have to settle with good ol' fashioned sticky rice I suppose. I do like the meat and beans they put on the rice though. Tsaramaso and these peanut like things. They are pretty good, and they make it possible to consume the rice - a nice little bonus. You don't really realize how much you appreciate fast food until it is gone. I have gone many a day waiting for my rice to arrive at my plate while secretly lusting over Subway, Taco Time, Wendy's, and McDonald's (to name a few). A lot of commodities in America are definitely taken for granted by the people there, me included. My eyes have really been opened since the time I have arrived in "The Second Poorest Country in the World". Not a single McDonald's in site.

This week Elder Evans and I have been contacting a lot. We are trying to get our program 100 percent full, a noble task indeed. Just yesterday we ran into this nice little fellow and I shared a small spiritual thought that led into a brief introduction of the Joseph Smith story. As soon as I stopped talking about Joseph Smith, M---, the dude, started laughing. His laughing made me feel a little strange, I started thinking that I said something incorrect during the lesson and took a look at my companion to confirm my fears. But before I could correct some mistake that I must have made M--- announced to us that he, like Joseph Smith, also has been praying to God to know which church was the true church on earth, as there are loads of churches in the world today. So I guess the rumors are indeed true, some people are prepared spiritually for the missionaries beforehand. I was taken back just as much as all of you. Most of the time we contact into families they either aren't interested or are too committed to their family religion. But this bloke actually had been praying and asking the same questions that Joseph himself asked, and received the missionaries as his answer. I could tell that he was really relieved and excited about our message and he gladly told us that we could return next week. It seems that our hard work that day did pay off in the end. From the moment I saw him I could tell that something was different about him, I hope that he makes it in the end (I hope that all people make it in the end actually, I do have charity). Oh, and the weird feeling that I felt was probably the Holy Ghost, that's what I am hoping for at least (although at first I was scared that he was laughing because he thought we were preaching laughable content or that he was laughing at my poor attempt to communicate with him in his native tongue).

That's all I can think of for this week, there was probably more but my memory is certainly rubbish. The last thing I wish to say is that I now have a burning hatred for fleas and mosquitoes, and all bugs of that nature. I have quite a few bites all over my legs, it is rather annoying. Whenever I see one of the little devils I will shout out in Malagasy and murder the beast by whatever means necessary. Afterwards I will quote to the remains of the beast (Mark 14:21), "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born". I still am not sure what God's intent was when he created the mosquito, probably just to add to our trials in order to make us stronger.

Goodbye dear friends, until our next meeting.

Elder Anderson

My trainer Elder Schroedter, Elder Covey, Elder Schroedter's trainer's trainer Elder Weber, and me Elder Anderson

Elder Schreodter and I with the three kids getting baptized last Sunday. I baptized the oldest one, Jean Mikeal, on the far right. Malagasies don't smile in pictures because they are self conscious of the gaps in their teeth haha, that is why they all look a little depressed in this photo. 

Santa Claus in Malagasy looks very scary, the frown and umbrella combo next to the kid, gets me every time. :)

Elders in Benjamin's house before transfers, from Elder Hein's blog.

Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 13

March 16, 2015

Elder Anderson only had a few minutes to email this week and did not get a letter written :(

Here is what he was able to tell us.

He is getting a new companion, Elder Evans from Payson, Utah. Benjamin is staying in the same area, three of the 6 guys in his apartment are receiving new companions, so every companionship is changing. Benjamin, Elder Tangasari and Elder Babb will stay with their new companions.

Benjamin wished Christine, Rachel and Grace each a Happy Birthday, said love you all and that was it for this week.

A couple of March flood pictures from Antananarivo due to the 2 cyclones. Homes in the low lying areas were hit hard. Hopefully the rainy season will end soon.

Aparently there are deep pot holes in the ground that are not visible when the roads are flooded.

Benjamin's new companion, Elder Evans

Ambohimanarina, Madagascar Week 12

March 9, 2015

On Tuesday we had Zone Conference at the Mission Office, it was pretty good. We watched Meet the Mormons I had already seen it like a billion times at the MTC so it wasn't anything new for me, the other missionaries really seemed to enjoy it though so all is well. At Zone Conference President Adams stressed the importance of integrity and how we need to keep track of our money and give the allotment that we don't use back to the Mission Office at the end of the money. Recently a lot of Missionaries have been saving up the monthly allotment in order to buy computers, cameras, and smart phones when their missions are over. A lot of the Malagasy Missionaries especially have been saving their money and then starting businesses, most of them are really poor and have no money back home. I was selected beforehand to give the closing prayer at the conclusion of the Conference, I was a little nervous with all of the other missionaries present. After I gave my prayer Elder Hein (One of my Zone Leaders) told me that I sounded like an apostle when I gave my prayer (most likely half-jokingly though). He pointed out the stark contrast between the language of my prayer and the language I use when I am playing Risk in our apartment. I can assure you that no derogative slurs or slang terms were uttered whilst I was offering the closing prayer. The lunch at the Mission Office during the Zone Conference was pretty good, a lot different than the usual Rice and laoka. I was amazed at the fact that I did not have to pick out a single hair from the Sloppy Joes prepared by Sister Adams. I mentioned that President, in Zone Conference, stated that we all need to keep better track of our money and budget it better, so all of the missionaries in the mission now need to keep a budgeting notebook and write down every single 3 cent cracker that we buy. I have mixed feelings on this new requirement, it is probably a half-decent idea to have to keep a record of all of our purchases on the mission, but to me it is just going to be another chore to have to write down every single small thing that I buy. Who knows though, we will have to wait and see.

On Tuesday (The day of the Zone Conference) we got absolutely no missionary work done, Elder Schroedter and I left our house at 5 30 AM in the morning in anticipation of the 2.5+ hour Taxi Be ride and did not return to our house until 7 30 PM after an exciting 3.5 hour taxi ride back home. The traffic here is insane, the roads here are so thin, if there is a slight mishap in the road, no cars move. When we were about 30 minutes from our house on a nice little thin road with water on both sides the car broke down and nearly swerved off the side of the road. Thinking fast, I did what any sane man would do, I quickly repented of anything and everything that I could think of as my life flashed before my eyes. After the incident I was like, "Woah, we almost died". But yeah, the driver quickly regained control so no harm done, I wasn't even mad. The Taxi would no longer go anymore after it broke down, so we helped the Taxi driver push the car up and down the slopes of Antananarivo for about 40 or so minutes to the nearest gas station. It wasn't all too heavy actually, just a small little Taxi car. The Malagasy people were probably a little astonished seeing four white dudes in suits pushing a Taxi car around Madagascar, I know that I would be.

We are finally 100 percent moved into our new home, I like it a lot. I did have trouble sleeping one night though, somehow some nasty bugger of a mosquito gained entrance into my sleeping chambers. I would wake up every hour or so to the dreaded sound of a dreaded insect's annoying buzz. Around 4:30 AM I was determined to get my revenge. So I grabbed the bug-spray from off my table next to my bed and waited for the monstrosity to tempt my hand. A minuted later it began to fly right above my head, and I murdered the beast, songs and poems will be written of this day I think. I triumphantly sprayed the Mosquito 3 or 4 times just to be safe, the battle was won, the victory mine. I have like a million bug bites on every limb now, I really do hate bugs. But yeah, the house is pretty nice. Most nights we will play Risk or UNO for an hour or 2 (one night we played one game of Risk that lasted until 2:30 in the morning). The new house is loads better though, that much is certain. I even walked around barefoot once, it was an enlightening experience. I dearly hope that I never have to see the old Talatamaty house again, I imagine the Devil's apartment looks something like our old house, very dirty and moldy and such. Who knows.

We have 3 baptisms (possibly 4) coming up next Saturday, all of them are under the age of 17. Two of them are friends with M--- (my first baptism) and the other one is a 9 year old in a part-member family. A big problem with a lot of our investigators as of now is that a lot of them aren't legally married with documents. We have a lot of couples who are ready to get baptized but are still waiting to become legally married. Marriage is expensive in Madagascar due to the fact that most of the people here are incredibly poor, so most of the people here just avoid it altogether. More than 80 percent of the people here live on less that 1.25 USDs a day here, that is an insanely small amount of money. In the States it seems like you can sneeze and that much money will come out. Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world (if not the absolute poorest).

On Sunday I went on a split with Elder Tangarsi (my MTC companion). It was an interesting experience, we are both 3 months in country and fairly inexperienced with the language and the ways of the mission as a whole. Luckily we had 2 young members help us throughout the day, so that was a good help. I felt that we did a very good job for how new we are, the lessons weren't half bad. I had a fun day, if nothing else. At the conclusion of the day one of our member-helpers told me that I was already very good at Malagasy, and that I didn't say a single thing incorrectly. Whereas Elder Tangarasi made a handful of mistakes here and there. He is definitely trying his best though, even though he doesn't speak perfectly, he repeats himself and speaks in a way that the Malagasy people usually do understand him in the end. My biggest problem with the language right now is understanding what people are saying. If they say too few words, or words that I don't know it is hard for me to understand them at times. I just need to expand my vocabulary cache.

That's all I can really remember all ye people, so that is all.
Elder Anderson

On the far left we have Elder Schroedter, my companion. Next is Elder Tangarsi, my MTC companion. Following Elder Tangarsi we have Elder Hein and Elder Babb, my Zone Leaders. After Elder Babb is Elder Razazarohavana, Elder Tangarasi's companion and a native Malagasy. I am on the far right.

Benjamin has been in Madagascar long enough we think he has turned into a lemur! This picture he sent, he used picture effects from his camera - haha.

​My first baptism, M--- is 12 years old.  Schroedter did the baptism.

​Pics of the dirty old house after we attempted to clean it lol.

Benjamin and his companion - once again with camera effects.

The living room in our new house, it isn't half bad.

Elder Tangarasi on Elder Schroedter's bed. This is our room. Take note on how well my bed is made.

New bathroom.

Not an LDS church, but it had a statue of Jesus.