WEEK 86 MPAMONO BAOLA! Soccer win 3-2! I scored win goal! Keep teaching!

Another great week! 

 

I was a little sick at the beginning of the week so that slowed us down a little but we still pulled out a good week. 

Currrently our dime investigators are named Heingo and Liva.  Heingo came to church a couple of weeks ago telling us they used to attend church a couple of years ago. The church was in a different location and then from them moving, they couldn't attend anymore. Now that they found out it's closer, they have started coming again and they haven't stopped yet haha. We saw them at the activity last week and we talked to them about church and they really enjoy it. So they are doing great. 

Our recent converts are doing great as well. Sadly Kiky can only attend every other week at church due to a problem at his work but they are all still doing great even though there was a little mix up at the last activity. Clara said they were pretty upset then but its not a problem anymore. 

Today we had an awesome soccer game. We play the Ankorandrano ward every two weeks and they have been winning recently... but today we took the win! 3-2 was the final score and yours truly scored that last one. Awesome day haha. 

Elder Bowen

 

WEEK 85 Azafady aminao e! Baptism-Families can be Together Forever

Hey everyone!  Sorry for the late email. We didn't get the chance to email this last Monday. We had a stake activity we went to that took up alllll day and funny thing is that there were no places to email anyway because they celebrate Easter on Monday.  So that explains my emailing late. Just hopping on really quick right now to get out a quick email.

The highlight from this week was the baptism! We had a great baptism of Kiky (husband), Mariette (wife), Clara (child), Mickaella (child of clara), and Sharon (child of Salim and Landy).

Have a great week!

Elder Bowen

Families Can be TOGETHER FOREVER!!!

WEEK 84-tonga ny transfera-Great Conference! hello Elder Nolan

Well another great week has come and gone. So we got transfer news this last Sunday and as expected, Elder Lake is leaving. It was a quick three weeks but now I'm getting Elder Nolan and it should be another transfer of killing it.

This week was great with General Conference to end it. We went this last Saturday and Sunday to the mission bureau to watch it in English.  Truly was a great General Conference. We noticed that the Plan was talked about quite a bit. Also the great wisdom of our Prophet to read the Book of Mormon. Another great conference! 

This week we started off by working in a new area. Didn't have any programs so we went out and tracted. Found some great new investigators. Tracted into this difficult time which we ended up walking out of due to them refusing to listen to the message. But we went and found some old investigators that were lost and started teaching them again. Kind of the same thing for Wednesday and Friday since we are trying to better split up the program so we went and tracted quite a bit looking for some new investigators and finding them. 

Then, Thursday we went and prepared our people for baptism. We should have a baptism this weekend: Sharon, Kiky, Odette, Clara, and Michaela should be getting baptized this Saturday so we went and continued to prepare them for baptism. All seem really excited to get baptized and all that is left is the baptismal interview.

That's about it for this week. As always, conference strengthens my knowledge of a living prophet on this earth today. All of our investigators were very exited to hear the words of the prophet and sometimes I think we forget the importance of a living prophet who gives us direct revelation from God. 

Elder Bowen

 

 

                                                             Tracting with Elder Lake!

WEEK 83; Mpamboly coco! Wrong Clara-April Fools President Foote!

Another great one! So today we had the zone activity, but it wasn't just our zone. It was a Tana combined activity so we had three zones. We found this nice indoor place and played volleyball and soccer for two hours. It was a huge change from playing on the dirt field haha.

This week we did not watch conference as we are waiting for the translation but we will watch it this next week. We are getting everyone stoked about listening to the words of a living prophet! 

A couple of changes this week. We usually work in this area called Ambohinjanahary every Tuesday and Saturday but the work is kind of slowing down there so we are changing our schedule to open up a new area called Ampatolampy that is closer to the church in hopes of getting more luck and meeting new people. 

Investigators still are doing great. Sadly we haven't taught Liva and Tahiry in a while as Liva is in Fianarantsoa working right now and she is busy with work and the kids. But hopefully he will come back soon and they will get back on track. Johnny told us he and his family would be coming to church this week but sadly didn't come again. We have a new families coming to church again after a couple of years and they are on track to be baptized. Still a little hesitant about the church but they seem to like being there. And, Caroline comes to church with her daughter and they want to get baptized but she is not yet married according to the law so we are waiting on that. 

So, a weird thing happened over this past week. Last week on Sunday we were going to go to Clara, Kiky, and Odette house. While we were walking, we got a call from "Clara" saying they couldn't learn that day. So we turned away and went and found another program. Then on Thursday we went and visited them and they were mad at us for not coming on Sunday! So we told them Clara called us, yet she denied calling us. Lets just say everyone was confused that day. We just assumed that it was someone else who happened to be named Clara and happened to be taking the lessons. So then this last Sunday we were out working and we got a call from "Clara" saying that they couldn't learn anymore and that we shouldn't go to their house anymore. It was way strange as they came to church that day and seemed to be having a good time. So I asked the lady if it was really Clara and if she was the mother to Michaela (her daughters name). The lady said yes and that we can't come anymore. So of course that didn't sit right with us and we went over to their house. We knocked and they let us in as normal. I asked Clara if she called us and she said no. Then we told them the whole story of what happened and they said that it is someone from Clara's old church who was quite angry when she left. The person was calling us claiming to be Clara and telling us she couldn't learn anymore in an attempt to get us to stop going over there. Well, better luck next time. 

Besides that, we had a great week. We had dinner with Lalaina last night (the guy on the moped with us last week) and it was wayyyy good. Fried rice and chicken. Not your typical Malagasy food. And he made us ice cream haha. Other news is Elder Lake and I are officially addicted to mentos, the fruit ones. 

Oh and we got President Foote with an April fools joke! We told him we accidently hired a realitor to show us houses and now she wants five million ariary. (3000 ariary to a dollar) Right as he started freaking out we told him it was an April fools joke. Then he got us back. He said, "you guys want some early transfer news?" we said yeah of course! He said "April fools boys!" 

Sippin cokes and eating PIZZA with Elder Lake

                                    

Volleyball with Elders wrestling in the middle of it!