WEEK 95 - ndao isika manao fety

Another great one! So we got some early transfer news today. For my last transfer we are combining two areas. My old area and another Fort D area. Let me tell you it is a work load. Both areas had pretty full programs and now we have to merge them together somehow! But it will be a good time!

Oh and today is the Madagascar Independence Day so we are hopefully going to go see some cool things today. Last night we watched the fireworks from our house and today we are going to see them march and later hopefully hit up the surf competition. 

We were pretty busy this week trying to get everything together and saying goodbye to Elder Francom who just went home. We actually had a pretty packed program just due to everyone wanting to feed us but it was a good time having some interesting dinners... but the work is going better than ever. We have quite a few couple that are getting their papers all in order so they can get legally married so we are just waiting for that. Most of them are coming to church and the ones that don't usually can't attend due to work but everything is getting worked out. 

We actually have this one family that we always mess around with because we walk by them many times a day and they are sellers on the street. We found out they are related to some members and have been trying to get them to come to church for a while and they finally came yesterday! It was awesome! 

So a lot of the work recently has been Elder Allen (new comp) and I trying to figure out ways to put our programs together so we can fit everyone in. Also trying to figure out who people are at church haha. We have a long list of recent converts we have to keep track of but luckily there is a dope member that is preparing for a mission and he helped us out a lot. This week should be a fun week packed full of many many lessons. 

The highlight of the week was sitting in church during the sacrament. It was quiet and I got to watch the deacons pass the sacrament while listening to the wave's crash on the beach right behind me as the cool breeze came in from the open window right behind my head. To top it off it's during the sacrament so the spirit is stronger than ever. You ever want to find Paradise, come on down to

Fort D. 

 

Elder Bowen

 

 

 

 

 

WEEK 94 Nandeha lakana izahay!

Well another great week has come and gone here in Paradise. We had a great week this week. So highlights of the week were as follows.

So Elder Allen and I had a split this last Saturday. I took him into my area and we had a great day. So we have this family that has really been progressing. The only thing holding them back from baptism is that they aren't legally married. They are working on that and are getting close to having it done. We had a great lesson reviewing the Plan of Salvation. We talked about our purpose here on earth and the Atonement and it just clicked for them. It was great! 

We have this other family. They were contacted right before I got here and the lessons have been going great until about two weeks ago. They have dogged us a couple of times and when I was with Allen we got dogged by someone else and I got the impression we should go stop by this family. So we did and we got to talk to the mom. She told us that she has been really busy with work lately and that the kids are preparing for a big exam and they haven't been able to learn lately. I asked her if we could stop by Sunday night and talk. She didn't seem to really like that so she said no but then I told her we would help out with their work (grading papers and what not) so then she said yes. We (Elder Hunter and I) stopped by Sunday night just with the intention of dropping by really quick so we wouldn't bother. We came in and they sat us down and we had a nice discussion. We ended up teaching them a lesson on the Word of Wisdom. We came to find out that the daughters had been reading the whole time and they have kept up on their commitments. We had a great lesson and they had plenty of questions but it ended with them commiting to try and start living the Word of Wisdom. 

Pictures this week are from the little zone activity we took. President Foote approved a little canoe trip up a shallow river to these four mountains. I have sent some pics of the mountains before so you may remember them... so we got this guy to take us. He shows up at our house like 30 minutes after he was supposed to meet us and he is just hammered. So drunk that he couldn't walk strait. Luckily a drunk man doesn't have a whole lot of influence on a canoe, especially if he is fighting to stay awake. But we rode out, walked around and saw some beautiful blue water, awesome beaches, and then headed on back.

 

Elder Bowen

 

 

WEEK 93 Dadi Love-Splits-Fresh tracting

Another great week in Paradise. This week flew by. At the end of the week we had a famous Malagasy singer named Dadi Love come to Fort D with another guy named Willy. There were all other kinds of activities for Malagasies to do so it slowed the work down slightly... we went from house to house for some of our scheduled times to find out that people were at the concert or were at one of the other things. then come Sunday we had a crazy low attendance. Talking to people we found out that due to the rain and Dadi Love, they couldn't come to church... pretty valid. But, regardless of the party weekend, we had a pretty good week.

We decided to drop a couple of people this week which opened up the program to get some fresh meat. So we went tracting and actually found some awesome new families.

We also went on splits with Elders Blatter and Parraga and I got to go into another area with Elder Parraga! Work is going great in all the areas here in Fort D so it was a great split to get to see how awesome the work is going in another area.

Sadly, we got dogged by some of the people I've kept you updated on so no news from them but next week Indray! Here are some awesome pics from the week! 

The view from a restaurant

                                                                         Our hike!

  Incredible View

 

 

 

 

 

WEEK 92 Climbing Mountains-Dolphin Tale-Zone Conference!

Another great week in the Paradise of Fort D! So today we went and hiked up the mountain by Fort D and I sent a pic as to why it is named that. Look for the dolphin tail...

We had an awesome week this week. President Foote just came down and visited us and he left this morning to go back to Tana. As he was down here we had a zone conference. Elder Hunter and I talked about the importance of preparing ourselves spiritually and mentally for lessons. How we must study and prepare our minds to be influenced by the Holy Ghost. Then President talked a lot about how we need to look at ourselves before we try and correct others. If there are things we want others to be doing then we must be doing them first. Now this may sound easy if referring to a new investigator reading or keeping commitments, but it can also boil down to our efforts and desires in this gospel. If we want others to be exited and happy about it, we ourselves must be. 

Besides that, the week went great. We had an awesome lesson with this guy named Alen. He is kind of a punk but he is a cool guy. We had a pretty serious lesson with him talking about how important this is, and if he really wants the fullness of blessings he has to go all in. We committed him to coming on Sunday, again, and he didn't show up... until after Sacrament meeting started. Then he walked in! It was awesome! Besides him, we had our random dude come again and sadly we couldn't teach him this last week but we are going to try and catch him this week. Other than that, our other investigators and church members are still champions.

Well things are great here in Fort D! Lovin' the mission right now and I'm loving seeing the work of God's hand here in Madagascar. I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Bowen

Our Hiking group!

  Fort Dauphin is Paradise!

 THE DOLPHIN TALE!!!