1 week down

Manahoana izy ireo!

Well 1 week down in the MTC, to be honest I was hating it until Sunday. When people say, "just get to sunday" they really mean it. Sunday was amazing. After a great devotional by Sister Mary Edmunds, we watched a talk by Elder Bednar entitled "Character of Christ." Honestly. Life-changing. But really, pretty sick haha. After watching it I am determined to not let anything get me down because I know that this mission isn't about me and my struggles. I'm on the Lords errand and it's about the people of Madagascar and their wants and needs. Well that was my spiritual note hah. First order of business, thank you for the letters from family.. and Yevi. Haha the rest of you guys need to pick up the slack. But really. That's real life. I like letters; letters are like the best thing ever after 6 hours of learning sentence structure in Malagasy. The subject is last so we have to form our sentences like, "was a prophet Joseph Smith," or "better write me some more letters you guys." Haha my vocabulary has skyrocketed to a flash card pile of about 150 cards, I know about half of them but my flash card pile looks menacing to the other Elders haha. Even though my DL Elder Lee Chip Sao can already carry out a freaking conversation in Malagasy... All the kid does is freaking study.... and write me up for telling stories of the glory days that aren't "missionary appropriate." I guess telling the boys about my BYU adventures takes away from the spirit... hahah. It's fine, it's story time again tonight in the zone leaders room. AH! My zone leaders are the coolest guys ever. My favorite one/new best friend is Elder Mead from Leeds, England. That's right, one of my best friends is Brittish! He's heading to Greece. The other zone leaders are Elder Martinez from Spain who's hilarious because we have like no idea what he's saying, Elder Johannson from Sweeden who is like my secret man crush, and i'm his. We told eachother. They're also headed to Greece. Then there's Elder Webb from Spokane Washington who is headed to Latvia next week, we've gotten really close the past couple of days so it sucks that he's leaving but I guess that happens.. haha. The other ZL's are leaving in two weeks. Elder Mead promised me we're going to be best lads forever... so that's pretty dope. I'll miss those guys... But it's cool because I like my district... oh wait haha. No I like the other Malagasy district! Tha'ts where all my friends are! It's fine, Elder Weber and I are here doing our stuff being all missionaries and stuff when Elder Lee and Elder Fisher who are our roommates/other guys in our zone are already making their own sentences without a dictionary! I can't do that! Haha it's fine, OUTWARD mindset! That's mine and Elder Weber's phrase we say when one of us is getting discouraged! Well I've taught 4 more lessons to Jean-Jaque... Haha funny story, I accidentally said that Joseph Smith was breast fed by angry men.... The word for kill is mamono, the word to breast feed is manono. Oooops.... Haha it's okay though becasue Jean-Jaque is just one of our teachers acting like he's an investigator. My teachers are Brother Burton who is probably the best/coolest/funniest teacher ever. He's the one who was my EFY counselor, which sucks because he's going to be gone for the next two weeks doing EFY... Then there is Brother Sell who is really cool. He's super chill and really funny, he also knows the Cosgraves! Then there is Brother Sender who didn't start teaching us till yesterday becasue he's been playing as our investigator... Not sure if I like him yet because he doesn't seem to know what happiness is, that's all. He's way too serious for my liking. We just got a new teacher named Brother Aldous... Safe to say Max has a lower voice than him... Haha. Tsara teny Malagasy... Malagasy is good. But not really, haha it's still super hard but hey! Who ever said Rome was built in a day! My goal is to speak Malagasy by the year mark of my mission! WOO!! I'm gonna do it, and it's gonna sound DOPE at my homecoming haha. But really, I know if I have faith and keep working my hardest, I'll eventually know how to differentitate to kill from to breast feed... and really that's all that matters. This week starting monday has actually gone pretty fast, surprisingly haha. We have just gotten into a routine, we just doing our thang! Finakaviana! Momba! Which means About Family, it's like our phrase we say to trip other people out and it sounds tsara... Yeah that's right. I know a couple of words. But really it's true when they say the days are long but the weeks go by fast... It makes no sense but it's like real life. Umm... What else. Oh! Yesterday Elder Weber and I taught our first lesson in Malagasy WITHOUT notes! We felt so accomplished after! We taught Jean about Ny drafitra ny famenjena or Plan of Salvation! We kind of messed up some parts so Brother Sender told us that Jean-Jaque was confused when we said that after the fall of Adam... Spirit World. We forgot to talk about that whole thing we call life on earth... Haha oops! We're making baby steps... While Elder Lee studied during personal time on P-Day... Then he sang a hymn in cantonese just for fun. It's about to get real racist in here but the kid is the typical asain child haha. No seriously... Like Weber and I were in the ZL's room talking until like 11:45 (oops) and when we came in to get the key at like 11 Elder Lee was at his desk reading sentences to himself! Haha it's crazy! Umm... I'm making friends I guess, let's just say the people in my zone know me. It did like a swan dive into a bush during a mad game of "bases" and now have a sick cut on my upper thigh. Haha everybody saw too... So that was my moment in the light. Sorry I'm just all over the place but I'm trying to remember what I've done... Sunday we had our sacrament meeting, which was neat and then the 1st counselor and his wife talked. Brother Parrish... the 1st counselor... Is the reason why babies cry when they come into this world. The man straight up told us he'd send us home if he heard we broke 1 rule.. Rules like not praying for the hour after class before bed, rules like not talking to the other gusy in the zone after class, and rules like having a tie tack on your tie... The man is insane. Haha umm... also I was in the choir! On Tuesday we performed for the devotional where Elder Nash spoke (which was great) and I felt like I was in MoTab haha! Cause they like panned across the choir while we were singing and I got a close up!!!! In front of the whole MTC! Safe to say I had a few high endowed (pretty) sisters come up to me after and say that they saw me on the big screen.... It's whatever really haha. Umm... I think that might be all... I'll try to send some pictures. Keep writing! Letters are manna from heaven, and I guess it's okay if you email too. Hopefully you're putting this on the blog so the people know what's going on in my life... Maybe advertise it on Facebook ahah. At lease put the pictures up. Manahoana! Tiako Ianao!

Much love,

Elder Roush