July 22

July 22

Well my dear friends and family... Hi haha.  I'm not going to lie... Today has been a very, very frustrating day... I feel like it's been a bit of a waste but!  I did buy my first souvenir a nice tablecloth and elder rakotonjanahary did recieve his patriarichal blessing today, so that's pretty awesome.  Anyways this week.. Man I don't know how to describe it, it was good, it was hard, i was homesick quite a bit, ahah but hey you just gotta keep pushing forward right?  Marina!  Well let's see to start things off i had American interaction everyday but Sunday so that was pretty dang mahafinaritra.  Tue we had interviews with president and that was great.. He is an awesome guy and he told me i'm in the situation i'm in because he trusts me and knows i have potential!  Wed we had a zone conference, well it was just for the new missionaries.  We learned some fun stuff!  There are some new dress code changes!  We can now wear lighter pants and suits and.... no backpacks!  Just shoulder, messenger bags!  HAHA!  Yeah.. A bit peeved but it's fine i'm over it.  We don't need to make the switch yet and i have my eye on a sweet shoulder bag in 67HA.  Also we heard this amazing talk by Brad Wilcox!  It's called "His grace is sufficient"  look it up! REALLy good!  On Thur we had a zone meeting and I met all the guys in my zone, they're pretty sweet.  Friday I went on a split with my zone leader Elder Worthen.. he goes home in like two weeks haha.  It was good.  He's a good missionary and I learned alot.  He told me that its okay that i'm not loving everything right now and it does take a while to learn stuff.  One thing that did stink is we talked about home a lot since he's going home soon and it made me really homesick... so that wasn't fun!  Also I stepped in my first mudpile!  My left foot was covered in mud up to my ankle!  There's a first time for everything right?  Haha it's fine.  Anyways it was good I mean yeah.  Good.  Well that night I talked with him, Elder Bates and Elder Spear who are in that house and it was great.  elder bates has been in country 5 months and he seems to be doing great!  He says to just keep pushing forward and it willl go by fast!  THey said that next morning we were going to this cool gym but we had to go early... So we wake up at like 5 and take a taxi, this guy then leads us to a church and for some reason we're listening to some church service and I was super confused ubt i was exhausted so i didn't care and just went with it.  We walk out and all the sudden i hear this child screaming at the top of his lungs and his parents bring him out as we walk into this room... Then i realized what was going on... I was going to my first Malagasy CIRCUMCISSION cerimony!  Yup!  You heard right!!  I saw a little 2 year old black kid get circumcised!  HA!  It was horrifying but it's a big deal in madagascar and the other elders investigaotr invited them to do it.. .so we came along hha.  So yeah that happened.  Gotta love Madagascar!  Also this week I got my first malagasy haircut.. Haha first of all they freakign cut me pretty good haha and yeah it kind of looks like some military cut... Yolo.  Saturday we went to some concert that some RM chick was holding and we got 4 investigators to come with us!  Granted 3 of them left halfway through but hey!  They still came haha.  But it was good, I tlaked to some elders after haha i love speaking real english to people!  Yesterday was actually really good.. It felt slow but we taught 7 times.. gratned some were just spiritual thoughts but it happened.  somethign dope happened though!  so theres this man named Huga and he's been inactive for a while, but he's an RM also so we visited him and last week we taught his non member wife the first lesson.  It went horrid cause there was some drunk friend of theirs just bible bashing the whole time.  Anyways they took us to dinner after and he speaks pretty good english.  I kid you not he said " I dont know if this will be okay for you're stomach but it's real good malagasy food!"  Haha so yeah i ate at my first totally sketch hotely... It was great!  Anyways sunday he comes up to me after chuch and he says VAZA!  Get over here... I was like uhh.. Anywyas i walk over and his wife asks us to come over!  so that was cool!  She left and he all he sudden like bore his heart to me.  He talked aobut how his wife really likes us, and wants us to keep teaching, he wants us to baptize her and the rest of her family too!  He said how he also is going ot become active again and how he wants to get back to the temple!  I guess he used to be like a branch president and everything with a different wife but something happened and he's been inactive for the past 5 years!  BUT he wants to get activE!  He was telling me this!  (english haha) but yeah!  So we're going to focus on helping him!!  I just thought it was pretty cool that he trusted me enought to talk to me about all that.  We went over after and we were just talking to his wife and her two daughters and before i know it i'm teaching htem about the temple!  So it was great!  So yeah.... Man it's been difficult this week.  Not going to lie.  I've bee nrealy homesick and attimes have had a hard time staying upbeat and remembering why i'm here.  But.  I'm here for a reason and just got to keep pushing forward.  Love you guys.  Oh and a shout out to Bryce's mom for emailing haha.  She said she read the blog and thought she'd email me haha.  Nice.  Anywyas keep the emails coming!  Also I want Elder Costello's email and a picture of my mission plaque!! Love you guys soo dang much, tell max and elli and sade hi and i love them and tell max to try super hard in football haha.  Keep praying!  Peace, love blessings.  fiadanana, fitiavana, fitahiana.

Tiako Ianareo,
Elder Roush