Elder Jake Roush's Madagascar Adventures: November 2013

Monday, November 25, 2013

November 25, 2013

HELLO hello, hello :)

So. THe subject. LIZARD SUICIDE!!! In no way does it really tie in withthis week other than about this morning haha :) So. I had just showered and went into the room when on our curtain i saw a gecco!! Now, that's not a rare occurance because, well there are many, we even caught one this week and made him our pet for a day! anyways elder hardy and i triedto catch it... well.. he ran away. We live on the 4th floor and we have a balcony.. well. poor little guy ran straight off and jumped... lizard suicide! Poor guy didn't know what he was doing, we heard a splat.. looked down and he was down there. Crazy thing is.. .5 minutes later. HE WAS GONE!! ZOMBIE GECCO!!! Gotta love Mada :) Haha so this week. Was sllloooooowwww. THe work here in betongolo has a lot to be done and it's hard sometimes. But I know it's just gonna make me appreciate something, sometime down the road haha. we'll see. Stay tuned! Anyways so Nalyse! prayer rug guy! So crazy guys. This dude. Haha. So we're still teaching him and his mom and now his brther and they are... awesome! Nalyse is still kind of ... slow. but he's sooo smart. He knows a lot about Christ and has a profound love for him, if we teach something easy enough, nalyse has it down pact. Anyways we were teachign the book of mormon to them and they had so many questions and were so excited to read. I felt like i should give them a bap date cause aloi and i had talked about it... so i did! And they accepted! January 25th! It was cool, Lucy (the mom) said. She will if she knows its true, if she does, she would love to. Now it's all up to the big man upstairs! looks like we've won :) Another cool thing. We already ahve a fellowshipper. A mmeber named erneste. he's an RM from and speaks perfect english, he also teaches or gospel principles class. He met nalyse and told us he wanted to help. When we tuaght, he taught alot, in perfect malagasy (obviously.. he's gasy) and it was really cool. They love him, and it's really helpful. I have a good feeling about them. CoOl stroy about how we found em. Aloi and i were walking afeter a time fell through and we saw this guy on the side of the road smiling at us. So of course i went and talked to him. We gave him a fanasany (invite to church) and got a return time with him. Later that day we were walking and he runs up to us saying "this is where i live! it's destiny!" Then yeah... He comes to churhc, prayer rug and all, next week has epiliepsy.blah blah blah. I didn't think about how cool it was that we found him until this week. I thought i'd share that with y'all. HAha anyways so... RAIN!!!! THis week i went on another split in anjanahary, this week with EldeR Hardy, the trainee in the house. He's been out almost 2 months now and is a good kid. I like him. Well we had a good day and around 5 it started to rain. Well. I had no rainjacket or umbrella, because it was beautiful earlier... Well.. BAD IDEA!! I was SOAKED!!! When it rains, it pours. Seriously. So. We going around, hardy had an umbrella and i was wet... Many times fell throgh and finally we went to the last time.. fell through ahha. Anyways so the path we were going on startedto flood, and flood, and FLOOD! Up to our KNEES!!!! It was insane!! so we're walking and all the sudden we feel a jolt go through our legs... we look up and its a telephone pole near the water... WHAT! ELECTRICUTED!! WOOO!!! haha we screeched like little school girls and ran away ahha. Pretty coolio! The work has been alright this week. Slow as i said. Stephanie, the 11 year old who is being aptized in december is still going well. She's a cute little girl and we're getting her family active again. They all came yesterday! Now andry, our other bap date who is supposed to be baptized next week. Well we haven't taught him in two weeks and he didn't come to churhc. Come to find out his grandma forbid him in the name of the family frm coming to churhcand being baptized... GREAT! "you're born a catholic, you die a catholic." I'm gonna kill this bebe (grandma teny gasy) So we'll see wehre it goes cause family is everything here. Now. cool story! Frere Nikola, a guy who has been very cold (inactive) becasue of a trial of his faith... We teach him once a week. Well saturday we had nothign to do and we were tracting by his house. He saw us and told us to come in. I shared Helaman 5:12 and told him how we need to focus no christ. He then babbled on for a good 30 minutes how he was focusing on moving out of his wifes mothers house... Aloi took over and told him. BRO. Focus on christ and it will work out. i bore testimony of it and then... He laughed ahha. He told us we were right and said! Tomorrow! Im gonna come to churhc! I'll go for 5 weeks! then we tld him he should probably go for more. And he said he would, as long as he gets an answer... so... we'lll see. he also asked for a coke and biscuit hahah. But.. He came yesterday!! WOOO!! First time in a while he came. So yeah. That was my week! I also had a vision, i'd liken it unto Lehi's dream...about caleb's mission call. I saw in a vision. Manchester, England. So yeah.. Whatever. Tha'ts where he's going.. ANd my stateside guess is sante fe... Boom! Done. Anyways I hope you all have a happy thanksgiving and knwo that I am thankful for each and every one of you. You're thoughts, emails, prayers, testimonies and most of all friendships. I love you all. Keep on keeping on. Fight the good fight all day erry day. Loves :)

Elder Roush

Banana Tree

Finally a wizard

Knee deep in rain

Rain up to my knees

Ma boi natan

New and old

New pet

Office work

Monday, November 18, 2013

November 18, 2013

Well Hello kids. It's been kind of a boring week, but a good week all the same hahaha. It's hard to find things to write on weeks like this, but don't worry. I'll push through!! Anyways this week once again we did ALOT of tracting. There is definitely a lot of finding to do in Betongolo, which kind of sucks somtimes. We tracted a lot and didn't have the most success, our part of Betongolo is a little nicer and there aren't as many open people. That's all we did monday after p day festivities. It's kind of been a bit discouraging, but I just need to keep trusting in the Lord that it will come! In other news Nalyse (prayer rug guy) is crazy as usual. We taught him twice this week. Both times with his mother, Lucy. She's a catholic but she's been very open and has been really excited to keep learning, so that's cool! She seemed to understand the concepts well and it was funny cause she told us, "my pastor just isn't nearly as clear as you guys." Well duh... We're the REAL DEAL honey! Haha so i'm excited to see where it goes. It's good cause the first lesson was crappy in my mind cause i had a bad attitude about them, just cause nalyse is insane. (he's still prety crazy) BUt once i tried hard to focus on them and the message, it went better. Now Nalyse.. He's a toughh case. He believes the only way he can gain salvation and be healed is through Christ, which is true. But he probably takes it a little too literaly. Also. He came to churhc again aand well... Had an epileptic seizure in sacrament meeting... So yeah. That happened. I swear this kind of crap always happens to me haha. On wednesday I got to go on a split with my buddy Elder Payne, and it was great. I didn't have to go to the office and we worked a full day, which was pretty fun! They have some sweet investigators. There's also a strong member in their ward named Jules. We went and taught him and the thing about him is he's deaf. So he communicates only through sign language... malagasy sign language, which missionaries taught him way back when. It was really cool cause i had never seen SL and payne was really good. But the awesome thing was that I could really just feel this man's testimony through the words payne translated. It was a cool experience. We also tuaght this other women that day. We planned tithing and Joe smith and it turned into a realy cool lesson about testimony. We ended with this guy named Haja, probably the funniest, weirdest guy i've met out here. It was a good day. Friday i hit my 6 month mark on my mission!!! Bump day! Crazy! It seriously has gone decievingly fast haha. But it was a good day, went to my new favorite family, they just became active and we just talked with them for like an hour then shared a VP, then went to a soiree with some members. I had bought cheescake from some old RM here that is started a business and elder payne, aloi and i ate cheescake and celebrated our bump day. It was a good time. Saturday all we did was tract but we found some cool people nad hopefully they pull through. We met some grandma and she was so fun and lively, she jsut made me smile. We're returning to her saturday. Anyways. I think that was my week. I love all you guys so much. keep the prayers and the emails coming, especially the emails ;) oh and CONGRATS TO CALEB! I'm so excited hahah! Mada here he comes!!!! Love yall.. Till next week!

Much love,

elder Roush

Payne and I at our 6 month mark

]

Payne and I eating celebratory cheesecake

Haja

My new crew

Ripped

My new ride

Friday, November 15, 2013

November 11, 2013

November 11, 2013

Well my dearest rahalahy sy anabavy sy fianakaviana sy namana sy ny olon-kafa rehetra, Salama :) how are all you beautiful people doing out there! I just want to tell you guys. I love you! and that's this weeks email..... haha!! just kidding! i'll write at least a couple more sentances, sentences? i dont know..... Anyways so it has been an odd week. Kinda. Hahaha just not really much has happened. Kind of boring. though yesterday was super weird! So. I'll start with that! There is this guy i contacted on the street and invited to church. his name is nalyse... He seemed very excited and well... he shows up! BUT! during the opening hymn.. the man pulls out his prayer rug and does some crazy prayer... i thought he was praying to allah or something... in sacrament meeting!! Hahha so we made a time with him tuesday :) then. we're on the path and we see him! he's like teach me now! Our time fell through (happened ALOT this week) so we thought whatthe heck! leggoooo! So weirdest lesson... in his prayer. he prayers to God, Christ, and the holy ghost... all in the same prayer. and it's like he's just talking to him haha. So at least he's not muslim? right? then he showed us these super apostate books that he got from some church... we both agreed. THE MAN NEEDS THE BOOK OF MORMON. So we teach him again on tuesday. it'll be hard because i like said nothing in the lesson and i had no idea where elder aloi was going with it all.... so... yeah! It was an alright week. We had a zone meeting and Elder Evans our zone leader gave an awesome lesson on the Book of Mormon and how important it really is. I don't think i use it enough and have really tried since then to use it and give more homework from it. so now I GIVE YOU GUYS HOMEWORK! If you're not already... REad the book of mormon! every day! And don't just read. You need to read, and ponder. try to get meaning out of the scriptures! For yourself! Just like nephi said! Liken them unto yourself! So do it! Anyways Betongolo is kind of hard... There are honestly like 2 progressing investigators and the work is super slow. But the 2 progressing ones are suepr cool. We have Andry who is a young guy. Early 20's. his GF is a member and he ahs a bap date on the 30th! We taught him about tithing and fasting and he committed t odo it. it was the first tiem i taught him but he was suepr cool! this area hasn't had a bap in a while, since when it split with the sisters pretty much all the investigators were in the sisters area. so it'll be good. Also there is this 11 year old girl named stephanie. she's so cute and sincere! We had a good lesson on the plan of salvation and oru goal on earth andthen i committed her to baptism on dec 14th. her like aunt and cousins are all members o we tuahgt with all them and it was a super good lesson cause they all helped and gave input. So. next homework.. HELP THE MISSIONARIES AND GIVE REFERALLS! Yesterday we had some tender mercies and got 2 referrals and 4 new investigators.. from members! people. missioanaries are dope! and we love food! invite them over aand give them people to teach. ahah. anyways that was my week. I taught ny drafitra ny famonzena alot (plan of salvation) and realized how amazing and important it is. so thats neat too. I lvoe my new hosue and the people in it. The ap's live below us and it's super fun and i live with my boy elder payne from the mtc. good guy... Did lots of tracting and got into my first argument cause this stupid FJKM (the church of jesus christ in madagascar... literal name) told us our church was false and was super close minded and it was frustrating. all he said was. tsy mitovy! not same! even though we're christain too! AND THE ACTUAL TRUE CHURCH! some people... honestly... right? haha anyways i lvoe you all!!!!! You da best! hugs and kisses! i mean not cause im a missionary! HA!

Loves,

Elder Roush

Elder Rawle

My new toy

Tana

The new ride

The cookie shop

Happy Birthday Dad!

November 4, 2013

Well my dearest friends, family, loved ones and children of Heavenly Father. Hi. How are you guys? Me personally, well. I've had better weeks to say the least. BUt. Kaka (poop) happens and ya gotta move on. So. This was my first week in the area of Betongolo, as an office elder with Elder Aloi. Firstly. Elder Aloi is from Quebec. Speaks english, french and lackluster teny gasy haha. He's a really good guy though. He might be a bit odd haha. He speaks very proper and business like. He calls dinner, supper and says essentially alot. And he loves office work... too much. i'll need to get him to do more missionary work. Betongolo has work to be done. It's strong but there are many inactives AND this area had the least amount of lessons in the mission last month... I guess i've got a handful! So. THis week was transfer week and well.... May I liken transfer week to office elders to 2 a days in high school football. I hated it, it sucked, it was tiring and hard and i ended up gettign super sick after haha. Pretty much during the week we had to always be in the office to prepare for new eldedrs coming in, buy tickets for elders moving to province and diffedrent areas, logistics crap then... DRIVE. Yes some may say "oh you got to drive! so cool!" NO. Aloi can't drive so it's just me and its stick! I can drive stick but it's hard. Safe to say ive become quite good as of this week. Anyways driving sucks here for 2 reasons. 1. The malagasy people. First of all the pedestrians have no common sense. They cut in front of you, they walk in the middle of the road and always think they have the right of way, and can take on any car.... it's the samw with the drivers.. WORST IN THE WORLD! I've never been cut off soo much hahaha. Oh it was soo frustrating. 2. traffic. There is always traffic. so much traffic. On wednesday and thursday alone i spent proabaly 9 hours driving, many of them in traffic. So that was very frustrating. Just driving other elders around, waking up at unheavenly hours and staying out still driving... grr haha. So anyways i was exhausted and..... got sick! halloween night as we were driving aorund i slowly felt horrid. got home went straight to bed (no candy :( ) then... it started. Malagasy flu! Me and the toilet were the best friend for Friday and Saturday! so much fun :) no throwups but yeah... you get it friends. I'm still weak! haha but i'm okay!! I got a SWEET priesthood blessing from elder rassmussen the old ap who is from west point before he went to his new area! love that dude. So Saturday night i felt wel enoguh to go to the office and do productive stuff and on sunday i felt pretty better. We went to churhc and i got to transalte for the office couples. MAN that was hard but i did it! Crappily? Yes. But i did it! Yessss...! I had a big headache after haah... I needed water. very dehydrated. So church happened, things happend and we went to work finally! I hadn't taught a leson all week, so i was nervous haha. We tracted for 2 hours befoer we finally ahd our first time. Taught a good lesson to some guy that's become active again about he priesthood. Cool lesson. The priesthood really is the power of God! His power! Did you ever think of that? Pretty neat! So! We get out and we'\re walking and what do i do? I roll my ankle! CLASSIC ME!!! So i'm in pain and i feel super dizzy.... really weird and clowdy. So i go to like grab my companion then all the sudden everythign is black. WHAT? So then i open my eyes and i'm on the ground... I fainted!!!! I guess the pain of the ankel mixed with dehydration and not eating very much was just too much for my body and well... i gave up the ghost for 7 seconds hahahahaha. My comp and some member help helped me into the txi and i guess they heard somebody saying i "look! a drunk white guy!" So that's me in my new area. THe drunk one. Now. All is well-ish. jsut still have a headache hahaha. Now yes this email has been depressing and this week..... sucked but i made it through. So. To all my friends. Sometimes you have really poopy weeks... (hehehehe) but ya gotta push through until you faint with exhaustion (hehehehehe) haha so yeah! do it! And that's all for this week! I lvoe all of you and i will send some great pictures to you all later... YOU DO BEST!!!!

LOVES :)
Elder Roush

Tea after fainting

New view from apt in Betongolo

Inside taxi

Driving the car!

My mom, Elder Naef

Office life.

Tastes like fruity pebbles

Tea time with Hardy

The kids

October 28, 2013

Sooo... ohoana nareao! So as you dear friends and family can see i have been... TRANSFERRED! asldkfjlaskdjflk;sj!!! So yeah. Pretty much took me by surprise, i got a cal friday from the office elders and they asked if i could drive stick... after i hung up naef was like... DUDE! You're the new office elder... Yeah.... After that phone call you kinda knew. So transfer news last night and boom! Elder Roush and Elder Aloi in Betongolo! the office elders!! Now one might ask. What exactly does being office elder entail? Well my dear friends. Pretty much from what I know I'm like an assistant to the ap's and office couple. I work in the office doing stuff for the mission like half the time and then go out and do preselything and missionary work the other half. i live with the ap's and sometimes get to drive a car! haha. So yeah.. to be honest i'm not too stoked. I worry my malagasy will go to poop but we'll see. I gotta trust that it is what the Lord wants! i am sad to leave Tanjombato! After being there for 4 months (which isn't very long for this mission) I'm sad to see it go. I've met some awesome people, baptized an awesome mom and her daughter and made some really good friendships. And i was even starting to pick up steam here! I found 3 new investigators on thursday alone and we were up to 12 Father led families! But whatever... things change! Fiainana izany!! Well. So this was a pretty good week. On wednesday we were teaching huga and irene and irene had some friends from her church over and we taught them. It was an awesome lesson and i may or may not have held the cutest baby in the world for a minute or 10.... not during the lesson dont worry!!! BUt yeah they got a little angry about the sabbath on sunday but naef took care of it.. We taught he whole first and it was kinda long but it was great. When i tuahgt the joseph smith story i looked at irene and you know... i could tell she was feeling it. And i felt it! and huga felt it! he just looked at her and smiled as i told the story. SHe had already heard it but i thnk this time it hit her harder so that was great. After the lesson her two friends told us they wanted to learn! so DOPE. Thursday i got to go on a split with elder horne. It was his year mark in country and he too was born in Tanjombato! It was a really cool day! He loved being back where it started for him! it was sick cause he showed me some of his old investigators so we can visit him but we also found 2 new ones jsut from that! It was funny, he'd talk about an old investigator and then all the sudden we'd run into them on the path!! It was a really good day and i got to know the area better... but i'm leaving! crap! ahha. we talked about sports when we went home and ohhh it was awesome. First time i'd talked sports in forever! he's jsut as big of a ute fan as i am byu so that was funny. Really good time though. Anyways elections came and went. nothign big. We find out in a month! Last thign! Last night we taught Olivier and fanda again and it was awesome. We taught the apostasy and the restoration and it was a great lesson. HTey had lots of questions and i felt impresed to talk a little more about authority and the priesthood. Authority here is a huge principle and i think it really helped the lesson. They seemed stoked to learn more. It's hard to explain, nothing speicail hapened... it was just a solid lesson. ahhaha afetr they aksed if we could eat rice with them. They felt bad cause they hadn't make any laoka yet (topping for rice) so they jsut brought up some presto (raman noodles) and we put that on top of the rice. It was fun and we talked a little more about missionary work. They thought it was sooo cool that there are missionaries all around the world and that the church isn't just american. So yeah great lesson... I really wish i could stick with them and see them progress but i guess there are people in betongolo that need me. ANyways that's all folks! Oh also! I finally listened to Sunday morning of conference in English.... holy crap people! How good was that?! if you have time. Read sis oscarsons talk again.. i lvoed it and its something we all should focus on and try to do! I LOVE YOU PEOPLE!!!! TO THE OFFICE!!!! WOOOOOOOO :)

ELDER ROUSH :)

Cute baby

Berthine, Valina, Ben

Propoganda

New side bag

Zanaka

October 21, 2013

Well my dearest people to my heart it's THAT time again! whoop! Well sadly it was a super slow, boring week and i dont have much to say but i am sending pictures on pictures on pictures. for the other missionaries i apologize.. ish. but hey! nareo gets to look at me! MMM! :) okay well. #wasted haha we taught 3 lessons with drunks this week. i will tell of two! To first one was with Haja, a new investigator of ours. We planned on teaching apostasy through the restoaration and we was stoked! but as soon as we start his DRUNK brother comes in and says he wants to learn. so. here we are trying to teach the importance of prophets and this drunk guy was just being.... difficult. i shared amos 3:7 and what the drunk guy got out of it was that... jesus is one god. I'm like... YOU DRUNK FOOL! I know im supposed to see people as they can become but it's difficult when they're wasted. Anyways we decide not to teach the restoration and cut hte lesson short cause it was going nowhere so at the end he shares some crazy scriptuer in isaiah his pastor probably shared last sunday and then prays... we're like.. well okay then! Gr.. anyways later that day we went to teach another new investigator. Michelle and his wife odette. we went at 730 ish cause she works and we get there and dude is WASTED. Haha so we start and his wife is soooo mazoto!! She asks what is the book of mormon? what the apostasy and we're jsut like... wooooo!!! But the whole time her husband whenever we would stop would tell us how its soo important to: pray, not be racist, and beleive in jesus... oh my gosh it was so frustrating. hahah also he called his little daughter a devil because she gaave me a dona (knuckles) during the lesson.. cutest little girl! HAha afeter the lesson he followed us halfway home and told us how he's soooo sad because he's ALWAYS drinking. We're just like... You can change man!!! haha oh man. Finally naef stops puts his hand on the mans shoulder and says. go home, be with your family and pray for strength to not be drunk... the man is like... I'LL DO IT! hahha i was busting up. luckily we taught them again and the lesson went well and he was sober! Anyways we ran into many drunk people this week, broke up a fight, and are preparing for the election craziness this week. Last sunday we ahd american food day... Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits and KOOLAID! What? Yes. We did that crap and it was tantalizingly good. ahha then yesterday we were fed by my "mom" elyse my favorite members mom... she fed us raftoto.... the food that looks like poop! Crushed up leaves and pork fat! Safe to say i loaded my rice with tomatoes haha. anyways... We finaly got to watch conference in ENGLISH and it was great. I loved Uchtdorf's talk about DOUBTING YOUR DOUBTS! Soo cool! I loved elder bednar's talk about tithing but i took it for just life. Sometimes the lord blesses us in sublte ways we dont realize, sometimes the trials are a blesing in disguise, and we almost must trust and give our best. Elder Hollands talk was cool... it opened my eyes and helped me realized its okay if sometimes im sad out here... its human! Holland knows how to peirce a mans very soul! Also i lvoed elder ochao, ochoa? the manthat talked about marbles! Never forget to LOOK UP. when he shared his story about the marbles and his family i thought. It's the same with us. We have a father in heaven that is anxiously awaiting our return and we shouldn't do anything to refrain, stop, or lengthen that return to him! so always LOOK UP and use your whole strenth to get through the day. I love you guys! Hope my thought helps. it's nothing profound but those are some thigns that i loved and helped me personally alot. Always remember to trust in heavenly father guys! sometimes it might feel like he's not there, but i promise as elder bednar says, he's there, watching over us, blessing us subtly to strengthen us down the road. Mosiah 23:21 love you people! you da bestest.

Fitiavana be,
Elder Roush

American food day...fried chicken, mashed potatoes, koolaide!

Bandi Missionera

Soccer balls from Papi!

Bricks on bricks on bricks

Elder Carrus

Ny Rova

Ghetto lyfe

Peeing into a well - kidding!

Poopy leg

Royalty

The Italian Stalion

October 14, 2013

October 14, 2013

Well dearest friends and family it's that time again, my favorite time of the week! Writing all those who i love the mostest!! Anyways to start... I'm pretty sure that rainy season has come early this week because we've had lots and lots of rain since wednesday. But i'll get to that later! Anyways... The work here in Tanjombato is struggling a bit to be honest. We're really struggling to find good/solid investigators and keep our investigators progressing. I did 6 hours of tracting this week, which is the most i've done in a week since coming to mada. It probably doesn't seem like too much, but it's a lot for this mission... so that's been hard. But we have found 4 new investigators. Two of them from tracting and two from referrals! That's right i finally got a referral! I really wished we recieved more but hey, i'll take what i get! But yeah that's how the work is. Trying my best! But cool story, the guy i got a refereral from, Huga, we teach his wife Irene. I think i've told y'all about them. Anyways i was talking to him and he told me how he thinks irene is really started to get a testimony and he thinks its because of my testimony and how i teach her.. It's not that big of a deal but it made me feel like i was actually making a difference. Honestly one of the first times i've felt that since coming out here! Now. THE RAIN!!! So i have a couple cool stories but i'll tell two. So the first story is we were coming home from work and we could tell a storm was brewing so we ran home and it started literally jsut as we got to the apt. Our power was out cause the lightning was crazy so... we sat on our porch and watched the lightning and thunder and well.... it was absolutely gorgeous. I took some videos that i'll try to send sometime. Anyways it started to rain a lot harder so we went inside and watched from the window hahaha. We just like got two chairs and watched. It was amazing. the lightning here is unlike anything i've ever seen. It LITERALLY lights up the whole night with just these huge cracks!!! So crazy, scary, but exhilarrating. Is that how you spell it? Tsy Rarako! I don't care! Okay so the next story.... Saturday night we were ya know doing our thang and the rain started to come down a bit during a lesson... it was just sprinkling but we still prepared cause we knew IT was coming... We got out and it was raining pretty hard but it got progressively harder and harder! It was sooo crazy! First there were puddles, the puddles turned to streams and then into freaking rivers!! It was pitch black becase of the clouds except for the huge thundering strikes of lightning every 5 seconds! We were just yelling at the top of our lungs "FREAKING MADAGSACAR!!! WOOOOO!!!!" Hahaha we were skipping throuhg puddles, but it turned into a river up to my shins so we tried to hug the side of the path, but i tripped and fell in! Earlier in the week i had the same experience but jsut fell into muddy pooop haha! for real. My whole leg was covered in poop! But when i fell into the river i was just like... well i'm already this wet ahah so i skipped through the river up to my shins. So crazy but soo fun. We finally got to the road and it was totally flooded. We tried to catch a bus but noone would stop for us. We had one mroe time and it was that referral. We didn't know if we should go cause they literally live in the middle of a rice field but we decided to go cause it would be a sweet stor yahhaha. which it was! So we trecked out to the rice field and cool freaking story.. they had made a big path made of grass and mud that was elevated over the rice field that pretty much turned into a lake.. Super cool! Also it was completely calm over the field, you could even see the stars. We sat there for a bit, took some pictures of the thunder in the distance, it was absolutely gorgeous! So we went to the time, their names are olivier and fando, they work for Huga. It was a really good first about god and families. I guess they had been taught a while ago but they watned to keep learning and they seem super excited! I had this really good feeling when we taught them so i think they might be something big. Im excited to see where it goes! Anyways... That was my week out here in MAdagascar. Still political craziness going on, haha just saw a marching band all wearing Hajo's shirts... he's one of the big ones running. Anyways. Hope all is well in america! I love you all and pray for you daily. Mazotoa!

love,

Elder Roush

October 7, 2013

Well my friends and family i feel as though after today and this week i have a real love and appreciation for this beautiful country of Madagascar. To start things off there are some problems out here in mada. They are finally having presidential elections and i've seen posters for like 30plus different people. Last time there was an election the country went into civil war... so thats a bit scary. it doesn't help that there has already been riots... pres adams told us all to get our 72 hour kits ready... i'm a bit nervous. theres rumors that if stuff goes down they'll pull us out, which really worries me! People i'll be real with you. Madagscar freaking sucks sometimes. It's dirty, smelly, there's lots of drunks, and many people are super mean and disrespectful but let me tell you guys. i do have a love for this country and i dont want to leave. i know that there are experiences that im gonna have here that i NEED.. Haha peeps i don't wanna leave so please pray that madagascar doesn't go to crap! Anyways this week, and today was pretty cool. Last monday i experienced my first lemur park! It's called tsimbazaza and it's madagascars zoo.. haha not many lemurs but heres the funny story. we heard to play with lemurs all you have to do is walk around the cage and the guards will like tell you to come and you can play with them as long as you'll pay them off. So... we get there and the guards like looks around, tells us to wiat for a bit then like motions us to come into the cage hahah! We felt like such rule breakers! BUt i got to freaking play with lemurs which was soooo sick! Sadly the computer today is slow so i can't atatch pics now but i'll try next time!! Anyways it's been an alright week of work... kind of. We've really been trimming our program becasue we have a lot of investigators that are going absolutely nowhere... so we've really been working with less actives. i taught 4 less actives just yesterday. but on the bright side our church attendence has been going up! 140 people yesterday! the second most since ive been here! We've gotten a copule of the inactives to come back so thats cool. Now cool story. so yesterday we had our program fall through during the day so we visited ltos of inactives and i had a feeling that we should visit a woman named florentina who has recently become active again. I was like oh yeah... we didn't thursday when we should have so of course we should. so we teach her a quick vp about christ and it was nothing special but after she said... i'd like to thank yo uguys so much for being here. My son died earlier this week and i've needed a pick me up. and then you guys show up and bring the spirit... so that was a cool feeling haha. lady even gave us hugs! kinda naughty but it's an old woman who needed some missionary comfort haha. Anyways today was the sickest p day ever hahaha. We climbed tana's equivilent of Ymountain which is in my area and i see it every day. it's a big sign on the mountain that says andoharanofotsy (the place i live) and a big star and astro. it's pretty cool. anywyas so we and another compship climbed up there. there was a pretty sweet view from the sign but we kept climbing to the top of the mountain cause we saw a tower. turns out at the top of the mountain theres like a small space camp! SO sick! and the tower.. .people. I felt like i was on top of madagascar. it was an absolutely gorgeous view! we had a little picnic on the tower and set out to hike the mountain. so we pretty much just climbed the ridge of this mountain and it was soooo cool and had absolutely amazing views of not only tana but also the southern part of mada which we never see! The mada country side is gorgeous! Anywyas there was a forest on the mountain and we were like... lets explore! So pretty much 4 missionaries are just walking through the woods of madagacar in places wehre im sure no missionary has ever trecked! It was soo cool! We were just blazing trails on the side of this mountain in the forest! Anyways we get to the bottom of the mountain and all the sudden there is this palace... which turns out is the freaking president of mada's palace.. granted theres no pres right now but yeah! So we're liek what!? haha and we walk and all the suden the some army dudes see us and are like what the heck! what are you guys doing here! How did you get here! what! They were so flabbergasted! Sadly as you all know this is not my first time with guys with guns haha anyways they were like you cant be here! either you go back up the mountain and find a different route or you stay with us... haha so we blazed yet another trail in this forest and finally found our way back. It was exhausting and i am so sunburnt but i feel like i experienced the madagascar i thought i would experience. forest, nature, beauty and clean air!!! haha anywyas it was super sick and i loved it haha. anyways that was my p day. we'er going to some of my favorite members house now to sing some kareoke and do some spiritual toughts and stuff. until next time. Oh also on a spiritual note. I've bee nreading in alma in my scripture study and people. Alma 20's and 30's are so inspiring. THe men such as alma ammon and such are studs. I think alma the younger is my new favorite book of mormon character. He went from destroying the church to becoming an amazing man and even more amazing missionary. I love it because it truly shows that people can change and become of the most dopeness! Anyways i love yall. Good to hear about grandpa's 80th, good to hear the Y won... i love you guys. all your thoughts and prayers keep me going. Keep on keeping on and keep on trusting the Lord. LOVES LOVES LOVEs :)

Be fitiavana,
Elder Roush

oh by the way NO i didn't watch conference. people theres a 10 hour time difference haha. i get to watch it in 2 weeks but im not sure how much of the english i'll get to hear... so we'll see! anyways.
loves.