Monday, January 27, 2014

January 27, 2014


January 27, 2014

Hey yall i'm so sorry but i have like nooo time this week to email... a bit frustrating but you know. i'm over it.  So sorry to the family and friends at home but this is gonna be really short.  So transfer week:  It came and went pretty quickly and without too many problems, it was nice.  But it was super weird seeing elder Quigley going home... he's in america with yall right now. weird.  Hahah but yeah my new comp elder cartmill is pretty neat.  He's very smart, knows alot, pretty funny, even a little sassy hahah but he's a good guy. We'll have some fun hopefully.  We got some pretty good times in this week.  Max, our DmP is being super helpful and we're gettign a lot of help.  And he's setting us up with a lot of less actives to visit, because there's  ALOT here haha.  It's good but something cartmill and i really want to try to do is find more FLF's. Father Led Families.  Sadly some of the ones i found with quigley havne't been turning out as great as i thought... But hopefully it'll end up good.  Andry and Lalatina are still going great. so that's fun.  Okay so one last thing.  On saturday we tracted into this guy named boneface, he studied as a catholic priest for 20 years! And now he's learning with us and is excited to learn.. it'll be fun. anyways. tha'ts all i have time for. have a good week. love you all.

Elder Roush
 Cartmill and I - transfer day
 

Cute little brothers - an-danala
 

Ha Ha
 

He's dead - Elder Quigley
 

Malagasy's working - sitting doing nothing
 

Miya, our investigators daughter
 

Miya, she's so shy
 

Sister Florine - Malagasy sister going home
 

Auntie Sue's new journal
 
 

January 20, 2014

January 20, 2014,

Dearest loved ones,

Well i must admit... I'm a bit frustrated currently because i've tried to write this darn email twice... get super close to finishing it and then all of the sudden it deletes itself... So that's super fun yeah?  Thought you guys would think so too.  Anyways it's been quite the week and well with transfer week coming up tomorrow, it's gonna get even crazier.  So.  Speaking of transfers, since Elder Quigley is leaving to go home on Wednesday i am getting a new companion!  Elder Cartmill from North Dakota haha, pretty cool yeah?  Funny thing, Elder Cartmill is who Elder Quigley trained just before Quigley joined me in Betongolo.  So that being said, I will be the Sr comp!  Which is exciting but i'm also pretty nervous too... seeing as i'll be the one leading the malagasy and stuff.  I'm fine leading the area (i've been doing that) and stuff but i'm scared to not have anybody to rely on with the malagasy... But to be the one relied upon!!  It's pretty nerveracking for sure... But i know that this is what Heavenly Father knows will make me a better missionary and what will for sure make me better at malagasy.  Anyways the work is going good, not as good a week as last week, but still going good.  We had some solid lessons, found a sweet new investigator and had some super cool experiences with investigators!  So i'm going to tell you about some.  So.  One of our best investigators is a lady named Lalatina, she's 20, and a single mom to one of the cutest little 2 year old ever!  Anyways we had a lesson with her on Wednesday and first thing she said to us is "i'm really happy and want to share a little testimony!"  So.  I guess earlier that week she had lost her keys and was in a hurry and was super worried.  So she decided to say a little prayer, and when she ended she had a little bitsika (whisper) tell her where her keys were... She looked and the keys were in the exact spot!!  Then i guess later that day she had left her house and walked for a couple minutes before she had another little bitsika tell her that she had forgotten her wallet.  She thought about it then another little bitsika told her that was silly and she should keep going.  So she decided to trust the first prompting and go back home.  Lo and behold she had forgotten her wallet!!  She then bore testimony to us that she knows she has the holy ghost with her because she knows what she's doing right now is what Heavenly Father wants her to do and she said she knew the Book of Mormon was true! Super cool.  Then another sweet experience. We were at a soiree with her and some members on wednesday and they invited another one of our investigators Andry, who's also a stud but we hadn't taught him in a little while cause he's been busy with school (he's 18.)  So.. We had a great lesson with lalatina about Enduring ot the end and then andry came and he told us he was having trouble with reading and praying.  He said he'll sit down to read the BiM or to pray and he won't be able to focus really well and there with be promptings telling him to watch tv and stuff like that.  So i shared the scripture about how the holy ghost gives good promptings that influence to do good and come closer to god, and there are other promptings from the devil that influence us to do different.  It's our job to discern those promptings and follow those that help us come closer to Christ.  Then Lalatina, our other investigator started bearing testimony about that too and shared her experiences with Andry!! It was sooo cool to see an investigator helping an investigator like that.  Really cool :)  ANyways so we had an experience like that... and then we had another pretty freaking crazy one.. haha.  So Elder Solofo were contacting some people that we had tracted into.  She said they were Jesos Mamonjy (a church here in mada) but they still wanted to learn.  So we go and it's the chick and her Dad, who's a Jesos Mamonjy pastor, AND two other pastors!!!  Yeah..... Hahah so they were super nice but when they prayed it was probably one of the weirdest experiences ever.  The head pastor started to pray while everyone else started like yelling jesos o! And fanahy masina (holy ghost) and other super apostate stuff like that!  It was so apostate that i couldn't even say the prayer in my head cause i was just sooo... weirded out ahha.  Anyways we got like halfway through a first lesson, and stopped it.  But then the pastor dude said that monday (TONIGHT) he wants to interview me about our church in order to help his sermons and learn more.... so yeah that's happening tonight!! Super nervous for sure hahaha.  But anywyas when we closed solofo prayed in the RIGHT WAY but htye still did their craziness haha.  Okay anyways now to the funny stuff.  We were tracting and some kids that i'm good buddies with, cause we always sit and talk to them on the path, were following us!  Anyways we were playing around with them and i decided to mess with them a bit.  So i asked them if they wanted to know how to say "i like to play soccer" in english... so i told them to say "i like to eat poop!!"  Hahhahaha so we filmed t hem saying it... and then i told them what they had just said in malagasy... super funny!!! ahahhaha.  They freaked out!  We got a great video.  Okay last thing.  We had a ward party with a gift exchange... SO!  I  bought a pineapple and had some crazy chinese lady in a trift shop wrap it hahah.  Excpet i had the pineapple hair poking out!  All the members loved it, cause i kept telling everyone it was a puppy!  So yeah.  Good stuff.  Okay last thing.  Spiritual note.  Friday night we ended our soiree and had a longish walk home and i was feeling pretty poopy.  So i said a quick prayer asking for a taxi to come, not really expecting anything... Well about 5 seconds later... A taxi rounds the corner!  Coincidence?  I think not!  Prayer is real people!  Heavenly father loves you all, and so do I :) Have a good week emailers.
 
Am-pitiavana,
Elder Roush
Balance of an ice skater
 

Favorite family in Betangolo
 

Latina on left, Andry on right
 

Me and the puppy!
 

Missionaries!
 

Elder Quigley and I
 

Probably the cutest thing I have ever seen!
 
 
"They like to eat poop"
 

Monday, January 13, 2014

January 13, 2014


January 13, 2014

 

Dear family, friends, loved ones, and people of the world,

Hahah yeah I TOTALLY farted in front of an investigator!!!  Hahaha just too funny i couldn't help bringing it voalohany!!  We had just finished a great lesson with a new investigator Setohy.  We taught like outside his apartment building so he was sitting on stairs and we were on the ground the whole lesson so the whole time i was like moving my legs around to get into a comfortable position... finally at the end of the lesson i move to get up and BOOM!!! Totally let her rip hahaha.  So yeah.  That happened.  I'm over it.  Life goes on :)  Hahahah.  Okay so today was a great week!!  We taught 25 lessons this week, which was the most i have taught here in Betongolo and a pretty dang good week for this area..  We were stoked.  But some news... There was another emergency transfer because we had a sick missionary have to go home, so i am now in a tri-panionship until transfers... which are on sunday.  Our new comp is Elder Solofoarimanana, or as we call him Baina-be!  Which translates into Big Dude.  So he's elder dude.  And he's freaking sick.  I lived with him at the start of this transfer but he left a bit into the transfer.  But now he's back with us till Sunday, and surprisingly it's a lot of fun.  He's really good at english and he's helping me a lot with my malagasy... Believe it or not.. I kind of miss having a malagasy comp!!  Man i took it so for granted when i was getting trained by rakotonjanahary, who's probably one of the coolest malagasies in the mission.. You learn things!! But Baina is soo sick cause he is a LEGEND teaching... He knows a billion scriptures and just teaches things sooo cleary it strengthens your testimony just listening to him.  And we've been putting him to good use with some sick new families.  We've been blessed with 2 really cool father led families, which is something we really focus on here in Mada... Just because there's a lack of priesthood holders... Women are a lot more opening to listening to us strapping young men haha so there's a lot more women members hahaha.  But one of the families is Andry and Helena, the people we found by following the arrow on the side of the wall.  We taught them for the second time yesterday and we taught the restoration.  It was great.  He told us he wants to believe that this joseph smith guy was a prophet cause it makes a lot of sense with this apostasy thing haha.  Super cool thing too is that he told us, pointing to his wife and sisters "they were never really talkative or interested in religion and now you guys come and they're asking questions!"  It was pretty cool, Elder Baina really did help a lot though with making it THAT much more clearer.  But i'm stoked to see where they go.  The other family is Mamy soa and Fara.  Fara is the wife and she called to us earlier in the week saying she wanted to learn, i guess a member gave here a BiM and a gospel principles book sometime and she wants to learn more about it.  So we taught her twice this week, cause her husband, mamy soa, wasn't there once.  So we taught the whole first and it went great.  It made sense and they really seemed to accept it and want to learn more, so that's awesome. Also a funny thing, after we taught the whole family, which is like 6 PEOPLE!! Right after the prayer a very harlot-ish beyonce song came on... then Brittany Spears hahah.  Poor Satan... he's trying too hard... Silly guy hahah.  But the Lord really blessed us this week just with awesome lessons.  We had a lot of really good lessons where things just were so clear to investigators and the spirit was testifying to them.  Super cool.  Another cool little thing is i was able to strengthen my testimony a bit about the priesthood, we gave two blessings last week and both of the men we gave blessings to told us they were better the next day... pretty cool to see.  Even though i just did the anointing, pretty cool to feel like i'm doing something!  One of the guys we gave a blessing to is Mo, a part member family guy.  He's the dad and his family are members.  His problem is alcohol and ciggarettes.  We taught him a lesson 2 weeks ago about the word of wisdom, cause he asked and he's been doing sooo well since!!!  As of yesterday he's off, and he's progressing well.  He's got a bap date for February and he seems stoked to get baptized, yesterday he even asked us to go over the bap questions with him!  We've taught temples and he wants to go there too... Super cool.  I'm praying he keeps going, i guess a couple times he's gotten close to getting dunked and then just before relapses.  Maybe this time we'll be the ones to get him.  It's been a dang good week and i've been really trying to focus on the small little feeling and promptings of the spirit.  I've learned that most of the time the spirit isn't in your face or just an overwhelming feeling, and realizing that has really helped me be happier and more confident.  New year and it's starting well, i'm feeling blessed for sure. :)  Hopefully this week goes well too!  It's Quigley's last full week as a missionary, which is super weird... and we got a big transfer coming up.. So we'll see how things turn out.  Hope you guys liked all the pictures!  Got some pictures of egging Elder MArsh on his 21st birthday.. classic fomba in Mada.. eggs and flour on your head for happy birthday!  The new room set up, and my new malabary!  Pretty good looking eh? :)  Played some soccer today and feeling pretty roasted, but good.  Hope you all have a good week!  Remember Jesus loves you!!  1 nep 10:19... cool scripture i read in my malagasy reading. super cool teny gasy.  Love you all! Be happy.

 

Hugs and kisses (in a missionary appropriate way),

 

Elder Roush

 

Baina eating cow foot soup
 

Classic Madagascar Fomba, Happy Birthday Elder Marsh!
 

Egging Elder Marsh
 

I'll tell you what this means in 15 months
 

Lake Powell!
 

Madagascar graffiti
 

My Malabary - 84 Royal Blue
 

The new set up
 

Yes, I'm wearing my rasta shirt playing ball

Monday, January 6, 2014

January 6, 2014


January 6, 2014

Well it is that time of year again... The first of the year and all that stuff and stuff and stuff and yeah.  Haha. anyways... So this week... Was super long again because we did about 8 hours of tracting, which is a lot in Madagascar haha I apologize to those where 8 hours is nothing hahah.  Anyways it's been an alright week.  Our New Years was... pretty crazy to say the least haha.  Let's just say we made presto (madagascar equivalent of raman noodles) and elder quigley went to bed at 9 hahha.  Then I followed right after at 10 after watching a lady throwup for 10 minutes straight cause she was so gosh dang drunk ahhaha.  So yeah... New Years here is probably a bigger deal than Christmas because it's a good excuse for everybody to 1. not work and 2. get wasted out of their minds.  As you can see from the picture i'm sending you guys hahah.  For example on New Years day Elder Quigley and I were looking for a place to eat because we had no food (couldn't go shopping on p day.. no allotment yet haha) so we searched EVERYWHERE and the only place that was open was.... A THAI RESTAURANT!! So yes caleb.... I experienced your culture before you even did... get at me! haha :) But yeah then when we tried to teach that day absolutely nobody would open there door/learn because they were all having family parties... and getting drunk ahha. Thursday was kind of the same. Everyone was hungover or still with family so we tracted for like 4 hours... got 1 return time hahha. BUT!  We decided to treat ourselves and knock on rich houses ahahha.. no return times. BUT!  First door we knocked was a WHITE GIRL!!!!  I was dumbstruck cause she might have been a bit attractive so i looked at Quigley.. all he could muster was "uh.. bonjour" and i said je ne parle prancais fas.... yeah mixed it up... then i just said... "Do you speak english?" Hahah she did! So we gave her the shpeele and she said they were actually going back to GERMANY that day... So i told her to look out for the missionaries back over there hahah. So awkward though.  Anyways definitely did a lot of tracting though... But on saturday when we actually planned tracting... first door we knocked on we got in, taught a lesson and a return time. Then got another 3 contacts in an hour... planning... WHO WOULDA THOUGHT!!!  Pretty sick though.. a family we tracted came yelling at us after we had walked away... they said "we need your number in case you don't come..... we can call you! We REALLY want to learn!"  i was like.... uhhh. okay. Fine by me :) hahahah In other news another cool tracting experience, we had more times fall through so i thought to go to this family i had never taught but Aloi had.  On the way there we ran into a guy i had contacted a month or two ago.. he thought we were coming to him.. So he let us in and is stoked to keep learning!  Gotta love those little things the Lord gives you!  In other news with the recent emergency transfer i have been made District King!.... i mean leader... awkward haha.  But yeah it's Betongolo (me) and the ap's hahah.  So yeah 4 man district and the ap's will never be at district meeting! Woo! Moving on up!! next: Mission president! What? hahaha.  But we did have a good district meeting about goal making... so i attatched a picture of our district goals... we definitely put a lot of thought into them.  Last thing i'm goiing to talk about is the importance of the DmP! or... ward mission leader!!  We hadn't had one here in Betongolo since i've been here and we just barely got one... His name is Aina but i call him Max... don't know why!  He's 19 and is going to serve a mission next year... he's one of our best member helps and he's our new dmp!! and he's sooo sick!!! Yesterday we met and he planned member helpe with us for every day and is going to show us inactives we can visit this next week! we made a goal to reactie 3 people a month and find 3 solid progressing investigators a month... I'm super stoked and we've got a sick week lined up with all the tracting we did and these inactive members... So yeah!  Hopefully we get things going here in ol Betongolo before old man Quigley leaves!! Im gonna miss him hahah but it's so much fun with him.  We talk about marriage... (he wants to get married... LADIES!!!) HAHAHA but it's pretty fun...  In other news i got destroyed by a fridge putting my backpack on... cut my elbow, sewed my first shirt, gonna go pick up my hand stitched malambary and.... i love all of you!!! Stay classy emailers.  

 

Mucho fitiavana,

Elder Roush
District goals

District meeting

For Caleb...Thai restaurant
 

Happy New Year from Madagascar

High on the mountain top

Our new year

Tatoo from Elder Quigley

The fridge won

This is for grandma Tilly

Translation...don't leave trash here
 

We found our society...if we were athiests
 

December 30, 2013


December 30, 2013

 

Okay so first of all YES i know i'm sending like efatra amin'ny folo pictures but let's be real.. You people love seeing my face.  Okay at least mom, dad and Elder drewseph smith do :) hahaha. So yeah Christmas in madasgascar. Well it happened i'll definitely remember it for the rest of my life!  Tuesday (christmas eve) was pretty good!  We went to a christmas choir done by some of the youth at the ampefiloha church, which is a huge orange church ahha it's pretty sick! But we went with one of our investigators, Andry so that was cool.  It was a good concert and then we went back to the office with the AP's so we could take some missionaries their packages cause all the packages came in late on p day so people couldn't get them! Then we journeyed home to make our big christmas eve dinner cause we wouldn't have time on Christmas!  There were 3 companionships in our house so each companionship made a loaka (rice topping) we made a crap ton of rice and had an awesome christmas dinner!!  Then we may or may not have brought our mattreses all into the ap's living room and had a mini sleepover!! super fun! Then Christmas morning we woke up and opened our packages!  For the day we planned to go to our ward christmas party, do service then skype the fam.  Well the ward christmas party was good, ahah it was supposed to go form 9 to 5 but we got there at 10 and left at like 12 to go to lunch with the ap's and anjanahary elders... malagasy chinese food! Then we tried to go and do service.. and all like 7981237981273 of our ideas fell through.. super frustrating! So then we decided! Oh! We should go street boarding (contacting on the street with a big poster board.) And there was a posterboard in the office, but we didn't have our keys.. so we called the elder of the office couple and asked for his keys.. he told us street boarding was allowed and made a joke that we didn't have enough insurance for that... what? ahaha. so then the ap's called president and i guess elder cloward (office couple man) thought we meant we were gonna go longboarding...! Hahaha so yeah... that was pretty funny.  Didn't ever go contactin cause we had to try to figure out skype in the office! there were 4 elders that were going to use 4 computers and only two of the computers worked... hahaha so yeah. that happened. BUT finally i got to see all of your beautiful faces and get SUPER weirded out by how much you people changed. but really. FREAKED me out haha. So yeah that was christmas. It was good and i'll definitely remember it forever haha.  In other news we are now down to 2 elders in our house and the ap's still below us cause there was an emergency transfer.. so now my buddy elder hardy is in a different area and the house is lonely!  So lonely we put sunglasses on a pineapple i bought and made him our new roommate. It's kinda been one of those weeks!  It's been super slow this week, maybe the slowest of my mission.  At first cause we were looking forward to christmas and then cause it was just a hard week after haha. As far as the work goes it was a pretty slow week to start but i think we closed out pretty strong. On thursday we had a cool experience and it got even better yesterday!  We were tracting and having no success and were pretty discouraged cause it was a bit of a poopy day.. so then we were walking and we see a pocadot wall with an arrow that's pointing to a couple houses... so i thought what the heck, nothings working.. let's go for it and went for it! First house we odio'd (we don't knock, we say odio haha) and they let us in! It was a young family and we got another return time.. Yesterday we taught them again and we found out they had learned before and the guy was wanting to learn more about that "joseph smith guy" cause the apostasy thing made sense... WHAT? #sick hahah the Lord works in mysterious ways.  Definitely a breath of fresh air.  We also are progressing super well with some of the sisters investigators they gave us, it's nice getting new investigators without having to find them haha.  Also thursday we knocked into the biggest house i'd ever seen in mada... and got in! Turns out the guy just wanted us to give his workers at his house a spiritual thought and that was it.. cause they needed a church and he already had his catholicism... what a saint... haha. Well... Don't know what else to tell y'all. Yesterday we had a really good day just teaching some members and having some great spiritual lessons.  We talked about studying the scriptures and making goals.  With some of the families i asked them to commit to read everyday this new year.  In the malagasy book of mormon if you read 2 1/2 pages every day.. you'll finish it by the end of the year.  So that's a goal i'm making too.. By the end of this year.  Finishing the malgasy book of mormon this year by reading 2 1/2 pages every day.  I also challenge all of you to make goals for the new year.  Whether it's spiritually with the book of mormon or whatever.  DO IT!  Anyways i think that's all there is to the week, i guess i'll write yall next year ;) haha funny new year jokes. #classic.  Anyways i love you all and remember to tratra the new year!!!  and don't forget to smile :) 

 

Am-pitiavana,

After Skype was over

Bamboo

Christmas Eve dinner

Christmas morning!

Christmas set up

Elder Hardy, ma boi!

Making some Loaka!

Our new roommate

So happy I'm going to throw up!

Sooooooper hipster!

The dot!

Translation...Jesus is kind of handsome

Ward Christmas Party
 
This is killing me...saying goodbye!
 
Elder Roush