Elder Jake Roush's Madagascar Adventures: March 10. 2014

March 10, 2014

Akory aby daholo!

Well in the fabled words of my main man John Mayer... All we ever do is say goodbye... To betongolo... then say hello to ankirihiry... at least that's what i think it says.. it's been a while since i've listened to him! But anyways i'm sitting here in toamasina (malagasy name for tamatave) and it's pretty sweet... and sticky cause it's so dang hot here haha. Anyways i'm not really sure what to talk about just cause this week has kind of been all over the place haha. So back in Betongolo is was just normal office elder stuff helping out with transfers week, things went pretty well until wednesday night when we were figuring out where all the missionaries coming and going were supposed to sleep and stuff... it was a mess but.. who cares really!? Thursday morning came around and it was time to head to tamatave... got up bright and early and headed to the bus stop with elders marsh and babb. Elder Marsh was going to Mahajanga and Babb was coming with me to tamatave. Sadly I had to say goodbye to my buddy Elder Marsh.. Since i'll be here when he goes home in six weeks it was the last time i'd see him. He's a stud and helped me get through the first parts of betongolo, when i wasn't loving it... Definitely one of my best friends on the mission. After that Elder Babb and I got on our bus and headed to tamatave!! The bus ride was like 8 hours and it was pretty dang cool!! It was super cool to see outside of all the dirtiness of tana.. Madagascar has got such a beautiful landscape and as we got closer and closer to tamatave the landscapes started turning into sick rainforest!! I finally felt like i was in africa!!! There was even a palm tree forest! I feel like buddy the elf saying that... Haha and it was fun driving down with Elder Babb, he might go play football for byu after his mission... safe to say we had stuff to talk about on the drive there. We got to tamatave and it was raining... classic haha. We got picked up by our new comps and headed to the house! My new comp is Elder Rigby and he's a stud. We get along super well and... we can talk sports!!! :) He just got finished training and this is still his first area. Ankirihiry is... special. haha The branch i'm in has a lot of problems with mifosa-fosa... or gossiping. So bad that one of our solid investigators i just met can't get baptized because of all the gossip going on! Definitely got a lot of work to do the branch... THough i think i've left some good impressions so far. I've already met a lot of the members and i told them all that my name was elder bokana be.. or elder really muscly! Haha i got that from when i first met my new ward mission leader and his family... his mom said, "ah! bokana be ianao!" haha so i thought i could make it stick :) Haha they all got a kick out of it! Speaking of my DmB's family... they're sooo cool He jsut got back from a mission in the congo so he's super good at english.. which is really fun, and his family is awesome. Last night we sat talking and getting to know eachother and an investigator named Jo for like an hour! Super fun. Also Jo... One of the investigators i've already met so far... is a stud. He's been the center of all the gossip but he's taking it like a champ and says he'll stick it out. As for the area... it's struggling a bit and we've already done a lot of tracting with little success... but we're ready to work hard. I'm praying that we can start to get things going within these next 6 weeks and just keep it going...! Tamatave is... hot! And i've been told it gets even hotter!! Hahah though it's really cool A lot cleaner than tana, all the paths are SAND, and kinda just has a beach town feel... My area doesn't have the beach though... No worries! We're gonna hit it up later today! Eat some coconuts while wishing we could actually go into the water hahah!! Riding a bike is pretty fun though we get out and walk a lot too... I'm gonna be soo skinny by the end of my stay here! Things are going well.. A bit overwhelmed with everything, but i'm excited to see what we can do with this area. On a spiritual note.. Last night we shared with Jo the story of moroni and the title of liberty and how he planted the standard everywhere. I want all yalls to read the story, and think of what you can do to plant your standard to the world! It's in alma 46... oh also! I just started reading the new testament and jesus the christ.. deep. haha. Anyways.. Jesus loves you, I love you and so does the person sitting to your right...!! haha love you guys!! Have a good week emailers!

Sami-tsara,
Elder Roush