Elder Jake Roush's Madagascar Adventures: March 17, 2014

March 17, 2014

Manakory ry fianakaviako sy namako rehetra sady ny olon'kafa!

Well here in ol'Ankirihiry we have the delightful pleasure to ride around bikes! It's definitely a lot different from being in tana where it would be practically impossible with how small the paths are... but it's fun!! Anyways this week we did a lot of tracting... like #realtalk and so we had some times open so we set our bikes down and locked them to a tree by where we were and set out to knock some doors. After not much success an hour or two later we set back to go get our bikes, and after walking like 10 minutes we think.... "wait.... where did we put our bikes?!?!" Our area looks like a maze with just paths going everywhere that all look the same and well... we could not for the life of us remember where we mametraka'd our bikes!! So for the next 45 minutes we wandered around in the dark, asking people, giving dona's to little kids and going crazy trying to find our bikes! Finally elder rigby says... "did you ever lose your mom at the grocery store? cause this is exactly what it's like! Except it's our bikes! And now we have to go row by row trying to find it!" The kid is brilliant... hahha and we found them finally :) and later that night my bike broke... #classic! Anyways things are going good here! I hit my 10 month mark yesterday, and i know it's not too big but i gotta admit, i've been feeling pretty old lately! My guess is that it's because Elder Rigby is still so new and i'm the one that's relied upon... i love it. Me and him are getting along super well and working super hard. Before you know it Ankirihiry is going to be blowing up!! #word We have some cool investigators and had some cool experiences this week! I'll tell ianareo about a couple! First of all we were teaching a lady named Olivette, she's a bit new and she was telling us about her BiM reading! She's read through 1 nep 4 and is killing it! I asked if she had gotten an answer... You bet ya :) she said she was super skeptical at first and then she started reading it and she "felt something... saying it was true." yeah. Scripture power. Keeps me safe from sin... and other cool stuff like that. Getting it...! The next experience! We're teaching a man named rameale and i was explaining a scripture to him about the plan of salvation... i'm reading the scripture and explaining it and the though came into my head.. ."i'm speaking malagasy.... wow! Sick!!" Hahha it was a pretty sick feeling just thinking... these crazy words are coming out of my mouth... NICE!!! Also since coming to tamatave i've had a lot more " wow i'm in madagascar" feelings... It's been blowing my mind lately just how homey this place feels yet i still think... freak. Madagascar bro... Crazy! It's been really cool lately just to see and feel how far i've come and think... i'm just gonna go even farther. In the fabled words of Disney's Hercules "I CAN GO THE DISTANCE!" Hahha in other news i may or may not have bible bashed this week... I didn't like it. The dude wouldn't listen because "if it doesn't specifically say it in the bible, it's not true." I tried sharing some scriptures, bearing testimony, and telling him i wasn't there to fight, but to share a message... I said "do you even want to listen if everything i say isn't from the bible?" he told me no... so instead of getting mad i stood up, shook his hand and walked out... i felt pretty hardcore for sure. haha. Other than that we had a weird experience where some referral we got 1. wasn't in our area. 2. gave us some adventist discussion. 3. spoke to us in english and russain and 4. sang us a bruno mars song at the end.... Missions are fun. On a spiritual note I was reading the parable of the . And i got thinking that what it's trying to see is" It's not how long you serve... but how you serve." It made me think of baseball and how different pitchers will get called into the game in different innings. Then you have the closer who only plays one inning and will get the save or the win... sometimes over the starting pitcher... he may have not pitched the whole game, but he gave it his all and it turned out with a win! It's not how long... but how you serve the lord and pitch the game.... Hahaha anyways... I'm gonnna go to the beach again... sooo... all y'all have a good day ya hear! Have a good week emailers. Remember to eat your vegetables.

Hugs and kisses,

Elder Roush