Elder Jake Roush's Madagascar Adventures: March 3, 2014

March 3, 2014

Dear friends, family, loved ones, and most of all... emailers,

So the subject. Elder Cartmill and I were talking about marriage cause we do that sometimes and well we were talking about whispering sweet nothings... so before a lesson i lean over to him and whisper "sweet nothings..." and he says "that's not how you do it!!" hahah. Well another week has gone by with adventures, spiritual experiences, amazing quotes of the week and well... a close to my time here in Betongolo! Yes my friends. Transfer calls came last night and I'm leaving Betongolo and the office to go to Ankirihiry, Tamatave! A beach province on the east coast of mada! My new companion is going to be Elder Rigby, and i'll be his 2nd companion! I'm a mom! Haha. I'm very excited but I am going to be sad to leave this area and the office... I've really learned to love this place a lot and the people here are awesome. Since we're the office elders we have to plan out transfers week so i got to find out transfers 2 days early so i got to go around saying goodbye to investigators and members already... just telling them i might leave... even though I already knew i was going to... Pretty hard for sure but I'm excited to go to Tamatave!! It's going to be sweet!! I'm really glad for the time I spent here cause I learned a lot of things and met great people. I ended up loving being an office elder because i felt like i was in student government again haha. I knew a lot of the goings on in the mission and helped a little bit to make things run. I got to forge a better relationship with President Adams, and because really good friends with the office couples. Sister Cloward, the office secretary is probably one of my best friends out here hahaha.. She's the funniest lady ever! I also loved working this area. It was really fun to inherit an area and to a little bit of a whitewash, but it was really fun just to see our program get better as we worked hard and were obedient. I have really gained a testimony that when you're obedient, you're happy and receive more blessings! Who woulda thoguht?? It's also been awesome to work with some really cool members and some sweet investigators... Anyways... Bittersweet to leave. But it was a good week and good end to my time here in Betongolo, we taught some good lessons and found 2 sweet new guys... 1 who is a total stud. His name is Dadafara... Very humble man and was super open to learning. We taught him the book of mormon and he listened super well and then at the end gave probably the most sincere humble prayer ever... so cool. We also had an awesome lesson with Andry about the priesthood. We had Max, our DmP who is leaving on his mission in June, with us during the lesson. We taught about the different offices in the priesthood and the power of the priesthood. It was really cool to tell andry that after his baptism he could receive the same power that the prophet and our father in heaven have! Also yesterday we had a really cool experience. We have a family we're teaching. The wife is Fara and the husband is mamysoa. Fara is going great.. She goes to churhc ever week and mamysoa is coming along! doing a lot better! Anyways yesterday we taught them the law of chastity and word of wisdom and it was such a blessing cause they're only problem was coffee. Here in mada drinking and smoking is a huuuuuuuuuge problem and it was so nice to hear just coffee hahahah. Anyways after the lesson fara tells us she had recieved some revelation... So she told us how she had been reading the BoM, pondering and praying and then in a dream she saw a bunch of natural disasters and stuff happening like mountains splitting, floods, cyclones, tornado and all that stuff. Then the holy ghost came to her and said "do you see all this?" and she's like "yeah!" and well after that the holy ghost told her "well the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is true, and if you follow the commandments in that church and the book of mormon you won't have any of those disasters happen to you..." so she told us this and our mouths were just wide open... hahha and she's like... soo..? and we were like. YOU'RE AMAZING! Hahah so yeah!! Super cool story of getting an answer to a prayer! Who woulda thought it'd happen! :) So that was a really good end to the week. haha anyways... I think that's about it. oh also.. I saw an add for a space jam 2 with Lebron in it? Is that real life? YOU CAN'T REPLACE MICHAEL!! Anyways i love you all and i'll be emailing yall next week from sunny and very very hot tamatave!! Have a good week emailers.

xo XO xxxOOxoXXo xoxoxoXXOO,

Elder Roush