April 14, 2014

April 14, 2014

Heyyyyyy ianareoooooo,

Just in case anybody is wondering, ianareo is like the malgasy equivelant of y'all... and it's super convenient haha.  Ever since that zone conference i've been trying a lot harder with my language study and I've been learning so many new grammar principles!  It's so neat! But really haha, and well i guess it will all be coming into good use.  We got transfer calls last night and something pretty darn unexpected happened, my dear daughter Elder Rigby is leaving me and I'm having a mission baby!  That's right, training.  Haha and do me a favor and don't tell president adams i used mission slang like that... #awk.  But ummm yeah.  Safe to say i'm pretty nervous about training, I remember how darn hard it was to be a brand new missionary in this crazy country of Mada!  I'm really hoping I can be the daddy my little son will always talk about as being a cool trainer who helped him and stuff like that... Well we shall just have to wait and see.  To be honest, when we first got the transfer calls I wasn't too stoked... Elder Rigby and i have been getting along sooo well and i really didn't want to leave him, and i'm sick of having so many 6 week companions... Well I got my wish cause I'll be with my little boy for 12!!  haha but it'll be a good, fun change, even though change sucks and i hate it hahah.  Elder Rigby and I had something good going, we had been working hard, trying to rebuild Ankirihiry and had a really good fun time doing it.  I'm a bit worried about bringing a trainee into an area that we're trying to rebuild, but hey... At least he'll be good at tracting, yeah?  I already have our first door approach planned... I knock and just before the people come to the door, I sprint away and yell at him good luck!  Welcome to madadgascar!  Man, I'm going to be such a good dad :)  We're gonna eat ice cream, rice, ride our bikes through big puddles, give little kids donas and best of all!  Spread some of that filazanatsara!  THE GOSPEL!  Woo!  Anyways this week was a pretty good week, a bit slow work wise... but we're trying our hardest.  I'm gonna try to be the best, hardest working missionary i can be for the kid!  We gonna kill it!  Like I said last week, we really want to try to work with the members a lot more, and we were able to do that a bit this week!  We visited one member family on tuesday and just had a really good time talking with them, getting to know them and sharing a spiritual thought... Before we were about to leave the mom told us how grateful she was that we came and visited them.  She told us that there's all sorts of missionaries and she's hoping we're the ones that will keep doing stuff like this and being the missionaries all the members love and want to work with.  It made me feel really good because taht was exactly what we were shooting for.  We didn't do it nearly as much the rest of the week, but we have some ward missionaries showing us member houses this week so hopewfully we can really hit it hard!  The work is slow right now but I'm really trying to trust in the Lord and accept His will.   I read a scripture this week that really hit me hard.  Mark 8:34-37.  Verse 37 really hit me hard.  "Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"  What are we willing to do and give up to serve the Lord?  It really helped me realize that if i'm going to get things going in this area.. I really need to try to give it my all.  Anyways, some other cool things were stuff like a baptism... hahah we baptized a lady named napoleanne this week.  She's practically been a member for the past 8 years and even had a calling, but was never vita soratra (living together, but not "legally" married) so she had never been baptized.  hahah it goes to show how new and growing the churhc is here in mada... But she is now officially vita soratra and after teaching her the past couple months.. She is officially a member of the church!  She was sooo happy, it was cool to see.  Another cool experience is we got to go on splits with the zone leaders this week, and I went with Elder Randriamamonjisoa (don't even try.)  The cool thing is that I went on a split with him my SECOND day in country, brand new, fresh off the block, still looking good and everything!  He kept telling me how impressed he was with how far I come and stuff like that... Really cool to hear.  Ever since coming to Ankirihiry i've really realized that well... I'm not a new missionary anymore, I mean heck!  i'm training!  It's crazy to see how time goes so fast, and it makes you worry that you're not learning or growing enough... but i know that when we are obedient, accept the Lords will and serve Him with what we've got... Things will work out just fine.  I hope all of you will think about Mark 8:37 this week and decide what we can do to serve the Lord more fully.  Well... We got a big week ahead of us... Next week i'll let you know who you're new "grandson" is ;) hahah.  Love you all.  have a good week emailers!!

Be fitiavana and stuff like that,

Elder Roush

ps i forgot a funny story... we got super lost while trying to find a house and somehow ended up at the beach.... don't judge us!  But really, not even on purpose.  It was heavenly father just giving us a tender mercy hahahaha

Gotta love the Mada baptism

 

Ole Elder Aloi getting on a bus to get on a plane

 

Taco night waiting for transfer calls

The edge of my area..sadly my area doesn't look like that though

 

We got lost and somehow ended up at the beach!

 

Yea for baptisms and stuff

April 7, 2014

April 7, 2014

 

Ry firenena izao tontolo izao,

Well because of a pretty sweet p day adventure we went to today i don't have too much time to write this email... but don't worry i'm sending lots of pictures and honestly this week was pretty boring haha.  It started out pretty good and we hopefully found some new people that could progress... but with all the contacting we did do this week... we really struggled to find people.  Tracting hasn't been bringing forth much lately and we've tracted the poop out of our area... so we've decided that we really need to focus on the branch.  Getting good relationships with ALL the members whether cold or hot (active/not) and trying to get referrals from them.  E. Rigby and I watched the work of salvation on sunday and thought... why can't that happen here in mada?  Then i realized... well it won't unless we don't give 110% and try our very best with this branch... So that's our goal right now.  We're planning an activity in 2 weeks that will be solely centered on missionary work, and we really want to fill up our open times with visiting members... so hopefully that turns out this week!  I realized how close i am to my year mark this week and with that realization came the other smack in the face that I can/need to work a lot harder.  I really want to make Ankirihiry start blowing up, and well not giving my all won't cut it!  Rigby and I have worked hard the past 6 weeks but hopefully the next 6 weeks we'll go even harder.  In the words of my main man Jay-Z, we're going to "proselyte so hard, them baptisms trying to find me, but first them members gotta find me."  Safe to say i've been a bit trunky for music this week.  And NYC... hint hint mom and dad.  Other than that I just want to let you members out there know how important, but awesome you are.  It's crazy how just visiting and talking with members can just turn your day around and help you feel sooo much better, that's the way it is with our DmB tahiry and his family... man they're so cool haha.  Also some of my other favorite members are Sr. Alida and Fr. Francois.  They're some members we get help from sometimes and they're always making me laugh.  we went to a RC with francois one day and I told him that he was teaching the lesson today cause my head hurt.  he said "no... i'll just be like the holy ghost.... yes i feel like that principle is good and you should follow it."  Man i was busting up laughing hahah.  Then the RC we taught was Yven who's a 9 year old genius.... After the lesson francois said, "this branch is great.  You have me the holy ghost and yven the prophet."  Members are dope.  The last thing i'll talk about it a cool/weird/a little sad experience we had this week.  We tracted into a dude named moses earlier in the week and i had a good feeling about him, and we had a pretty good first lesson. well we show up for the second lesson and before we start he gives us a paper... it was a letter he wrote for us in english telling us how much he appreciated us, but that he is studying to be a lutheran pastor.  he said he's not very good at verbally expressing his feeligns so he thought to write it down... To be honest i was sad but I appreciated his honesty and sincerity.  So we left and I gave him a book of mormon, i felt that maybe one day he'll read it and take moroni's promise.  That'd be sick ahha.  Other than that.. not much news this week.  Oh i got flipped off by a dude in a car... I had to cut a guy off on my bike to avoid hitting a truck and he didn't like that... so he honked really loud and called me mean names... so i stayed in front of him and went slow.. he pulled up close to me... yelled some thigns in french and malagasy.. and then flipped me off.  So i gave him a thumbs up and yelled "have a good day."  maybe one day he'll accept the gospel too hahahha.  Anyways.  That's all folks. I heard conference was dope... can't wait to listen to it in 3 weeks... but! Until next week.  Have a good week emailers. 

Loves,

Elder Roush

March 31, 2014