Elder Jake Roush's Madagascar Adventures: April 28, 2014

April 28, 2014

Dia akory daholo e!

Well time is just chugging along out here in ol'madagascar and to be honest it was a pretty boring week ahha. But at the end we did get to watch general conference... which was in my words... ballin. But i'll talk about that later! On monday we got to go to a branch party at the beach for easters and well... i have never seen so many people at the beach, around the beach, in madagascar partying ever.... So many people!! It was crazy how amped people get about easters!!! But it was a good time hanging out with the branch! We're still working on having them like us enough to give us people to save and stuff haha. This week we once again did a lot of finding, hoping and praying to find people... and we were blessed with 2 new families, which i was stoked about... Hopefully they work out!! It was a nicely needed booster cause a family we had found last week ended up moving... Super frustrating cause we taught a freaking sweet lesson to them, committed them to baptism, and then they said... oh by the way we move on monday... WHAT? Dangit trials! I don't want to grow and be stronger from them! It's hard hahahah. But fun. Training is still going well.. Elder Davis is a very proud scottie, which is fun and annoying, but i love the little red head!! Honestly missionary work wise I don't have much to say just cause conference was so awesome and I want to share my favorite parts with you guys! haha man i don't know where to start! I felt like after almost every talk i'd sit for 2 seconds, think and say "ballin...." hahah gotta love the church and getting pumped off of scholarly old men and women dazzling us with their spririt bombs!!! Though it took a while to figure out how to watch it... We got CD's sent to us to watch it.. So we had to 1. find a place to watch. 2. find a screen. 3. find a player... Well after 1 1/2 hours saturday morning we figured it all out in the churches supply closet! SICK! Now i'm not going to lie to you all (elder davis' favorite phrase) but i'm not sure if I could pick a favorite talk hahah ,which is weird! But i'm gonna share my favorite quotes!! The first two talks were so sick, Holland telling us to defend our faith compassionately and with courtesy and then Elder Rasband talking about service. It made me think "how am I walking through madagascar?" Am I walking as though the savior would? I mean, I am His servant! TOO SICK. I loved Elder Zwicks talk about perspective and giving soft answers... I thought it tied in perfectly with my boy President monson's talk about love!! I feel like I could be soooo much better about showing more love to those i teach, come in contact with, and those silly little punks an-dalana! My favorite sessions was priesthood sesh for sure! I loved how Elder Eyring talked about having heroes and how we are lighted handles being molded by our actions!!! SO DEEP, and cool :) And i loved how President Monson told us to be courageous... Like all the awesome examples in the scriptures! OF COURSE Elder Uchtdorf's talk was heaven sent because I know I can definitely be more grateful in my circumstances and I loved the talk that was about how we have 4 minutes... how am i spending those 4 minutes? Better yet, how am i spending my 2 years? DEEP. Lastly I think Elder Perry said it the best when he said that the Driver knows best... No matter our "load"(bednar) or our circumstance.. The Lord knows best and that is the path we should follow!! That is the path that will lead to happiness. I think something i noticed and something i loved was how everyone who gave a talk testified of Christ.... Amid everything in the gospel, all the principles, ordinances, all that jaz... This is Christ's church and Christ's gospel... And we owe it all to Him. After conference we had a soiree with members and in the lesson I invited all of them to be DOERS of the word and not hearers only. I know I can work on that. There's a lot of advice I got and now I need to follow through with it, and I invite all of you to do the same... even though conference happened like 3 weeks ago for you guys ahhah. Anyways. I love you, the church is true and stuff... Ballin. Have a good week emailers.

XOXOXOXOXOXXO (in a missionary appropriate way)

Elder Roush