Hey Mom! So I have some news:
I got transferred! haha last monday we got the transfer news; and now
here I am in the middle of this mountain of a city called
Antananarivo. If you want to know the name of the area that I am in;
it's Sabotsy Namehana. Now I don't know if it was the living in the
relatively small town of Antsirabe or what; but this city just seems
so big to me now. I can't even believe it. For example, i counted a
building that had about 20 stories on it the other day; and that just
seems crazy to me now. mad crazy. This tana place gives me culture
shock sometimes.
The other day though, after our planning session, we went to this
pizza place down the street, casa pizza, and guess what? thier pizza
had sauce on it! usually pizzas here don't, but they totally did. and
you won't believe whats next; they had donuts too. good donuts.
legitiment donuts. I bought two of the little sweeties.
I got to go up to the office again too, which i haven't been to for
about four months, so that was way sweet. Bad news though, I still
haven't gotten the cookies. Don't worry though, I am sure they are
well on their way... maybe.
Dang; typing this message is super hard. Usually down in Antsirabe I
would just change the keyboard to an American keyboard; but this cyber
which i am at doesn't have that option dang it. So now i am stuck on a
french keyboard and it is suuper annoying. Most of the missionaries
here have just switched over by only using the french one; therefore
becoming used to it. I never wanted to before because it is way
annoying, at least for the first few times; but I guess i will try to
do it now. Seriously though, it's way annoying.
So yes, my new companion. His name is Elder Raoilson, and yeah, he is
Malagasy! I have another malagasy companion! woooo! but rather than
like my first one; he is almost finished with his mission. he finishes
in June, so I will most likely be his last companion. He is good at
english too. He says he didn't really know any before; but has just
picked it up through working with us white-ys, which is pretty
impressive.
Our ward is pretty cool, and I got to bear my testimony yesterday. I
am pretty sure that's the customary thing to do when you are new to a
ward. So I got up and did it. I'll tell you the truth, it was way
easier than when I did it back in December haha. My companion said my
accent sounded pretty good; so sweet. You asked how I was doing with
the language, and all i would say is that I am still learning
everyday.
Oh yes, before I forget, when the new conference addition of the
Ensign comes out, I very want you to send me a copy, okay? I have read
that addition you sent me in the MTC a lot, and I love it. I also
found the edition to the session before that; so now I have a little
collection of conference additions and I love them.
Oh yeah, I saw that Elder Swindle you were talking about. Him and his
group came in last week. I recognized him from school, he was a year
younger than me, but I didn't know him too well. When I saw him, he
told me the last time he saw me my hair "was like *and then he made a
hand gesture at about shoulder length*" and i said "funny seeing you
here." It was nice.
But if you caught that, that now means there are two groups behind me
now. I am getting old.
So i tried to add more pictures but this compùter is weird, so just
one for now. But this is a picture of a really cool family down in
Antsirabe, and if you notice that little fellow there on the left, you
might see his face preaching the gospel around SLC before too long!
well i think that about does it; i've grown tired of having to fix my
keyboard mistakes.
I'll see you next week! I love you all!

Yes, as you saw I did not have the chance to email you last week. I apologize. The streets and the whole scene here was just crazy! people everywhere! You would think that would make a p-day super cool, but it actually was a mini-bummer cause Shoprite (the main grocery store here, comparable to Smith's cut in half) was closed. And all the cybers were closed. So we just walked a lot. We went to Tsena Sabotsy though, which was running wild! Tsena Sabotsy (which translates to Saturday Market) is a big long maze a little tiny shops and stuff. It's kind of hard to explain. There is nothing really comparable to it in Utah. The shops are these little wooden hut things, the meat section is a real doozie. Lots of meat just hanging right out in the open, but don't worry, I am pretty sure it's all clean and good. I've eaten it and I loved it. They also have tons of fruit places and vegetables. It's pretty much like wal-mart, but outside and pretty dirty. The dirt's good though. I bought more clothes that have been shipped here from places like America. I bought a really cool walt disney world hoodie that I am actually wearing right now. That part of the tsena is like DI, and I love it.
Other than that, I just ate some ice cream that I found. And that was Easter Monday (aka a sweet party).
Hm.. so you want to hear what life is like, a day in the life of me? Okay, I'll give you an example.
So last Thursday was quite and adventureous day! I got up at about six, which is super easy here cause the sun is bright up and shining well before morning. It's getting darker though.. back in December it got up about 4:30, but now a solid 5:30 is normal. That means winter is on it's way! Okay, so I got up and I read Jesus the Christ. I've been reading that a bit lately, and it's very good. The book goes in depth of basically everything in Jesus' life, and a great deal more. My knowledge and understand has expontenially increased since the beginning of my reading, and I haven't even really made a dent into to book yet! After that, I ate some oatmeal I got from my ol' MTC buddy Elder Ewell. Elder Ewell is 3 hours north in Tana, and he has tons of girls. So many that he gets tons of packages. I told him to put some goodies in a box for me, so he did. He's a good guy like that. Oh dang he gave me a pack of oreos, chips ahoy, fruit gushers, sns. I loved it! Oh I truly did. Nice american junk food. He also included some Baked Apple Pie oatmeal, which I wouldn't have ever given a second glance in america, but I have grown to appreciate the little things in life. So I ate that. My hour of personal study, followed by hour of companion study followed. Andrianajarasoa and I did a little language study before District Meeting. We read the book of mormon together, I in malagasy and he in english. We've been scooting along. District meeting went well. The couple who lives down here did the lesson. Their names are the Fareeas. They are from Tahiti, and speak french. Luckily, an elder (elder Bedwell) just got transferred here from Reunion, so he was able to translate for us. Soeur Fareea gave a wounderful lesson about Faith, and how prophets from the scriptures have used faith.
After district meeting, we started splits. I needed some baptism interviews done for my area, so Elder Smith, the zone leader, went with my companion all day and did those. They all passed. Anyway, so I went we Elder Bates to Manandona. Manandona is a small branch about 20km south of Antsirabe. Smith and Bates are very fortunate right now, for they have a car. Elders in the past (about a month ago) didn't have a car and needed to ride bikes out there every day. Our first appointment in Manandona was with a cool guy they found who was staying there for a few days. He lives in the Captial: Tana. A real cool guy, this one. He had an interest in the book of mormon and just loved asking questions. He knew a tiny bit of english too, along with another man who joined us about halfway through. At one part during the lesson, the two men were arguing in what little english they knew, and I couldn't help but just smile at that, haha. I imagined myself arguing in malagasy with another american elder. Silly, silly, silly. We gave the man a book of mormon, and we headed off to our second time. Our second time was right by their church. I say church, but really, small house. Very small house. Not as small as the Besoa church (another branch in the Manandona area, which I swear this church was about the size of my room, no joke.), but still. We were going to teach this teenage girl, but she said she was too busy to learn right now. So, not quite having a time planned, we helped some members hit their rice stalks against rocks as to knock to rice off the stock, therefore preparing the rice for consumption. It went well, and we knocked the heck out of the rice. I had rice in my shirt pocket and the little cuff in the bottom of my pants all day. We drove a little bit longer and taught a few times out in the boonies. A real hard rain storm hit for about 30 seconds during the drive. The kind of rain that you can't quite wipe away from the windshield fast enough, for it comes too hard.
That evening we had a choir practice for the Open House we will be hosting here in Antsirabe this Saturday. The theme is the restoration, and it's a big program all about the restoration, just to invite everyone and get the word out about it. The thing is though, is that I'm not sure if I will still be here this saturday. Transfer news comes out tonight, so I guess we will see. And quite bascially that is about all that happened last thurday. I hope that gave you a nice look at how a day in my life goes. I tried to give you lots of goods.
Keep on keeping on!
I love you all!

ps. I haven't gotten the box of cookiez yet. It might be in tana, which means I should get it soon, if all goes to plan. I'll keep you posted.

I may or may not be able to email next week. You see, this easter is sunday, and that means the next day is easter monday. In america, you wouldn't really give that day a second thought, but from what I have heard so far, it's suuuper crazy here. I am super stoked! But that also means that all of the cybers will most likely be closed hosting parties. So I probably won't be able to email. Who knows though, we will see.
I don't have a ton of time to email today either. We went down to an area called Ambositra. Right now two missionaries work there, and it is the woodworking capital of the world. It took a little bit less than two hours to get there this morning, and the first thing we did was hike up to a waterfall! It was ssoooo hot. It's supposed to become winter here pretty soon, and up here in the mountains, it apparently gets pretty cold! Too bad it wasn't cold today. The water fall was sweet though, I'll send you pictures later though, for I left my camera in the car.
Another great thing about Ambositra is we found a restaurant that had soft serve ice cream! As far as Ambositra goes, there is pretty much cool wood stuff, and that's about it. That's the word from the other missionaries, and I believed it, haha, it didn't look like much was going on. BUT, the ice cream heaven. They do have ice cream at La Gastros, the pizza place, but it's not to-die-for. It's not soft serve. THIS was. Oh, it was way good.
ALSO, I found a wooden owl for your collection, and I bought it. The wooden stuff in Ambositra quite impressed me. Tons of sweet wooden trinkets and pretty much wooden stuff. I didn't really spend to much, I feel like this mission has turned me really stingy with my money. Honestly, the owl really isn't a super special looking wooden owl, just, kind of a small wooden owl. But I got it anyway, so just know that. I figured I would have to have something to repay you for the cookies, which I am still waiting patiently for. :3
Well I think I don't really have too much to say this week.. sorry, a bit short.
Okay, one more little sweet thing.
Uh...
Cow tongue is all-right.
Okay, I love you all
Goodbye,
Elder Smelly-Pits (cause the deodorant I bought here isn't too de-odorant-y)

ps how was conference? I think we have to wait a few weeks to watch it. we must wait for the malagasy translation to come in.