I don't know if you all realize this, but I have been living in Madagascar over a year now! haha it's way crazy. It's odd to think that just one year ago I was beginning it all down in Antsirabe, haha. It goes so fast!
About the Christmas package.. no, I don't have it yet. The office people say that they will go and check for packages this week (they have to pick them up from some postage place), and hopefully it'll be there. I got talking to Sister Adams while she was up here about that, and now she is all ready and trying to make sure it gets up here to me on time, so that's been very nice :) but who knows. No matter when I get it, it'll be great. 
Elder Fox and I are planning on going and buying a little christmas tree today. We've started to see little christmas lights hung up in the little stores you see lining the streets, and people carrying christmas trees home on their heads. Things are getting very festive. 
Except the heat, haha. It hasn't been raining as much as I expected though, but as far as what people say, January and February are the big rain months. Which sound about right. 
A neat little story of something that happened this past week. Okay, so we got a referral from the A.P.s which led us to start teaching this older woman. She's not way old, but I suppose not way young either. Anyway, the thing about her is that she is the mother of a return missionary who recently got home from his mission. She goes to Tana a lot to sell diamonds and other gems she gets here, which makes it a bit tough to schedule a time with here, but she was given a Book of Mormon in 2008. It's not so much that she has grasped onto the teaching so much, for we haven't really even started teaching her too much, but it was just how proud she was of her son. She told us that he had ridden an airplane all the way to Congo, and you could just hear how amazing that was to her. I can't wait to see what happens once we really get the lessons going.
That's about it though, I'd say. Sorry if my emails are all short and stocky lately. I'll try to get a real nice meaty one soon.
I'll catch you all on Christmas Eve!

Elder Christmas 

News this week.. Our Mission President came up and visited us up here this past weekend. It was really nice to know that we aren't forgotten up here all by ourselves, haha. He came up and gave some awesome leadership training for the branch up here, and we also saw a good increase in the number of people who came to church as well. We also got some really good help and advice for what we should do specifically for this branch. It was a really nice weekend, and they also brought us up 'The Legacy' for us to watch on Christmas, which I am really looking forward to. 
It seems insane that Christmas is almost here again. This week I will have been living in Madagascar for over a year, haha. It's crazy. Time goes by so fast. These last three months I have been in Mahajanga honestly feel like maybe one month, if that. A group of Elders who hit their year marks not too long after I got in country will be going home in the next few weeks, and we all just keep getting older in the mission. 
If you happen to see Michael this week, embrace him well for me. I am not sure what day he will be coming home of course, but according to my calcuations, it should be very, very soon.

Well, things are awesome, things are great. 
Keep on keeping on!

Elder ABG

Hello one and all!

Okay, I forgot to try out the new thing I was going to try. The problem I have a lot of the time once I get here to type my emails is that I tend to forget what it is I want to say. I get here in front of the computer and just.... sit. And think. Think. Think. Think.
"And the noise. All the noise, noise, noise, noise." Do you remember what that's from?
haha, but anyway, so I wanted to try to go throughout the week, and if I happened to see something, or think of something I wanted to tell all you about, I would write it down and make a list. That way by the time I got here to write you, I could get you a nice looong page in a jiffy. But lo, I forgot. Now I am stuck here thinking again. 
One thing I can easily remember though is the rain this week. Though we never got caught out in it, it came down super hard. One morning I woke up at about 5 something from my dream about bombs and war, to find the cause of these explosion-y dreams was due to the rain crashing hard on our metal roof. I attached a picture of the wall of our room. here you can see the water coming down the wall of our bedroom. our landlord said he would get a guy to come fix it soon, so we'll see how that goes. It wasn't too bad though, turns out humans are waterproof (who knew?). honestly though by the time we went out to work, the rain had stopped. Still though, the results of the rain stained the town still. In one area, the whole everything is just water. I attached another picture of one path we took. We ended up just walking through the water up to our ankles due to no other way. It's all right though, it makes a cool story I suppose. That was early last week, and even still to today there are some really muddy paths. One member told us that the water by her house gets calf deep in the heat of the season, so that should be fun. I'll let you know how that goes. 
As far as all the things.. the things are good. I got a letter from Eric this week. As I opened the letter, I got a bunch of hair all over my pants. He put his hair in it. And it made a mess all over my pants. Nice letter though.
Honestly though, the work is going well. We are still pushing for a lot of retention with our Recent converts right now, which we have seen some success there. 
Our mission President, President Adams, will be coming up here to Mahajanga this weekend. Hopefully the package you sent will be there in the office by then, so that he can bring it up. If not I might not get it before Christmas, but we'll see. It'll be the best no matter when I get it though. But yeah, we are looking forward to the president coming a lot. This branch up here is doing good, and I think his guidance for them will help them become even better and stronger. Elder Fox and I really put in our elbow grease as we cleaned this morning. We even cleaned the shelves in the fridge, so you know we were thorough. 

Well I think that about does it for this time. 
I don't know if I really wrote anything worthwhile today, haha. I hope all you enjoy it anyway!
Catch me again next week ;D

Elder CAPSLOCK BERGERA