Another Week in Paradise- January 25, 2016

Hey everybody!! Just another week in paradise! Like always there were some ups and downs. To be honest it was just another week for the most part. All of our investigators are doing great. Progressing really well. We only had 7 at church this week which was a bummer. Thing is there were only 2 that were the same as the week before. Also some rough news, Lalaina didn't show up. Now we're going to have to push back his baptism. Again. That's ok though because things are still going great!! And my man Prosper came to church. He learned from some missionaries a while back and is a way cool guy. Thing is the missionaries before couldn't get him to progress and stopped going back. We stopped by one day and talked to him for a bit and it was great!! We have to take it slow with him just because he doesn't always get things the first time. The other day he told us how he read about John Smith and how him and his three brothers killed Laban and stole his gold... Yeah we cleared that one up in a hurry. Anyways he came to church and as it turns out one of our most active members was one of his best friends from way back!! So that was a cool little connection. I think his baptism will be a ways out and I don't know if I'll be here to see it but it is coming. Just one more story this week cause it's a really funny one. This just shows how much apostasy exists in this country and how much we deal with it on the daily. I have had 2 separate people in the last week tell me that Jesus was not the Messiah. In fact, he lives on Jupiter!!! Did y'all know that?? Haha apparently he only has power over the extraterrestrials and the fazimba (little people). The real Christ's name is Yeho Soa. Turns out he's already here!! We just don't know it yet because he's invisible. Who woulda thunk? Hahaahah yeah that was two separate doors we knocked on. We got a lot of work to do here. Love you all so much!!!

Farm Days - January 18, 2016

Hey there everybody sorry I'm late today. President Foote is here in Antsirabe so we kind of had a special p-day. We spent the morning doing some farming for some members. We had to dig all of the tall grass away from these little medicine trees. It kind of felt good to have a shovel in my hands again not going to lie. Then I realized it's been a while... haha all of the callouses ripped off and I may have gotten a little blood on the member's shovel. Oh well, it happens I guess. After that we went and played some basketball so it was a lot of fun. Things are great here in Antsirabe! We had more people at church today than we ever have in the history of the branch! 147!!! The most I have ever seen was around 130. Plus we had 8 investigators come! It's so great to see how much the church can change people's lives. I don't know if you all remember Lalaina, but he is getting baptized in a couple of weeks. He has a bit of a story to him too. He's one of the biggest Malagasies I've ever seen, maybe 5'11 and 230 pounds. I guess that's not huge to y'all but people don't get that big here. He also is way smart. He was going to school to be a doctor but he kind of snapped. I've heard it told that his girlfriend left him and he lost it and I've also heard it told that someone did some witch-doctory stuff to him. Anyways at some point he just went crazy and started fighting everybody. He actually almost killed someone and at that point he ended up getting locked up. He would walk down the street and people would walk the other way. Everyone was terrified of Lalaina. One of our members told us about how any time he was near she left because she was afraid. Then we started teaching him and we got to know him. He had no friends. To be honest I think he let us in because he was lonely. He has long since gotten is temper under control and he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. That same member told me yesterday that she when she saw him at church she wasn't scared any more. He was just another child of our Heavenly Father. He has friends now. Our church changed his life and it is great. Love you all so much

Elder Jensen

 

Transfers - January 11, 2016

Well everybody it's official!! I am a big boy now!! Hahaha we had transfers last week so I am officially not in training any more!! Me and Elder Koplin have split up and I have a new companion now. His name is Elder Schroedter and he is from Houston Texas. He actually got to the mission the same time as Elder Koplin so he has about 6 months left. We get along great though so it should be a geat transfer. As far as investigators go we are doing great. We have just recently found a bunch of investigators that are progressing really well already. I think that my personal favorites are Rondro and her family. Her husband was a drunk and he left a while back so she just lives with her kids. She has a daughter who is 22 I think, and then a son that's 20, and 2 more daughters that are 16 and 14. Anyways we found them about a week and a half ago and at least a couple of them have been at church every week. The first week the lesson was about baptism and the teacher talked about how so many other churches have stopped using doctrine and turned to fombafomba (I don't really know how to describe it in english, ceremony or maybe formalities? Idk doesn't really translate). Anyways they really liked that and she said she was convinced so that was super cool. The only problem is that she is a catholic teacher so if she comes to our church every week they will fire her. Not really looking forward to addressing that problem but I guess we'll climb that mountain when we get there. Anyways I guess that's all for this week so I love you all so much,

Elder Jensen