Pictures of some cool Elders

Transfer #4 Begins- February 22, 2016

This week was pretty decent. My new comp Elder Gariki is way great so we're having a blast here in Antsirabe. We still have a lot of people that are coming right alone for baptism which is way great. We even had 10 people at church last week, so that was way nice. The only problem is that most of the ones who are supposed to be baptized on the 5th of March didn't come for various reasons, so we will probably have to push back the bap dates to the 19th. Also some more rotten news, This time it's about Sitraka. I don't know if you all remember hearing about her, but we've been teaching her since we got here. She is 18 and was basically a member. She came to church every week, she even went to seminary. The only reason she isn't baptized is that her father won't accept it. You see her mom is catholic, her dad is Jehova's Witness, and her and her sister pray with us. Anyways they didn't like praying at different churches so her parents decided that they are all leaving their churches and joining the Lutheran church. I know it makes 0 sense at all but that's what it is. It literally breaks my heart to think how close she was. She knows that the church is true, but she can't do anything about it and it just sucks. I don't know what else to do for her. Anyways enough of that things are still good here. Our schedule is way full most days so things are still going great here. Love you all so much,

Elder Jensen

I Love My Job

Dear everybody.

Sorry I'm a little late today. I guess something went down with a tower or something but the internet to all of Madagascar has been down most of the morning. Haha not even a 3rd world country yet probs. Things are still going great as always. This week was up and down as always. We went off and found this way cool waterfall after we emailed last P-day. I was trying to figure out how to jump across this way slick part of it and kind of slipped and fell in. It hurt a little, but let the record show that I did not swim!! Haha it was only like 3 feet deep so I just kind of sat on the bottom for a second until Elder Koplin pulled me out. Anyways that was fun, I'll send some pictures. Then we found out some good and bad news on Wednesday. Lalaina has been cleared by a psychiatrist to go back to school. That's great, but he is moving to Tana and thus will not be getting baptized here. I just really hope that he finds the church again there. In other news the area is still awesome and I love it. I don't know if I've told you about Dado yet, but he's a baller. He's about 21 years old and lives with his family. This week he came to church for the first time. After that we went and taught him and his friend showed up too. Turns out he told his friend about the white dudes that teach Jesus so now that guy is interested too! Dado says he's going to teach him. At the end of the lesson they said they're both going on missions and asked if it was ok that they have a bunch of tattoos. I laughed a little on that one and we showed them a picture of a missionary here with a tattoo and so that was fun. Anyways he's supposed to be baptized in March so I hope I'm here to see it.

Love you all so much, the church is true.

Elder Jensen

5 Months Down

Hey everybody!! I can't believe how fast time flies!! I hit my five month mark tomorrow. It's way weird to me that it went so fast. Things are great here. My area is great, the people are great, the branch is great. I just love it over here. I'm kinda pressed for time but I'm gonna send some pictures and I guess this is it for the week. Love you all so much!!

Elder Jensen

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