The "Shrek" franchise is translated into malagasy as JAZZ GISTA BOGOSY. Also there's five movies here

So I'm gonna try and do a very quick and sloppy blog post with a lot of pictures.

First of all, I'm got transferred! (you can take the Betongolo out of the boy...)

I'm went to an area called Ambohipo, it's essentially the college town area in Antananarivo. It's right next door to betongolo and Elder Horspool worked there for around 7 months, so i already know it pretty well and I'm super excited to work here. My new companion is named Elder Garcia, I also already know him pretty well and we get along great. All in all I'm pretty excited.

***BTW my address, as far as mail is concerned, will not change****

Luckily, i just happened to take a picture of Garcia a few weeks ago, he's modeling these amazing ladders that all malagasy corporations, no matter how high tech, use. they are lashed together out of driftwood and broken electrical cords. In the foreground is Elder Armando, from Mozambique, who i will be replacing in Ambohipo (its a shame he's not facing the camera, hes an extremely handsome man)

a longer shot of the church, ladders, Garcia. and Armando

actually Garcia just forwarded me these pics so you will get to see him and Armandos faces. i like how Garcia is exactly the same in both pics, his comp just suddenlybecomes a lot lighter and a lot less fluent at Portugese (and French and Malagasy for that matter)


And because I'm leaving the 'tongolo, i took a whole bunch of pictures with some of my favorite investigators and members. to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park, "Hold on to yo' butts"

DISCLAIMER: all malagasy houses have terrible lighting (i.e. none) so these pictures are all going to be marred by flash and red eye. I'll just write everyones names today, if i have time ill come back and tell stories. (all names are left to right)

Me, their mentally handicapped older brother who wont tell me his name, Bert, Frere Solo, Josoah, Ahlstrom. Frere Solo is already a member, the rest are his adopted sons. 

Also, because my new area is so close to Betongolo, i got to baptize them with Elder Ahlstrom just a few days ago! It was great, ive been teaching these guys since my first few weeks in country. theyve done so much work and shown so much faith.

*in the second picture* Frere David, Sonja, Soeur Evette and her two daughters, Moi, Lalantiana, Soa

their really cute little girl whose name escapes me, Soeur Tatiana, Soeur Sitraka, Frere Lanto, Ahy

Frere Christian, Za, Frere Andry

Frere Christian again, plus his family and turtle and cat and aho

Mir, Anges, Maryline, Frere Andry Indray

(i like to flip between these two pictures really fast)

Sr Amoussoga, Ahlstrom, Vahia, Helen, Setra, Sr Helens daughter and grandaughter, Kanto, Sr Helens other daughter, saya

Also very cool, while we were tracting we stumbled on some guys who cut up bananas on these big cheese grater things and then fry em up in a big cauldron, its essentially the malagasy version of a potato chip. got some pics of their operation, and some chips 

One thing I adore about Mada is getting to walk around and see all the chinese/malagasy translated english. A lot of gasy clothing is just chinese goodwill, and the sinaos just slap a lot of random english on things cause they think its looks cool (similar to the way a lot of Americans treat Chinese characters). Enjoy some examples

Also i saw a shirt yesterday where the whole shirt, sleeves and everything was printed with the poster for a movie called BOY A. please look it up

another shirt said:

SELF

Portrait

Natur

AddictivE

I wear my sunglasses

it was amazing.

last shirt to mention, the only words on it were: 
11 PM. Man sits next to woman.

Other news of this last week, we FINALLY got to watch conference. Have the most boring pics of the bunch, some Genny C-Frence ACTION shots, the only good part of which is the reappearance of Heiden and Cyusa's faces

Last thoughts about conference, i absolutely loved both of Henry B Eyerings talks, even though in the one about fasting he said Venuatu wrong every single time. Please donate a generous fast offering every month, ive seen church humanitarian efforts work miracles here. though the venuatu thing is unfortunate, cause we have three missionaries from there serving here, and it was cracking them up every time he said it. 

Funny story about one of them: His name is Elder Tavo and he was also trained by Elder Horspool, so that makes us brothers. Anyways, Tavo in the Teny Sakalava dialect means penis, so now he goes by his first name... which is Richard. I thought it was funny. Also hes the prince of his village, he has coral scars from when he went night fishing and had a run in with a shark, he speaks 5 Venuatuan dialects, and can kill a rat in the middle of the night from 4 meters aways with a rock. Go on a mission young uns, youll meet cool people.

Also, i saw a cool bug that had fantastic camoflague

In other animal news, chameleon

and spider

and gecko

ill finish with a bunch of pictures of betongolo and selfies (take the good with the bad people) before we move to Ampohipo

So Ampohipo and Elder Garcia are way cool, im loving it here and finally not having to work in the office is freeing. let me tell you whats gone on

we tracted into this ladies house and she had all the pictures from the first lesson pamphlet pasted on her wall, i thought it was hilarious. they had only leared with missionaries once before and didnt remeber much of it, but they sure loved the free pictures of Jesus. It was nice cause were out of 1st pamphlets right now so we just taught off their wall.

Funfact: the breast pocket of a Croft And Barrow boys white short sleeved dress shirt is just big enough for a pen, pencil, missionary nametag and planner, plus one malagasy sized banana #ThisIsMyGoToLook

We also met somone who had been inactive for 15 years, they had the most beat up yet unread Book of Mormon ever; i liked the look of it so we gave em a new one and i took the old.

I also finallygot a malagasy campaign shirt, which i wear at all times #EdgardRasafindravahyNy FidioTsaraIndrindra

Somebody wrote this on the inside of their apartment complex, translates to "Dont do anything dirty here, not even farting!!!" Dont do anything dirtyis written all over the city, but it doesnt work everyone still litters and pees everywhere; I have not seen a trash can in six months.

accurate representation of the malagasy military

the only good thing ive drawn since i got here

Garcia buys from an epicerie, little home owned street stands that act as grocery stores here. this is where most of our food and living supplies come from, in case yall were curious

and now for a whole bunch of Ampohipo pics, im telling you guys, this place is beautiful

i named this monolith surrounded by trash "The Folly Of Man"

the sun and that car messed with this panarama, but i like the weird confusion it makes

that feel when your happyto be living in a cool place doing cool work

that feel when you realize youve already been doing it for 6 months

P.S.

YA BOY CANT STOP MAKING SUITS

Palm Sunday, more like Balm Funday (the day I purchase all of my balms)

Yes i know that joke is a week old. I wanted to finish this blog post last week, okay? If you really must have a more seasonally appropriate title, just imagine it says Mrs. (Lundi De) Paques-Man.

So first thing i want to say is thank you so much to everyone who writes me letters or emails or sends me packages, y'all are really the best. I know i dont respond timely or sometimes at all, but trust me its always greatly appreciated. I'd like to make a special mention of the Karatassos family, whom i haven't seen for almost 6 years, that sent me a super nice package which i just received the other day. I cant believe you guys remembered me!

So the news this weekend is that its Easter, and i dont know if you remembered what i said about Christmas, but the Monday after Easter is that x2. Likely because everyone already gotten all that troublesome religious remembrance out of the way the week before and so theres nothing to stop people from throwing crazy parties all day long. Our ward's actually throwing a party in the room right next to where I'm typing and i can feel my chair vibrating with every pulsation of Stephanie's "Dontsiky". 

Speaking of bumpin ward easter parties, yesterday at church a guy from the stake came up to the pulpit and announced that the stake Easter party was going to be better than any little ward easter party, was therefore the official easter party, and everyone needed to come. So then our Bishop stood up and told everyone the stake always announces their events too late and never follow through so everyone should come to the ward party. And then our 1st counselor got up and told everyone who was going to the ward party tomorrow to sustain it by a raising of hands and everyone put their hand up. We actually have a really high functioning ward for Madagascar, but it just goes to show that Paques turns everyone into apostates.

is it time for pictures? its time for pictures. 

 

i wanted a picture with these cute kids we always talk to in this neighborhood, but some bizarre lighting turned it from a "record keeping" kind of picture to an "accidental art piece" kind of picture. Yes that girl is wearing a checker sun dress with Minnie Mouse on it that says "MISS YOU" underneath. Have i expressed before how much I love the clothes that find their way to a <3rd world country? ("<3" means both "heart" and "less than three" in this instance) At the Paques party today, my friend Andry was tight, fitted camo sweatshirt that says "fashion" on its with black demin and military boots, a plaid flannel tied around his waist and a gold chain (literally like a bike chain) around his neck. Other fun fact: Andry means "fragrant".

I often find my self shopping at Robert Downey, Jr. and Premenstrual Syndrome when I'm in this part of town 

Elder Razazarohavana insisted that a picture of him would be better than the landscape I was trying to take (he was right)

Oh yeah that reminds me we have two new missionaries living with us, the aforementioned Razaza and Elder Kelsch. I like em both a lot because Kelsch likes to make lime bars and Razaza likes to stand on our balcony and serenade us with his guitar. Dinner and a show.

I like this picture of Ahlstrom

I dont like this picture of me but i do like that it exists, because its from our most recent baptism! Not a convert baptism, Andriana here is Souer Abeline's granddaughter and was ready to be baptized. Andriana asked me to baptize her, which made me really happy because we have this understanding where we're friends even though neither of us can really communicate with each other (I swear speaking in gasy to a kid is even harder than speaking to a drunk).

One last PLS, but let me draw your attention to the roof in the foreground (rusty corrugated tin held down by a variety of rocks and junk). It's pretty indicative of your average Malagasy roof, and pretty similar to the one i cut my head on the other day.

Pictured: said head

I hope y'all aren't expecting a good story, because you aren't getting one. truth is when i walk here i usually look straight down cause just walking here usually takes a very high level of concentration. So I'm just watching the path trying not to step in dog/people poop or fall into the rice paddy on the either side and ran into a particularly low and nasty tin overhang. I'm all healed up now, so unfortunately i wont have any head scars to give me character once I'm bald. It's a shame, I know.

Speaking of injured people (but MUCH more so) I saw what I'm pretty sure is the saddest sight I've ever seen the other day. There was this guy whose legs both didn't work who had to cross a street in the middle of what equates to Malagasy Times Square, and so he just sat on the pavement and dragged himself across the intersection with his hands while cars barely served to miss hitting him, or not at all. He made it across okay but it was pretty horrifying. And then the day before that while we were walking on our way to the bus stop we saw this two story brick building collapse and then at the bus stop this other guy had some sort of stroke or heart attack. All these people gathered round to try and help him but they just fanned him or slapped his face. No one called an ambulance because they are for hire here, and if you take someone to the hospital here your responsible for paying for them. So it took over 30 minutes before someone was willing to hire a taxi to take him... somewhere. I really wanted to do SOMETHING but that's pretty explicitly a bad idea over here because if a white guy is anywhere near an accident like that the first Gendarme that sees you will arrest you on the spot. Not on the desire to keep pinkies in jail or anything, they just know they can get money out of you and that immediately becomes the top priority. 

Maybe almost as sad is the guy i met the other day who makes a living by owning a garbage pile and renting it out to people. You pay a couple hundred Ariary and you get some time to go through the trash looking for anything good, and the opportunity to dump whatever you want. I met another man with a similar job, he runs a movie theatre that shows the french dubs of movies like The Collection (from the makers of Saw 4-8) and Explosive Sabotage, a movie starring Dennis Rodman and few other actors all wearing tank tops in front of an explosion. Dennis Rodman's picture is on the cover twice. 

On a lighter note, a two year old baby distinctly declared "I am God" in the middle of our lesson yesterday... maybe that not a lighter note, in retrospect it seems kind of foreboding..

Another interesting question from one of our recent lessons "Yes, yes, I understand what you're telling me, but why do you let women pray in your church?" (the guy who said that is actually really nice, has a great marriage and family, he was just raised in old Shi'ite Muslim stock) 

Wow I'm a little down now. Let's end with some more positive experiences. I had a very interesting time this week teaching all sorts of things, not just gospel. For example, in one lesson i was kinda sick and coughing and so i made an offhand comment about germs and our investigators just gave us weird look. So we ended up spending about half an hour trying to convince them a bunch of tiny animals live in their body, and some of them make them sick and others try to protect their body. I even got to draw a whole diagram of white blood cell psuedopodia absorbing and emulsifying bacteria. I'm pretty sure they never believed us. Also at one hotely the waitresses tried to charge us 22000 Ariary for a 9000 Ariary meal, not cause they wanted to rip us off but because they didn't understand how to do math. And so we sat there and taught them how to do arithmetic until they understood that we bought the same stuff as everyone else  at the same non-ritzy price. We parted as friends and now when we eat there they happily show us the math they did to ring up our price. I'm proud? Last story: Elder Ahlstrom bought a Rakibolona (a dictionary for Malagasy words in Malagasy) and this lady pulled us aside and asked us what the book was. Soon the whole family gathered around, no one having seen or heard of a dictionary before. And even though we explained and explained and let him read the book, her husband was never able to understand why a book would explain Malagasy words in Malagasy and was convinced it was just way for us translate gasy stuff into french. (We also never convinced him we weren't french.)

I think that's plenty for this week. Misaotra indrindra to those who write, I fady those who don't. 

What Were Your Thoughts As You Put On Short Shorts And A Hijab This Morning

He's back

Another 6 weeks have come and gone and its transfers again. And I dont think I've written anything of significance on this blog since last transfers, which i know is just devastating to my legions of rabid fans who are frothing at the mouth to catch ever honeyed word that drops from my lips. So here y'all go.

TrAnSfErS: I'm staying in Betongolo with Elder Ahlstrom as my companion, which is exactly what i wanted (breathe a little 'yay' to yourself right now and join in my mild excitement). Me and Tallstrom get along really well so only having 6 weeks together would have been a travesty, but more importantly this area is chockfull of really cool people and investigators and I'm not ready to leave them behind just yet.

(On the right: Ahlstrom, on the left: Me)

The other cool thing about being an office elder is that when transfers happens everyone who switching cities stops at our house and sleeps there for a night. #ITriedToThinkOfASlumberPartyJokeButTheyAllWerentFunny So we get to meet a boat load (taxi be load) of missionaries. And I gotta say, even thought guys in the 18-22 year old range are usually among my least favorite creatures on this earth (ranking slightly above guys in the 14-18 range) everyone in this mission seems really dope and dedicated to working hard and helping people out in anyway they can. Most days it feels like I'm meeting some of the best people I've ever met. Honestly, it was pretty intimidating until i figured out how to turn admiration into jealousy, jealousy into spite, and spite into a comfortably artificial sense of superiority instead of, you know, changing.

Picture thyme: none of these are particularly good, but I'm posting em cause i'm just excited to have a camera again 

Other cool events of the week:

We had another baptism! Its the sisters investigator; Tina (Tina is a mans name here) so i dont actually know him too well. 

But i do know his friends pretty well, theyre all the bandis in our ward (bandi means cholo in malagasy [cholo means punk in spanish]) 

i forgot to show you guys the picture from my birthday soiree at Soeur Helens too, a quick explanation: the fomba here is on your birthday they throw eggs and flour on you (preferably before someones told you the fomba)  

I think thats it for this week, i want to write more/better but this comp has a truly terrible keyboard (types french but printed in english)

Kamera Kwest 2: The Klumps

Only got time to say one thing this week, and its this: Ya boy finally bought a (chinese knock-off) camera (with pirated second rate french software) and now hes back in business

​And i of course mean the weird selfie taking business.

I also got a picture of my beloved Ratsimbazafy and my namako Ahlstrom being cute together, now you can finally see what they look like. Ratsimbazafy and the other visa waiters have officially departed to South Africa and now Ahlstrom and I are empty-nesters. Its very sad but at least we have each other.

Other than that I've been drowning in rain and reading a lot of Hugh Nibley (hence the title last week). I'll wrap up with a personal favorite of his quotes 

"In our day, as in various other times in history, the sanctity and the authority of the temple have been preempted in the religion of mammon. Our banks are designed after the manner of ancient temples, with imposing fronts, ceremonial gates and courts, the onyx, the marble, the bronze—all are the substances of ancient temples. The sacred hush that prevails, the air of propriety, decorum, and dedication; the pious inscriptions on Zions Bank's walls are quotations from Brigham Young (the one man who really had it in for business). The massive vault door, through which only the initiated may pass, gleams chastely in immaculate metal. The symbol makes the reality of all that is safe and secure—that is, the Holy of Holies. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. This is the Lord speaking. We declare that our trust is in God, and we give ourselves away by stamping that declaration where it belongs—on our coins and bills."

Hi, I'm Hug Nibbles, merman applegeist and scalder

no pictures again... this is totally starting to cramp my style. Imma keep it short and sweet this week

biggest thing this week, me and Elder Ahlstrom were caught in what i am deciding to classify as a tropical storm on friday. right in the middle of our prime proselyting time, it starts coming down like normal and we decide to just keep contacting cause if you cant handle a little rain, then get out of the 'gascar. Eventually it starts getting a little more aggressive, and me and Ahlstrom decided to take a hint and wait it out for a few minutes underneath the overhang of an epicerie. Usually the rain will dies down or out after a few minutes. but it just keeps on keepin on and Ahlstrom and i start sharing glances. we start to become fascinated with the rapidly forming whitewhater (brownwater) rapids river rushing down the street we were just contacting on and marveling as its carries a few metric tons of garbage down its wake, along with several pairs of flip flops, a wicker bag, (the kind you use for transporting a half dozen geese on the back of your bike... they have those in america, right?) a whole bunch water bottles and a small child. eventually we realize were gonna lose a ton of work time if we keep waiting it out so we decided to suck it up and get out to work. spoiler alert: everyone cancelled their lessons. For a people that live, in essence, a submarine lifestyle malagasies sure are scared of the rain. 

"our meeting was at 12 and its 1 now. where are you?"

"well, its raining Elders!"

yeah there's a lot of nonsense like that. In essence were walking around in this stuff for hours and not accomplishing anything cause no one wants to talk while its raining and the whole time its only picking up and flooding in a more dramatic fashion. By the time we decide to go home weve been as wet as if we had just gone swimming in full proselyting clothes for the last hour and its past the point of misery and has crossed back over to being fun. we'd just wade up and down streets, watching waves and riptides go by and marvel at the openings of the malagasy "sewer system", where the water was coming out so fast it was pressurized and jetting out of grates six feet in the air.   

Eventually when we got back to Betsarety (our hood) we were wading up to our mid thighs (or in french, the mid-cuisse, which i know thanks to gasy menus being in teny fransay). it looked like this picture of a missionary in Tomatave

 except our water was higher, browner, more generally filled with sewage and we were lacking in the bicycle rain jacket department. A couple malagasies thought it was absolutely hilarious to see vazahas in the drink and made some loud comments, so i went up to each and every one and made some some happy small talk, told them i loved them and then gave them a sopping wet hug before they could get away.

Also, remember those gaping sewer pits im terrified of falling into every night i mentioned before? Well the water was about two feet over the pit on our path home and we would have walked right into it if there wasnt an awesome malagasy right there warning everyone. there was a bunch of people standing around the approximate area who were to scared to progress so me and Ahlstrom had to lead a bunch of people around the pit, very slowly, very cautiously. The tension has never been so high. Ahlstrom even had to lead a couple kids and their mother home "because they didnt have an umbrella." what? All this nonsense left everything in my bag (except, miraculously, my malagasy scriptures) completely ruined. My bag is waterproof, but that only means so much. 

And then after all that when we got home we realized we had left our keys at the office so we had to make the trip two more times. It was one of the more awesome experiences of my life. See y'all next week, folks.