Madanascar

long time no see

and long time no write! so first things first, i should probably tell you my transfer news. I just finished training Elder Wilmot in Ambohipo 2, now theyre closing down ambohipo back to one area and shipping elder Wilmot, Elder Iata, and Elder ME out. Wilmots off to a city called antsirabe, Iata is staying in tana and going to go be companions with his cousin(!) and im shippinf out to and area called Ambolomadinika ("little hills" which is also gonna be the name of my first psychedelic noise pop album) in a coastal city called Tamatave (in the french) or Toamasina (in teny gasy). Im beyond excited, and ill be living with my old friend Elder Johnson again! its funny because we only worked together one transsfer, but im gonna end up living with him longer than anyone else. So im gonna be packing my bags, learning teny betsimitsaraka, and taking plenty of anoying pics of the beach and the jungle! my new companons name is Elder Band, but i havent met the guy yet. pics next week!

...of elder band, but plenty of pics of ME this week. 

ive been campaigning my whole mission for them to make this change

So one of the weird events of this week is that my old companion, Elder Garcia, went home (or "died" in the extremely narrow missionary vernacular) but i was lucky enough to get to see him on the way out, and the APs even let him have a long talk with me right before he went home. We had a great discussion about life and the mission and whatnot. Garcia has big plans when he gets home to grind out a bunch of work hours in a lumber mill and then go to BYU, get married and start haing kids very quickly. >He wants to be and english teacher and basketbal coach, as well as have 5 kids. "why 5?" "i grew up in a house with four kids, and i always felt like its just barely wasnt enough" we also talked about the insanity of Kareem Abdul Jabbar holding the all time NBA scoring record despite never shooting threes (garcia is good enough at english to make basketball interesting to me)

the cousins, the Venuatu Two, Iata and Tavo. Tavo had the same trainer as me, and Iata and i have gone on so many splits together we consider each as as having already been companions (wrote his name in my Preach My Gospel and everything) Ive learned enough of their national language, Bislama (a kind of pidgin english) to insult them and have simple discussions with them, though they prefer talking to each other in their island language of nadoar. Fun fact, their island is called Tana, which is also the nickname of the capital of Mada. ask Tavo to tell you the story abut when he was harpoon fishing and got dragg away by a shark and got his coral scars, and ask Iata about how he t-boned his horse into another during a race and got his back scars. Ive been promised a tract of land, free housing, free food, a horse and a girl when i come to visit Venuatu.

amissionary classic: the coke break. we sat in this little bar area and sung malagasy songs together. some girls were peeling potatoes behind the divide and joined in with us. It felt so picture book, in a way, like the unassuming start of a movie.

I took Elder Bingham, a registered audiophile, to help me purchase the very best (fake chinese) Beats by Dr. Dretm. Theyre really good and i hope they last. even if they dont, they cost like fsixth of the price of real ones so...

i also got a malabary made ofr myself, or traditinal malgasy mens formal wear. this is what male farmers (ie 95% of the countries men) men wear when they arent working. also tryin to collect the different tribal hats. this one is Betsileo

Razazarohavana (im pretty sure i slaughtered the spelling of this) my old betongolo housemate, former missionary and current bum. i saw him while on a split with Elder (T)Ahlstrom in Ambohimanariona, a branch which prays at a glamour church the church built right next to the US embassy. "you the guys with that nice church by the american embassy?" is a common question.

Delphin and his family, one of the awesome mebers of Ambohipo! Delphin (the young guy) was baptized by himself and helps us all the time, and were teaching his family now. His house is notable for being built on a cliff fce, with the ladder that leads up to his families room a few inches from the edge. freaks me the right out every time. they make fun of the trepidation i take on that latter, while three year olds rocket down it like its nothing 

 the missionary wall, its has all the pictures of the current missionaries. It was weird seeing garcias picture move over to the other side. all my friends are dying! im gonna watch ahlstrom and johnson die, then liao cyusa and heiden not long after that. Horspool and Te'e are already long gon, and im starting to get pretty close to the top

i also got a super tacky suit jacket made that i love, and took these tacky phots to compliment it

the kids of Zakary and Felana, absolutely angelic investigators that Elder De Klerk and Iata Baptized. the kids are Elisa, Emmanuella, and Iando.

Felana

Zakary

Elisa

Emmanuella

Iando

photo evidence that malagasy kids are taught from the womb to twerk. their mother was sitting there, clapping and cheering her daughter on and telling her to go lower

caught a pic of this guy who got super angry at me because i walked near his shoes 

it was so nice to skype some of yall on moms day! kids, tell your mom you love her (I love you Mom)

Wilshi brand basketballs

Cool week, not a ton new, not feeling creative so im just going to commentate on the pics uploaded

part of learning malagasy is learning the indechipherable way malagasies write numbers

no joke i cut the palm of my hand on a nail and the crown of my head on thorns within an hour of each other. it taking all of my self restraint to not (sacriligeously) comment further on this

we found two chameleons on the path and caught them and are keeping them at our house now

a must have for every missionary with an adequate understanding of malagasy, the malagasy dictionary (the kind the defines malagasy words in malagasy, a malagasy dictionary by malagasies, for malagasies. malagasy)

i thought it was way cool but a picture of a boook is pretty boring but thankfully i quickly found a page with an entry describing the word for a person with no fingers. the dictionary is ripe with quality information like this, and entries such as "white people rice: a kind of grain grown by white people in cold places like europe. its ground and baked to make baguettes." (this is the entry for wheat, if you cant tell) Trying to explain this dictionary to malagasies is insane cause they cant understand the value of describing gasy in teny gasy and they usually think its in french and for vazahas to learn malagasy. so many more white people own this then real malagasies....

took a selfie with Mamy (means "sweet") a delighful member of ambohipo while waiting for a haircut from his relative, Hanta. They are both of the Bara tribe, who are traditionally cattle rustlers and have a large presence in toliara. Mamy is frm toliara and so naturally i love speaking to him. He has one arm. (NOTE: neither mamy nor hanta are cattle rustlers, but are in fact well to do hair dressers

oops i took some selfies displaying my radically pointier new haircut. i ve mixed feelings about it.

we had a pool tournament and i was in charge of designing team names for each companionship. its just the companionships names mashed togethr. i like "Taintuleka"

(note theres a missionary here named elder tainter, no joke)

radical shots of the pool and baseball action that went down

2280 - Rinah

2298 - Christian and Frederic

assortted shots of many amazing church members and investigators. Rinah, the girl in pic 2280 was tracted into by me and te'e and taught for a while 7 months ago before i left for toliara. Now shes a fully baptized member, has read the whole book of mormon, is doing her family history and preparing to go to the temple. Shes amazing. and who was that stellar missionary that found her again...

2298 is Christian and Frederic, who you may remeber all the way back from Betongolo days. i call them lionel ritchie and michael jackson, which is exactly hitting the nail on the head, but they think its funny

the rest of the pictures are pictures of ivandry, the center of tana, and the first ward and stake in the country. this place is incredibly progressive compared to even the parts of tana right next to it, and bears a remarkable resemblance to america at some points. i went into office buildings, shopped at a walmart like shoprite, and entered into a real life strip mall and almost cried. i had been preparing to reenter that kind of stuff in 6 to 7 months, not in the middle of my missionary. thoroughly bizarre, and it made me feel weirdly guilty. its hard to concieve of toliara nadn ivandry existing in the same country. but i did see a pig get lifted up by its ears and tail in bboth places though (by the way the sound a pig makes when this happens is bloodcurdling and i think the worst ive ever heard) Notice the BNI Madagascar is open 24 hours a day, 24 days a week

in other news, today is the year and six month and one day mark of my mission, making me a dead sister missionary. Extremely weird to think that if president finds out abot my extra x chromosome ill have to get sent home, and even weirder to be treated as "that old guy" by my fellow missionaries, who are largely 18 and 19. im proud also to be the weird guy at the ambohipo house, because im known now for loudly having malagasy conversations in my sleep, one of which was interuppted by a fart and chuckle (i was conscious for none of this). I dont know how to say this in a non braggy way, but im just extremely happy with the fluency level ive reached in malagasy and the people are constantly complimenting e on it and it just makes me feel all good and inflated ego-y. im currently learning Atondroy, Antaimoro, and Antainosy dialects, and i watched a movie in tandroy at our ward mission leaders house in tandroy the other day and understood all of it! feeling super accomplished. also im way more proud than i should be of sleep malagasy talking.

anyhoo, ill turn off the hot ego air now.

I love you all! have great week! please keep in your prayers the wounded missionaries and all those wounded and killed in the belgium bombings recently