This is a story from Adam's companion's blog just wanted to share it!
Me and Elder Nash did try to express our affinity for performing by serenading to some random dude on the highway. The way it started was by the man asking us where we were going. We said that we were heading to Andravohangy Amboniny - he asked if we were going to take a taxi, we said yes. He shook his head knowingly, as if having some sort of a private joke in his head. I then said jokingly in English, "Well are you gonna loan us your magic-carpet or something?" Going on right with the beat, Elder Nash started into "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. Without questioning what was going on, I joined him for the next line, "shining, simmering, splendid." Then we broke into the whole song, going together till Jasmin's part came up, and then I went on a solo while Nash did an interpretive dance routine and chimed in with the corresponding back-up for Aladdin's part. The man had no idea what we were saying, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway. Eat your heart out "Book of Mormon: The Musical".
I forgot about telling you the Aladdin story, but oh well, I have a few other ones that.. are funny but not quite inspirational, then, amin'ny farany I can tell you an inspirational one. (I'm going to actually throw in malagasy so you can see how I talk to other people that speak english here)
So our cool stuff never actually started till Friday, well, cool in the way that I can actually tell a story from it... then I will share a spiritual one from sunday and Thursday.
So We talked to someone on a path to contact them and we started speaking to them in malagasy mazava ho azy (Obviously), and they tried responding in french, so we told them in malagasy that we don't speak french. So instead of talking to us in malagasy, he starts to use his hand to talk to us like we wouldn't understand him at all, so everytime he did a hand motion we would say the word in malagasy till he actually talked to us like we were Humans. It's weird how you can speak malagasy and people still think you have no idea what they are saying, while others talk to you in malagasy and expect you to know it.
So the next one is about Mr. Mamo or the Drunk man who yelled at us. When we were talking to some people and setting up a time to return and talk to them we heard out of no where,"HEY! Mpangalan-jaza ianareo!" That wasn't good, because he said we stole children... Who knows where that came from, but we had to go quickly, because we saw a fat drunk guy running towards the stairs to come at us. So we -took off towards an epicerie to avoid the confrontation, but he was coming fast, and came up to us andstarted yelling at us and how we need to get out of his country and to leave madagascar and their poverty alone. HE said that we don't know how it is there, and to take our God and leave, and let them stay their with their own God and religion, and to stay out of their business. We already killed saddam and Binladen, we just need to leave them at peace and get out. At the end he said F off, then turned to go away and tripped and fell (before this he had been walking and moving perfectly as if he hadn't touched alcohol) and everyone laughed at him (by this time a crowd of 70 people had gathered too) and he got up and jumped over to us and said abruptly in our faces, "That wasn't your God! I have been drinking since yesterday! F off!" and then he ran back to his house, and I thought way to go God! It was really funny, then the Bebe shopkeeper asked us if we were scared and we said no, but then we continued our day as normal.
Later that day when we went to Happy King, a richer person restaraunt, we just were leaving after ordering and I was heading outside to sit next to Elder Cryer, and I passed by some people speaking in english (there are some americans that visit madagascar, but not many) and they asked each other, "what were we talking about?" so I just said, " I don't know" and walked off. They laughed alot, and thought I was creepy, but oh well, I thought it was pretty funny.
So next is about Sunday. Well guess what! In church I taught Gospel principles, in malagasy! How exciting! There wasn't anyone in the class to help me because Elder Cryer was giving a blessing to someone and I really had to teach it since no one else could, because no one knew what was going on. The Malagasies said I did a good job!
SO anyways, spiritual stuff.
First sunday then thursday.
Sunday we had to get up early so we could pick up an investigator to go to church. So after getting up and running around (literally taking a 1 minute shower) we ran out of the house and got to his house only 10 minutes late, only to have his neighbor tell us that he was way up north.Depressing... so we started the 30 minute walk to church from there. We really felt Kivy (discouraged/depressed, a wierd mixture of those two words) so we just talked about how that guy was a jerk (since he was literally a 2 hour car ride journey away) So we had no idea what we should do. So we get to church, say hi, sit down, and when sacrament meeting starts we have 13 investigators at church, a normal number. But slowly we start seeing more and more people come in, andthe investigators camein slowly but steadily, and by the end of sacrament meeting there was 25 investigators at sacrament meeting! It was a really cool experience because we were so sad but we knew something was going to happen, just not exactly what. So because we did our best to bring people to sacrament and church, more people came, which really was awesome after a not so hot week. That was a really cool experience.
The Next one was this last thursday. I had a lesson with someone I hadn't taught much before cause it was on ward missionary splits. So, we taught the daughter of one of our recent converts, since she hadn't learned a lot before her mom's baptism. So I had no idea what to teach her, and Elder Cryer just said to me to do what the spirit tells me to do. So when I get there with a member from the ward, I just had no idea what to do, but hey, I started the lesson anyways, and as normal I asked if they had any questions about their reading, so of course it's no (and this entire time I have the ward member who doesn't shut up and acts like white people don't know malagasy very well so he likes to restate what I say, or word for word.... nice huh?) so no one does and I go into the lesson, I just open up the Book of Mormon and I start looking for a scripture and I find the one in Alma about faith. So that was my lesson. I just started teaching about faith and how we have to excercise faith to know all things. I went through my conversion story and how I had used it so much before. During the lesson when I wasn't looking at her, whenever I looked back I noticed she was looking at me, focusing on everyword I say, which isn't normal for her since she is so quiet and shy. She was intently forcusing on everything I was saying, and I could feel the spirit really strongly. I spoke about faith, and how we have to show God That we are ready to receive an answer before we can receive a testimony or receive what he has for us. During the entire lesson she was listening really intently instead of staring at the ground or the bed. It was probably one of the most powerful lessons I have taught here so far, and I can tell it really changed how she felt because she came to church for the first time yesterday.
That's my spiritual stuff,
Hope you enjoyed the Email, and have fun. I will be waiting for the package (Transfers in 2 weeks)
Love,
Elder Nash
No comments:
Post a Comment