Toky and me.  One of my favorite members.

                                                                      Beautiful!!

Mahjshungah na Mahjahngah‏

Hello Family and Friends, how are you? i am great. i hope you are enjoying the pics and you enjoy this here email! itll be a good one hopefully. we are always lookin for life changing events and i can certainly not assure you that this will be anything like that! whoop whoop. 

We really did have a great week this week! we did work. i know life is not about stats but about the quality, but all im sayin is why cant we put one and one together? so as far as numbers go...we had forty lessons this week with over 30 hours of work. a work well done id say. also...*drumroll* we had twenty investigators at church. lemme tell you about the miracle so we get to church and its the usual - twenty people there when its suppose to start but everyone miraculous shows up right when it starts at about 9.10 or 15. nice one fotoan'gasy. BUT to start (before the actual sacrament) there was ten investigators and i was like "eh ok thats pretty good" i figure one or two will show up after the sacrament doors reopen (we close them, for obvious reasons, during the sacrament) so when they opened i eagerly looked over to see who would come in. at first it looked like no one...but then! they came from outta nowhere seemingly haha and TEN MORE showed up. about 13 people walked in and ten of them were investigators. my heart swelled with joy and just burst with love. it was amazing and one of the closest feelings ive felt to pure Christlike love. oh my goodness. so we had a grand total of 20 investigators at church and they are solid people, its not like they are all 11 and are there cause theres snacks in primary haha but i feel like they are starting to understand the importance of Church! a scripture and story i read in the Liahona bring church attendence and specifically the sacrament to mind. i dont remember but im sure you could find it towards the end of any of the four gospels - "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" It is Jesus - amidst the turmoil of the Atonement - checking on his Apostles who are sleeping when they were asked to wait. so my question to you is - Are you watching with Christ for that one hour of the Sacrament? or are you texting, thinking about what lunch will be, thinkin bout your lesson second hour, or annoying your little brother? my challenge to you all is to pay more specific attention to the Sacrament this week. do it. you will see the blessings in your life.

In other news, i felt sorrow as well. A stud of an investigator told us she couldnt learn anymore. she let a problem come into her life and control her. she was drunk. she will overcome it i know but it will be a challenge. my heart sank, my hopes dropped and for a second i lost faith. another investigator this week was asleep, hungover when we stopped by. isnt that great? the moral of the story. people love you. follow Heavenly Father - youll be happier, those around you will be happier and Heavenly Father will be happier!

i love you all! have a great week! stay classy, be real.

am-pitiavana,

Eldera Sorôdera

                                                                  The Baobab tree.

                                                        Who knew he was so close?

Salama Daholo

Salama e!

Ino kabary? Miresaka? Ao tsara? Ohatran'ny tsisy vaovao tamin'ity herinandro ity. Fa tena tiako in misiônako. Angamba tezitra na sosotra kely ianareo. Tena azafady fa te hiresaka tenin'gasy bebe kokoa aho. Izany hoe, ny hafatra jiaby, dia ao amin'ny tenin'gasy. Tamin'ny ity herinandro vao vao ity, nahazo mpiara-mitory vaovao aho. Milay izy. Tsy toy ny mpiara-mitory aloha fa tiako izy. Misy fahasamihafa be dia be fa samihafa isika rehetra. tsy maninona. ankoatra izany, tena mahafinaritra ny conference generale. vao nijery conference izahay tamin'ny omaly sy Sabotsy.

Sarotra laotra ny resaka amin'ny tenin'gasy.

SO, that was tough to type. a lot easier to say. its phentic though so its all good. easy. i can teach but the Holy Ghost is a lot better than I. serve a mission in mada. its chill. so i basically said,"i hate all the orphans in the whole world." (no im just kiddin i just miss nacho libre) i said "Whats new? the talk? Everything ok? Pretty much nothing new this past week. But i love my mission! maybe yall will be mad or annoyed when you read this. Im so sorry but i wanna talk more in malagasy, which means this whole message is in malagasy.  i got a new companion this week. He is cool. not much like the one before but i love him. Theres a lotta differences but we are all different. No worries. besides that, general conference was awesome. we just watched conference yesterday and saturday.

Anyways, this week was good, it felt really long but lookin back it was like a snap of the fingers. My eye was sick monday then tuesday they both hurt and on wednesday felt a lil better. a lot better on thursday and pretty much healed. and on friday my right eye got sick again then saturday is switched to just my left eye. and they are almost sitrana now. cool story huh? haha as far as the foods ive eaten every meal. breakfast every morning has been cereal. and tuesday was rice and laoka for lunch, dinner was noodles. wednesday was...jk who cares. some people complain i dont give enough detail so i thought id include that hahaha

Ive only watched the saturday and a lil bit of priesthood session in english and the four general saturday and sunday sessions in malagasy. (lotta conference) but i really liked... W. Wilford Anderson? i forgot his name but he was saturday after noon and talked about dancing and hearing the music. i encourage you to rewatch that one. it was way good. i felt that there were a ton of talks about gospel centered families and stengthening the home and family. Made me a lil trunky to have a family of my own and be a better support for my current family. very powerful. very true. very needed.

going, back to the eyes real quick. so before i got sick i was makin fun of a member cause her eyes were sick haha it came back to bite me lol which reminded me of a malagasy proverb "Ny tody tsy misy fa ny atao no miverina" (The consequence doesnt exist now but what is done will return) another example of this this past week: we were teachin a time and i picked a girl to say the prayer and she was like "huh? meee? ugh fine." (cute little girl - like 10 years old) then at the end i asked her (cause she started) who she wanted to say the closing prayer and she, of course, picked me. and the mom said that same proverb. it was a cool moment haha so i thought about that a little bit, especially cause we taught a ton this week about obedience and blessings. Its hard promising blessings here when life is so tough and different from our american lifestyles, but i know that regardless of where we live, the gospel is the same. the blessings are the same. there was a line in conference that i loved in one of the saturday sessions from D. Todd Christofferson "No one is predestined to receive less than all that the Father has for his children." That line hit me. no matter where we are from, where we live, when we live, we can all inherit the Father's Kingdom, but we have to live it now. when we know it. I can promise you that if you obey to your best ability then the tody (consequence - in this case a blessing) might not be here today but the atao (what is done) will miverina (return). We can all succeed. Be patient. Have faith. And NEVER lose hope.

i love you all! Have a great week! AH! the TWP! here they are:

Toilet paper existing but the lines seperating the squares not #TWP

Not having measuring cups to know how much rice to water you need #becomingatruemalagasy #TWP

shout out to the Wilders and my very own fam who sent me letters that i just got from the new comp who brought them up (it was dated april 5 that you wrote those and i got them less than three weeks later?) feel free to keep those coming :)  

am-pankasitrahana,

Eldera Sorôdera

p.s. i'll try my very best to get that camera workin this week! tena azafady.

Karakory?

Salama Tompoko. Ino kabary?

this week! it started with me completely destroying myself by playing real beach soccer on monday for about 2 hours. not a good idea for missionary work, but my bruised shins have no regrets. waking up tuesday and working that monday night was hard haha nothing like a challenge.

so before i forget my companion, Elder Obioma, said a great quote that i liked and find true. "You cant hope to conquer the spiritual, if you cannot control the physical." True. definitely true.

A weird experience happened this week, it was thursday morning and we get a knock on our door. my comp goes to get it and he sees to white guys and its like, dang french people...but the first thing he hears is "sup dude?" it was two ex-missionaries that had served in mahajanga and were here visiting members and vacationing. We thought they were french and almost didnt let them in cause the one has shoulder length hair and the other - a full beard and stache hahaha the speak REALLY good malagasy and its crazy. if you closed your eyes and listened youd think the one was gasy. they are still here and its intimidating tryin to teach english or teach a lesson in malagasy haha but they are really cool.

We had another bon-fireside this week. it was awesome and the ex-missionaries came too and we had them bear testimony on the prophet (since conference is this comin week for us that was the topic) like i challenged them, i now challenge you. watch conference, but before that prepare three questions that manitikitika ny sainao (tickle your mind) and watch conference ready to have those questions answered. i dont care who you are, i know youll get a testimony of the truthfulness and priesthood power of those men.

oh i had the opportunity to teach a temple prep class. i miss the temple. the missionares teach it every week and this past week was my first time doing it. the temple is necessary and amazing. send me pics of your faovrite temple.

In other news the transfer just ended! we found out last night that Elder Obioma will be transfering to Antsirabe and he will become a Zone Leader! good for him. i miss and love Antsirabe. i know he will do great things. I will be getting an Elder Heiden, he is two tranfers younger than me (a transfer older than my trainee) i cant wait to work with him! im excited!

well other than life being good, i woke up this morning with a bloodshot eye and it felt like someone punched my in the face haha so lets hope i dont go blind from this eye infection. who knows what it is. 

well i love you all! dont forget the those who love you most are always there for you. keep it real. experience something new this week.

am-pitiavana,

Eldera Sorôdera