Andranomaleletra...

Dear family,

So, as you know.. I am now in a new area.  With this new area there are new parts of my life that are both fun and annoying and scary!! So to help you understand, I live in the big city of Antsirabe...however, I work in the small city of Andranomaneletra which is about 20 kilometers north of Antsirabe.  This means that we have a car to get us to Andrano (YAYYYY) I now drive on these crazy streets.  We drive a baby blue citreon van thing, probably not how you spell it... I am driving already because my trainer is... lets just say not good at stick shift.  Anyway, so this week I only worked in MY area for two days.  There was one day that my zone leader, elder lee, said that I needed to be with him all day and that he couldnt tell us the reason... I personally think that in the near future I am going to have some sort of position of responsibility because all that he could talk about that day was becoming better at the language and how i deal with meetings.  As a zone leader in a province, all you do is go to meetings, there isnt a whole lot of time to teach because you have so much to do for your area as a representative!  Anyways, that day we just did meetings and he translated for our senior couple.  On Friday, I got to go down to Ambositra with the zone leaders and make a program for Fridays so that once a week we can go down and teach the investigators that we still had and that were progressing!  Its a nice two hour drive there and back, but I really like Ambositra and the people there so I will really like Fridays!  Saturday was my first day of working in Adrano... OHH BOYY!  I HATE BIKES, yes we bike in our area because it is basically the Tejon ranch but only 30 kilometers long and we teach people throughout the whole area!  We park at the church and then use bikes from there!  The first house we went to, there was a huge hill that we had to bike down, I let everyone go first so that I could be last.  (I am very glad that I did that) Of course this hill isnt pavement or smooth or anything nice, its dirt with holes with rocks with cracks, so of course I ate dirt on the way down.  It doesnt help that my bike doesnt have breaks too! Yes I am trying to make excuses for falling because I am an athlete and thats not what athletes do!! Later that day we went to teach a group of 40 PEOPLE!!! can you believe that?  They just kept coming and coming!  Anyways, on the way there we were passing a house and both of my companions had already passed, but of course as I pass a HUGE black dog comes screaming out of the backyard barking at me.  Now, Bishop Brown has a distinct memory of me running from a small white dog about the size of a loaf of bread... Envision that, but on a bike.  I was pedaling as hard as I could, but that dog was FAST, it bit my shoe and pulled my peg stand down!  I peddled for about 200 meters while this thing bit at my ankles before it just for some reason stopped...  That was just what I wanted to happen!  The bikes are so nice that I have callaces on my hands and on both butt cheecks because the seat is just so soft!  Then on Sunday, I got to bear my testimony, again, in my new branch!  They are way cool people too!  After church, we went to teach and we were teaching this family in thier house.  Everytime someone took a step, the floor board creeped down.  I was scared, then as I was walking out, you have to walk down their steps made of bricks... I broke the bricks... I am fat now!!  I felt really bad though!! Also that day it rained, so we got to ride our bikes in the rain!  What can I say, I love the work here in Madagascar!  No where else in the world will I be able to have experiences like this!  Oh, quick update on my last comp!  He is doing miraculously better.  The annorism healed itself somehow and he is just resting in south africa.  President called and told me this and that there is now a chance that he might come back to work?  I hope he does!  In other news the language still sucks, I still love the work, and my comps are great!  Oh, another quick thing I had to make another dopbox account because the other one ran out of free space so ill send my parents the info!  Hope that all is well back home! I love you so much and appreciate all of your love and support.  I love being a misisonary!

All my Love

Elder Herrin