Dear Family,
How are we all doing this week? Doesnt it seem like it was a long week since the last time we talked? I hope you all know that I love you very much and that you are on my mind often... when I am not trying to think about the 30 investigators that we have, the lesson to share with them, or how many packages of seddaap to buy... other than that you are always on my mind! This week was a crazy one here in Fort Dauphin! The week started off great! Tuesday and Wednesday we taught like a total of 17 lessons and just really felt the wonderful spirit here in Fort D! People here are so so kind, always inviting us in, and it seems like they are more prepared by our Heavenly Father to hear and accept our message. For example, this week it was about 7 o clock and we were headed to our second to last time for the day. We were approached by a young man who eargently stated something in Malagasy. I thought that I heard him correctly so I smiled and replied "thats great!" The conversation was pretty quick, we talked about a time to come by his house and teach him, said goodbye and he left. I quickly said to my comp, "Thats so cool that he wants to learn!!!" My comp said, "He said that he wants to be baptized in our church..." DUDE!!! Can I get an AMEN! Thats a little apostate, but it was so cool. The next couple days that followed were the exact opposite of Tuesday and Wednesday... they were horrible! We only taught like 3 or 4 times and had 8 people drop us! However, with that all being said, we had some crazy moments contacting people! We talked to a couple of younger men (in thier early 20's) who introduced themselves in english. Talk about catching a missionary off guard. One of them started with this, "I believe that you have a message to share with me!" Cant get any more easy than that right? I know it may seem like its easy, I promise the missionary work is still really hard. That man's wife wanted NOTHING to do with us when we entered the mans house. She told us, "maybe you can come by... next week" Yaaa, so we probably wont be going by! We also had one of the funniest times on Friday! We were headed to a new investigators house who has already been to church twice! A father, his wife, and two kids! We found thier kids before we got to the house so we followed them to the house and when we got there they told us to come in! Elder Lambert was ahead of me so he kind of peaked his head in to make sure things were all good... they werent! Lets just say its been REALLY hot here and the people do all they can to cool off! My companion saw more than he wanted to! They told us to come in and we started to teach. They are NOT the smartest people in the world so we were just teaching about Josepth Smith again and the right way to pray! After the segment with Joseph Smith we asked, "so who is Josheph Smith?" And the father took a second to really get this answer right... "Jesus Christ" he replied... The effort it took to hold back laughter was intensive! We quickly helped them respond to that question with prophet! Then we moved on to prayer and when we finished the lesson we asked the man to pray. " Dear Jesus Christ.... in the name of the Father, Amen." Right as he started I opened my eyes to see my companions head droop between his knees into the fetal position. So it wasnt that bad, but his head droped a mile! We kindly thanked the man for the prayer and left! Oh, I love being a missionary! The week ended somewhat well. Sunday we had 10 investigators at church and we got to watch a conference with Africa. We taught some really good lessons and helped our investigators really understand the restoration. If they truly understand that, they understand that all other churches are... well wrong! Ohh, then there is today. So today, guess what we did?! WRONG! We went crocadile hunting, no joke! We walked, about 10 kilometers, to a far away lake type swamp thing! We rolled our pants up and walked thigh deep in swamp where we set up three different traps! I was like shakin in my boots the whole time we were standing in the water, watching our investigator set up the trap. So, im sure youre wondering if we caught anything, or what happened... so here it is. We set up the trap, and the member said, "ok, lets go home!, Tomorrow well see if we get anything?" Yaa not what I had in mind either, but it was still cool, and hopefully tomorrow we will get something! The rest of the day went like this: We ate rice, bought a live turkey, and are now emailing home. Thanksgiving is coming up so we are going to murder a turkey and cook it for Thanksgiving! (Pictures, and maybe video next week?) As the holidays start to come in, man do I miss you guys! Like you have no idea! Eat well. I will be eating at 9:30 on Thursday and hopefully things go well. But, eat well and love eachother. Rhet and Maci, hit a brother up with some emails! Ive been pretty dry lately! I love you all so much, and would love some pictures of the wonderful fun and family this week!
Elder Herrin
Monday, November 24, 2014
Monday, November 17, 2014
Paradise
Dear Family,
How are we all doing this week? I hope happy and healthy and just loving life! I know I am... let me tell you about my first week in PARADISE! So I started the week finishing in Ambohimangakely. I said bye to some great members... actually it was kind of really sad. One of our investigators and father of a member family in our branch died on Monday... He was waiting for a bus on the side of the rode and the people said he just collapsed to his death. Very sad time for the member family in our branch. What was really great though was being able to talk about the fact that he will still be able to accept the gospel and be baptized through the great plan of salvation and through the temple! Then on Wednesday morning I hopped on a plane (By myself I might add) and flew for about an hour to FORT DAUPHIN! I got picked up by my new companion, Elder Lambert, and we drove to my new home. I am going to add that my new house is about a football field length away from the ocean and I can see, hear, smell, almost fell, the ocean each and every day I wake up! So, back to getting here, we went straight to work. We taught like 7 times that day and like 6 hours of work! I was drained. IT IS SO HOTTT!! Fort Dauhpin is the most beautiful place, but one of the hottest in Mada. I think I can stand the heat, if that means I get to live here... Haahaha! So the next couple days that followed were amazing. We have so so many investigators who love us, who want to learn, who are intelligent and know how to use their brain! I am not saying that the malagasys didnt in my last area, but I am just saying people have brains here! hahah! I love it! My companion is great also. I wasnt sure how we were going to work, but so far it has been magnificent! He makes me laugh really hard. So Saturday was a really long day. A couple of times had dropped us and we were kinda feelin down. Then my comp introduced me to the next best thing to Fort D... BREAD! We bought this bread that I swear mom makes and just sends here to Mada. Its your banana bread, just without the chocolate chips, SO good! Little piece of home here! So we were walking to our time with this bread and of course, many people passed by us and one of the men that did, started to talk to us. So you have to know, the people here speak a different dialect, basically a different language. All Malagasys understand Merina, which is what I learned, but not many people understand Antandroy... it sounds like so so so cool, so I want to learn way bad! So, this guy walked by us and started talking to us in this dialect and my comp can understand most of it because he has been here almost 4 months. But we were both just like dumb struck and didnt know what to say so my comp turned and said "eka, mandroso mofo" which translates to "yaa, have some bread" ahahahah, I dont know why I thought that was so funny but it was just like something that really made me laugh! When all else fails, mandroso the mofo! Ohh so Sunday was great too! We had 10 investigators at church and a total of 85! My branch here is awesome! Some way cool people and just way nice spirits in general here! After church, we went to many times, but I ran into something that I had never run into before. So we were teaching this man about prophets and apostles, and my comp let me start explaining that concept. So I started with some questions... one of them being do we need prophets in todays world. The man said no. I said ok, well lets read Amos 3:7... and then I explained that God only works if it is through prophets, and proceeded to ask, does God work today? The man responded with no. He explained that the people in todays world are naughty, so God doesnt work. The very next words came from my companion, and they were, so the people back then werent naughty...who killed Jesus? Hahahah, brain boggler for the man! He was a great guy and we are just trying to help a brother out! Then came today, PDAY! The missionaries who have worked here before told me that the pdays in Fort D are the best in the world... so lets compare Brock! Today, I got up and emailed for about 45 minutes. Then, we went to Libanona beach where we got to walk in the water, walk out on top of the coral to a place where the waves crashed against the rock and showered over us for some AMAZING pictures. (Look up the beach, its on the web!) When it was my turn, the largest waves just so happened to hit and knocked me over 3 times washing my sandals out to sea and cutting my feet and hands on the coral. My sandals washed up to another beach where we found them and we walked around the beach! Then we picked up so Leches on the way to lunch, ate, and now are cybering! Tonight we get to be fed by one of the two branch presidents here in Fort D. That was just like 5 days here.... Paradise my friends! I am so excited to be working here, to be helping the people, to teach the restored gospel, and to bless the Malagasy people here! I am so grateful for your support and for your love, it does not go unappreciated! Pictures to come!!!
All my love
Elder Herrin
How are we all doing this week? I hope happy and healthy and just loving life! I know I am... let me tell you about my first week in PARADISE! So I started the week finishing in Ambohimangakely. I said bye to some great members... actually it was kind of really sad. One of our investigators and father of a member family in our branch died on Monday... He was waiting for a bus on the side of the rode and the people said he just collapsed to his death. Very sad time for the member family in our branch. What was really great though was being able to talk about the fact that he will still be able to accept the gospel and be baptized through the great plan of salvation and through the temple! Then on Wednesday morning I hopped on a plane (By myself I might add) and flew for about an hour to FORT DAUPHIN! I got picked up by my new companion, Elder Lambert, and we drove to my new home. I am going to add that my new house is about a football field length away from the ocean and I can see, hear, smell, almost fell, the ocean each and every day I wake up! So, back to getting here, we went straight to work. We taught like 7 times that day and like 6 hours of work! I was drained. IT IS SO HOTTT!! Fort Dauhpin is the most beautiful place, but one of the hottest in Mada. I think I can stand the heat, if that means I get to live here... Haahaha! So the next couple days that followed were amazing. We have so so many investigators who love us, who want to learn, who are intelligent and know how to use their brain! I am not saying that the malagasys didnt in my last area, but I am just saying people have brains here! hahah! I love it! My companion is great also. I wasnt sure how we were going to work, but so far it has been magnificent! He makes me laugh really hard. So Saturday was a really long day. A couple of times had dropped us and we were kinda feelin down. Then my comp introduced me to the next best thing to Fort D... BREAD! We bought this bread that I swear mom makes and just sends here to Mada. Its your banana bread, just without the chocolate chips, SO good! Little piece of home here! So we were walking to our time with this bread and of course, many people passed by us and one of the men that did, started to talk to us. So you have to know, the people here speak a different dialect, basically a different language. All Malagasys understand Merina, which is what I learned, but not many people understand Antandroy... it sounds like so so so cool, so I want to learn way bad! So, this guy walked by us and started talking to us in this dialect and my comp can understand most of it because he has been here almost 4 months. But we were both just like dumb struck and didnt know what to say so my comp turned and said "eka, mandroso mofo" which translates to "yaa, have some bread" ahahahah, I dont know why I thought that was so funny but it was just like something that really made me laugh! When all else fails, mandroso the mofo! Ohh so Sunday was great too! We had 10 investigators at church and a total of 85! My branch here is awesome! Some way cool people and just way nice spirits in general here! After church, we went to many times, but I ran into something that I had never run into before. So we were teaching this man about prophets and apostles, and my comp let me start explaining that concept. So I started with some questions... one of them being do we need prophets in todays world. The man said no. I said ok, well lets read Amos 3:7... and then I explained that God only works if it is through prophets, and proceeded to ask, does God work today? The man responded with no. He explained that the people in todays world are naughty, so God doesnt work. The very next words came from my companion, and they were, so the people back then werent naughty...who killed Jesus? Hahahah, brain boggler for the man! He was a great guy and we are just trying to help a brother out! Then came today, PDAY! The missionaries who have worked here before told me that the pdays in Fort D are the best in the world... so lets compare Brock! Today, I got up and emailed for about 45 minutes. Then, we went to Libanona beach where we got to walk in the water, walk out on top of the coral to a place where the waves crashed against the rock and showered over us for some AMAZING pictures. (Look up the beach, its on the web!) When it was my turn, the largest waves just so happened to hit and knocked me over 3 times washing my sandals out to sea and cutting my feet and hands on the coral. My sandals washed up to another beach where we found them and we walked around the beach! Then we picked up so Leches on the way to lunch, ate, and now are cybering! Tonight we get to be fed by one of the two branch presidents here in Fort D. That was just like 5 days here.... Paradise my friends! I am so excited to be working here, to be helping the people, to teach the restored gospel, and to bless the Malagasy people here! I am so grateful for your support and for your love, it does not go unappreciated! Pictures to come!!!
All my love
Elder Herrin
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Week 5 of the Transfer...
Dear Family,
How are you all doing this week? I know that I say that in like almost all of my letters, but I genuinely want to know how you all are doing? I dont get to hear from all of you so I just hope and pray that you are all doing as well as I am! This week was great! I had some great things happen and some really emberassing things happen! All in all, it was a good week.
So I started the week with the most emberassing moment of my mission thus far! On Tuesday we have a dinner appointment with one of our member families. It starts at 6, but because of how long winded my companion is we didnt start heading to their house until 6:30... I was not going to miss a dinner appointment, so I decided to run. It was very dark and lets just say that I was running through a rice field. The path was smaller than the size of Lukes foot and it wasnt smooth. It was dirt that had piles of rice here, a rock or two there, up and down... So I must have lost all of my balance because I fell. I forgot to mention that on either side of the small path is a ditch filled with water to feed the rice. I fell waist deep in dirty muddy water. I walked to my members house, and the father lent me a shrit and pants and his flip flops which were about a size 8... I could not have been more grateful! It was funny looking back on it. The work went ok this week. We had a lot of people drop us, but we also committed 7 people to be baptized in December! One of those families committed has become some great friends! We had a time drop us on Friday and we just decided to pop by their house to see how they were doing, we ended up singing church hymns for 45 min with them! They are great! My week ended kind of down in the dumps though... As we were out on the edge of Ambohimangakely, we were waiting for a bus to take us back to where we needed to be to teach. We got on one and so did about 45 other crazy drunk hyper people. Within minutes there was yelling and people bickering over who got the window seat and what not... During all of this, my comp suggested that we get off. We did so promptly and watched as a big fight broke out and people got hurt... Count your many blessings. I thanked my companion for getting us off that bus and to safety! Its the little things :) I am still going strong, loving the people, and loving the work that I am doing! I love you all so much!
All my Love
Elder Herrin
How are you all doing this week? I know that I say that in like almost all of my letters, but I genuinely want to know how you all are doing? I dont get to hear from all of you so I just hope and pray that you are all doing as well as I am! This week was great! I had some great things happen and some really emberassing things happen! All in all, it was a good week.
So I started the week with the most emberassing moment of my mission thus far! On Tuesday we have a dinner appointment with one of our member families. It starts at 6, but because of how long winded my companion is we didnt start heading to their house until 6:30... I was not going to miss a dinner appointment, so I decided to run. It was very dark and lets just say that I was running through a rice field. The path was smaller than the size of Lukes foot and it wasnt smooth. It was dirt that had piles of rice here, a rock or two there, up and down... So I must have lost all of my balance because I fell. I forgot to mention that on either side of the small path is a ditch filled with water to feed the rice. I fell waist deep in dirty muddy water. I walked to my members house, and the father lent me a shrit and pants and his flip flops which were about a size 8... I could not have been more grateful! It was funny looking back on it. The work went ok this week. We had a lot of people drop us, but we also committed 7 people to be baptized in December! One of those families committed has become some great friends! We had a time drop us on Friday and we just decided to pop by their house to see how they were doing, we ended up singing church hymns for 45 min with them! They are great! My week ended kind of down in the dumps though... As we were out on the edge of Ambohimangakely, we were waiting for a bus to take us back to where we needed to be to teach. We got on one and so did about 45 other crazy drunk hyper people. Within minutes there was yelling and people bickering over who got the window seat and what not... During all of this, my comp suggested that we get off. We did so promptly and watched as a big fight broke out and people got hurt... Count your many blessings. I thanked my companion for getting us off that bus and to safety! Its the little things :) I am still going strong, loving the people, and loving the work that I am doing! I love you all so much!
All my Love
Elder Herrin
Monday, November 10, 2014
So Training is over... Now what?
Dear Family,
I love you! How are you all doing this week? I hope your week was full of fun and joy and just happiness. My week was good, it was one of those weeks as a missionary where you know that you are going to be transfered so I said some goodbyes and still did my best to not let that get in the way of the work! Monday was good, we played soccer and tied... lame! Tuesday we had a really big soiree with the family that I really love in my Branch. I made peanut butter cups and I frosted brownies with strawberry pudding! I felt like a baker fo sho!! They loved the treats so it made me feel really good! Wednesday and Thrusday were full of rain and lots of lessons! I felt that I was blessed because with how much rain there was, I was only really wet for like one of the days... not bad! Friday was good, nothing too special. Saturday we had english class and I finally (the last english class in Ambohimangakely) mastered how to do it. There are about 6-8 people that show up. 3 of the students are really good and I can talk to just like I talk to you. The rest are not good. And since there is only one elder in my area who can teach english he has to try and teach both levels. I finally got it this week. I had exercises for the not so mahay and just was able to help the mahay learn better. Sunday was way cool! I got to eat lunch with our way awesome investigator. We had rice and she made ravitoto... I can explain that one when I get home... she made that with crocodile meat. Way good! Then we taught a couple of times and they turned out to be like 90 minute lessons. Is that how it is supposed to be... NO, but because my comp didnt bring an umbrella or a rain jacket, he prolonged the lesson because it was POURING rain! We ended the day with a small soiree with members. They wanted to say goodbye and it was just so nice of them! So I dont know if you all remember my letter from about 6 weeks ago. I talked about something called the BIG 3... Sooo I may or may not have been transfered to one of those BIG 3!! FORT DAUPHIN! I am like so excited. Mom, I dont know if you remember, but the day that we were driving up to BYUI and I was calling a few people to tell them about my call. One of those people was Mrs. Gonzales and she was so excited for me that after the phone call I got like 3 pictures from her. They looked like beach resorts and she was like thats where youre going. We both kind of thought that thats not where I am going.... we were wrong. Fort Dauphin is like the ultimate pretty vacation spot! I was pretty excited! I have a short plane flight on Wednesday and will start working there on Thursday! So thats basically it for this week! I hope you all know how much I appreciate your love and support. I love you soo so much!
All my Love
Elder Herrin: the 1st
I love you! How are you all doing this week? I hope your week was full of fun and joy and just happiness. My week was good, it was one of those weeks as a missionary where you know that you are going to be transfered so I said some goodbyes and still did my best to not let that get in the way of the work! Monday was good, we played soccer and tied... lame! Tuesday we had a really big soiree with the family that I really love in my Branch. I made peanut butter cups and I frosted brownies with strawberry pudding! I felt like a baker fo sho!! They loved the treats so it made me feel really good! Wednesday and Thrusday were full of rain and lots of lessons! I felt that I was blessed because with how much rain there was, I was only really wet for like one of the days... not bad! Friday was good, nothing too special. Saturday we had english class and I finally (the last english class in Ambohimangakely) mastered how to do it. There are about 6-8 people that show up. 3 of the students are really good and I can talk to just like I talk to you. The rest are not good. And since there is only one elder in my area who can teach english he has to try and teach both levels. I finally got it this week. I had exercises for the not so mahay and just was able to help the mahay learn better. Sunday was way cool! I got to eat lunch with our way awesome investigator. We had rice and she made ravitoto... I can explain that one when I get home... she made that with crocodile meat. Way good! Then we taught a couple of times and they turned out to be like 90 minute lessons. Is that how it is supposed to be... NO, but because my comp didnt bring an umbrella or a rain jacket, he prolonged the lesson because it was POURING rain! We ended the day with a small soiree with members. They wanted to say goodbye and it was just so nice of them! So I dont know if you all remember my letter from about 6 weeks ago. I talked about something called the BIG 3... Sooo I may or may not have been transfered to one of those BIG 3!! FORT DAUPHIN! I am like so excited. Mom, I dont know if you remember, but the day that we were driving up to BYUI and I was calling a few people to tell them about my call. One of those people was Mrs. Gonzales and she was so excited for me that after the phone call I got like 3 pictures from her. They looked like beach resorts and she was like thats where youre going. We both kind of thought that thats not where I am going.... we were wrong. Fort Dauphin is like the ultimate pretty vacation spot! I was pretty excited! I have a short plane flight on Wednesday and will start working there on Thursday! So thats basically it for this week! I hope you all know how much I appreciate your love and support. I love you soo so much!
All my Love
Elder Herrin: the 1st
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