General Conference and Transfers

This is Elder Bowler and I getting ready to watch the Saturday morning session of conference with our branch. Im sure you can tell how anxious our branch was to be there listening.  

Dear Family,

HOW AWESOME WAS CONFERENCE!!!  Yaa I am just a couple weeks late with that one, but for those of us living in 3rd world countries, we dont get things like that in our language until now.  So, I just got to listen to it.  Ill get to that later. I just want you to know how much I love you. I will never get tired of telling you how much I love each and every one of you.  I hope that you are all as happy as I am right now. 

So, this week was just a blurr. It went by way too fast and bam, transfer gone.  Another one bites the dust.  This week we really focused on those Melkezedek (I dont remember the american spelling) preisthood holders who are very innactive.  We visited probably 5-7 of them.  We had some great experiences as we were able to visit the small homes of those who have wandered off the course.

One of these visits was to a man named Mamy. (pronounced mommy)  He lives with his wife and three boys kind of on the outskirts of town.  He was very active until something happened with the government and there was something that went down that I dont wanna share that made him shy to come to church because all of the members were aware of what had happened.  He was afraid of what people would think of him, or say to him.  This is what he told us as we met with him in his small home.  My companion turned to me when it came time for the missionaries to share a VP.  "Ohh gosh" I thought as I really hadnt come prepared.  I turned to a scripture in Moroni 7.  We read the end of this chapter that talks about faith hope and charity.  I shared with him how this scripture gave me comfort when I had the same type of feelings that he had.  My companion also added great thoughts as to how we can exercise our faith hope and charity as we put them to action in our life.  We really werent sure what was to come about of the visit.  On Sunday morning at 8 am, we were sitting in the church getting ready to start the first session of conference when Mamy and two of his boys showed up.  That, in and of itself, was one of those moments as a missionary where you feel like what you are doing is making a difference and helping the work of salvation move forward.  But what happened next was even more of a miracle.  The branch embraced him with open arms.  People got up to say hi and talk to him.  He never stopped smiling. 

Conference was wonderful.  I have seen it all in Malagasy, still working on the watching it in English.  I know that some of the stories that were told were very powerful and great lessons for us to learn.  The words of the Prophet and Apostles are so valuable.

This week we also got transfers.  My time with Elder Bowler has come to a stop. He is going back to Tana and I am still here recieving and elder named Trujilio.  It should be fun and I look forward to serving here in Andranomadio. 

I love you all so much.

Elder Herrin

Hit My Year Mark With a Bang (Pun intended)

Dear Family,

I, again, am so happy to share my thoughts and experiences with you this week.  I hope that I dont bore you, I know how boring a white guys experience in Madagascar can be (it cant) but I hope you find them entertaining.  I continue to pray for your health and safety as I know how important that is.  I love and miss you dearly. 

This week was very different than most others.  We had the most interesting of Mondays as we dealt with missionaries and issues.  Not so fun, but our night was awesome as we visited a less active family who is awesome!  They have a dog the size of a horse who likes missionaries... a lot.  Too much actually (in my opinion).  I will try and get a picture with me and "the horse" tonight as we have another scheduled appointment with them.  This week was also full of splits.  The District and Zone Leaders are supposed to be on splits during the entire transfer, but the leaders waited till the second to last week of the transfer to do them. 

So, Wednesday, I went on a split with Elder Stringfellow in the area Ankirihiry.  Way fun split.  Elder Stringfellow is a newer ish missionary, but his language skills are so good and he is such a great missionary.  We had a great soiree with one of his recent converts.  Soo fun.  The mother asked us if we could learn more about the atonement of Jesus Christ... Boy can we do that for you.  We may know a few things about that topic.  Then they fed us rice and beans, one of the best laoka(s) in madagascar.  Then we just chatted with them for a good 30 minutes after we ate.  Man, I love malagasy people, especially the ones that like me. 

One of the missionaries in my zone has been hit with a really bad... we dont know what to call it?  His legs have swolen up and he got a bunch of pimple looking things full of pus.  He wasnt able to work for the more part of the week, so me and my comp took turns staying home with him and the other would go out to work in our area and the other area.  Thursday was my year in country!!

Ohh was it a day to remember.  We had a district meeting that just felt wierd.  We talked about learning to love all no matter what thier background.  Then we went to eat at this restaurant called the green lizard.  I thought that it as common knowledge in Mada for the tuc drivers to know where that was. NOPE.  I didnt know how to get there and I was with a different elder at the time (the sick one) and so we spent probably 30 minutes trying to find it when it should have taken 5.  Yaa work wasnt that great either as we had more people drop us... The came the bang, as expressed in the title of this email. 

Elder Bowler and I were riding our bikes home from work.  It was about 8:15, pretty dark out and the wind was in my face.  Elder Bowler and I had started to ride side by side and have a nice conversation, but decided to go one by one so that cars could pass.  I know, pretty good idea.  I took the lead.  So, there we were, riding our bikes.  I am pretty sure that I have already talked about the bike drivers here in madagascar, but if I havent ill describe them again.  There are bike drivers that pull a little seat behind them so they can "taxi" people around.  They are called possy possy in Madagascar.   You do not pronounce the word the way it is spelled.  Anyway, back to the story.  Elder Herrin was riding his bike in the dark, followed by his companion, elder bowler.  There was a possy possy sitting on the side of the road about 2 football field lengths ahead of Elder Herrin.  As Elder Herrin SAW the possy possy, he moved to the left to pass him, or at least he thought that he moved to the left.  Instead he ran right into the possy possy, sending him flying over his handle bars and his bike to the middle of  the road.  Yaa... pretty emberassing, so I got up (un-bruised amazingly) and picked my bike up.  All of the malagasies that saw freaked out, but I got out of there before anyone could question me.  If my bike were rideable, I would have riden it home, but the front tire had the shape of a taco shell, so I carried my bike home the last mile.  Elder Bowler offered to carry and share the load, but I told him I wanted to carry my shame home.  Elder Herrin hasnt changed a bit, still making really dumb mistakes.  My jounal entry for that day was, "This was the worst year in country day ever!" hahah. 

The work continue to go. We are working really hard to brink back all of those less actives and build up our branch before we baptize more investigators.  I love serving here in Tamatave and helping the work of salvation.  I love you all so much.  SMILE!

All my love

Elder Herrin

This is a small child that was playing in the street one night.

This would be my bike before I went to get it fixed the next day.

The Calypso

Dear Family,

Oh, how happy I am to write yet another email to you.  I hope that I dont bore you with my adventures here in Madagascar.  I hear that you are happy and healthy, for the most part, and that you are creeping up on another fun filled summer!  Dont forget to smile through it all.

So, I know that I just emailed on Wednesdayso it might be a shorter email today because we only just had a couple of days to tell about.

Elder Bowler and I planned out a great Zone Meeting for Thursday morning.  It went so so great.  We had so many things to talk about from our meeting in Tana, and we really focused on the "converting ourselves" aspect of it.  We had a lot of really good things come from it.  The work is still going quite well.  I have the coolest story for you guys.

So, earlier last week, we taught this young married couple (not sure if I have mentioned them before) named Lary and Jantal.  They are way cute (as most young married couples are) and have let us teach them for quite some time.  Earlier last week, we came across a scripture that talked about fasting, and they had some questions about it.  Jantal (the wife) was especially interested with many questions.  Elder Bowler, helped her understand that fasting and prayer can help us recieve answers to prayers and can help us have a more meaningful experience.   On Friday, I was on a split with Elder Razafindretsetra.  It was so fun to be with him and work with a native.  We went and taught Lary and Jantal.  I kind of briefed him before the lesson on who they were and where they were in the lessons.  To be honest, I told him that I still wasnt sure what I wanted to talk about, and that as we talked, we would figure something to teach.  We found out, after starting the lesson, that Jantal fasted!  She had the most awesome experience.  She said that she was trying to get to a building that she had never been to, and then she had some important things to do in the buildingl. Knowing that she had those "important" things to do, she started a fast before she left and when she got home that evening, she told us that she wasnt even hungry.  You could tell that she was touched by the Holy Ghost as she was helped through her day.  After I asked her if she was ready to share her feelings about the teaching of the missionaries.  She told me that she is starting to feel something that she had never felt before.  Such a good feeling for me as a missionary!  Her husband quickly spoke up after this touching, spiritual dialogue and said: "Yaa... I cant do that whole fasting thing, I work hard and I need to eat my rice evferyday!"  Hahahah, oh we had a good laugh. 

Saturday there wasnt much missionary work going on.  We taught english and attended a Branch Presidency meeting.  The head of Seminary and Institute of Mada, La Reunion, and Mauritius.  He was there to talk about the Seminary for our Branches.  After the meeting he took all of the Branch Presidents to dinner.... and Elder Bowler and Herrin!  We went to the Calypso!  It is one of, if not the nicest hotel in all of Madagascar.  I had a 3 course meal.  I had a waiter.  I had a napkin.  I had a comfy chair.  I had clean everything.  It was like being back in America.  The thing was... we didnt get back to the house till 10:15.  Ohh thats against the rules, but since we were with the District President... we figured it was ok. 

I am so grateful to be serving. I love my mission.  I love being a missionary!

All my Love

Elder Herrin

Me doodling on my hand, thinking of what Mada needs.

The Calypso-1

The Calypso-2