August 21, 2013

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gust 21, 2013
Not sure I know how to post anything or not!!!  It's Dad's turn to write this week, he's trying to email it to me from his office so that I can post it.  Hope it all works!  I think we are the computer challenged generation.
Lisa, I tried to make your raspberry bars last night, I don't think my oven works very well, as they weren't all the way cooked in the middle.  I know the crockpot works and the rice cooker works - I may stay away from the stove and oven.  The stove is gas and it works fine part of the time, the rest of the time it tries to blow flames at you!  I really have a problem with that.
Hopefully they are coming to install internet at our house this week.  We are sure excited about that, it will be great to be able to get online whenever we want.  We can even do some skyping. 
We get to the office at 7:30 in the morning and it's about 7:30 at night now.  These 12 hour days are long!

The past week has been another interesting week.  Every day has a new twist to it.  I stay back in my office and try to learn to be an accountant/bookkeeper and Jane gets to have fun with all of the missionaries.  I have been helping get some new apartments ready for the some of the young Elders, to live in, here in the city.  We have been out looking for great places.  When you drive around, each turn in the road, (of which there are many) has something new and fascinating to it.  Driving is a serious experience as the roads are narrow and always packed with people, carts, cars and Taxi beys, along with dogs, chickens and kids.   We are moving the Assistants to the President and four other Elders into some new apartments in a building.  Driving there is pretty interesting.  This is a pretty typical street with all traffic moving about 5 mi/hr.  

Street market near  the new Elder's apartment

View from the new Elder's apartment

The Elders apartments are nice but the roads getting to them are something else.  The Elders have been  there about a week and we have found out that there is one 12 gauge wire that feeds both apartments.  So if you turn on any lights then the washer won’t run or pretty much anything electric won’t run if there is something else on.  Come to think of it, our apartment is just like that.  You can run the stove, or the washer or the dryer, or a heater, etc. but not any two at a time.  We are getting better at managing this but Sister Cloward still refuses to try light our partial gas stove.  (three gas burners, one electric burner and and electric oven)  It takes about a half hour to get the oven up to 350 degrees to bake anything.  Could be worse, we are eating pretty good. 

STREET MARKET NEAR THE ELDERS NEW APARTMENT

Typical street scene around here - shopping!

To get to the the Elders apartment you have to drive over the blocks where the little car is parked and then make a hard left and drive down an one way alley that cars still try and go both ways on.  This is what it looks like from the balcony of the elders apartment.

  I have been to this apartment three times and each time we have almost run over this dog who is usually sleeping in the middle of the road.  She has a couple of puppies that are well loved.  I haven’t bothered to try a pet her cause fleas are a big deal here. 

Above is the Mission President and his wife and 7 happy Elders, just on their way home after two years in Madagascar. Notice how small the Malagasy elders are compared to the American Elders!

Looking West from just outside our office door. You can just see the Queens palace on top of the hill in the upper left corner.  The King and Queen are no more and the country is being run by a military dictatorship since 2009.

Tana from just outside the office

   Jane Standing in Front of our office door.  

Jane in front of the Office doors.  There are bars on all doors and windows here.

 

This office above is built on t he side of a steep hill.  Come to think of it, the whole city is built on the sides of many steep hills.  Above our office is a large chapel where we attend Church.  On the top floor is the Mission Home where President and Sister Adams live.  At the same level as our office is the Cultural hall.  Thursday we went to a a great Ward talent show that lasted about 4-5 hours.  The whole ward got into it from the oldest to the youngest with just about everyone doing several numbers from traditional dance and singing to a great Malagasy version of Gangnam style with their own words about doing it Morman style, missionary style and other thing, styles.  The people in the wards here are amazing and really fun.  I took what I thought would be some great videos of the talent show, only to find out that when the green light on the camera is on, the camera is off and when the red light is on, the camera is recording.  So I have some great videos of the floor of the cultural hall with the red light on, think that the recording was off.  Oh well.

Saturday we went to the big Jumbos (like Walmart) all the way across town.  After driving for a couple of hours we were totally lost.  We finally figured it out, went shopping and even got home.  Today we went to what we thought was the bank to take out some money.  When I went into the bank and looked for the teller machine there was not one there.  I had all  kinds of people inviting me into their office, only to find out that I had gone into the Western Union office.  The bank  was a block further up the street.  We got money out of the Teller.  I think that the machine took me for about 20000 Ar which is about 9 dollars.,   On the way back I made a left hand turn at the bottom of our street, and got pulled over by a policeman.  I think he was trying to tell me that I did not yield to traffic and could not turn left at that corner.  After several minutes of us trying to understand each other he just started to laugh and waved us on our way.   It's pretty interesting when you can't understand anything people say to you.  We sometimes try to talk to them in our limited French, sometimes it works but mostly not!  Malagasy is a very interesting language, hope we learn a little soon!

We have had some really great spiritual experiences this week.  We had a great Family home evening with the other Senior Couples in the mission office.  We talked about stewardship and the law of consecration.  It really makes me think again at how blessed we are and how it is our job to be good stewards and use everything that the Lord has given us to help others and build the kingdom.  The church meetings here are really incredible.  The people here could teach us all a bunch.  Everyday brings many spiritual and testimony growing experiences.  I spent about a 30 minutes taking to a terrific young Elder who is the only member in his family.  He joined a few years ago and is now a really terrific missionary.  We talked About how he will be the “legacy Ancestor for all of his posterity.  He is the one that will bring his whole family for many generations to come, into the church.  

 We have been helping plan and brain storm humanitarian projects.  There is one that I will let Sister Cloward talk more about, but if you are a woman, have you ever wondered what your life would be like if there was no feminine hygiene products of any kind, during your period?  Women, here, simply have to stay home for a week every month.  Girls cannot attend school for one week a month.  They ladies in the mission office are working on a really great plan to help the young woman in the wards and branches here to solve this problem.  I am sure that more info will follow.