Tuesday, September 3, 2013

August 25, 2013

August 25, 2013


For many of you who don’t know,  Jane and I are in Madagascar serving a mission for the LDS church.   It is quite an adventure.  We will be here until June 2015.  We have been here for almost 4 weeks and we have already had some really wonderful experiences.  The people here a so nice and genuine  and very dedicated to the gospel and the Church. The spiritual experiences are amazing.  

We went to a a fireside for a small branch, yesterday.  It was really fun.   The main topic was How To Share The Gospel With Others.  They had 5 investigators there and it was pretty apparent that these people know how to share the blessings that come from being a member of the Church.  There we some really powerful testimonies shared.  When people read the Book of Mormon and sincerely want to know if it is true, and ask and pray to know the Truth, the Spirit really does confirm the Truth.   I always ask myself if a teen age boy *(Joseph Smith)  with only 3 or 4 years for elementary school education could have written this book.  If you have read it,  the answer is always "No".  A boy with little education could not have written this book.  So, the question is, where did he get it?   He got it where he said he did.  His experiences are described in the front preface to the book .  The People in this little branch certainly have the same testimony of this as I do.  

I have attached a few extra pictures. 
 1.  The first is a picture of all of the members with the Mission President, President Adams (taller grayer hair and the area Authority Seventy from South Africa Elder Van Reenan shorter darker hair, and also a few of the missionaries and ward members.  





2.  The next Picture is Frede and his wife Haley Sue.  Frede works for us in the mission office and he is amazing.  What ever we pay him is not enough.  They are a great couple.  They are both returned missionaries. The fireside was at their Ward; Sister Florine, the Perpetual Education Fund Missionary who works out of our office, is also in this Ward.   5 mionutes it was all gone!
 3.  The third picture shows the the Adams and Elder Van  Reenen visiting with Frède and Hailey Sue and some of the missionaries after the meeting.  They had some refreshments after the meeeting and everyone stood around and waited until Elder Van Reenen and President had had some first before anyone else would take anything.  Then in about  5 mionutes it was all gone!

It has been an interesting week.  I lost access to the mission back acount, for some reason my passwords don’t work anymore.  The bank here is working on it but nothing moves very fast.   We only had about a dozen major problems from missionaries which inlcude things like the cylinder in the lock on the door of one of the Sisters apartments, that you put the key into, fell out and they could not get into their apartment; only one elder lost his wallet, credit card etc, this week;  water was out for two days;  a stove, two washers and two dryers died in missionary apartments, three missionaries ran out of money and were wondering what to eat the rest of the month?  Various records were not functioning.  All and all a pretty good week compared to the week before.  I have more fun dealing with all of the crisis situations.  It certainloyt keeps life interesting.  There are 104 young missionaries here.  All have been told that if there is a problem,  Call Elder Cloward.  Wheeee! 

 Seriously, they are the greatest bunch of young people I have ever had a chance to know, let alone work with.  They are really incredible!  We are having an awesome experience here.

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