Fun weekend in Antsirabe and Ambustra

   Early Friday afternoon we left Tana to go to Antsirabe with President and Sister Adams for the Zone Conference down there.  We had dinner with Elder and Sister Todd that evening and had a fun time visiting with them.  When we get to see the Todds it is kind of like 'going home' for a little while; it is really fun to have them here with us. [For anyone who doesn't know, Elder and Sister Todd just live 8 houses down the street from us in Provo.]
    Saturday morning all of the missionaries cam to the Todd's house for Zone Conference.  The Todd's have a great house with beautiful flower beds and an awesome garden - complete with gardener.

Some of the missionaries arrived by pusse posse  

 

 

It seems like almost all of the pusse posse drivers in Antsirabe run barefooted no matter if it's hot, cold or raining buckets full of water; while the ones in Antananarivo usually wear flip flops. 
    While they had Zone Conference, Marcellin took Greg and I on south a couple of hours to Ambustra.  Ambustra is known for it's wood carvings.  Marcellin had kind of 'preordered' a nativity and a wooden chest for us.  I was super excited to see them. 

They are both beautiful.  The detail on the nativity is amazing.  The chest has a variety of Malagasy scenes all over it and is really awesome.  After they settled on a price for these, we had to go to the bank to get some more money; we hadn't brought enough cash with us.  Then while we were waiting for them to get everything packaged to bring home, we were looking around the store and found some more good things.  We got some little figurines depicting Malagasy life here; they all have children in them. 

So then we had to make another trip back to the bank for more money.  That was a very happy shop keeper!
   We got back to Antsirabe for the last part of Zone Conference.  What an awesome group of missionaries.  It is wonderful for us to get to be with them so much; they have such a great spirit about them. 

    Sunday morning we went to Sacrament meeting in Antsirabe and then went up to Andranomanelatra to their Sacrament meeting.  This second little branch meets in a house that they use for a church.  There is a room about 10 feet by 20 feet that is the 'chapel', there are also two small rooms across the hall from the chapel that were filled to overflowing; and the hallway as you walk in was packed like sardines.  When we got there, people moved around and they made room for us in the 'chapel' room, they weren't going to not let us sit in there.  There are four rooms upstairs that they use for classrooms and when it rains.  There were 164 people at Sacrament meeting!  What a faithful little branch.
    Two little deacons were passing the sacrament, they had to come back for more water - but they only have two bread trays and two water trays, so only two deacons can pass.  Today, Greg went down to the Distribution Center and got one more bread tray and one more water tray to send down to them.  He only got one each because that is all that there were. 
  You should hear these people sing!  They put their whole heart and soul into it, it gives you goosebumps.  I took some pictures of a few of the people that were there.

    On the way back to Antananarivo, there is one little area that you drive through where there are several people sitting by the side of the road selling rabbits.  As you drive by, they will usually hold them up by the ears to show what they have for sale. 
    I had told Marcellin that I wanted a picture of the rabbits, so when we got to this lady he stopped in the middle of the road so we could take her picture.  When she saw that we were taking pictures, she held up two rabbits.  Then she came over to the car hoping to sell a rabbit.  Since we weren't going to buy a rabbit for dinner, we gave her some cookies for her baby.  She was all smiles after that.  We are going to print the picture and take it down and give it to her next time we go down there.  We've heard that many times the people really never get to see themselves and what they look like.  They usually don't have mirrors in their houses or glass in their windows, and the water in the river is too dirty to see their reflection. 

What an awesome weekend we had!