Monday, June 2, 2014

Best Mother's Day Gift! So good to talk! (5/12/2014)

 I am so glad that we were able to talk this last week. Saturday was so great. It was kind of a rough day, but then when I got to talk to you that night it melted all of the frustrations away. I looked forward to talking to you again on Sunday. It was great being able to Skype and then to have the chance to talk to you again. I hope you didn't care that I called Taylor and used one of the cards. It was probably good that I didn't use them both for the family though, because then it would have made it harder to say goodbye.
 
I also got to email back and forth with Elder Wilkinson a bit today, so that was good to talk to him.
 
This week has been good and bad, a little bit of both. I have had some good days and some bad days. I don't really know where to start so I will just kind of start typing and see where it goes from there.
 
So this week there has been some drama between the elders. So Elder Brackett and Elder Mukasa have had some troubles. They don't get along at all. Anyway. To spare physicality, Elder Brackett decided to sleep on the couch a couple of nights. Which is obviously against the rules, but if it was preventing him from killing his companion, I mean, it was for a good cause. Anyway. Elder Mukasa called President Omer and told him. President Omer then called Brackett to talk to him about his obedience issues. Anyway. Mukasa and Brackett have not been getting along to say the least. The zone leaders and trying to figure something out, but who knows what will actually happen. There might be some changes made, there might not. We will just have to see what happens!
 
President Omer is coming down tomorrow and Wednesday to take care of some church business and come to some meetings. Originally he wasn't going to have time to see the Elders. Then, because of the whole Brackett Mukasa situation I thought he was going to do interviews - with all of us, but it turns out that if he has time for interviews he will probably not interview Rako and me and just do Brackett and Mukasa. It was a little bit disappointing seeing as I was excited to be able to talk some things through with him. But who knows.
 
On the news of talking with President Omer - I expressed my concerns to him this past week in my email to him. I got an email back. Basically he told me that when he felt impressed to send me here, he knew that it would be followed by hard times for me. He said he knew it would be a special experience for me and that I would be able to do great things here in KaNyamazane. I don't really know how to feel about all of this. Knowing that I was sent here to get over rough times. I know that there are things for me to learn. But I don't know how much I want to learn if it is going to be this hard the whole time! Haha! But I just have to remember that we need to bear our afflictions with patience. Not that this is a huge affliction or anything. But ya know what I mean?
 
On a more positive not. I have a stronger desire to work harder here. I hope that I don't lose that desire. I just want to bury myself and let the time slip away as I get wrapped up in the work here. I have been able to see my purpose as a missionary here. I guess I mean that I have been able to think about and focus more on my purpose as a missionary since I have been here.
 
I am starting to like the area more. I hope that I will continue to see positive things about the area. Mostly I would like some investigators that actually know and understand English. Maybe someone that is over the age of like 15 as well. Yeah. That might be nice. I think that is what I will pray for.
 
I don't really know what else to say about this week. There have been good times though. I have been happier. So don't worry too much about me! :) at least in that sense of things.
 
My companion though. I forgot that you asked about that. So I have had kind of a rough time with him But it is hard being with him. I have tried very hard to find things in common with him. I have tried asking him about things at home and how living in Madagascar is. But it is still hard. At times I wonder if he likes talking about it. Teaching with him is very hard. He doesn't know how to stop talking sometimes. I will try to say something and he will just talk over me. When we teach he doesn't usually let me say very much. And when I do say something he goes back over what I said as if I didn't explain well enough. Even though he uses the exact same words I do. I don't know.
 
The roughest part this week has been the language barrier. I feel like I have a lot to offer as a missionary and teaching the gospel. I know the principles we teach well, and feel confident in teaching. I also feel like my personality helps things come across easier a lot, but here those things don't work. Mostly the people don't understand anything we are saying. Which is very frustrating. I just feel like I have a fire burning, wanting to teach, but it is just stuck inside of me because when I try to let it out the people don't even understand. The hard part is that people agree to being baptized, but I am afraid that they don't actually have a testimony of things. They just know how to answer the questions.
 
Well those were my concerns for the week. Sorry for complaining so much. Thank you for everything though! I love you all so much! It was so good to talk to you! I can't wait for these next seven months to be over so that we can talk again on Christmas! Mom, I love you so much! I can't even express it. Thank you for all you do! I love you!

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