Relief Society Visit (10/9/2011)

So, This week...hmm...well....lets start off with sunday, I went to relief society this week, I felt like one of those people high in the church that go around from class to class and the teachers trips out cause they are in there but really, the secret is they just do not want to go to priesthood :) which is what I did haha, I went and chatted with all the women, pretty legit, I walked around a little but I do stay for all of them, but while I was walking around I saw the stake president and was like ohhh noo!! he is going to make me teach, so I ran back to relief society all huffing and puffing and the ladies thought it was hiliarious, cause I told them I wanted to learn and all them called me a vehivavy :) that class was better though, I get to just sit haha :) freaking legit though, so this week, everyone got sick except clark who was sick last week, like lunt was throwing up hard core, but the thing that made it funny was he said three days he was due to get sick, just made it so awesome haha, prochnow had some weird thing going on with his stomach and just big ol pains and I got something called tazo, it is like a cold just a little different, so that just made the week awesome, we did not work half the work lol, just bleh!! got to pick it up this week if I do not get moved, just goodness gracious, kind of was nice though, a nice slow week to relax but we still worked somewhat, do not get me wrong here, so one of the days, there are these things called pousses, it is a two seater cart pulled by someone and we were walking and I was in a I dont give a care right now, sohe asked me if wanted a pousse, I said if you sit and I drive, and holy cow it was freaking hard and I only did it for a good 5 minutes and woowee what the heck!! it was rough, then about 10 minutes later there was two oxen pulling a cart, these things are everywhere and it was going in the same direction so I asked if I could just sit down and they said yea, I was like really?? they said yea so I got a good 20 minute ride and the funny thing was all the pousse guys were just shocked cause I was getting a free ride, I jsut laughed so hard and they smiled but just shocked lol made my day much better, so another thing while we were in a time I was pretty sick in, I told the lady I was sick and she shouted you must pray!! Clark!! pray and heal him, so we did not argue and clark asked for me to be healed, woowee, I walked out and asked him if he really did that and he said I could not argue with her!! was so funny, that same time she gave me this medicine you sniff and I sniffed it and she said you are doing it wrong, do it like this, so I grab the bottle and sniffed it real hard but I swung it too fast and got it everywhere, that stuff had a RANK smell haha, it was rough that day, I had that smell on me for a good hour walking around, but it cleared my nose up :) First general conference is this week on saturday and sunday in malagasy, going to be a long day haha, I can grasp the people speaking but that is something completely different! We did two more baptisims on saturday, that made the goal 60 for mahajanga complete!  Do not remember if I told you this already but we were walking down a thing to go to the beach cause we were done with work and this guy started yelling at us to come over and we are like the heck whatever, lets just go, so I started talking to the drunk guy in english, cause when people are drunk they get really good at english and when they are not they talk only french to white people, so after that he bought us soda, then another girl wanted to learn and we bounced haha, kind of legit getting free drinks, that guy had some interesting stories for sure, half of it was hard to understand but I got the jist of it!  the ladies in the ward are loving on me, got a couple that say if you guys need a break just come stop by, my house is your house, lol so this week being sick we took some breaks and got some food, loved it :) pretty sure that is it!! love you guys!

Mission President's Visit (10/2/2011)

hahahahahaha, good ol mother falling asleep, love the snoring part. Really cheered me up a little bit right now so thank you for that



This week was slow/fast. It was the actually work week because the first one is him getting here and getting settled in and what not. but this was the actual first one. So, we put in some work this week, and on friday I planned out where everyone lives so we can be in that area that day and put in more work,   But besides that fact, this was not a bad week. So a week or two ago this lady told us she wanted to learn, so we went back and some other lady let us in so I was not sure if this was the right lady but I did not fight it, then this past wednesday we saw her again and said she was the one that was supposed to learn haha, so we go back to her house, and I met the cooliest lady ever, her name is Malala, which means beloved, she is soo freaking smart, gonna have a kid soon and her friend is dope too, the friend was the one who approached us, but gosh dang, am stoked to go back, when we were leaving the friend named Jasmine asked us if it was alright to bring friends, so I asked how much, and she said a lot haha, so yea, wednesday is going to be a sick day, which is when we go back. gosh dang she is so dopê!! President came up and is still here this weekend, we had to hardcore clean the house but we are moving houses as well now, the contract runs out in 4 days haha, we found some sick house, one has the best view in mahajanga, even if we do not get that house Ill get back and take pictures, it is the highest house you can live in right now :) some places here are soo nice, they are about 500 a month as well if I remember right, but shoot, they are so good stuff. Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting right? so I wrote mine down to make sure I had it all solid in my head and in malagasy, by the way which is getting pretty good, After awhile you do not have to translate and you just say the stuff, it is pretty nice, but I was headed up and sat next to a little girl, I told her I was s kind of scared cause there was a good amount of people and she said ask for strength and did the finger to your head chest and shoulders, the cross, made me laugh :) I offically hit my 6 month mark on mission on Thursday. 4 month mark in country.woowee, 6 months..... president came and taught with us, we would translate for him and he would usually speak in french, but he came to teach a family that is way sick but never come to church cause they are so diligent with their church, which is no worries you know, ability to choose, but president came with us and we tore it up, they came to church haha :), once we met up with president we saw a car catch fire and for like 5 minutes was throwing dirt on it and everyone was just watching then all the sudden we had like 20 people trying to put it out, it was cool haha, everyone was so amazed at first then boom, my white shirt got a little dirty then =/ but that is why we got washers haha, oh shoot, this tripped me out, we were watching a primary training video which was translated into malagasy, but set in africa so they sang in english but I did not know that, I was listening to them sing and I could not pick out the words, it was not malagasy but english and i did not realize they were singing english til it was over, tripped me out bad. All I got :)
 Enjoy your week please.
 love you guys.

6th month anniversary (burning day) 10-6-2011

Happy 6th month Anniversary Elder Shaw!  It has been a wild ride so far. From Provo, Utah to Chicago, Illinois to London England, to Johannesburg South Africa to Antananarivo Madagascar, to Anjanahany Madagascar to the 14 hour trip to  Mahavoky, Mahajanga.   Here's to much more success in Spreading the gospel to the good people of Madagascar over the next 18 months!