4/25/2016- Less than 2 months left....

  Hello everyone! I hope all of you had a good week. Madagascar is wonderful, as usual. It has not rained for a while here, and the weather is cooler overall, so the days have been very nice. Some of the missionaries here still cannot stand the heat but, in all honesty, I think South Carolina is much hotter. 

   This week was full of tracting and teaching. Anjanahary is one of the bigger towns where missionaries work. We do a lot of walking here, though not as much as I did when I was in Ambohipo. One day we walked to a distant neighborhood we had never visited, and we began looking for houses to contact. We knocked on one gate, and a guy walked out, opened the gate, stared at us for maybe two seconds, realized we were missionaries, and then hurriedly closed the gate. It was kind of funny because all I said was "hello", which was not scary at all, but,he appeared to be afraid of vazahas (foreigners). We get rejected a lot here, but most people are polite about it, and I have not been a target for stoning, so I am in good spirits.

    We have a new investigator family, who are actually referrals from a church member, and when we asked them what they were expecting from our teachings, they said "baptism", which is what every missionary wants to hear. We taught them and gave them a baptismal goal date (May 28th) at the end of the lesson. It is cool to teach people who really want to learn the truth. I may have mentioned this before, but recently, we found this family who had been taught by then missionaries several years ago. They are now C interested in learning again, have good questions, and are committed to reading the booklet that we gave them.

   Saturday was a good day for us as well. We started off the day early playing basketball at the office with some other missionaries. After, we stayed for a while and the Footes fed us breakfast, which was delicious. Later, we attended the baptism for one of the Primary children in the ward. I was also surprised to see that one of the families that Elder Iata and I had taught in Ambohipo were to be baptized too.  Elder Nolan and I were at the mission office when they had their baptismal service, we saw them there and they still remembered me. One of them even mentioned me in their testimony as one of the missionaries who first started teaching them. We also had two investigators who  interviewed for baptism, and they passed. They will be baptized this coming Saturday. We are looking forward to it!
    Sunday when we were at a recent convert's house for dinner, I noticed that their cat was missing, so I asked what happened. I learned that he was dead and that they had killed him. For what reason? So they could eat him! They had asked before if we had eaten cat and I told them we had not, I did not expect them to kill the household cat for dinner. Anyway, I ate it. Really strange taste. Like chicken and seafood. Still have not thrown up yet and I am trying not to think too much about it...

     The  days are flying by. It seems strange now when people ask how much time I have left in my mission, I say "Less than two months". Everyone is right; when they say that time moves quicker after the year mark. I have been living in Madagascar for so long that I am not really sure how I will adjust to living in America again. I had ice cubes on Saturday for probably the first time in two years.  I have a better perspective of the world and I understand now how blessed I am to have what many Malagasies would consider luxuries. My faith and trust in God has increased from seeing His hand working to  bless so many who are suffering spiritually, physically and financially. This mission work is truly great. 

Have a great week, everyone!!

               Elder Pinson

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