I hope everything is going well for all of you still, and hope that life is still treating you all well. Things are continuing to go well here in Madagascar. I have really enjoyed a lot of the things we've done here.
Now, to answer my mom's questions she sent me. :) About my companion: His name is Elder Christiansen, he's from Las Vegas, and he's twenty (I think). He is a hard worker, obedient, and is very good at the language. It's been a huge blessing to have him be my trainer, as he's helped me out a lot with learning and developing my skills at the language.
Next, in our house there are four other Elders. There is Elder Ahlstrom (from California) Elder Pinson (from South Carolina), and Elders Ratsimbarison and Andrianaivo (from Madagascar).
No, the Malaria medicine is not making me sick, but the country kind of is. I'll talk more about that later.
Next, I am not using the permethrin treated sheets because there isn't a really big problem with fleas in this area. When I start having an issue, I'll start using them. But until then, I will just use the sheets they gave us at the mission home.
I have not gotten my package and letter yet from you, mom, but I'll mention it when I do. It's hard to get stuff in Tamatave because we're like a nine hour drive away from the mission home. FYI for those of you looking for Tamatave on a map, it's actually named Toamasina, and is on the middle eastern coast of the island.
My typical day for eating is eating breakfast at the apartment, lunch at a restaurant (hotely) and dinner at either a member's house, the apartment, or a restaurant (it depends on our mood).
Now, next question, and on to the topic of being sick. This past week, I had my first run-in with the not-so-silent killer of Madagascar. Now, this isn't ebola, or giardia, or rabid lemurs, or anything like that. Nope, it is diarrhea. I'm not going to go into too much detail, for fear of giving small and innocent children nightmares tonight, so I will abstain from dispensing too much detail. Suffice it to say that a particular scene from the movie Dumb and Dumber comes to mind as being quite accurate, except in a dinkier, dingier bathroom with less soundproofing. Let's just say it's been an interesting week.
Anyway, next question. My favorite thing about Madagascar is the people. They are so kind and receptive, and I love how they just let us into their homes and listen to our message so easily and often.
For the last question, my least favorite thing about Madagascar is either the diarrhea (obviously) or the people. That seems contradictory, and it kind of is, but hear me out. As kind and humble as they are, they can be very frustrating at times. They do not enjoy making commitments or taking an active role in participating in our message. Also, they listen to their preachers here (mostly Catholic and Protestant) and consider every single thing their preachers say to be doctrine. Sometimes it gets pretty ridiculous. For instance, just the other day we had a big group of people listening to our message, and we asked them how you can know if a church was the true church of God. Their answers consisted of "If the preacher is good," "If the preacher is a good speaker," and "If there are lots of people who pray there." Yeah, we're not really going back there. They are so indoctrinated with what their preacher has said, and simply believe everything he says, that it's hard to bring the Spirit into the lesson. But we have had success with a few other people. We love finding young couples and teaching them, for several reasons: they have been less indoctrinated with what their preachers have said; they have a longer time to progress in the gospel; and they can bring up their children in the gospel. We have found several of these such young couples, and it's such a joy to see them progress, and a disappointment if they don't take action in a progression and at least try to become converted.
Anyway, that just about wraps things up. This past week has been a roller coaster, going from finding awesome people to spending an hour in the bathroom. But I know that God is there for me every step of the way. It's hard to feel that way when I'm spending some quality time in a one hundred degree bathroom that's four feet by four feet in size, but somehow I've been able to simply laugh about all of that and not let it get me down. I know God has had a hand in that. Also, I have already seen much growth in my development and skill at the Malagasy language. I can now do almost twice as much as I could in the MTC. And it's only been a week and a half. I could not have done that without the help of God. My testimony has already grown so much out here, seeing the help that I have received from God. I could not have done all of this without God's help, and so I continue to build my testimony that God is here for me and is helping me when I need it most.
Anyway, I don't want to ramble on for too long, so this is me signing off until next week. Mazotoa ianareo! (Remain dilligent!) God has great things in store for all of us.
Sincerely,
Elder Hyrum Snell
P.S. Also, to my friends, please send or keep sending me pictures! I love seeing how things are going back at home! Thanks!
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| Tamatave Beach |
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| A cool church I saw |
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| A building we passed on P-day that I thought looked really cool because it shows the extreme poverty here in Madagascar. It looks like something out of a documentary. |
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| Spiders about the size of my hand |
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| A view we pass everyday on the way to our area on a bridge we cross. So pretty! |
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| Me with some cute kids! |
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| A random place in our area |
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| I saw this cool house just standing alone, so I decided to take a picture of it, but then one of our Malagasy member friends wanted in, :) so he decided to pose in front of it. Pretty funny, but still a beautiful scenery. |
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| A room in one of the houses we teach at. This is an actually decently nice house, so...Yeah. It's pretty impoverished out here. The nicest house I have yet to see probably wouldn't pass an inspection in America. :) It's very sad to see how bad it is here. |
