Salama aby! I hope you're all doing well in this wonderful spring time of the year. Things are going well out here in Ambositra on the opposite side of the world. From the sound of all your emails, it has been a fairly good week all around, which is good. I'm happy that life is still treating all of you well. Though, even when it's not so nice, we should still appreciate the fact that it is a precious gift from God, and should be enjoyed.
Anyway, I am at a loss of words right now, as my mom told me that she is restraining herself and not asking questions this week, because she just wants me to write according to my desires. So... I have nothing to say. So that's my email for the week. :)
Just kidding, that would be very lame and not very kind of me to send that kind of email to you all. You all are such great family and friends that you deserve better. So, I'll do my best to give you all what you deserve (which, by the way, is MUCH more than I can ever give).
But anyway, as for this past week, it has been a little rough, as we got stood up a lot by our investigators, and some of our most mazoto/diligent investigators still have not come to church. Right now the best investigators we have are two families: Nahary and Mirana, and Liva and Olga. The lessons that we teach them all go very well, and they are very diligent at completing their homework. They all are quite intelligent and really understand the doctrines and principles of the gospel quite well. But, the biggest problem thus far has definitely been church attendance. It is the single hardest thing of my mission thus far, to try and get investigators to come to church. We invite them, they commit to come, and then they don't come for one reason or another. It is very, very frustrating when that happens, week in and week out. Especially considering the fact that almost every single Malagasy I have met thus far has considered church attendance every week a very important part of life. I see countless Malagasy people going to other churches with their families, all dressed up and nice. The people are so diligent in going to church beforehand, but then the moment we start teaching them and inviting them to church, they all of a sudden stop. After that, church attendance becomes the single hardest thing of their lives.
This has definitely been the most frustrating thing here in the mission field. And yet, it has also been a testimony strengthening experience for me personally. That may seem odd, but let me explain. It wouldn't be hard for them to come to church if it wasn't important. Satan is obviously trying to stop them from coming to the one true church of God here on earth. He is trying to make it as hard as possible for them to come to church, because he knows how important it is.
Church attendance isn't just a rote repetition of coming to a building every Sunday and listening to someone yell scriptures at you, which is common in many churches here in Madagascar. People become extremely lazy with regards to religion, and also never read the scriptures. For instance, I was teaching some people in Anjoma yesterday who profess to be devout members of another Christian church that believes in the Bible. I asked them if they knew who Moses was with relation to a lesson I was teaching on prophets. And they had no idea. They all said that they were very religious, and yet they had not read a single scripture in YEARS.
All they did was come to church, listen to a preacher, and go home. That is it. That is NOT true religion. True religion is having a change take place in you personally and becoming more and more like the perfect example that we should all try to exemplify: that is to say, Jesus Christ. Complacent listening does nothing for you. There needs to be action. And that is one of the hardest things about our church time here in Ambositra/Madagascar. All other churches are fine with complacency. They encourage it. But, that is Satan's desire, that the people complacently waste away, having no idea what they actually need to do to obtain eternal life, which is the goal. It is hard, but if they push themselves, and actually work hard, then the blessings that will come are literally endless, limitless, and incomprehensible. Satan does not want them to have that, and will do his absolute best to coax them into a state of complacent ignorance. And I have seen that time and time again.
Regular church attendance truly is crucial for our eternal salvation, not only because of the things we learn, and how we grow from it, but also the blessing of the sacrament as we partake of it and are cleansed from our sins. Church attendance, every Sunday, is just so important, and I see that every single week with the progress made with those who are consistently coming to church versus those who are lazy, "busy", or whatever their reasoning is for not coming to church. This church will change our lives, if we but put in the effort. Anyway, that's my little schpeel on church attendance. It's important. Remember that.
There isn't much else to say because not many things of note happened this week. I'm in Antsirabe again for P-Day, but other than that, nothing much. But, little comment: Elder Christiansen, my "dad" /trainer, is heading home a week from this Wednesday! That is absolutely crazy! Best of luck to him in the real world.
So, that's all for this week. I love you all, and hope that you all have an absolutely fantastic week!
Am-pitiavana,
Elder Snell
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| Cart ride in Anjoma. |
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Pictures of our branch at a branch activity.
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| This is me studying like a Malagasy, wearing a Malagasy traditional hat. |
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| These next pictures are of cute little Malagasy kids wearing missionary name tags and being adorable, as usual. |
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| Here we've got food, which costs less than two dollars. |
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| Rice paddies in Ambositra. |
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| Ambositra |
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| A massive and gaudy gate that we found with Elder Delbar posing in front of it. |
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| A couple of cool wood things for some other Elders. |
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| This is a picture of a Malagasy silk scarf, which is for you Mom. :) Love you! |
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| Me with a man on the street. |
