Hello everyone! It's been a great, busy, jam-packed week throughout the last seven days, and we were constantly working and going around doing something. I'll admit that most of the time it was not teaching lessons, as we would have liked, but mostly preparing for different branch things that were happening throughout the week. But anyway, we've got two good questions this week that I will answer.
First off, transfer news. Drumroll please... Nothing's changing! Yeah, it's still going to be Elder Ahlstrom, Elder Obioma and me knocking about in Fianarantsoa all by ourselves. It will be awesome though, as we are doing really well and have been doing great work and accomplishing a lot of really good things here in Fianarantsoa. So I'm way excited for another transfer in the same companionship! It will be really fun to keep working with them.
Anyway, before I delve into more spiritual matters and answer my mom's second question, I just wanted to fill you all in on our week, besides transfer news. This last week we had what's called an audit, which is when a person who works for the regional headquarters comes down and reviews all the financial things in the branches. There are many reasons for it, including trying to catch any theft, embezzlement, or misuse of church funds. So we had that happen this last week, and luckily everything went smoothly, but it was pretty stressful trying to get everything ready for that. But now it's all done, so that's good.
Oh, also, fun to know that I have started working out with Elder Obioma, who's very good at it. He's played basketball for his entire life, and actually could have gone into the NBA. So yeah. Anyway, needless to say, we worked out legs during two days this past week, and I will say that I have been dying as we've been walking or biking up all these hills. :P
Anyway, enough of that. Last question: What tender mercies have I seen in my life over the past while? As far as that goes, it has mostly just been little blessings and opportunities that I've found in my day-to-day life here. For example, I am now helping out with a project to translate a lot of the church's applications into Malagasy to make it more easy and accessible for the members here in Madagascar. Also, I am learning so many things with regards to how the church runs in my current situation with the work that we're doing. Everything, literally anywhere from those things to smaller things like finding a good, fitting scripture for one of our lessons that day are all tender mercies.
In Malagasy, tender mercy is "fahita-pitia" which literally means "seeing love," which is a translation that I love, because it really is what a tender mercy is; a way for us to see God's love for us in our everyday lives. Sometimes they're so small that they will just pass us by, but we need to focus on them, and realize that God gives them to us for a reason: He loves us and wants us to be happy. If we try our best to see and focus on the things that we are blessed with, then we will be overwhelmed by the amount of tender mercies that the Lord showers down upon us on a daily basis. It is truly incredible.
Anyway, not a whole lot of time this week, but I hope you all have a great week.
Also, special thanks to everyone who participated in writing notes to me on the ornaments for the Christmas tree. I read every single one and want you all to know that I appreciate them and the time you took to write that.
Love you all!
Elder Snell
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| A chameleon we found on the path. |
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| A gorgeous picture of Fianarantsoa |
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| Another picture of Fianarantsoa |
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| The Christmas stuff you sent arrived. Now our house is all festive! |
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| Christmas in Mada! |
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| Elder Obioma and I with our new bike helmets (they were the only ones we could find in the entire city). |
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| Our new converts Ony and Vololona, who are wearing the helmets. |
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| Me and Elder Obioma hanging out in a train car |
