What a crazy week eh! It was a rough one ha ha. Ok so Elder Fennell and I were together until Thursday morning. We had a solid half of a week. We taught Toto again and he wouldn't commit to be baptised but he prayed for us and he wants to read the B of M. He's such a chill guy. His family won't really be a part of our lessons though, that's sad but oh well. He can't read so his wife reads the B of M to him, so whether she's interested or not she is progressing ha ha. On Wednesday we went out to St. Suzanne to work that area and do suivi's and stuff. One of the suivi's was a young girl named Jennyfer. She's 15 and her mom and little bro weren't home so she said come back the first time we talked to her, so we did just that. The mom came out when we yelled and we thought oh sweet, this lady is going to tell us off and be rude. Nope, we called her by name (creepy) and she was super nice. Jennyfer came out too and she was amped to see us so they said come on in! We chatted it up for a bit and then answered their questions and taught the restoration. Holy best lesson so far of my mission. They were super interested and they asked questions and even answered our questions correctly. It was a miracle. One thing that was kind of weird is that the mom was kinda flirty... But hey if we gotta wink at a few single mamma's to get baptism's I'm down :) Just kidding that's disgusting and wrong. It's not like that at all I promise ;) Anyways that was rad and then right afterwards we went out and we were port-a-porting when Elder Fennell backed into a cactus. Clutch on his part right, so we headed home and I spent an hour pulling cactus slivers out of a giant black man's bare back. What an experience. So Thursday morning the AP's picked me up and I went to St. Paul to meet Elder Temarohirani, Elder Millar, and our new apartment. It's not too shabby. I'll tell you the cons first, We don't have; an oven or stove, lights, hot water, any mirrors, chairs, tables, A.C., food, or money. The pro's, we have; beds, fans, ice cold water, a rice cooker, great air circulation so it is breezy inside, and the bathroom has a window. A window in the bathroom is heaven. In this heat in a cement box with no ventilation = stinky and shmelting hot. Oh yeah, there are the biggest yellow wasps you've ever seen everywhere. My flip flops do work on those suckers. We had no food or money for the end of the month. So we gathered up all our change and bought some bread and other stuff and scrounged like crazy to last until allotment came. I feel like I'm camping ha ha. I have to shower on my knees and shave without a mirror in the kitchen sink. I kinda like it. So my first Sunday was AWESOME! The church is the upper floor of a little 4-plex. They took the two upper apartments and knocked out some walls and turned it into the church. There were 18 people there including us and 3 investigators that just came. It was nuts ha ha. We did the sacrament and President Poncharville (B.P.) conducted and it was sweet. Elder T gave a talk and I was on back up if people didn't show. Everyone came though so I didn't have to speak. So the three investigators were three brothers, 21, 17, and 15. there names are Toky, Joshua, and Anthony. They are super chill and we taught them during the last hour of church in the kitchen. They were so cool and the lesson was awesome. The oldest brother was baptized when he was 8 but has been inactive since and his two little bro's are nonmembers. Toky (the oldest) has had some rough times and has some tats and stuff and he is trying to figure out what life is and his little bro's are pretty clean cut sharp kids. They are all super nice and cool and I think they will keep coming. After church President Poncharville pulled me aside and told me that we would be working together, he said,"I need some counselors." So I think Elder T and I will be in the branch presidency. That should be fun. Well last night we found out the end of all the transfer news. I will be training for sure. No one is going anywhere special just a few changes. My trainee Elder Milot will be training the other new elder in St. Marie. So I'm pretty much whitewashing an area, I hope it's not too tough. Hmmmm.... what else is new... well I shaved my head, it's pretty hot here if ya didn't know. A buzzed head makes quite the difference :) I will get y'all my address when I figure out what it is, just keep sending letters to the old one. We all see each other once a week so I'll get your letters. Well, take it easy friends and fam. I'll keep holdin it down in afrreeka. St. Paul is straight up Africa too, yep it's cool and I love it. Presidents Poncharville is as African as it gets too. We had to tell him to put his spear outside yesterday at church, I dunno what he was thinkin when he brought the thing. Well Love ya! enjoy the cold weather, jerks :)

Well this email will just be as juicy as Queen Latifah. So last Monday night I was informed that elder Fennell was having problems in Mada and that he would be coming back Tuesday, and.... I would take him and work in St. Marie. Well the week actually turned out really well. We walked the entire time and that was rough because this island is a mountain, but we worked hard. We ended up finding more investigators. Finally all the blood sweat and tears are paying off right? Well I haven't been crying, but it's been tough alright. So the apartment is in tip top shape, the shower and kitchen are mold free and spotless and everything else is just sparkling clean. The branch has investigators finally coming to church and the area of St. Marie has progressing investigators. So I'm sure you all can guess what happens next. I get a call Sunday night from the AP's and am informed that I will be transferred to St. Paul to work in the two week old Branch. So I will be white washing an area and two new elders show up November 2nd and there will be three of us in the St. Paul apartment which means more than likely I'll be training one of the new elders as well. Exciting right!? I'm pumped! The branch is tiny and the church is the upper floor of this little apartment building. It should be pretty fun. We won't have a car or bikes so the walking is permanent and St. Paul is even more hilly and mountainous so that's not good news. My feet aren't doing too swell :| suck it up right? ha ha... My shoes are pretty much toast. the Johnston and Murphy's are heaven for my feet and they'll last forever but the black ones are shredded and my other brown ones hurt too bad to wear so I'm sportin' elder Crossley's shoes that he left :) that hombré had some class. Well I guess I'll tell you a little about the new Ami's De l'Eglise. One guy is named Totobey and he has four kids and is married. He has a terrible foot problem, his left foot is literally upside down. Maybe I will be able snag a pic before I leave. Anyways, he let us right in and sat down with us and we talked and all went well, we taught and they loved it. They are Malagasy and have trouble understanding french because I speak to fast. HA! Yeah! That's right, french is coming baby. So they are solid and we give them all Malagasy book of Mormons and pamphlets so that's cool. Our other Ami's are these two sisters. They are HUGE and hilarious. When we knocked on their door they opened it and scrame. That wasn't the first time that has happened. I'd say about 1 out of every 5 doors the person gasps or screams or I guess you could say "yelps" when they see us. I don't get it, we are standing there doing nothing but for some reason we just scare the pants off people. We are kinda big compared to everyone else but still... I ain't André the Giant. Well they let us in and we taught them too and they scheduled the next rendezvous before we could so that was cool. Maurie-Claude is still on track to be baptized and we found another older guy named Guy Payet. He smokes and is difficult but we're working with him. So remember how we handed over all our other investigators to the AP's? Yep they haven't taught any of them. Sweet. Yvrin was GOLDEN!!! Yikes that makes me mad. Well this morning was a blast. we drove to Le Port and played basketball and stuff and I actually tore it up, I haven't completely lost my game :) Then we went to a beach and chilled and played a little football and stuff. Overall a relaxing day but I am pretty drained and a tiggy sunburned. Ha whoops, the word tiggy means "a little" in Mauritian kréole. I'm really struggling with english. Things make more sense in french now. Finally! Well I get to pack tomorrow night and peace out to St. Paul on Wednesday. I'll probably gain 15 pounds tonight and tomorrow because members are lined up to feed me and say goodbye, I know I'm spoiled here :) well shmell ya later. And yes Mom I get your letters. September 11th and 18th and then the one from October. If someone had a birthday, Happy Birthday. Sorry I can't remember how old anyone is or who's birthday is when. I'll be 20 in a couple weeks, isn't zhat vierd? (German accent, get it? ha...) Well bye

Love Jeff        

Hey everyone

Last week was awesome! We spent the first part of the week visiting less actives and inviting them to our branch activity and then later on we did a lot of contacting. The activity was great! one less active family came and also two other single less active people and then three nonmember people that members had invited. We ended up teaching one of the nonmembers the next day. I don't know if you remember about the time Elder Bize and I went to this crazy lady's house to cast out demons or not but guess what! Yep same lady. So we taught her and at the end fixed a baptismal date for the 19th of November. Just in time for me to get her all ready and then be transferred before she is baptized. I have a feeling that's about how my mission will go, but as long as she is getting baptized that's all I really care about. She is an absolute motor mouth by the way. I tried to cut her off 4 times at one point during the rendezvous and after the 4th try Elder Leblanc busted up laughing. She's nice and she is the first investigator that I have gotten to come to church! Praise the heavens! So a little funny side story... She lives in St. André which is like 30 minutes away so I don't know the area very well and it is difficult to find these addresses because the streets here go every direction and there is just no organization whatsoever. So my two awesome comps take advantage of this time to sleep in the car and let me search on my own. So I would slowly start to swerve back and forth causing their heads to sway towards their windows and finally once I had them dreaming that they were on a boat in the ocean I would jerk the wheel hard to the left and watch their faces smack into the glass. Oh how funny that was, you will never know. The best part is that they would have no idea that I was doing it on purpose and they could never figure out what was going on so they would go back to sleep and I would do it again! Finally I found the place and we taught her. Alright so what else is new... Oh yeah! We have right now 5 investigators. Yes, 5 can you believe it? Do you want to hear the best part? Our boundaries just got changed and we are losing 3 of them to the AP's who don't work hard. Ever. AHHHHH! ha ha I worked so hard! Those investigators were smart people as well, they were super solid and we get to hand them over and get back to tract fest 2011 again. If those AP's don't teach them and use every ounce of energy in them to baptize those people I will lose it. Well, what else... Summer is getting closer... It's already too hot. I don't think I can ever tell you that enough. Today we have a zone activity! It is going to be soooooo sick!!!!!!! Guess what it is? Zone family home evening. You gotta be kidding me! We live on a tropical volcanic island and were doing FHE for our zone activity when we just had an awesome/huge island conference? That means that we don't get to work our 3 hours today and instead sit in a church and waste time. At least let us go on a small hike or something. That drives me nuts. The mentality here is just not quite what I expected. Sorry I need to stop complaining and talking bad about the missionaries here. Well I don't know what else to tell you. Sorry if this email is no good. I'm not much of a writer... We'll catch up on the rest when I get home, Which is in no time. Time is flying! Well see y'all next week, take care.

Love Jeff  

Hey everybody! I didn't really feel like typing a huge letter so I decided to attach some pics. The computers here are retarded so doing that takes a ton of time. Well last week was good. Some funny and freaky things happened. First, one day we were driving through chaudron and we got trapped by a Tambul parade. They were all dressed up and bangin drums and playing their snake charming flutes while parading through the streets with this giant elephant idol on wheels following behind them. We recorded it but the file is too big to send :( sorry. It was nuts, I have never seen anything like it. Second, we were visiting a less active family that lives in a hut up in the hills of St. André and I saw the biggest spider i had ever seen crawl up on the wall behind the lady we were visiting. I let her finish her sentence and then said, "Hey... Uhhh... There's something behind ya there..." She turned around and grabbed it and ATE IT!!!! No I'm kidding, but when she turned around she couldn't see it and she pointed at a picture that was hanging right next to it and said, "This?"

I said, "Nope..." hahah then her husband got up and walked over and pointed at something else on the wall and said, "This?" and I said no again haha if only I could have remebered the word for spider! But that still doesn't excuse the fact that they were practically touching it and they couldn't figure it out! Holy HEEEBEEY JEEBEEYS usually I would just let stuff like that slide but this spider was literally the size of my open hand. They thought it was hilarious when they saw the spider and they just left it chillin. Yikes... So to make this story even better when we got home that night I saw another spider just a little bit smaller creepin around in our apartment. Apparently that means that they hatch and are everywhere when summer rolls around. YUM, I sleep on the floor too :) I can't to wake up with one on my face, which will probably cover my entire face. They're harmless though so it just gross andnot dangerous. Well as far as the work goes we have about 3 families that we teach but they aren't quite investigators. We are workin with em. It's just the same old same old. Transfers are in 3 weeks and that will hopefully be a breath of fresh air.  



P-day at a volcano



P-day at the beach

Jungle

This last week was pretty golden. We have people to teach now can you believe it!? So the first half of the week was the usual but finally on Thursday we hit the jackpot. We were in the hood street contacting and we were looking for our friend Saidina because he is always fun to talk to and without fail he is always by people that listen to us. I thought he was one of the three nephites for a while, but this time when we found him he was smoking a fat blunt. So we found him sitting on a curb and of course there were these 5 ladies sitting by him. So we went over and started to chat with him and like clockwork the ladies started talking to us. . they were 4 sisters and the 5th girl was one of their daughters. One of the ladies had just come from Mada to have surgery and her sisters lived here so she was staying with them. The one having surgery (Tortosa) said that she met a big black guy in Mada that was dressed like me hahaha GUESS WHO! Elder Fennell baby, so they talked to us forever and they wouldn't let us stop teaching them. We taught them about the Book of Mormon, the Plan of Salvation, and prayer. We gave them all Book of Mormons and we scheduled to go to the hospital and visit her after the surgery. So we went to the hospital on Sunday and they were all there in the room chillin with their Book of Mormons just waiting for us. So we taught them more about the Book of Mormon and answered their questions. They are pumped about it! The only problem is that one of the sisters is Muslim, and the one daughter that was there happens to belong to the Muslim lady. They were actually super interested as well because their beliefs are so close to some of ours. They love to bash though and that is the problem. If we wanted to we could destroy them but that would accomplish nothing so we avoid it at all costs. It's all going swell though! So I don't know if I have mentioned this yet but recently the girls have been worse than usual. We are walking tickets to America so every female is just drooling whenever we come around. We went to this giant night marché on Saturday and all the missionaries from the north came. We did a little exchange and I went with elder Chong-Mook (Tahitian) and we just talked to everyone. Everywhere we went though girls ages 16 to 25 were calling us over and following us around and just wouldn't leave us alone. Really it's quite flattering but also annoying. They always asked, "Where are you from and how old are you?" and we said of course, "Tahiti and America and we're 19." Every single time their jaws would drop and they would giggle and all that crap so we would give them pass-a-long cards and leave. Three different people told me they thought I was 30. That's a little ridiculous , I can understand 25 or less, but thirty? Yikes. Oh, I got my first gray hair this week as well. Cool huh. Overall the marché was awesome though because we talked to a ton of people who wanted to come to english class and others who were interested in the gospel, now if we can actually get them to be home for a rendezvous or meet us for an appointment. Transfers are coming soon again, and a lot of signs are pointing at me going to mada... Or I will train again ha ha. I don't want to train anymore. It's hard and I want a comp who speaks french, but hey I really am cool with whatever! well I have stopped losing weight. If I can stay like I am that would be good. Nothing else is new, I won't be able to watch conference until tomorrow I think so that's what we will do for our studies. I have never been so excited in my life for conference! I was an idiot before for not soaking up every bit of it! It's crazy how awesome the church is ha ha. I could read the Book of Mormon for 8 hours a day if I had nothing to do. Well I'm outta time! Have a good one :) shmell ya 

Love Jeff