Whats up homies, lovers, and friends.

This week was puuuurty nuts. I had my first transfer rodeo. We had to get everyone to where they were going and it is not a simple task. The biggest problem we have is that no one does what you tell them to do haha. Everyone always has a better idea so they just go with that and disregard the times and places we tell them to make the move. It's ok though we handled it and everyone got where they needed to go, I just had to drive around in Madafreakingascar in the middle of the night finding kids at bus stations and other places. I absolutely demolished a cat, a rat, and some guys left elbow as we raced through the city trying to get around. I'm surprised our right mirror stayed on the car. I was doing a solid 30 MPH when I clipped the guy haha. I feel bad for the missionaries that we put in an 18 seater little mexi bus with 50 other malagasies for an 11 hour ride to get them to their new area. If I ever have to do that I'm going to rent an entire van for myself, because I can :) Seifert is gonzo up to Tamatave and now me and Elder Bates from the frozen tundra of Canada are partners in crime. I've been lucky to have such fun comps. Seifert was a stud and Bates is a big burly country boy that likes to work hard and "GIT ER' DUN!" We have some good times. One funny story to tell real quick happened just last night as we were weaving our way through this little alley. As we turned a tight corner there were some little kids lighting firecrackers and there happened to be one right at our feet about to blow. I swear it was all slow motion. My first thought as I saw the millimeter long fuse burning was, "This is going to blow up." That changed my emotional status to scared. Then as it was popping I thought, "You little punks! I'm gonna kill you!" Luckily for the kids Elder Bates' reaction 0.3 seconds later made me think, "hahahaha," as all 6'3" and 240 pounds of him jumped and then yelled, "FREAK KID!" Maybe you had to be there, but I was dying laughing. The range of emotions and thoughts that I went through in literally 0.9 seconds was phenomenal. We had some awesome lessons this last week. Jean-Louis should be getting baptized this Saturday if he passes his interview, then next week Ivan will be baptized AND the next couple of weeks after that we have some younger kids being baptized AND then hopefully by that time our other investigators will be ready. It's going to take some strict obedience and faithful service, but I know if we lay it all out there we will really see some miracles. As fort he language, I actually am making some comments in the conversations around me and I am teaching a lot more. Bates is really helping me. President Donnelly is leaving this Saturday right after President Adams gets here. We have been having last meetings and conferences to prep for the change and I get all emotional thinking about President and Sister Donnelly leaving. Elder Bates wrote a song for them called Legacy of Light and he was asked to sing it at a party for him on Saturday. I almost lost it ha I'm such a girl! I've been soooo lucky to have worked closely with them and I 'm even luckier to be able to do the same with President and Sister Adams when they get here. Life is good. Time is flying by. I don't even feel like writing anymore because I'll be home so soon. I'm scared to leave because this is my life now, i don't know how to do anything else. This all sounds a bit ridiculous seeing as how i have 10 more months here, but weeks feel like days. Well I gotta go! We're hitting up the fosy park today! Love y'all!

Elder Barclay  

Inan voa voa vahazahas,

This week was NUTS! Lets start with the folks we teach. We got a guy named Dimby who is a young father with a wife and two kids that President Donnelly talked to one day after his morning run. We have taught him twice and he has come to church three times and on Tuesday we fixed a bap date with him. President Donnelly is going to baptize him the morning that President Adams arrives. Sick!  We teach a brother sister combo (Isabelle and Ivan) who are both in their 20's. Isabelle is the waitress from the restaurant that I told you about earlier. We fixed bap dates with them for next month as well and Ivan has been coming to church and he came to our baptism today. He's solid but Isabelle is taking some time. We fixed another bap date with a lady named Modestine who we have been teaching for a while but haven't been able to meet with consistently. She is golden and wrote out her testimony and gave it to us. We found two new families this week as well who are looking very promising. One is a father led family and they know the bible but are amazed by our lessons and the other might just be a mom with 3 kids. We got a suuuuper sick referral from a girl Seifert baptized a while back. We had a soiree (dinner lesson) with her and her family of 7. It was super solid and they loved us. The food was pretty good too. Except for the ravitoto, we call it ravipoopoo. It's just mashed up grass. Literally mow the lawn and then take the clippings and smash it until it looks like horse poop and eat it on rice. The Malagasies go nuts for it. The member girl that gave us the referral is sooo cool and she plays for a traveling basketball team. We had her come to the church today and play on our team with all the other punks we play with. WE DESTROYED EVERYONE. She plays lock down defense! Hahaha I was dying because all these guys were getting so mad because no one could touch us. They were all super mad when we said that we invited her and then we punked all of them. Our baptism today was an 18 year old guy name Hajasoa (hodzasooa) and it went well. he's a cool kid, kinda awkward but super nice. We had quite a bit of hospital runs this week. Elder Abney came up from Ambositra because he is having brain problems that are causing him to go blind in his left eye. He got jumped by some Polynesian Dixie State football players while he was in college and he is still suffering from it. He's super chill though. We also had to take Elder Fryer in to the emergency room because he has a severe lung infection and he's not doin well. While we were sitting in the emergency room we saw and heard some... stuff. Madagascar hospitals aren't happy places. One guy had the left side of his face ripped off and blood all over him. He came rollin in on a wheelchair and they nurse stopped next to us and told him to get up and sit on the bench next to us and wait. Ha... what? The dude was dying but he was still in shock so he was down with whatever they told him to do. There was a girl bleeding out of her head and she was just screaming the entire time. This all sounds like a pretty normal emergency room experience but I guess you would have to see the place to understand how nasty and creepy it is. They have old water bottles full of used bloody needles and syringes just chuck full and chillin everywhere. The place looks like the haunted houses you go to in America around Halloween time. Sanitation is for morons. The best part is that the Dr. is ALWAYS smoking a cigarette as he works on you. We're like, "Haha... What? Word...?" Seifert actually went outside and threw up twice while we were there. It was a result of food poisoning, not the nasty hospital. So yeah I'm going to avoid going there for myself. Yeah that's about it for this week. The language is coming. I catch full phrases now and I can actually respond to people if they happen to say something I know haha. Really though it's coming... kinda... I hope everyone has a fantastic week and happy fathers day to all you pimp daddies all over the world! I love y'all take it easy.

Jeffrey Charles

Hi y'all

I'm dyin' out here. The fleas are eating me alive. This week was pretty solid. Today at 2 the three kids of the parents that we baptized a month ago are getting baptized. Next week we have one for sure and some other maybes. Nothing special happened this week. The highlight for me was yesterday at the airport. Game six of the Celtics Heat series was on TV. That was crazy because if there actually is a TV somewhere it's usual on CNN or something. I watched the whole first quarter and it was like I was watching one of the same game from before I left. I felt like nothing had changed and that I hadn't missed much. While we were sitting there waiting for sister Bulewa to board her flight four catholic nuns came and sat around us. As soon as they noticed who we were they got up and split. The must have felt our priesthood ha :) We almost got a picture of the six of us watching the game but they got away. I taught a spiritual thought last night in Malagasy for the first time. The family was all Muslims except for one of the daughters who is a member ha ha. We ate dinner with them afterwards and it was good. The situation was pretty funny when I stepped back and realized that we were eating, laughing, and having a jolly old time with these Muslims decked out in all there cloth and what not. My favorite part was testifying that Jesus is the Christ. We tend to take our time when we lay that line down. I can't help but smile when I say it ha ha. Yeah, I can't remember anything sorry. We have lots of cool people that we teach and they are my best buds. The work gets pretty personal when your love for your investigators grows. I love it. Well I gotta go, sorry for the lames ville email. I hope all is well! 

Love Jeffrey