Sunday was another hurricane. It was actually worse this week. The streets turn into rivers the second it starts to rain. We had some really good lessons throughout the week. We set a bap date for January 26th. Her name is Helen and she is either the girlfriend or wife of a member haha. The lessons are solid though and she is a friend for sure. We taught Joyeux and we had set a goal for him to completely stop drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes on the 15th of December. Our lesson with him was great. He had gone from drinking coffee 3 times a day to once every other day and now he has stopped cold turkey. Pray for him. His baptism is the 29th of December and I worry about him all the time. He's a champ though and has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Etienne and Nana showed up to church on Sunday which made me fall off my chair. They are the family that has a little girl who has some strange disease. They are always so against leaving their religion, I honestly thought we would have to drop them in a week or two. They loved church. This morning Elder Tregeagle and I got up at 5:30 a.m. and drove to the Tamatave bus stop. He's gone and Elder Steele is on his way to work with me in Anjanahary (I'm curious to know how you guys pronounce all these crazy names). Tonight we have a dinner for Elder Lunt who goes home tomorrow and then Manakambahiny zone conference on Wednesday. You would think after being on a mission for so long, stuff like that wouldn't stress me out. But it still does. Woohoo! The work is going very well in Anjanahary and I love our investigators so much. We have been visiting lots of members, less active and active and the ward is changing. In our last Ward Council meeting the majority of the time was spent going over our progress records and figuring out what members were going to visit all the people we have been teaching. They are really catching the spirit of missionary work. So I'll figure out the skype thing this week and add you guys and what not so we can chat it up for Christmas! We have some hospitals and orphanages to visit on Christmas day and it should be a great experience. I'm excited. There are a ton of guys playing computer games here in this cyber and they are all screaming and yelling in French. One of them just swore in English and Elder Robinson leaned over to me and said, "Turns out I speak French." haha Well Have a great week my friends.

 

Love Elder Barclay

Awesome week. Sunday was NUTS. After church we drove up to the top of this area called faravohitra to teach a guy. As soon as we left the church it started to pour. When we got to the top of the hill the cobblestone road had become a river and lighting was striking everywhere around us. The thunder was so loud that it would shake my chest. So we got out of the car and ran to the guys house and running was useless because within 3 seconds of being in the rain we were soaked. Working in the rain is always a good look because people are like, "Are you nuts?" We taught the guy and then descended the mountain and walked our way into one of the lower parts of our area where a lake had formed. We started down the path to our investigators house and before we knew it we were wading through knee deep sewage. Yay... The canals and pooh rivers that we always walk along had all over flown and the rivers had risen up above the bridges that cross them. So we didn't know where the bridges were to cross the canals. Luckily a ton of little kids ran to us and helped us across. One false step and I would have been completely submerged in a raging river of poop. It was a leap of faith walking across those bridges. When we got to the family's house they were all outside sweeping the water away from their houses so we grabbed some brooms and helped. It was a party. When it stopped raining we went inside and taught one of the best lessons of the week. The whole family was keeping up with dispensations and authority. They were all way fun to teach and be around. When night rolled around it got way cold. We taught Andrena and we just talked about her Book of Mormon reading. She has finished 1st Nephi and is eating it up. She told us that she feels the power of the book when she reads and she tells us all about the stories she has read during the week. We had a Zone Leader council on Tuesday and we had the Reunion and Tamatave zone leaders with us on webex. It was really cool, we made history! I conducted and the meeting went well. All the zone leaders are studs and Elders Twitchell and Long in Reunion brought a lot to the meeting. President Adams ended the council with some teaching from the scriptures about the gathering of Israel. The spirit was strong and I felt recharged. I love that stuff. Well that's about all I got. Have a great week. Skype is a go for Christmas so plan on Christmas eve your time. Have a great week! I love you all.

 

Elder Barclay     

 

 

Hey my sweet sweet treasures. Another week has blown by and people love to tell me how many weekly planning sessions or p-days or Sundays I have left. It's getting old. It's hard enough to stay focused without all that ha. We had some good lessons as well as some frustrating lessons. One of our families dogged us twice over the last two weeks and whenever we would stop by they wouldn't come out to the gate. So finally we caught them and they had us come in. The father was buzzed and everyone else was being loud and dumb. We sit down and pray and then ask how their Book of Mormon reading is going. They pulled the book off the shelf and blew off the dust and then giggled. We started to calmly talk about the importance of reading and they said they don't have time blah blah blah and then the wife said, "So if I got to your church I can't drink coffee or alcohol or smoke or anything?" Elder Tregeagle said, "Yes you get to live the commandments when you join God's church." Then I explained that we weren't asking them to turn their lives upside down and change everything right this instant. Their less active sister must have told them about the word of wisdom and other commandments because we haven't taught them any of that. Then I told them, "All we ask you to do right now is read this book and pray about it." 20 minutes later we finished testifying of the blessings that would come from doing so and told them to read the book every day. I wanted to scream at them haha but I refrained. People just don't get it. That could be our fault, but now it should be pretty clear in their minds. We have been stopping by an excommunicated member's house and the two visits have been awesome. I have never felt so much compassion and love for someone. She is working harder than anyone could to repent and get back to where she was and during the lessons God's love for her almost makes my chest explode. I'm on the verge of tears every time we go and it's like I just can't find words to really express what her Father in Heaven feels for her. Every time we leave I thank Heavenly Father for letting me be a part of those visits. I didn't really realize how much I love these people out here but now that I have been really reflecting I see that I would stay here forever with them if I had to. After the first couple of months of my mission in Reunion I was reading about Ammon in the Book of Mormon when he tell the king he would labor among his people until the day he died and I wrote next to that verse, "Reunion till I die?" At that time I thought YEAH RIGHT. It's crazy how much that has changed. It's good stuff. Well no crazy stories, I was walking down the street and some American guy leaned out the window of his taxi and said, "Hey elders!" Way weird haha Well gotta go Love you all, have a great week.