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  

Hey my sweet sweetnesses,

 

Thank you so much for the emails. You all are swell and made this P-day super :) I just got done playing basketball at the church with all the malagasies and I almost lost my left eye. I have never been poked in the eye like that. The guys were real chumps and would hack me everytime I got the ball because they are all 5 feet tall and they can't stop me. I thought I had over come my temper but nope, it had just been a long time since I 'd played an intense game of basketball. No worries though the only game my team lost was the game in which I had to leave and pull my contact lense out from behind my eye. Then I came back and continued to punk fools. We won 7 in a row and then we stepped down and let the chumps play against eachother. Well, now that all that is off my chest i'll calm down and tell you what happened this week. On Tuesday we a had a Zone Leader council with president. Those meetings are the coolest! We prepped and made plans for when President Adams arrives and then had a fat meal up in Presidents house. Sister Donnelly made this pasta with cheese that she brought back from Reunion and I ate so much that I almost ralphed. These last three weeks my body has been cinfused as the dickins because I'll eat garbarge all week and then have some fancy meal every once in a while. My body thinks, "Oh, hallelujah we made it and we're back to normal food and then I go back to sewer water and rice with rocks and bones in it. After lunch President briefed us on the emergency evacuation plan for possible civil unwrest here in mada. Presidential elections should be coming up this year and there are already riots and stuff in Analakely. It's the worst because Seifert and I have to drive through that city all the time to take people to places but when there are riots we have to drive for an hour to get around it. The goverment here is super corrupt because the current leader took control by force and he is not stepping down. He has oushed back the elections for 3 years now and probably will do the same thing this year. It's pretty nuts. Malagasy is coming along. I can figur out what is going on in the conversations from time to time but that's about it. The nice thing is that I'm not scared to talk to people so it is a lot easier to just try and speak and look dumb, and that way I learn faster. The mothers day call seems like it was 10 years ago. We ended up hitch hiking home afterwards because it was so late and thre were no taxi's. A soccer team in a van gave us a ride. I think I already told you that, sorry. We didn't have any baptisms this Saturday, but next week we have 5 lined up. It's sooo weird to have baptisms. I have the best mission ever. Reunion was amazing and now I get to be here and see this side of the work. Ummm yeah I think thats it. I thought that once I told you all that I could get Dearelders agin that I would have actually gotten one haha. Well I gotta go! 

 

Love Elder Barclay     

Hello

Well I'm starting to catch words in the conversations now. I'm still lost though. It's tough being a helpless moron out here. The worst is when people are like, "So how long have you been out?" and I say, "Just over a year now." Then they look at me with a confused face thinking, "Oh... I see, you're an idiot and still haven't learned the language." while they say, "Well hang in there, I'm sure you'll get it." Yep, woohoo. Lots of fun stuff is happening though and my comp and I have fun. We rode on the bumper of a taxi bay the other day and hung on for dear life. We taught some awesome lessons in the smallest little huts you have ever seen and during one of them a GIANT black widow crawled around the room staring me in the face. They are monsters here ha. We just teach all day long and then on saturday people show up to be baptized. It's weird but hey I don't mind. The lessons are simple but powerful. People just get it and accept it like Jesus himself was teaching it to them. I don't understand how, but I love it. This next week I should be getting violently ill. It usually takes about two weeks for it to hit and my time is coming...

Madagascar is a strange place. I think i'm still in shock. Life is pretty rough for these people and I can see the adversary having his way with this land. On the other hand the church is exploding. I always thought that when people would talk about the "war" between good and evil it was a load of garbage, but man I literally feel like I am there in it now. The nicest part about it all is knowing that I have complete control over the opposition, but he is really there. It creeps me out ha. Well I gotta go, sorry this was short. Have a great week evryone.

Love Jeff

Oh! You can send letters via dearelder.com now. I'm in the office so I will get them right when you send them. And...the address for letters is...

Elder Barclay

Dingana III

Andrainarivo

Antananarivo

Madagascar.

There ya go :)

Ny anarako dea Barclay,

Malagasy is nuts, learning it from scratch is rough as well. This last week was the craziest. Madagascar is the poop of the earth. It's super fun. I'll just give you a few details and stories from the week and then on sunday when we chat we can cover the rest. So my bowels have already been melted and i'm gettin used to the lifestyle quickly. As for fun stories... we  punked the drunk husband of one of our investigators because he beats her. The guy probably messed himself when he saw me and Seifert as he was trying to leave his house. It was pitch black outside and we were standing right in front of his door when he opened it to leave. Impeccable timing. Seifert is about the same size as me, and Malagasies are like 4 feet tall. I just sat there and mean mugged him while Seifert taught him. The gospel changes behavior better than anything else. We also taught our old lady investigator Bebe. She's like 80 and the last time we taught her she was wearing a shirt that she must have thought was NOT see through. It was a good experience. We also taught this super rich girl that just left for reunion and so she spoke french and when I spoke creole to her she loved it. We ran into her again at the airport as we were dropping someone off and she told me she was going to buy me presents while she is in reunion. Sick! She is sooooooo ridiculously loaded. Yeah, Mada is nuts. Lots of other crazy stuff happened but it's just too much to write about. Dead bodies in the streets, can't drink the water, poop everywhere, It's tough to breath outside. I am going to smell like DOODOO when I get home. So for the mothers day call... Sunday at 1 p.m. I will be on the computer ready to skype. Whoever wants to be there has to be at Mom and Dad's house at that time. It will be 9 p.m. here and we'll chat it up. If that doesn't work you guys will just call my cell phone and we'll talk that way. You have to buy a calling card and you are the ones who will pay. Awesome. Merci d'avance pour votre aide! Nou sa cause bonne dimanche alors, na trouve. Mi aim a ou. Veloma!  

Love Jeff

Té! Kossa zot Ï fé la?

Well this will be a short one. Last night a couple interesting things happened. First to make you laugh I'll tell you a story. T and I were starting our weekly planning and we got a text from a random number and it read, "Hello Mr. American I just wanted to let you know that you are very handsome and I wanted to see if I could text you and become your friend... and maybe a little bit more..." I was flattered and of course I instantly started thinking, "Which little hoochie mamma that I contacted last week did I give our number to?" After further research it turned out to be my pal Jean. Yes HIS name is Jean. hahaha yikes. To make this all better my chump of a companion kept texting the guy and tried to set up a rendezvous! Not a chance man. I took the phone and gently let Jean know that I wasn't interested. I never thought I would have to do something like that. Just after that Elder T and I went over to President Donnely's apartment and met with him for a short moment. We sat ourselves down in his kitchen and he informed me that I was going to Madagascar to be and office AP (I don't know what that means) and that Elder Fennell and Elder T would be the new Zone Leader/Assistants in Réunion. So I'm leaving on Tuesday with President to go to Madagascar probably for the rest of my mission. Yay Malagasy and bowel disease. I'll probably shed a few more pounds over there too. I was kind of bummed when I realized that I was going to baptize 3 people on May 12th and June 2nd in my area. Once again, just as I get my area up and running with Ami's and progress I get transferred. I'm excited for the new adventure though. I'll be comps with Cody Black's MTC companion Elder Seifert. Well I got lots to do. Everyone have a splendid week. I don't know whats going on for mothers day yet. I will find out Tuesday night in Mada and then send you an email with the plan. Most likely I will call you Sunday morning here (Saturday night chez vous) and it will be like Christmas. But I think this time you will have to call me. We'll see! I love ya.

Jeff