Dickson!!

One of my favorite dishes - Caramel Pork

A Banana Tree

Big time week here in Ambositra. 

Thursday was the last day for Gaul....Sad day. Dropped him off at the Bus station at about 7 in the morning. Then I had a mini for the rest of the day. A kid named Julian from the congregation who is going on a mission in February to the Ivory Coast. Really fun day teaching with a native. The guy is a boss and will be a great missionary. 

Dickson had some problems with his luggage getting down to Ambositra...whats new. Haha always a problem with taxibes. He finally got here late Thursday night and the rain welcomed him nicely to the Boosht! 

Hes a great Elder. Hes from Seattle and has been on his mission already 21 months. Great at the language. Super easy to get along with. Hes served in Tana almost his whole mission, so lets just say the quiet small farming town of Ambositra was a slight shock to him!! His last area was 67 in Tana. 67 is statistically the dirtiest area missionaries work in the whole world. Yeah....his stories are hilarious. 

Friday was a great first day for him. We taught a ton of times and got to meet up with a lot of members. Good for him to meet people and get acquainted with the area. 

Saturday was a pretty rough day for the both of us. We had to wait at the Station for three hours to get a bus to Anjoma. And then, our bus was blocked off by two other buses that they couldnt find the drivers too. So we sat there forever hahah. It didnt help that Elder Dickson felt really sick. On the way back to Anjoma we caught a ride in the back of a semi truck filled with rice and corn. Sat on some comfortable rice bags and made our way back!! It was good that Elder Dickson could get the whole "out in the country" experience on one of his first few days. 

Hes been pretty sick and we had to stay in yesterday. I guess he was just Booshtifyed!! Hes doing better now, but please pray for his health!!

A friend from BYU emailed me and talked to me about something he learned in his New Testament class. About how God sees our potential, not what we are now. It was very ironic because I had some moments this week where Im starting to try to see people through Gods eyes. Makes things a lot easier to deal with and it makes me wanna go that much farther to help people with their trials. We cant fully understand Gods love for His children. We are human, we cant do it. But we can try each and every day to get a little glimpse of it and try to learn to have love like that!!

God bless, 

Elder Hein

PS: dont make a request at a Malagasy barber. It will probably get lost in translation. My hair is gone hahah

Seeing Elder Gaul off!!

Me And Dickson!

Our Elders Quorum president likes mofo akondro (deep fried banana)

The rice is getting almost done.

Road to Anjoma

What a Week!

First off it rained every day and didnt stop for three days straight. Yeah we got pretty wet. 

On Tuesday the Zone Leaders came down from Antsirabe to do some splits!! Love the Zone Leaders. Elder Abney and Elder Hamm. Both great solid missionaries. Abney was actually born here like me so we got a special connection haha. Gaul went with Abney and I went with Hamm. Hamm is a big time Michael Jordan fan, which obviously led us to talking about him pushing off in The Finals. Dont worry Dad, we are talking about it in Mada too. Great day. Taught some gopod times, and it is always cool to see how someone else teaches. Abney goes home this week so the family that owns the restaurant we go to everyday, invited us over for a big feast after all our times. It was awesome. They love the missionaries and the missionaries love them. Hamm and Abney left early Wednesday morning and we had to say goodbye to Abney. Tough to do, the guy Elder is awesome. He promised to send us pictures of all the American food he will be eating soon. Cant say Im too excited to get those emails...

On Friday, another missionary couple came down from Antananarivo. The Shupes!! They are awesome. They taught a great training about how to teach lessons and how to make them exciting. It was relaxing for me because Gaul had to translate haha. It was good practice for him!! Lets just say Im not at that level yet haha. It was pretty late when the training finished so we went to dinner with the Shupes and had a nice time. 

Saturday was AWESOME!! Richard (recent convert from a few weeks ago) baptized his 8 year old daughter. It was an incredible experience. After the baptism, she bore her testimony and it was honestly one of the happiest moments on my mission. Just to see everything go full circle in that family. I just realized that that is what a mission is all about. The people you meet and the opportunity you have to see the gospel change families lives. Ill admit, I had to fight back some tears. 

Then it was basically just a waiting game till Sunday night. What was gunna be the Transfer News?? Where was Gaul gunna go?? And who was I going to get?? Pretty stressful haha. Finished a great day of work after church and made it back to the house to await the news. We made Potato Bake like we did last transfer news. Its gunna be my Transfer tradition. We sat there anticipating the phone call and it finally came...

GAUL IS GOING ZONE LEADER IN TANA!!! So pumped for him. Hes a boss and will be a boss leader in Tana. Hes really excited. And who is coming to the Boosht....

ELDER DICKSON. Dont know too much about him. Hes working in Tana right now and has 3 months left on his mission. So he is coming to die here in Ambositra. Not a bad place to end your mission! Everyone says hes a funny guy so Im sure we will get along. Gaul leaves Thursday morning and Dickson comes in Thursday afternoon. Pretty excited. 

Well, thats the news this week!! Big time stuff. Hope my writing captured the intensity of it hahaha. 

God bless,

Elder Hein

Early Wednesday morning saying goodbye to Elder Abney

A family progressing in the gospel.  Such a great day!

My favorite picture from the mission so far.  This is Elliot.  He's from the congregation.  I love this kid!

Another solid week here halfway across the world!!

The transfer is quickly coming to an end which means the training program is soon over. Cant believe that my boy Gaul will be leaving me soon!! We still wont know where hes going or my new companion until next Sunday. 12 weeks have flown by. Exciting stuff.

This Saturday we had two senior missionary couples come down to look at some of the properties that Gaul and I have found for a possible new church building. The Clowards (office couple in Antananarivo) and the Todds (couple in Antsirabe). Great to have them come down. I love Senior couples. So much dedication to the service of The Lord. Spent all Saturday morning with them and looked at all the properties. No final decision yet, but there will soon be one. Great to have this problem. The church is growing here!!!!

Best part of this week was Richard (the man we baptized in December) receive the Priesthood. What a great blessing it is to have God's true authority on this Earth today. His 8 year old daughter is scheduled to get baptized this weekend. At first he didnt want to baptize her. He is a very shy, humble man. We taught him about the trust God has in us to use his Priesthood authority to perform ordinances. After the lesson, we committed him to baptize his daughter!!!!!!!  We are so pumped. A man who had a real struggle with tobacco a few months ago, is now going to baptize his daughter on Saturday. What a great blessing. Stuff like that only can be done through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I really came to the realization this week that the Gospel is easy. Life is hard, but the Gospel is easy. God has given us the path through scripture, living prophets, and his son Jesus Christ. When we obey the law and strive to be like Christ, blessings come. God has to bless us because of our obedience. Its the law in heaven. That doesnt mean we wont have temptations and trials, thats just part of this life. God doesnt abandon His children. He is eagerly awaiting to bless us. When people have faith ion God and follow His path, they are blessed. Pretty simple. But for some reason, all of us humans have a hard time doing that. We think there is another way. I promise that there is no other way. There is one way. It's through Christ. Why dont we all strive to follow the one way that the Creator of this world gave us?? I knoww that God loves us all, and wants all of us to return to him one day.

God bless,

Elder Hein

PS Sorry for the lack of pics. I feel the meat market one last week covers for the lack of pics this week haha.

I think they got the logos and the names mixed up!!  Ha Ha!!

Elder Todd taking a nice break. He was a Professor at BYU before the mission. Incredibly spiritual and intelligent man. 

Happy New Year to all and a blessed year ahead to all!!

Not too much this week. Very dead week here in Ambositra, and in Madagascar in general. Everyone was shut down big time for the New Years Holiday. New Years is bigger than Christmas here. All the stores, restaurants shut down early 31st night and stay closed till the 2nd. It is a super big deal here. Everyone gets together with all their family and parties all night deep into the morning. I guess kind of like America a little bit haha. 

Elder Gaul and I said we were gunna stay up. One of us made it...at about 10, I find Gaul sleeping like a child in his bed, so I stayed up alone haha. I stayed on the porch and listened to the crazy Malagasy music and parties outside. When the clock hit 12 nothing happened....I woke up Elder Gaul and told him that it was the New Years. Then a couple minutes later, i just hear tons of noise and people screaming in the streets. I guess my clock was a little fast haha. Needless to say the music was loud all night. 

We got to spend some time this week looking for a new possible church building. We have grown out of ours now, which is always a good problem to have. So under the direction of President, we have been checking out houses and trying to find a better venue. Kinda cool to do a little house hunting. 

Sorry for the boring week!! Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was a great day. The mission is incredible, thats all i can say. Im having sucha  great time. Feeling The Spirit in my life, each and every day is an incrediible blessing. To see it touch other peoples lives is even more incredible. The Gospel is true. Jesus is the Savior of the World, and God loves each and every one of us. He has open arms waiting for us to return. We just have to follow his plan. 

Much love, 

Elder Hein

Local Butcher - Check out the snouts and hooves!

Daily Life

Elder Gaul having a good time!

Beautiful Madagascar!