Salama indray!

I hope that y'alls week has been fantastic! Mine certainly was filled with a lot of good experiences and Miracles. There has been a lot of contraversy and trials here in Tana but nonetheless very rewarding experiences. I am learning new things about the malagasy culture every day and I am soaking up every last bit of it, it's so fascinating!

Anyways, Here's how my week went:

tuesday: On tuesday there was a District leader meeting with every district leader in our zone, so elder keener and I had to go to Ambohipo to get to the meeting. On the way there the taksibe ran out of gas and stopped dead in it's tracks in the middle of the road. I was kind of concerned and someone went to go get gas, and thankfully after the gas tank was filled it started up again. Whew! After that we got to the meeting and had the best sushi I have ever had in Madagascar! We went to a korean restaurant and we had some nice food and the service was really nice which is something rare down here. The food was high quality and the price was relatively low which was really great.

Wednesday:On this day I went on a split with an elder named Elder Williams. He is a really cool guys and his mom works with a lot of celebrities. We had a blast! I was tracting with him in Detaiza and we knocked into a family of 22!!! It was a huge family! and a lot of them were adults, which is cold hard cash to us missionaries. I taught the first lesson by myself because elder williams is still kind of learning and he didn't feel comfortable with the language yet, which is ok. After that, we gave them all pamphlets and they wanted us to come back! That was a super cool experience!

Thursday:On this day, we determined who was going to baptise lalaina on saturday, and I was chosen to baptise him. I was so happy and I am grateful to this day that I had the grand privelege to baptise him. On this day also, we went to the bishops house for dinner, and guess what we had? Ravitoto. The thing I dreaded having, and the thing every missionary dreads eating. Elder meldrum got sent to the hospital eating it, so I was a little bit concerned, but when I ate it, it was good because the bishop's wife is really good at cooking, so that was a miracle. We also stopped by larissa and elisa's house, which is one of our other investogators on date.

Friday: On this day Elder keener and I held a great weekly planning session. We had lots of fun talking to each other and getting to know each other. Afterwards we went and taught Kristina again about the book of mormon and how faith is so important in what we do in everyday life. She has somewhat of a hard time understanding what we have to say, but this time she understood us well, which was really good.

Saturday: On saturday The baptism for Rahosoa Fenosoa Lalaina finally arrived! I baptised him around 10:30 in the coldest murkiest water I have ever been in in my life. I remember thinking,"Aw man, this is going to stink when it hits my chest". But when I baptised him I have never felt so warm and good in my life. I know to this day that missionary work is the best work that is in action on this earth and that every convert to the church can attest to that. After the baptism there was a party at one of the baptisee's homes and we ate lunch and talked and had some fun. It was really fun! After that though we couldn't really do anything else because we had to head back inside due to the rain. The cyclone finally hit madagasar and I am definitely seeing the effects of that on the people. The wind got kind of bad(absolutely not comparable to that of wyoming's wind) ubt nothing too serious. the streets as always flooded and everyones shoes got sopping wet, which was also really fun!

Yesterday: I was asked to play the piano again that day, and I gladly agreed to it. I have realized that the gift of music that I have been given is mostly ot the benefit of those who listen and take light from what i am playing. I love playing, and in turn I can bless the lives of others through what I love. Win Win! After church, Elder Keener and I went and taught larissa and elisa again about tithing and fasting. they accepted the invitation to follow those after they are baptised. 

Well, that's it for mahamasina 2 in antananarivo, Madagascar! I hope y'all have had a fantastic week, and I wish you all a good rest of this week!

Interesting proverb in malagasy: Ny Kibo tsy Hazodomelina....The stomach is not a spine, which means in malagasy "I'm hungry!"

veloma, ry namako!

Elder Johnson

in case you wanted to make Ravitoto...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGFMotcvuQ

David Johnson

Hello everyone!

This week has rained tons and tons! I don't think there was a single day where there wasn't any rain! How amazing! I love the rain, because it reminds me of how nephi the prophet asked the lord to pour rain again and the lord gave the rain back to his people. It is a sign of his tender mercies, and symbolic of jesus christ, the living water. the most beautiful thing that comes with rain as if it were a gift is the thing every gift needs: a bow. The rainbow is a perfect ornament for the perfect gift. Rainbows are amazing to me and I thank heavenly father so much for them.

Now for the week!

Tuesday: On tuesday, elder keener was still sickm so we stayed in pretty much for the whole day again, which was pretty boring. But on that day we had the baptism interview for our most progressive investigator: Lalaina. He passed the test, and weill be baptised this saturday! I am super proud and excited for him! SOmething really scary happened that night, though.

At around 12 am tuesday night, elder keener ttok a dose of benadryl for stomach pain, and a nyquil pill (which happened to be one of mine) for his cough. You medical people out there may already know that this is very BAD with all caps and underlines, because this causes hypersensativity and incoherancy. This is precisely what happened to elder keener at around 1 25 in the morning. We had to call the mission nurse and she came and picked him up. I was a freeloader up until the morning. I felt super bad because elder keener was also emotionally unstable and he was crying a lot. Poor guy, i knkow he didn't know any better.

Wednesday:We went and visited some of our newest investigators, Larissa and elisa. We put them on date and they are really good with all that we have taught them thus far. They are going to be baptised in february. I am trying to learn another malagasy dialect right now, and Larissa is fluent in that dialect, so she is helping me a lot with that right now.

Thursday was very unorganized because elder keener got sick again so he had to go to the office again to get medicine for his stomach. We had to go everywhich way that day and so really we didn't get a whole lot done to my dissapointment. But to suffice for now we had a lot to do and we got some of it done.

Friday:We had another lesson with another investigator, Kristina. She is doing good right now, she is just a slower learner than everyone else. We recently taught her the plan of salvation. She can't really understand us for a lot of reasons, but her father in law herlps a lot with that. We went to go do service at sr florene's house that day also, but we couldn't due to the fact that she was moving, so that was kind of sad. But we had a great bishop meeting that night and elder meldrum didn't get sick again, which is good!

Saturday:This day was interesting, because i went on a split with elder allen. He is a great elder, but he doesn't study very much with the language and he doesn't like to talk very much, so a lot of my day with that was just talking for him and teaching the lessons by myself, which was awkward, but after I got back with elder keener, everything was ok. That day, it rained so hard that the roads got flooded and it looked like rivers. There was a current and I almost got swept away a couple of tmes. Scary! I helped a man that had his car stuck in muddy trash in the middle of the road. I said a silent prayer to have the strength sufficient to move the car, and through my faith I was able to move the car out of the trash and into motion again. I am so grateful that heavenly father gave me another opportunity to serve again!

Sunday: I didn't play piano in church that day because the piano player for the ward actually came to church that day which was really good. I got to sit with elder keener in the congregation again with my investigators. I really felt the spirit as I partook of the sacrament and pondered on the tender mercies of the lord. After church we went and taught kristina again and we also taught Sr diamond, an inactive, about eteranl families. We had a great discussion and I think that she felt the spirit say that she needed to be sealed.

Well, that was my week! I hope that this was edifying to those reading this and I hope you all can have a great fantastic rest of your week!

Mazotoa!

Elder Johnson

Hello and greetings to all of you wonderful people!

To report in on this week, it has honestly been very trying. Lot's of opposition has come into our lives recently, but rest assured it has not changed my faith in christ and his redeeming love. I would just like to begin by saying thank you to all of you. Thank you for all of your prayers, as they have been felt and observed. Thank you for your daily sacrifices for my sake and for the benefit of those who are less fortunate than others. Thank you for standing out and standing as witnesses of god in all times and in all things and in all places. "A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid". May the lord bless you in flowing abundance for your generous acts of love and kindness.

Let's review this past week...

Tuesday: We got a referral from a person named Frere bersnow and he showed us to his girlfriend's house. We gave a lesson on the restoration and we could really feel that they were willing to act on our message. after that we went to a member's home, frere dada. He is confined to a wheelchair due to unknown causes. He is one of the happiest people that I know here in madagascar. He is always cracking a joke or two to lighten up our spirits. After that we went to Sr. Florene's house to give a short lessona\ and to confirm that friday was still ok for us to come over and help repair her wall. It rained quite a bit that day and I did not bring a umbrella...oppsie! I was sopping wet, and yet I was never happier in my life!

Wendesday: This day was very challenging yet uplifting because it was my 19th birthday! I didn't get to have a cake or blow out any candles, but it's ok. The best present I got was that of the lord: comfort. THis day, elder keener yelled at me because I had different dinner plans than anticipated. He grudgingly forgave me, and I didn't really want to talk after that. I would kind of expect someone to speak kindly to me on my birthday but it's ok. At least it teaches me not to do the same thing to others. On this day I taught a lesson with elder keener to Frere laurent. I recall that we had shared a scripture but I'm not entirely sure which scripture we had shared. But in a nutshell. that was my 19th birthday! Thank you for all of your good wishes!

Thursday: On this day we had district council with our district. WE got 2 new elders. elder whitesides and williams. Elder whitesides is from grand junction. colorado, and elder williams is from southern california. We had a great get to know you intro to our meeting by saying what star wars character our comps would be. Elder keener said I would be the dilligent storm trooper that you only see for 5 seconds until he gets blown up. I said that elder keener was the flying character that talked with count duku on the same episode and planet that obi wan kanobi and anakin and padame get chained to pillars and attacked by monsters. Everyone had a good laugh, and afterwards we went out and ate at a nearby restaurant. We taught a lesson to lalaina again about fasting and tithing, and he seemed to accept the concept into his life.

Friday: This day was hard because we were going to do service for Sr. florene but we got rained out and had to cancel. When we got back home elder keener needed me to get some taxi fund money. I looked for it and asked again where it was when he called me stupid and told me to go look for it again. I didn't want to go look for it again, but eventually i found it. THat night we went to the bishops house for a meeting. When the meeting was over elder meldrum threw up on the staircase leading outside, which was sad. But, we had a good laugh about it the next day.

Saturday: I didn't really do anything this day because I had to stay home with elder meldrum. I read my scriptures a lot and prayed a lot about what I should be doing as a missionary.

Sunday was also uneventful because I had to stay home for that day too with elder keener. He had gotten sick with the same bug that elder meldrum picked up.

Despite all the hardships I have faces this week, my heart has been softened to those who are downtrodden and suffering in this life. I have done all that I can to make their life more positive. Jesus Christ always strove for the best of his people, and I strive towards tat perfect yet acheivable goal. I know that Jesus christ has helped me to look past the darkest of my life's nights and to look over the horizons of the world into what my purpose as a disciple of jesus christ really is into a future full of sparkling promises forever to be cherished. That promise lies with all who desire to folow jesus christ, that whosoever will sow good shall reap good. Put your mind to it, and you can achieve. You want to know the best pep talk for a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints basket ball player before the championship game? "Draw near unto me, and I ill draw near unto you; Ask, and ye shall recieve; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Brothers and sisters, with my thought blended with president monsons," Let us ever choose the harder right than the easier wrong"

Yours truly,

Elder David Johnson

Hello all you beautiful people!

The past week was reall to be quite honest kind of uneventful but for the most part we got a lot done! I still really enjoyed it and learned a lot of things from it. One thing I forgot to mention in my last email was that transfers happened here in Madagascar and I will be staying for 4 more weeks in mahamasina with elder keener which I really look foreward to! I love mahamasina and the people inside mahamasina. I always get a good veiw of antananarivo from the top of the hill I always walk up every day. Antananarivo is really big; it has around 2-3 million people in it and even standing on that high hill I can't see the end of the city within the horizon. I love tana and the people inside! I always learn something new everyday and it always gives me something to think about thoughout the week.

Well, here comes the weekly report!

Tuesday: On this day we went out to tract a lot to find some more people to teach. Elder keener has given the bat to me in terms of talking to people on their front door. I had to mess up a couple of times to get the hang of it, but after a few mistakes I started feeling confident about myself and I finally felt that the language was coming to me.

As a side note, I have noticed a huge change in my language skills since the MTC...when I was first in the MTC I could hardly go a few moments without forgetting what I had just learned, but that made me want to learn even more about the language. Malagasy is only spoken by 0.003% of the worlds population, and just inside this miniscule number only a small fraction of people actually learn all 18 dialects of malagasy. Some of the dialects are very similar to the dialect that I speak which is called Merina. Others, like Atandroy (pronounced Ah-Tawn-Jewy) are basically considered other languages spoken by a small population of people in the jungle of Southern Madagascar. Currently, I am getting close to the profecient line of the Merina dialect, and once I pass it I will start working on the Atandroy dialect and the Betsimitsaraka dialect (Pronounced Bet-See-mee-sawra-ka).

Continuing on this day, we visited our fasted progressing investigator: Lalaina. He is progressing super fast, and is scheduled to be baptised on the 24th of this month. He has set a great example to his family, has been coming to church ever since we have invited him which was in december, and he has always been super Mazoto (Dilligent). I am so proud of him and I can't wait to see him get baptised!

Wednesday: We went to go visit anastasia, another one of our investigators, but to our surprise we found out that she was not there when we got to her house, so we had to drop her. That was kind of sad but that's what we gotta do as missionaries when people don't follow our expectations. We spent a large portion of our day trying to find people to teach. We stopped and found a chamaeleon walking next to the road. It was the color of a pale branch. I was handed elder keeners camera, and before elder keener could smile for the camera with the lizard in his hand, the reptile hissed and attempted to bite elder keener's hand and as a result elder keener wailed and flung the chamaeleon a good 15 feet away from us into the brick wall. The natives laughed at us a lot and told us to try again by grabbing it's neck. But, no matter how hard he tried to grab it, it would always slither out of his grasp. No chamaeleon picture for him...Maybe another day.

Thursday: We had a district meeting for the first time in this transfer and this was the first district meeting without elder latola. He was really cool and was a super strong and funny guy. He got called to be a zone leader in antsirabe. So, he left the previous day and elder meldrum from my MTC group came and replaced him in mahamasina 1. I am now living with 2 of my MTC pals which is really fun! But continuing on, we had district meeting with us and the new zone leaders which was really fun. After that we had to stay in because on the past monday I got 2nd degree sunburns on my neck and down my legs and arms. It wasn't very fun.

Friday: This day I started a split with Elder Meldrum. He is a really cool elder from canada and he makes me laugh a lot. When elder keener is mean to me, he will always tell him to calm down and he will always be in my defence which is what a true friend is all about. But on this day Elder keener and I did weekly planning for the coming week and did our work for that day.

Saturday: Elder Meldrum and I went out and taught a lesson to another progressing investigator named kristina. She isn't progressing super fast but she is winning the race slow and steadily. We taught her about the book of mormon and answered a question she had about adam and eve. She got the answer to all of her questions which is really good and everything that we said was really clear to her. We also had a dinner appointment with a member that night but he had to cancel out on us for an unknown reason so we decided to start our fast early.

Sunday: This day was a little bit crazy...
Ever since the mahamasina ward has found out that I can play the piano, they have asked me to play in every sacrament meeting since, but that wasn't the craziest part. The craziest part was that there were 3 baby blessings, one was attemped. The last one didn't go through because the kid was screaming like a banshee and wanted to go home and drink some water but instead was getting a baby blessing. For those of you who don't understand, baby blessings only happen here when the kids turn 4 or 5, so that's a little bit different than that of america. But that happened and that was a little bit scary but the sacrament meeting went on and all went well in the end.

Thank you all for all of your support and prayers! It has helped me so much in the mission field both in new mexico and in Madagascar. The Joy that comes with working only comes after we make sacrifices and the sacrifices you all have made for me to go on a mission had been for the benefit of the welfare of other souls. You all will be thanked one by one in the next life for those desicions.

Thank you all, and have a great rest of your week!

Elder Johnson

The Rainy Season

Everyone in the the Enoch Holley Johnson family knows one simple fact, our Ivanpatooskawitz aka Elder Johnson, wears his stuff out at an alarming rate.  These are the current casualties. His CTR ring lasted him a week before he broke it. He went through two watches in Tucu.  He lost his MP3 player somewhere in the shuffle between Tucu and Mada.  His glasses are too scratched to wear.  The monsoon season killed his camera. #keepyourbagclosed  But on the bright side of things, he made it mada with his passport!  Also, Tana has a shoprite, so outside of the ctr ring and his glasses, he can replace everything that was lost or damaged.  So, as you might have guessed, the reason why Elder Johnson isn't sending any pictures is because he doesn't have a camera just yet!  Love that Daver!

Happy New Year

Hello everyone!

This email is going to be a little bit shorter today and for that I apologize...I got a lot on my hands today and we have a lot going on today so I will have to go a little faster on this one,,,

On tuesday the whole set of missionaries in the city of Antananarivo gathered at the mission home to eat together and play games for christmas! That was super duper fun, and we had a white elephant gift exchange, where I came out with an arabic scarf that camel riders wear. We spent the rest of the day just sleeping and relaxing and contemplating Jesus christ and his amazing life and gift.

On wednesday we got back to work and did some visiting with some members and we had to do a lot of tracking down with inactives and work like that.

Thursday I really don't really remember too well, other than I walked a lot and spoke a lot of malagasy. The same really goes for friday.

On saturday we had a huge ward party for christmas! It was really fun and we had a huge blast! I learned how to dance like a native and how to have fun like a native. There was one lady who has a mental illness that was kind of getting out of control...she was just making huge messes and stealing stuff and causing a lot of issues for other people that is easy to understand due to the circimstances given. 

Yesterday I played the piano in sacrament meeting because the original piano player was gone for some reason, but I played it and everyone seemed to love the music! So, that was good and I felt a lot of good feelings that day and also I felt the spirit a lot that day which is also very good.

Well, this is the last day of the year of 2018...and I have looked back on all the things that have happened. It truly went faster than any year that I have lived through. The mission has carried the time as if I'm serving my mission in a time machine! Now how cool would that be, serving my mission with the doc from back to the future!? My reaction would probably be, "Great Scott!"

I hope all has been well for all of you and I hope you all have a great rest of your final moments in 2018!

Stay safe!

Elder Johnson