New normal

I'm not sure how many people want to read a second hand account of a conversation I had with David over skype, but for now, that's all I have, so I will do my best to regurgitate the conversation we had this morning.  First of all, the past two calls we've had with David have come with some difficulty with those Malagasy computers.  Last week he had to switch computers and then we were able to talk with him.  This week his head phones were brand new, his computer was just fine, but skype was giving us problems all over the place....so we decided to try google hangouts video feature and that's when we found success.  Sometimes technology is wonderful but I am sure we will face this problem for the rest of his mission.  We aren't complaining though, because it's worth the small trouble to see our son every week!  

David looks really good and is in good spirits.  Gary Stevens from the Quorum of the twelve came for a missionary conference last week and David got to play the piano for the event.  He said that it was broadcast to the rest of the mission, like the islands of ft dauphin and maritius.  David said that he got to shake hands with Elder Stevens, so he was really happy about that.  The Madagascar Antananarivo mission is still a baby mission.  It was dedicated only 20 years ago, so there is A LOT of work going on and already a lot of obstacles that missionaries are facing.  You can only imagine that a lot girls are trying to get the missionaries to marry them.   And as most of you know, missionaries are not allowed to date let alone get married on their mission.  So, some of girls they meet, teach and baptize flirt with them, lie about their age and send the missionaries inappropriate txts.  It's become more of problem because some previous missionaries have succumb to that temptation and now a lot of malagasy people have a preconceived idea about david and his companions.  David just baptized a girl, and now she is having some of these same issues, so David said he will have to tell her to stop contacting him and his companion.  

Madagascar according David is, "nothing like you would see in the movies."  lol yeah I'm sure it's nothing like the animated movie Madagascar, but I understand what he was saying.  He says it's filthy, there are mobs of people trying to overthrow the government (that's super comforting for mom), there are people begging everywhere and he particularly hates the air.  He said he will never complain about the wyoming wind again.  

Last week his apartment was flooded when a pipe exploded, so he was temporarily moved to another apartment in his area.  Fun times!

David ended his call with his testimony in malagasy and he did so great!  I'm so proud of him, his mission has been pretty hard.  He mentioned three big things that were super hard for him and for the purpose of future missionaries that might read this and also for journaling, I'll mention them here.

1.)  It was incredibly hard for David to leave his family, especially his brother.  

2.)  Getting used to Madagascar, the culture, the language, the food, the people, the air....was like a huge slap in the face.  

3.) Leaving his friends was hard.  

Well that's pretty much it! I am so grateful that I get to talk to him once a week!  It's been a huge blessing for all of us!  David doesn't have a lot of time to talk on pday, so I'm not sure if he will be sending emails anymore.  I don't know what the new normal will be, but for now I will try and comment on our conversations.