(Original email title: Manahoana! "mana- 'one' (making the 1 sound like "own" as in; " I own a 25$ guitar") just in case you were wondering how to pronounce that.)
Well hi there,
Wow, it's nice to hear about everything. I didn't get an E-mail last week, so I was able to read both of them this week and I don't know where to begin. You guys are certainly keeping yourselves busy. It's been a fairly uneventful week comparatively speaking. And at this point, I don't know what to even consider "eventful" anymore, because I'm used to all of the things I used to consider "odd". It's not strange to me anymore that as I walk down the street, everybody's staring. Before, I used to wonder what they were staring at, and sometimes I would look to see if there was something on my shirt, or on my face, " did I miss a spot shaving?" " Is my zipper down?" . Now, If I see a white person, I'm almost temped to shout " Jereo! eo misy Vazaha!" ( look! there's a white guy) It's funny how things work. I can truthfully say that the word " vazaha!" does not bother me anymore, which is nice. It's amazing to me how completely racial barriers are destroyed when you really get to know somebody.
I'm in a nice Internet cafe right now listening to Christmas music in French, it's really hot outside and somebody's staring at me as I'm writing this- somehow I am not reminded of Christmas, but I don't think Christmas will ever be like this again after the mission, so I'm enjoying whatever version of Christmas I can get.
Yesterday were elections and we weren't allowed to leave the house except for church in the morning. Last time there was elections, the guy who lost kind of went crazy and blew up some bridges and caused some riots ( I guess demanding a "recount" just wasn't dramatic enough) and they pulled the missionaries out of the country. So this time, they've had the American Government looking over things just in case. But I don't think anything like that will happen again because everybody likes the president now, and he doesn't seem the dictator type. And if he loses, everybody got a free T-shirt from him (me too) so he'll still have lots of people wearing his shirts and that should make him feel better. Anyway, during our confinement to the house, we had Teriyaki Chicken and rice, which was really good, and I rediscovered that I really like to read. My companion decided that he would go insane if we ever had to stay inside for a week. I still don't know who won the elections, but we were given the OK to leave the house this morning and everything seems to be going fine.
Well once again I'm out of time because I 've spent most of it waiting for the computer to work, but it's been really nice to hear from you. I'm amazed at all of the things going on in your lives, the marriages, the mission calls, the babies etc.... I'm sad to miss all of it, but I'm truly grateful to be here. I'm realizing more and more that it doesn't matter where you are on your mission that it can be the best thing for you. It is certainly not the easiest thing I've ever done, in fact it's quite the opposite but I sometimes I can feel what it's doing to me, what it's doing for the people here, and that's what makes me want to do more. I think....I think I think too much, and for some reason I can't articulate any of it right now. Oh well, I should probably be going anyway. Well, it's been nice writing to you, I love you all, and I pray for you everyday. Veloma!
No comments:
Post a Comment