2007 April 16--Recovery

This week was awesome! Ok maybe that's too strong a word to describe this week, but compared to last week, This week was Awesome!

Actually, this week was like a less intense copy of last week with different ingredients, (and no hospital trips).

I'm healthy and working, and smiling. Life's improving. I still haven't gotten a letter from you yet, but that's ok, I'm sure I'll get it sooner or later.

Elder S got his first rock thrown at his head this week; I was surprised it didn't happen earlier. He got lucky though, the rock was small and his head didn't start bleeding. On my first rock to the head, the rock was bigger, and the kid had a good arm. Anyway, we followed the kid into his "house" (it’s funny the amount of houses I've just walked into and had no problem) and I taught Elder S how to say "Stop being racist" (which is a long word that literally means, "to distinguish by the color of skin" ). The kid was about 11-12 years old, was hiding under the bed as he was scolded, and didn't come out once, but hopefully he won't throw rocks at people's heads anymore. (And people will stop shouting "Vazaha!" at us all the time and Satan will ice skate to work.)

That was probably and thankfully the most interesting thing that happened this week. And now I will tell you a story about a guy named Peter.

Peter is an investigator from Uganda, and doesn't really speak Malagasy, however English is his first language. Peter is an interesting guy. One Elder described Peter's mind as a cartoon image of three different colored balls of yarn running into each other and getting more and more tangled up in the process. I think that's a pretty good description. Peter, as I said before, is from Uganda, but how he ended up in Madagascar is a quite a story. He lived in Uganda with his wife and 2 kids, but his job couldn't support him and his family, so he decided to leave his wife and kids to find work in South Africa. So he left, and looked, but apparently couldn't find a job good enough. So then he decided to pursue a brilliant idea; he would try and find work on the island of Mauritius east of Madagascar, however, he did not have the money to buy a ticket, so he stowed away on the boat. His plan was working fine until the people on the ship found him and, according to the story, threw him off the ship with a barrel as a floatation device. Next he said that he floated aimlessly for 5 days, and almost starved to death, but then, a huge storm hit, and he was violently carried to the shores of Madagascar, and laid out on the beach. The story continues with him finding a road and following it to the nearest town. He then, apparently became a vagrant, wandering around the this small town when, a police officer spotted him, and noticed that he didn't speak Malagasy, and demanded to see his papers. When he couldn't comply with the officer's demand, he was taken, and thrown into a Malagasy prison in Antananarivo for 6 months. For some reason the released him (maybe they don't have the money for deportation or something. I have heard that the penalty for an expired visa in this country is not deportation, rather, you cannot leave the country, but that might be a joke). Anyway yes, they released him, and he sort of just lives here in Madagascar now. He's also managed to "marry" a Malagasy and has a kid now, but he still can't really speak Malagasy. He sells paintings on the side of the road, and he's more or less confused about what he should do. He asks pretty sincere questions about the Gospel, and is very interested to know what our position on Polygamy is. In the meantime, he still has a wife and 2 kids in Uganda somewhere, and he has no idea what they're doing or if they're ok. He's not what you might call a "golden investigator" and he's definitely not a top priority on our list, but it's a good story. He makes us appreciate the investigators who have normal problems like, not having a job and being an alcoholic, or something.
I've met lots of interesting people on my mission. Peter is just one among many. The thing is, we are not simply just talking to these people, we are seriously trying to help them. I don't care what anybody says about what they think I'm doing here, or if they say I'm not helping or if they say I'm just wasting my time, because I know that they haven't got a clue. We definitely do help these people, and it doesn't matter on what level you are looking at it from. From a secular point of view, we've helped people build houses or learn English, I've taught people the guitar, I've helped people find jobs, we've helped people stop drinking and smoking, and stop wasting their money on beer and cigarettes, and in so doing they become better parents, and more able to deal with all of their problems. We give people a reason to try harder, something to hope for. We do all of this and more. And the best part of all, it's all true, despite what anybody else says. That is why missionary work is the most important thing I could be doing.

Anyway, I'm excited for this next half of my mission. I know that it's not going to get any easier, but I feel like I have control over how good it will be, depending on what I do with it. I sometimes feel bad about getting discouraged, or frustrated at the various situations I find myself in now and again, because I know that I'm not supposed to be angry or discouraged as a missionary, and that I'm supposed to make the most of the situation. However, I think it goes to show that nobody's perfect, least of all me, so I can't feel too bad about it. Besides, I've found that the mission is a place where all of the things you hate most about yourself are magnified at times just to put you in your place and give you perspective .Furthermore, I can't think of a time in my life when more bad things just sort of "happened" to me, almost like it was just to see how I would deal. I feel like I've made a lot of progress in this last year of wearing this name tag, but I've still got a long way to go, way beyond the end of this mission.

I was talking to another missionary about feeling guilty about not being happy and optimistic like a missionary's supposed to be, and he sort of laughed and agreed. Then he told me a quaint little Mormon story about the master telling his servant to go and push on a huge boulder, and how the guy pushes and pushes and struggles, but the boulder doesn't budge, and then the servant goes to the master and says, " That was absolutely pointless, it didn't move. Why in the world did you tell me to move that boulder?" and then the obvious Mormon story clincher, the master sort of laughs and says something like " My son, you did not understand, I didn't expect you to move the boulder, I just told you to push it. And now look how strong you've become" or something nice and quaint like that. Anyway, as much as you know how much I love those kinds of stories ;) it made a lot of sense to me at the time. I can think of a few boulders of late that I've been struggling to move, but my perspective has changed a bit with regards to how much control I have over anything really (besides myself).

Anyway, I love you all. I look forward to hearing from you. I hope you're all doing well. I pray for you always. I probably have a lot more useless things to say, but I will spare you and call this enough. Until next week, Tiako ianareo! Veloma!

Elder the Draper