More details huh? ok I'll see what I can do. As far as the new area is concerned, I like it. It happens to be in the same ward as my last area, so I am still in the the same district of missionaries as I was before. The district that I'm in is sort of a new "experiment" in the mission in that, there is only 3 companionships in it who are all in the same ward. I'll spare you most of the details for time's sake, but to put it simply, the experiment was an apparent success ( the smallest district in Tana was putting out the most impressive numbers), and they're switching up the entire organization of the mission as a result.When I talked to the president about my being transferred prematurely, he told me that he was " very impressed with the work Elder W and I had done in Alarobia, and wanted my 'experience' in another, less successful area to see what I could do with it." He may have just said this to "butter me up," but either way, I'm gonna try and see if I can do anything to get things going here too. Also, because of the work that W and I did in Alarobia last transfer, they are considering splitting the area because there is almost too many people to teach. When I was there, we were consistently getting 30 plus lessons a week, also, these were all good lessons ( i.e.: we did not teach lessons for the sake of teaching lessons to make our stats look good, which is actually a problem here sometimes with some missionaries) and we could have taught more, we just didn't have time. So we'll see how that goes. I'm also lucky that I get to see the Alarobia investigators at church still. To contrast this, in my new area, this week we struggled to get more than 10 ( which I realize might be incredible to missionaries elsewhere, but this is Madagascar, and I just came from a quite a bit more), also a lot of the lessons were kind of like " um.... why did you even let the missionaries in in the first place?" aka 'drop talk' and finding out some "minor" obstacles in the life's of our investigators with baptismal dates - like, "You're getting baptized in two weeks, and we just now found out that you are NOT legally married to your husband ( who happens to already be a member) ?" things like that. (NOTE: There is a tribal marriage here and a legal marriage, but couples cannot be baptized unless they are legally married. And to be "legally married" involves a very long and tedious process - "Brought to you by the same people who made French Bureaucracy possible!" ( or was it, 'impossible'?) Also, there is no computer database here in Magadascar to simplify the wonderful bureaucratic process. The best way to describe how frustrating this problem to missionaries here is probably not to describe it at all - it's sort of just like... "- sigh -".......)
Here's one of the more entertaining/somewhat disturbing stories that happened yesterday during an appointment after church. These were some investigators whom I had seen only once prior to that time. They also had a baptismal date apparently, but they had been out of town for quite some time so the date had to be pushed back ( I also had some concerns when they told me that priesthood authority was transferred to the "Papa iray Masina" ( The Pope) and they had already been baptized and weren't really sure why they needed to be baptized again). Anyway, my companion thought they had been on vacation for the whole time, and even mused about how in the world they could afford all that time off. So yesterday, as I was getting to know them a little bit better, and found out the real reason they had been gone. The Husband began to tell us a story about how his wife used to be married to a "Vazaha" ( or ugly, rich, stuck-up white person - usually from France) ".... like you guys" he added. And they used to live down south of Tana. However, some time ago, her white husband died. He did not "just die" but was in fact brutally murdered as it turns out. They had been out of town for the past little bit, because they were taking care of some court business concerning the children of that marriage. Now, I thought it a bit strange as it was that they had shared all of this seemingly sensitive, personal information with me on one of my first visits, but it gets better. So, after the story, they asked if I wanted to see the pictures - Malagasys love to show you their old family photos and stuff, so I just figured it would be something like that... WRONG. The lady went into the other room, getting what I thought would be old family photos of the dead white guy, but she came back with forensic evidence photos of the dead white guy at the scene of the crime. The pictures showed an old guy in a semi fetal position, lying dead in the middle of his own driveway in a puddle of his own blood. There was different shots at different angles and it was a tad creepy to say the least. It was also a bit awkward, and after some crackers and Coca cola, we left the house in a really weird mood.
Here's one of the more entertaining/somewhat disturbing stories that happened yesterday during an appointment after church. These were some investigators whom I had seen only once prior to that time. They also had a baptismal date apparently, but they had been out of town for quite some time so the date had to be pushed back ( I also had some concerns when they told me that priesthood authority was transferred to the "Papa iray Masina" ( The Pope) and they had already been baptized and weren't really sure why they needed to be baptized again). Anyway, my companion thought they had been on vacation for the whole time, and even mused about how in the world they could afford all that time off. So yesterday, as I was getting to know them a little bit better, and found out the real reason they had been gone. The Husband began to tell us a story about how his wife used to be married to a "Vazaha" ( or ugly, rich, stuck-up white person - usually from France) ".... like you guys" he added. And they used to live down south of Tana. However, some time ago, her white husband died. He did not "just die" but was in fact brutally murdered as it turns out. They had been out of town for the past little bit, because they were taking care of some court business concerning the children of that marriage. Now, I thought it a bit strange as it was that they had shared all of this seemingly sensitive, personal information with me on one of my first visits, but it gets better. So, after the story, they asked if I wanted to see the pictures - Malagasys love to show you their old family photos and stuff, so I just figured it would be something like that... WRONG. The lady went into the other room, getting what I thought would be old family photos of the dead white guy, but she came back with forensic evidence photos of the dead white guy at the scene of the crime. The pictures showed an old guy in a semi fetal position, lying dead in the middle of his own driveway in a puddle of his own blood. There was different shots at different angles and it was a tad creepy to say the least. It was also a bit awkward, and after some crackers and Coca cola, we left the house in a really weird mood.
So there's just one of the fun stories I have accumulated whilst on my mission here in Madagascar. I've got more. Maybe next time I'll tell you another. Hohitantsika! OK then, Thanks for the E-mails, I love you all. I'll try and leave you on a less morbid note next time. Sorry.
OK gotta go. Veloma!
Elder Draper
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