2007 October 22--Listen to "John Pierre"

Where do I start?

Earlier in the week, we had an earlier-in-the-transfer experience come back to haunt us. It was from the "week of unwarranted confessions" or " dark secret week." A few weeks ago, we stopped by a member, and gave a short spiritual thought. After the thought, we sat and talked for a bit, during which time, the member told us something he was doing at his work that was more than questionably unethical, if not out right illegal ( although I'm not sure about the legality of anything in this country to be honest.) Anyway, he told us all of this and then requested a blessing of comfort from us that he might be able to continue on in his ways and be unaffected by any changes in his work. I really felt like he should talk to the bishop first and told him so. He responded, " I'd prefer not to tell a Malagasy about this." (red flag.) But I persisted and said I wouldn't give him a blessing until he talked to the bishop first. He didn't seem to think that he was doing anything wrong. We left the house and I'm pretty sure he liked me a little less after that. Time passed. Then, on Thursday of this week, we had to stop by this same member's house again. We walked into the gate and were greeted by the the member from the third story of his fairly large house. The conversation was pleasant for the first 3 minutes but a little strained ( He's been learning English, and insists on speaking it every time we're there - but it takes him a long time to say an incomplete sentence. " I..................... haive..................................geeft..........weef......a..... lawnguages." he says.( Just smile and nod, Elder)) and we had to strain our necks just to listen to him. He seemed happy enough, and kept laughing and smiling all the while, but then he stopped and told us to wait while he came down to get a blessing from us. I immediately asked him if he had already talked to the bishop about his problem - then he got mad, but nothing changed in the tone of his voice -it just got louder was all."You refused to give me a blessing last time!"(which was not technically true, but whatever.) Then he went off on us and told us what lousy missionaries we were ( mostly how lousy I was) and how all the other missionaries had always given him blessings, and how well he knew the church's doctrine and how I was a big sinner for not fulfilling his request on his terms and blah blah blah blah blah and "GET OUT!" "LEAVE!" I really didn't know what to say. But we complied and smiled and waved before we left, but I was bothered. Later that evening, we read the white handbook about "giving blessings of comfort to members" and confirmed that such blessings should be given under the direction of the bishop. We decided to visit him again in the coming week and explain why we felt he should see the bishop first, and hoped that he wouldn't be too bitter about our last encounter. But then came Sunday. And it was off to church for us. And who do you thing was sitting on the stand waiting to give a talk for Sacrament Meeting? Yup, you guessed it, none other than our questionably-ethical-"geefted" -"English-speaking" member friend. And he spoke last and went overtime.

His talk was on "obedience" and I was just waiting for the part were he points over to me and tells the whole ward how terrible I am ( and I was more than a little interested just how he would tie that to his talk.) Then it came - but with an odd twist. At the very end of his talk, he said "I have a confession to make" and proceeded to tell the ward what happened on Thursday. He talked about how "the missionaries" came over on Thursday, then he just gave up the generalities and pointed straight at me and said "OK, it was Elder Jean Pierre" - at which point, all eyes became fixed on me. It was bit awkward. I was thinking "oh no, this could go really bad"(and for some reason the bishop had left the stand before the talk and was nowhere to be seen.) But, he proceeded to tell how bad he felt after we left, and then asked himself "shouldn't I believe what the missionaries say?" and then decided to go see the bishop. Then, he publicly thanked and apologized to me. He added at the end " so when Elder Jean Pierre says something, listen to him" ( not bad, certainly better than "Don't listen to anything that guy says" but it's a little heavy to carry, if that makes sense.) I let out a sigh of relief after he said "amen." Then I had the whole ward making fun of me after sacrament, "Give me a blessing! or should I go to the bishop? Hahahahaha!" or " whatever you say, Jean Pierre. Hahahahah!" (this is the extent of most Malagasy humor.) But we survived. So that is that.

In other news, transfers are here again and S will be leaving to work in Mahamasina. I'm sad to see him go. We had a great transfer and got a lot of work done. But I'll still get to see him on P-days. Another of my best friends on the mission, Elder SA, is leaving to finish the last 2 months of his mission in La Reunion. This was very unexpected, and usually doesn't happen, I'm sad to see him go, but I'm excited for him too. He'll really get to speak French there, and he'll live in a tropical 1st world country. Cool.

As for me, I don't know who I'll be getting this next transfer. I do know that he'll be straight from the Empty Sea, and I'm gonna "train" him as it were. In the mission lingo, I'm gonna be a father. So people are excited for me. A lot of missionaries never get a chance to train, so this is an opportunity to be fascinated by everything in Madagascar all over again. This could be good, but it's up in the air. I have more to tell but I'm out of time so, I love you all. Have a nice day.

Veloma!


Elder Draper (Jean Pierre)

2007 Oct 15 Blue Village People

Here's a picture of my favorite district at Ambohimanga (the blue village)

2007 October 15-In Praise of Tana

Hi,

This week, we went to "The Place of Much Salt" ( "Antsirabe") which is about 3 hours south of "The City of a Thousand" ( "Antananarivo".) This is the farthest away I have ever traveled from Tana. Antsirabe is vaguely reminiscent of a low-income neighborhood in Florida - perhaps a little more shabby. That said, it kicks Antananarivo's trash (and there's a lot of trash to kick there) in almost every way. Modern Antsirabe was planned and built by Norwegians. Modern Antananarivo was.... ignored and neglected by the French. The contrast today is striking. It made me proud to be Scandinavian.

I have to admit though, I love Antananarivo. It's dirty, it smells, it's chaotic, the traffic is terrible, the roads don't make any sense, the housing placements make even less sense, and a whole lotta other stuff I could mention, BUT I love it. This place is beautiful in spite of itself, and I enjoy that. Every so often, I still have to stop my companion so we can step back and enjoy the view for a bit.

I'm suffering from severe writer's block right now, a severe lack of time, and a severe lack of anything interesting to say , so you'll have to forgive me. But I thought I'd try to write something anyway.

Thanks for the letters. Thank you Thomas for all the details. To answer your question about spiders, Thomas: When I lived in Ankadindramamy, on the third floor, outside on the clothes-rack there was a HUGE spider with the biggest web I have ever seen. We caught flies everyday and fed them to it. Once, I caught a small lizard and threw it on the web, and the spider completely destroyed it. It was intense.

I'm really excited for you. You sound very ambitious about doing lots of cool things. You'll have to let me in on some of it when I get back. I can teach you guitar - I'll have to get better at it again, but maybe you can help me with that too.

OK then, I love you all. I'll try to write something good next week. Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 October 7--Slip of the Tongue

Hi:

Clearing up misconceptions is one of the things we do best (or most.) Well actually, we probably start a few of them. Among the most widely-circulated misconceptions about our church in Madagascar is that "we pray naked." In Malagasy, you do not ask "What church do you go to?" you ask simply "Where do you pray?" So when people say that our church "prays naked," they're actually saying that we go to church and get naked. I have wondered many times over how in the world this particular rumor started but arrived at no satisfactory conclusion. I don't know how many people I've had to reassure that "No, we DON'T pray naked!" in the course of my mission, but it's more than a few. I used to think it was some mean-spirited Protestant church that started the rumor, but now I'm thinking this one's our fault. I will explain. In Malagasy, the word for "naked" and the word for "strong" are very similar - there is only one letter difference. In the course of new missionaries arriving and struggling to put a sentence together with their feeble and sparse vocabulary, mistakes have been made. Here's one I've heard a couple of times from new missionaries struggling to teach; they try to say: "When we pray together, we grow strong (matanjaka) together" they end up saying: " when we pray together, we get naked ( m i tanjaka) together." Sigh. Every language has it's traps for the unwary beginner (IE: apparently in Icelandic, the word for "spirit" and the word for "rabbit" are very similar, which probably makes for hilarious missionary testimonies in sacrament meetings and even funnier Plan of Salvation lessons,) but Malagasy, it seems, has a lot more "traps" than most ( and you usually end up saying something way worse than "rabbit".) Here's another example. If you're walking down the road, a common form of greeting is to ask "Where are you going?" and a usual response is "I'm just walking around" (mitsangatsangana). Unfortunately, the word for "walking around"(mitsangatsangana) and "to fornicate"(mijangajanga) sound very similar to the untrained ear. We've seen a few confused stares at our attempted response to the above greeting ("You're going Fornicating!?")

I had a good week. We did not cast out any devils, nor did we have to convince anyone that they were not possessed. I did have to clear up the "naked misconception" a couple of times, but that was kind of funny. I didn't get the e-mail from Mom yet, but thanks, Dad, for the update. I still haven't seen the conference yet. But I'm looking forward to it. OK then, I'm out of time. So, I love you all. Have a nice day. Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 Oct 1--Thanks for Noticing...

Hello,

Everyday this week was a test in overcoming inertia. I felt a tremendous lack of will power to go out and work, but somehow, we got out and worked anyway. Usually, I didn't get past the initial inertia of the day until I had been working for at least two hours - then the day started getting better. But during those two hours, everything was telling me to give up and go back to the house. When we left the house, we were greeted by the standard "Bonjour VAHAZA!" repeated obnoxiously and indefinitely (after the literally the 30th time in a row from the same guy walking along with you while shouting it in your ear, your patience wears out and you've gotta stop and say, "HEY! yes, we're white, thanks for noticing, you're very observant. Now, why don't you go play in traffic or something. Either way, LEAVE NOW! before something bad happens to you." - it's everything you can do not to grab him and throw him in the nearest poo ditch * usually about three feet away. I have been sorely tempted at times.) followed by bad weather, worse smells, and appointments falling through.

BUT, we made it through and ended up having a pretty good week. We couldn't work the first two days of it because of the elections, but somehow, we got more appointments this week than in the the previous week, where we had worked the entire week We have several people progressing towards baptism. In one appointment, we introduced the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson, we committed them to read it and pray about it. The lady had a funny response, she said disappointingly, "But I don't have a Book of Mormon" then she looked down and frowned. We pushed the book closer to her and said " now you do!" I've never seen anyone so happy to get a book before. It was as if she had turned into a little kid. She said " Thankyou! thankyou! I'm gonna read it tonight!" I think she did. So that was nice.

In other news, Elder W is on a plane going home as I write this. We said good-bye yesterday. He is the 2nd of my companions to "die" on the mission ( Elder Davies left 2 months ago), but he is the first missionary I have really felt leave. I feel weird right now come to think of it. W is gone. He'll get home to Layton UT on Tuesday morning ( by Madagascar time). He left me his nice digital camera to use until the end of my mission ( the camera is technically Elder B's, who lives in Holladay, so I'll just be renting it for now and I'll give it back to him when I get home).

I'm enjoying myself I think. I teach guitar to a kid named L K ( the K's are the American family in our ward here. The dad works for the Embassy.) He's progressing well and the K's invite us to dinner every Fast-Sunday because I'm teaching him. The K's are great. They remind me of Dan and Debbie Peterson, and the Tom Taylor family. Cool people. Jared (the dad) told me that we're related. Apparently he's got some Drapers not too far back in his family tree. So once again, the world is that much smaller, and I remain "connection machine."

OK then. I'm good. I think this week will be better. Maybe I'll get to cast out a devil (or convince yet another person that he is not possessed, but probably just bipolar) or do something else exciting. I'll let you know. Love ya. Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 September 25--Dark Secrets

Hi,

I baptized RAKOTONDRASOA Jean Eddy on Sunday. Elder S baptized Eddy's sister, RASOANOTAHIANJANAHARY Feno Claudine. In all, we baptized 7 people on Sunday, all of whom, I had the opportunity to teach ( 5 of them were from Alarobia, my last area). As a district, we're hoping to baptize 30 more people by the end of the year. The baptism was a nice way to end a discouraging week.

How do I put this? - It is a sad thing to discover the dark secrets of the people you teach. And this week was full of discovery. I won't go into too much detail, but among the things we discovered this week about a few of our investigators were; adultery, abortion, drugs, unethical and illegal business dealings, and manslaughter. Apart from the manslaughter, all of these remain unresolved, and I have not listed every "discovery" of ours above. The weird thing is, we did nothing to "extract" the information from them, they just opened up and told us, much to our dismay. It was almost as if they felt the need to confess to someone, and they all coincidentally chose this week to confess, and us to confess to. I wish I didn't know these things, or at least that they didn't all come out at once. I can't help but feeling that it's really none of my business, except that it was they who decided to "let me in" on things, and have asked for my help. I'm still trying to figure out how much I can really do about any of it and how much I should do. I think I can help a little bit, but it always depends on the what they decide to do in the end. I'd love to think that they would all know what to do and more importantly, do it. But the realist inside me tells me they won't all decide to change, and it sucks because I care. Oh well, I don't know if any of this makes sense, but this has been weighing on my mind lately so I couldn't think of something else to write.

I'm sorry I didn't write yesterday. P-day this week was changed to Tuesday due to the elections, and we weren't allowed to leave the house and work for fear of angry rioting Malagasy's. but it was all for nought. Nothing happened - just as we predicted nothing would. And here we are now. Thanks for the E-mail. I received the package. My district would like to thank you for the Beef Jerky - it was delicious. I hope that everything goes well for you guys this week. I'll be praying for you. Ok then, I love you.


Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 September 18--It's Alive

Yesterday, our E-mail place was closed, and we had to start teaching much earlier in the evening. We taught Toby, who is usually a Wed appointment. Toby's cool, and very intelligent, and I would still consider him so even if his name was Clive or something. If all goes well, he should be baptized in October.

So because of Toby, I had no time to E-mail. That can mean whatever you want it to. Because of other appointments today, I have no time to Email. So, I love you all, have a nice day. Veloma

Elder Draper

2007 September 11--"Really freakin' good at the guitar"

Hi.

I ordered a pizza (or the Malagasy/French attempt at pizza) by phone the other day, and when I walked in the place to pick it up, the "pizza"guy saw me and exclaimed, "That was you on the phone!?" I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be on a mission where once you have the language down, you blend in ( aside from the white shirt and tie.) But this "not-blending-in" can be fun from time to time. I can see myself missing it when it's gone. You can be African, Brazilian, Tongan, Mexican, Indian, Arabic, or basically of any other national descent with a darker shade, and they'll think you're Malagasy, even if your accent sucks. So basically, I'm one of a kind - cuz most white people don't even know what Malagasy is, let alone speak it ( accent or no accent.)

Yesterday for P-day, I carried my guitar around and became a street-musician (except that everyone was asking me for money) while W "fought-bought" for souvenirs ( W goes home at the end of the month.) It was funny: I could play jazz, rock, classical, folk, blues, or anything else, but I was not considered 'mahay'(skilled or good at) until I played three-chord Malagasy songs and sang them. Only then, and not until then, did I become "tena mahay be mihitsy amin' ny Gloma" ( really freakin' good at the guitar.)

So things are nice here. I'm having fun. I've decided to stop thinking about frustrating administration stuff - I've always hated bureaucracy anyway- and move on in spite of it. I think that will make this week more enjoyable and less stressful - we'll see, I guess. I don't have anything spectacular to report this week. I have stories yet untold to tell in the coming E-mails, but no time now to tell them. I'll try to include more stories in the future. I hope that will make these things more fun to read (and write.)

Other than that, It made my day to get all of your letters and find out that I am once again, Uncle Toby. Sweet. The baby is beautiful. You all look good. Emma is huge. To answer some questions, yes I can receive e-mail from friends, and yes I can look at family blogs.

OK, I've gotta go teach Hasana, the "pizza" lady, and find out where Tsiery's house is in this chaotic maze that is Antananarivo. So, I love ya, and I'll write you next week.

Veloma!

Elder Draper

2007 September 4--Frustrated

Hello,

I had every intention of E-mailing you yesterday, but my P-day was sucked dry ( about 7 hours of it) by passport business, and consequently, I had no time to do much else, let alone E-mail. I'm a little frustrated at the mission office here right now, granted - they've been under a lot of stress lately, but they haven't given me much reason to believe that they really care about our time, or what we say. For the past 4 weeks, my P-days have been taken up by pointless, time consuming meetings, that have amounted to nothing, and in the process, we lose what time we had to do anything enjoyable for P-day, and have little time to do anything else. They schedule meetings and activities into our week (especially P-day) without adequate prior notice and with no regard for our time or schedule, or what we say, and through it all, nothing seems to improve in terms of administration. It is frustrating to say the least . That is all I will say by way of venting, but I just want to apologize to you for my not writing to you on a regular basis, and any frustration that may have caused you. (I also apologize for the venting, I'm still pretty optimistic, I just have a few " suggestions" for the AP's regarding tact and timing for next P-day, because E-mailing isn't the only thing that is left undone at the end of of the day)

Ok, that's done.

It's always great to hear from you. I'll be praying hard for Micaela this week.I'll be saying prayers for a lot of people.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!.

The only thing I would like to see more of is letters ( you can Email) and pictures. I've pretty much given up on the music ( you could send some ear plugs for the EFY Mormon Kitch Music for when I study, eat, or sleep, but I think I might be able to get them here.)

Well, That's all the time I can take off lunch, so until next time, I love you all, keep up the good work and Have a nice day.

(This E-mail was anything but spectacular or "gripping" but I hope you're not too let down. Sorry.)

Elder Draper

2007 August 31--Pneumonia

Thanks for the letter - it's always nice to be informed. It looks like you guys are all doing well and keeping life interesting. I'm excited for all of you.

This week was another rough one ( mostly for my companion). The week kicked-off to a good start; our appointments were going through, we set a few baptismal dates for some investigators, we found some promising new investigators, and we came up with a different game to play in home evenings with members besides " I spy with my little eye" that everyone could understand ; musical spoons - except with pens, and I provided all of the music making drum noises with my mouth ( there was no guitar) you should have seen these people diving to get a pen when the "music" stopped. Hilarious. They nearly broke the coffee table every time. So things were going pretty good I thought.

But then at about 6:30 Tuesday evening, Elder TS mentioned in passing that he kind of had a headache. Now, headaches for me have always been a fairly regular but inconsequential occurrence - usually attributed to not enough water or sleep or both - so I didn't think too much of it at the time. Also, TS didn't make any further mention of it after that so we kept working. But during the last appointment, I noticed TS had gotten pretty quiet (he's always quiet, but something seemed wrong) so I looked in his direction to see what was wrong. He looked miserable. He was red, and sweating, and even shaking a little bit. So we ended the appointment, went straight home so he could rest. We took his temperature -he had a fever of 103.3, so I gave him some fever reducers and lots of water and called the mission office. He survived the night, but was definitely out of commission for the day, and while his fever went down, he was not feeling much better. Later on, we went to a clinic to see what was wrong. And the diagnosis is.......Pneumonia. Yes, Elder TS has Pneumonia. As a result, the work was put on hold for a recovery period, and I've kind of been stuck in the house all week. He's gotten a little better, and we hope he'll continue to do so. He has a return appointment with the doctor tomorrow . So say a prayer for Elder TS, he needs it.

Healthwise, I'm doing alright. But I'm going a little crazy from being stuck in a missionary house for a week, and not being able to work. I also feel a little guilty that I'm not so good at reading the signals TS sends to indicate that something's wrong, and I've apologized since................................at this point the computer stopped working and I had to write you another " I'm alive" letter ................................................... so now it's several days later and I've decided to send as is, with a tag at the end but again, I am pressed for time.

It turns out that this week ended up being another "fun-filled" week here in Madagascar for everyone. TS will recover, but until then I had to call some members and get one to stay in the house all day with TS, while the other goes around with me. There's not really enough beds for all of us in the house, but I've found that even an undersized chair cushion on the floor can be comfortable if you're tired enough. Also, Malagasys have no qualms about sleeping in the same twin sized bed together - in some cases, that would be less than they're used to - so that works out. kind of. There's still the question about how I'm supposed to feed everyone on the already tight one-man allotment, but I'll be talking to the AP's and the President again for that Mon, in the mean time, rice is nice, and more importantly: cheap. SO....we're having a good time here. I think we're all having fun, albeit a stressful kind of fun. It's kinda funny, sometimes Malagasy Minis ( mini mission = members who help us when full-time missionaries are scarce) just leave for no apparent reason without telling anyone (this morning my mini went to buy some herbal tea without telling anyone, just before we had to leave. Two hours later, he used somebody's cell phone to call and ask, "When's our first appointment?" sigh.) It's also funny when you leave a member in a missionary house all day - "Where'd all my bread go?" "Who ate all the candy in my care package from home!?" ;) "No you can't have my CD player!" ;) However, they did do a nice job on the dishes. Misaotra Betsaka.

So, I hope all is well with you. Thank you Richard Dibblee for the E-mail, I needed that. I'm looking forward to another fun week. My hairline has most definitely receded. I don't know how, but I'm even skinnier than I was before, but even entirely-composed-of-rice Malagasy's have noticed. Call me vain, call me skeptical, but I'm having serious doubts about that talk that says "You will return from your mission infinitely more attractive than when you left...." oh well ;). Maybe I could be one of those "He's got a great personality" guys. So I gotta start working on that, the mission's end is closer than it seems :)

OK then Veloma,

Elder Draper